This Post Designed to Be Deleted: A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR RI

[Montag]

oh don't ya know 82, it was all in fun calling me demented, "SLAD the Eloquent" worse than the worthless thread titles, Or unpunctuated, poorly-written, annoying-to-the-point-of-being-dementing thread titles. *coughslad* my emotionally-disturbed comrade.

good-natured ribbing, my ass

Do you really think anyone here believes that?

I enjoy your thread-titling SLaD. It can make it cryptic -- what's on the other side -- but it's usually worthwhile.

[seemslikeadream]

as well it should be


This is Jeff's show and the mods he's chosen. Try a pm to one of them instead of starting a thread like this.

[nathan28]

The thing about information overload is, don't depend on technology for a solution, we each need to manage our own attention. No tech solution will ever work, going against unstructured text, with no meaning? No script is ever going to be able to well manage a list of "what you might be interested in" for you. Such can be a nice add-on feature, but depending on such things abrogates your personal responsibility to direct your own attention. How could we be in favor of something like that? Talk about cyborgification!

+1

That said, maybe it would be nice if people could add meta tags to posts/threads

That would be helpful. In my way of thinking since no one organizational scheme works--look at the dozens of subforums--it's best to have multiple routes to reach something, beyond searching, of course, since that's the dictionary question and you might need a thesaurus.

[justdrew]

The thing about information overload is, don't depend on technology for a solution, we each need to manage our own attention. No tech solution will ever work, going against unstructured text, with no meaning? No script is ever going to be able to well manage a list of "what you might be interested in" for you. Such can be a nice add-on feature, but depending on such things abrogates your personal responsibility to direct your own attention. How could we be in favor of something like that? Talk about cyborgification!

+1

That said, maybe it would be nice if people could add meta tags to posts/threads

That would be helpful. In my way of thinking since no one organizational scheme works--look at the dozens of subforums--it's best to have multiple routes to reach something, beyond searching, of course, since that's the dictionary question and you might need a thesaurus.

well, I've found two things I think we should try. I want to look at them a bit more, but if the establishment is agreeable, I think we should try these two add-ons, they could be very helpful, assuming the 'risk' proves to seem minimal. So far, looking into it, adding these capabilities seems reasonably "simple" and worth doing...

Precise Similar Topics II
demo
This puts a nice selection of probable similar topics (based on keyword searching) at the bottom of a topic view page. Fairly nice.

and

later on, after the existing mods have had a chance to get a little better, or heck, maybe I make one ... a topic prefix mod, which allows one or more "prefix" to be applied to a topic (thread), this should be usable in the same way as youtube-style "tags" I was talking about above would. It doesn't look like any of the current mods are going to do that right yet, so it may take a bit to get there on that concept.

[Elvis]

Just my two cents, as both a reader and a poster:

Montag wrote,

This board has a fascination with continuing existing threads

Adding to an existing thread, as opposed to starting a new similar one, helps keep subject info together, rather than splattered all over, in a way diluting it. No offense, Montag, but with so many Wikileaks threads as it is, putting the "Greg Palast: Manning Real Hero of Wikileaks" piece into your existing Manning thread should have been the obvious choice.

Another problem with redundant threads is that they push current threads off the first page, where (I gather) most people peruse topics.

I don't originate many threads, but when appropriate, I use the Search function to see what's already been discussed, and to keep related info in a more compact form.

When I first joined, I asked about reviving old threads, thinking that maybe really old threads were considered "dead horses," and was told it's better than starting a new one on the same subject, for all the above reasons.

And thanks to Barracuda for his house-cleaning work, keeping things a little more streamlined.

PS. I really like this general format---simple, easy to read and navigate. Years ago a friend suggested DU, and I just couldn't get into it for (what seemed to me) the navigation-unfriendly setup alone (never mind the pathetic limits on discussion there).

[82_28]

I wanna know what happened with the hosting of blogs here idea too. I certainly am not saying I demand such a function, but it would be pretty cool to create a constellation of user blogs. Perhaps a little twitter feed or recent blog posts from users off to the side. Perhaps a vote of confidence in the user who would create said blog under the aegis of RI. It would take some work, but I bet it would be cool. It might even get Jeff to finally "blog" a bit more than usual.

(cough cough)

[barracuda]

Is everyone done here yet? This thread is designed to be locked shortly.

[IanEye]

Is everyone done here yet?

I just want to say I appreciate the way MinM bumps old threads with new info.

[Stephen Morgan]

Is there an automatic search option that could happen before the post, like when someone posts while you are composing? That would give a heads up.

The board must like me, because it does this for me already.

There are *too many* subforums. E.g., "Book Forum," "Culture Studies" "Psyops and Meme Management" "Media and Information Technologies" are really one subforum IMO (with the exception of Psyops, which is the M-n-t-- holding tank).

Yes. Too many. Should be on the basis of mode, not topic. Like News, Debate, Lounge, Fire Pit. Something like that.

[Jeff]

This thread was designed to be moved to the Ask the Admin forum, and I am so doing.

And the personal slagging stops.

[Montag]

Adding to an existing thread, as opposed to starting a new similar one, helps keep subject info together, rather than splattered all over, in a way diluting it. No offense, Montag, but with so many Wikileaks threads as it is, putting the "Greg Palast: Manning Real Hero of Wikileaks" piece into your existing Manning thread should have been the obvious choice.

