Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

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Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby JackRiddler » Sat May 12, 2018 7:54 pm

I'm excited about recent efforts by the new mod team to adapt the rules so as to improve the board atmosphere. I am appreciative of their labors in time and thought.

As feedback to that, and as suggestions meant to help the effort, I was wondering what other members think about the following proposals?

1. Adding a "hide thread" feature (this would be an admin change).

2. On the Board Index: Moving "Current Events" to the space below "Lounge."

3. Is it possible for users to prevent posts from given forums from displaying in "Active Topics"? I don't know, it's just an idea.

4. Banning the practice of repeating already-posted ready-made copy-paste posts that run for more than one screen by copy-pasting these in other threads. A link to the already posted multi-screen copy-paste would be allowed. (Quoting older material within a thread would have to be allowed, I realize, hopefully without repeating long copy-pastes.)

5. Limiting sig lines to text and links only, without further formatting and effects.

What do the rest of you think?
Last edited by JackRiddler on Sun May 13, 2018 12:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby Jerky » Sat May 12, 2018 8:19 pm

I think this shitty OP has already been locked once, and you've been warned once.

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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby Rory » Sat May 12, 2018 8:22 pm

I don't use the active thread feature, but I can see how what you describe would affect it's utility. I won't comment on my feelings or impressions beyond to say I think having the sub forum there is an improvement - as long as the activities in that sandbox don't sprawl back into general discussion
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby JackRiddler » Sat May 12, 2018 8:26 pm

Jerky » Sat May 12, 2018 7:19 pm wrote:I think this shitty OP has already been locked once, and you've been warned once.

J.


I think you are either mistaken or engaging in deliberate trolling and trying to bait the mods against me, rather than simply responding like a civilized human being to the generic list of ideas for improving the board atmosphere, listed above. Kindly desist, and otherwise I do hope you can get help for this apparent tendency to hostile outbursts.
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby JackRiddler » Sun May 13, 2018 1:34 pm

Hi, all! Some of you probably missed this due to the board clutter, so above I've made some suggestions for how to reduce that and improve the atmosphere generally. What do you think?
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Sun May 13, 2018 2:05 pm

Jerky » Sat May 12, 2018 7:19 pm wrote:I think this shitty OP has already been locked once, and you've been warned once.

J.


No Jerky, I'm going to allow this thread to stand. It violates no rules and I appreciate Jack trying to reframe what he sees as legitimate areas for improvement in a civil manner. I hope you will try to show civility if you decide to reply to any of his ideas.
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Sun May 13, 2018 2:17 pm

JackRiddler » Sat May 12, 2018 6:54 pm wrote:I'm excited about recent efforts by the new mod team to adapt the rules so as to improve the board atmosphere. I am appreciative of their labors in time and thought.

As feedback to that, and as suggestions meant to help the effort, I was wondering what other members think about the following proposals?

1. Adding a "hide thread" feature (this would be an admin change).

2. On the Board Index: Moving "Current Events" to the space below "Lounge."

3. Is it possible for users to prevent posts from given forums from displaying in "Active Topics"? I don't know, it's just an idea.

4. Banning the practice of repeating already-posted ready-made copy-paste posts that run for more than one screen by copy-pasting these in other threads. A link to the already posted multi-screen copy-paste would be allowed. (Quoting older material within a thread would have to be allowed, I realize, hopefully without repeating long copy-pastes.)

5. Limiting sig lines to text and links only, without further formatting and effects.

What do the rest of you think?


Almost all of the idea/proposals you present here are administrative. So if a consensus is reached to adopt any of them, 82_28 and I can't really do anything about it other than contact Jeff and see if he or justdrew would be open to performing that task.

The exception is idea/proposal number 4. Personally, I'm against such a ban. Part of that is just because as a moderator, I think it would just create more work for 82_28 and I. But I also oppose it because there are times when I'm not moderating and I've found a story to be of great interest to me that I wanted to share with everyone, but I found the subject matter to raise multiple issues that fit into two or three completely different threads. So I copy-pasted in all the threads I thought were pertinent to try to foster a greater amount of discussion on the board. I can understand your objection to " repeating long copy-pastes" if it's excessively long, but I'm reluctant to create a set-in-stone rule against it; I just ask that members try to use their own discretion when doing so.
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby peartreed » Sun May 13, 2018 4:57 pm

1. In my view a “hide thread” feature is just another censorship tool that would be redundant for individuals already capable of ignoring, blocking or bypassing threads.

2. Subsuming “Current Events” below “Lounge” formalizes a lesser prominence for breaking news than idle social chatter. To me, that is counterintuitive and petty.

3. Selective application of “Active Topics” based on forum origin is also making a subjective judgment about how active a topic is, rather than an objective decision.

4. Links might be preferable to repeating already-posted copy pastes, but leaving a thread to follow a link and then returning is more time-consuming than scrolling.

5. Sig lines, texts and characters, including graphics and emoticons, add personality. We could all use more light-hearted, expressive and friendly nomenclature here.
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby JackRiddler » Sun May 13, 2018 6:13 pm

peartreed » Sun May 13, 2018 3:57 pm wrote:1. In my view a “hide thread” feature is just another censorship tool that would be redundant for individuals already capable of ignoring, blocking or bypassing threads.


Such a function hides nothing from anyone except by the user's choice. The user gets to edit what they want to see again after reading at least the headline at least once, on a case-by-case basis.

Censorship is a totally inapplicable word for this simple convenience designed to reduce personal clutter. Censorship is the action of a state, or an authority, not a reader. If I turn the page on something that does not interest me, that is not only not censorship, it is my holy right. Online, unfortunately, the algorithm often forces us to turn the page back!

(It is especially kind to those of us who are sensitive to and literally hurt by bad puns and poor writing, which one day will be a confirmed diagnosis, like synaesthesia or agnosia.)

2. Subsuming “Current Events” below “Lounge” formalizes a lesser prominence for breaking news than idle social chatter. To me, that is counterintuitive and petty.


"The Lounge" has been around for more than a decade, has more than 1,000 threads and is popular with the members. "Current Events" is an entirely new experiment prompted by the current need to reduce board clutter and thread proliferation. The placement says nothing about general priorities but about RI. RI historically has not been a breaking news site and obviously doesn't do that except as a highly selective aggregator with a small number of members. Historically, the action and the actual discussion on RI has been in GD and the Lounge.

3. Selective application of “Active Topics” based on forum origin is also making a subjective judgment about how active a topic is, rather than an objective decision.


The basic problem is when a member appropriates to themselves the right to flood the board with a constant flow of new threads on already-existing topics, driving long-running discussions that are active off the front page and replacing them with daily news trifles no different from the ones on the corporate media sites that already reach in all over the place all the time.

4. Links might be preferable to repeating already-posted copy pastes, but leaving a thread to follow a link and then returning is more time-consuming than scrolling.


I have a very slow scroll compared to yours, apparently. Also, seeing the same stuff over and over hurts my eyes and mind. People should have the freedom to not follow the link and to not have repeat copy-paste they've already seen forced on them ad infinitum.

5. Sig lines, texts and characters, including graphics and emoticons, add personality. We could all use more light-hearted, expressive and friendly nomenclature here.


Those don't add personality, they merely congeal a deformed version of it. You should better prefer character to "personality" and demand meaning over spectacle. The avatars already do enough. I'm here for the attempts at thinking as well as actually funny humor. The words should do the job, without thrust devices such as animations, emojis, oversize headlines and propaganda announcements repeated hundreds of times. This is not light-hearted, it is infantile.

The real culture war is not "intolerant" vs. "diverse," or "left" vs. "right," or "religious" vs. "secular." It is more like books vs. trucknutz.

.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun May 13, 2018 6:14 pm

how much are you willing to donate to the mods for all this additional work

and then everyone else here gets to suggest what they feel would be a justification for a rule they want changed or added ...we could have 20 people suggesting something they feel is important


more rules more broken rules more alerts more time the mods have to babysit this place

you know they are doing this for free right?
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby alloneword » Sun May 13, 2018 6:33 pm

JackRiddler » Sat May 12, 2018 11:54 pm wrote:1. Adding a "hide thread" feature (this would be an admin change).

This would be an excellent feature, as it would simultaneously empower users to improve the 'signal to noise ratio' to their taste whilst decreasing the workload of moderators.

Alas, I can't see such a feature in the documentation for phpbb3, or find any available MOD that would add this functionality (other than this defunct and broken one), only countless requests for one - so the only thing I can come up with that might help a little is my 'solution' at the end of this post.

JackRiddler » Sat May 12, 2018 11:54 pm wrote:2. On the Board Index: Moving "Current Events" to the space below "Lounge."

I can't see why it's above GD in the first place. :shrug:

JackRiddler » Sat May 12, 2018 11:54 pm wrote:3. Is it possible for users to prevent posts from given forums from displaying in "Active Topics"? I don't know, it's just an idea.

Or better yet, posts from users on a 'foe' list. That's a feature request I kept seeing in relation to (1) - but no solutions.

JackRiddler » Sat May 12, 2018 11:54 pm wrote:4. Banning the practice of repeating already-posted ready-made copy-paste posts that run for more than one screen by copy-pasting these in other threads. A link to the already posted multi-screen copy-paste would be allowed. (Quoting older material within a thread would have to be allowed, I realize, hopefully without repeating long copy-pastes.)