I don't see the utility of adding to a thread that no one has looked at in milennia. The Randy Quaid thread, is a good example IMO of a thread that is still viable. Once his psychosis and breakdown become a distant memory, why bring it back from the dead?

I thought the Palast article was very profound when I read it. I would think a seasoned journalist like himself would know every angle of the Wikileaks/Manning story. But after further contemplation I don't think he does. I was just looking into Manning this weekend and learning about him, I'm amazed at basic facts that Palast seems to be missing. That wouldn't have been posted at all, knowing what I know now.

Another problem with redundant threads is that they push current threads off the first page, where (I gather) most people peruse topics.

I haven't seen a redundant thread here in some time, and just b/c two threads are on the same topic I wouldn't expect on RI (lol) that they'd go in the same direction or come to the same conclusions. But a lot of long threads I don't even read at all -- if I didn't get in on them early. Once a thread becomes a multitude of pages and I'm not in it, I usually don't slog through it to catch up.

p.s. I know there have been a number of Wikileaks threads, I guess I haven't read most of them. Just the one on UFOs, and the Questioning Wikileaks one.

[psynapz]

Here's an apology that I'm sure I can shove straight up my ass, fuckmeverymuch.

Back on topic, what I should have said was something more like...

You know, while we're at it, can people try to title their threads in a way that makes what it's about more obvious to people who weren't on the OP's train of thought when they posted it? And while we're at that, can we try to make them make sense as a title? I don't understand how some of the titles get assembled from words relating to the topic without the title even being a coherent statement.

Further back on topic, thanks 'cuda for letting us know you've been merging threads that often. I was starting to wonder with the wiki threads. I can see having separate threads about characters (Assange himself) and associations (Manning-Lamo or MacKinnon-UK-US.mil) as they relate secondarily to WikiLeaks, but I doubt we need a new thread for every news release directly relating to a part of a leak event (e.g., cablegate).

I know we see this happen with every big topic that comes through, and obviously requesting behavioral changes amounts to pissing in the wind (or in my case, pissing on an electric fence while standing in a mud puddle), but for all the good ideas everyone has shared in this thread for functional, technical changes to the way the board software works, I hope you all realize you're still just spraying the flowers. Jeff's not a programmer, and even if he were, it's a bad idea to heavily customize any web content management system, including forum software such as this, since it seriously hampers the ability to upgrade to new security releases, for instance.

I realize I've mentioned this before, but most of the feature ideas you are describing are encompassed by collaborative journalism platforms such as Scoop. There's an editorial queue for users to vote stories up to the front page (or into a topic section), there's individual blogs ("diaries") which you can opt to follow in the sidebar so you see new posts by anybody you like, and there's options for the story comments including nesting, threading, and dynamic expand/collapse.

This of course would mean yet another move, and I don't think the content can be easily migrated, so I'd see a migration process that looks like starting new stories on the new platform and posting a link to any relevant threads here before locking the threads.

To me it sounds like a huge PITA. Is Jeff up for this?

Also Montag, I'm glad you brought up the issue of the psychological barrier of entering a long thread you weren't a part of, but I can tell you they're typically worth the read-through and you never know when you'll have something valuable to add, or at least clarify for others with a question. It also creates more work for mods when we start threads because we never knew Big Thread With Elusive Title was about the same thing because we'd never read it to find out.

Once [Quaid's] psychosis and breakdown become a distant memory, why bring it back from the dead?

For context?

Also, I love everybody here. Thanks for participating the best way you know how, because participation here is always more important than making things convenient for the rest of us (or for the mods).

[JackRiddler]

.

Really, it would be a start if people stopped posting copy-paste articles as new threads without any comment or anything new to add, when these subjects are already covered in other threads. Mistakes can always be made, and I've done that too -- but then apologize and cross-post, already.

Again, it's different when you're adding something you wrote yourself, or if an issue is not being covered, or if you want to provide a different perspective than the one dominating in an existing thread. But that's often not the case.

Also, in order of gravity:
- Not distinguishing adequately between a copy-paste article and your comment on it. (Perhaps we've all sinned, but certain posters do this carelessly as a matter of routine.)
- Posting entire text of a copy-paste article, yet neglecting essentials like a) date, b) author, c) a link, or d) original headline.
- Thread titles that make no sense. On the whole, I prefer when people write their own thread title to indicate what they believe to be the subject, rather than using a copy-paste article's headline (which however should always be given in the body). But not if what their headline is incomprehensible, misspelled, nonsensical or irrelevant.

If you want to play news aggregator, show some integrity about it.

.

[JackRiddler]

I don't see the utility of adding to a thread that no one has looked at in milennia.

It's called a kick. Or a bump. People click on it because they see something new was added.

The Randy Quaid thread is a perfect example of a well-delineated story that can be kept in one thread. Bumping it instead of starting a new one provides context and history for new readers and shows respect for those who added to it in the past.

The entire "Wikileaks" complex right now represents something like half the interesting stories being published worldwide, so confusion there is more understandable.

.

By the way, I do not get a "latest threads" link once I'm logged in. Perhaps this is available only in some skins? Thanks.

[psynapz]

By the way, I do not get a "latest threads" link once I'm logged in. Perhaps this is available only in some skins? Thanks.

What about "View active topics"?

Also, since we're still (hopefully) in speakeasy mode here, why do you ever prefix and suffix your posts with a punctuation on a line by itself? What is it intended to convey, or otherwise produce for effect? Beeline does it this too on occasion, but I want to hear it from the masta.