I guess the 'max characters per post' setting in 'post settings' is currently set to 'unlimited'... most boards set a limit, I always thought it odd that there was no limit here, but can fully understand why that might be.

Banning any practice will mean extra grief for the mods - if you make a 'rule', it then has to be policed and enforced, with all that entails (think of it as forcing someone else to read all that copypasta - at least twice!)

That said, since the majority of this practice stems from the activity of a very limited set of users, I can't see that enforcement would be much of a problem.

There is a feature in the Xenforo (ex-vbulletin devs) forum software that I hated at first, but it grew on me... Basically, any quoted content is confined to a box (the size of admin's choosing) such that text greys out toward the bottom of the box and there's a little 'click to expand' link. It stops 'Wall of Text' posts being repeated endlessly with the obligatory 'I agree' addendum, etc. Xenforo is $140 p.a. though.

JackRiddler » Sat May 12, 2018 11:54 pm wrote:5. Limiting sig lines to text and links only, without further formatting and effects.

There's a 255 character limit, AFAICT, but no limit or differentiation from a standard post regarding what type of content is displayed. I guess it's up to people to act with some sort of restraint or decorum when it comes to the content of sigs. Personally, I think they detract from the content of the post. If someone wishes to communicate something - an idea, something they wish to be associated with, whatever - one sure-fire way to make me reject it is to cram it down my throat by endlessly repeating it to me every time they write something.

It's a bit like posters who 'sign' their username after every post... my instinct is to yell 'Yes, thanks, dickhead... I know who you are - I read the name at the top of the post'.

Fortunately for me, there is something I could do about sigs (and avatars) - the nuclear option. ;)

Sooo... A solution to the rest? Only one. Use the ignore function.

I use spam filters on my email to filter out messages trying to sell me stuff I don't want to hear about.
I use ad-blockers on a browser and network level to filter out messages trying to sell me stuff I don't want to hear about.
I block javascript from being run on my machine to filter out 'features' I don't want and prevent entities creating 'consumer profiles' and trying to sell me stuff I don't want to hear about.
And here, on RI, I use the 'ignore' function to filter out messages trying to sell me ideas and 'media product' I don't want to hear (any more) about.

Is it a perfect solution? Absolutely not. But it's the one that's technically available within the limits offered by PHPBB.

It means that 'active topics' and 'new posts' don't really work for me, I sometimes waste a few seconds looking at a thread which has been bumped by someone who experience has shown to have nothing much of interest to say - but it's only a few seconds, enough to check that there isn't anything interesting or informative preceding it. I tend to focus on the hours I save, simply by not reading that 'content' or responding to it.

There are many thoughtful, intelligent and honest posters here who write interesting, informative and sometimes funny posts. The only way I get time to read even a fraction of them is by filtering out the junk, like so many viagra and fake rolex spams.
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun May 13, 2018 6:35 pm

That said, since the majority of this practice stems from the activity of a very limited set of users, I can't see that enforcement would be much of a problem.


or it is the objection of a couple members to other members that are NOT breaking existing rules

are you willing to pay the mods for this extra work?

your not concerned about anything but one topic I don't know why you should worry at all

since you have come back you only care about one thread so I don't see you having a problem at all now that you have a new thread started just for you
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Sun May 13, 2018 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby JackRiddler » Sun May 13, 2018 6:41 pm

seemslikeadream » Sun May 13, 2018 5:14 pm wrote:how much are you willing to donate to the mods for all this additional work


I'll chip in a 20 to start, anyone else?

and then everyone else here gets to suggest what they feel would be a justification for a rule they want changed or added ...we could have 20 people suggesting something they feel is important


If and when it happens...

more rules more broken rules more alerts more time the mods have to babysit this place


Or people could stop acting like babies.

you know they are doing this for free right?


Yes. Do you?
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby seemslikeadream » Sun May 13, 2018 6:45 pm

you need to look in the mirror

$20.00 dollars ....are you kidding me?

is that for the year or what?
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Re: Friendly Generic Board Improvement Suggestions

Postby JackRiddler » Sun May 13, 2018 6:52 pm

It's more than the zero you've pledged so far. If you pledged the same and a bunch of other people followed suit, it would add up.

Then again, some people could actually respond to the popular-among-members demands, to stop flooding the board with new threads on old topics and stop repeating the same copy-pastes. That would sure reduce a lot of mod headaches.

Generally: Hide thread would do wonders. Ignore just doesn't go far enough.
Last edited by JackRiddler on Sun May 13, 2018 7:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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