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Barbelith II: thoughts

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Matthew Fluxington

09:04 / 05.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Kit-Cat Club:
Flux - I think 'Late Show' here refers to a UK TV magazine programme - very discussion-heavy.

That's what I had thought - over here, Late Show is David Letterman's show... which no one would confuse with the direction we're going in.

So, would the featured threads be mirrored in some way on the front webzine page? How would they be highlighted/separated?

16:55 / 06.02.02

Here's another thought, along the "big folders" line: maybe it'll be effective (if possible) to organize posts within a forum by a category of discussion. Rather than have these as sub-folders, simply have, say, color-coded flags and make it possible to view topics by category.

So, for example, most of the posts in the Laboratory can easily be divided into categories like:
* Paranormal (ufos, cryptozoology, ghosts, my favorite things),
* Computing (including web sites, software, circuitry advances),
* Medical Advances (longevity, new disease treatments)
* Genetics (hybrid animals, transhumanism, cloning)
* Inventions (the Jasker engine, stuff on Tesla)
* History Revised (anything from dinosaurs to Atlantis)
* Outer Space (new planets, black holes)
* Quantum World (the little stuff)
and maybe one on
* Animals.

Even simpler, it could be divided into scientific disciplines (astronomy, zoology, medicine, physics, etc). I'm pretty sure other fora could be similarly categorized with a special tag for each category either applied by the topic starter or the moderator.

Might make for greater use value for searches, browsing, that sort of thing.

20:28 / 06.02.02

I got scared when the post limiting idea was thrown into the meme poolicy. I almost thought thatt was some kind of joke. Sick sick. I'm glad people hast protested.

12:43 / 07.02.02

Would it be possible, and what do people think, of the idea of having an automatic time period at which a thread locks up, say 72 hours in Conversation? That way if people care about the topic they can restart the thread under a different name, but if the thread has just wandered to nowhere, it can be culled. It might also be worth a quicker turnaround in Conversation, perhaps clearing it weekly?

You could also have a moderated lockdown in the other forums of a week, perhaps? The moderator could get a message once a thread has been open for a week and if it's died out or thread rot has set in, it can be locked down. Just some thoughts from a long time lurker.

23:11 / 07.02.02

Ok I've done a LOT of work with Cal on the board relaunch and it now looks to be no more than a week away.

All threads will be transferred as will all suits.

There will be an initial moritorium on the creation of new suits and there WILL BE A POSTING LIMIT IN PLACE AT LEAST FOR THE FIRST FEW DAYS WHILE WE TRY AND IRON OUT BUGS - AND POSSIBLY FOR LONGER. THIS POSTING LIMIT WILL BE *AT LEAST* THE ABILITY TO START THREE NEW THREADS A DAY AND POST TEN THINGS A DAY.

Other things that you should know about... The moderation process will be upgraded dramatically, some of the functionality of the current board will be lost and there will be other functionality and improvements coming online over time.

There will not initially be a process which allows people to vote for moderators although this IS coming. The new private messages feature will definitely be in place.

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ADDITIONS WILL BE THE 'ABSTRACT' or "SUMMARY' field.

Anyone who starts a thread will be asked to write a summary of WHAT THAT THREAD IS ABOUT, and this summary will appear on the 'reply' screen, so that whenever you post a message you are reminded about what the thread is about.

When new suits come online they will be COMPLETELY UNABLE TO POST FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, but after that they will be able to post normally.

More news to come...

06:19 / 08.02.02

Crumbs. This is all very exciting.

06:42 / 08.02.02

as far as the webzine / awesome thread interactions go, we ought to create a more handy duty for moderators / users to pluck informative threads (as often occur in laboratory, switchboard, magick) and rip them into finished products on the webzine. right now there are dozens of brilliant thoughts put together by a several people all over the recent threads. wouldnt it be nice if these clever thoughts were *slightly* cleaned up grammatically and stored on the front page as "news" or "theories"? i think the implication of permanence would elevate the quality of serious threads far more than would an arbitrary limit on posting.

i often look at brilliant threads and feel a sense of loss, in advance, knowing that these are just another conversation to be lost. wouldn't it be nice to turn our thoughts into truly archived items?

11:43 / 08.02.02

Word to that.

20:35 / 09.02.02

Question, and I apologize if I skimmed over the answer:

Will there be a limit on the number of suits? One of the problems I could see with a post limit is an explosion in the number of suits to increase the number of threads one could start. I'm for the limit of posts per day, but I'd be concerned about a suit explosion. I do think it's a good plan to try and get people to read more and consider more. Sometimes it's just hard to keep up. Danke.

20:52 / 09.02.02

For the duration of the limits on posting there will be no new members - this is also a good way for us to control traffic enough to make sure that the debugging will work properly without getting swamped.

But you are right - and this is one of the reasons that I want people to sacrifice spare suits, to stop people attempting to get round the limits. And that's also why no one can register new suits from this period on...

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

02:03 / 10.02.02

ooooOOOOOoooooh, exciting. Can't wait to see the new stuff. This is the first time I've looked in the Policy since this incarnation, and it shocked me a bit. Another upgrade? Coming soon? Guh?

Anyway, I like what I'm seeing, and I just wanna say that I trust Tom, and he can do whatever the hell he thinks is best for the board and I won't complain (unless he asks me for my honest opinion and I do think it really sucks ass, but the probability of that happening is low). Go for it, do what you think is best, can't wait to see the new look.

02:03 / 10.02.02

I should warn you - it doesn't LOOK incredibly classy, in fact it looks remarkably similar to the baord at the moment...

02:03 / 10.02.02

Hey, would someone mind emailing or pm-ing me the url for pocket barbelith? 'Cuz I used to have it on my "favorite pages" back when I still had a job but now I can't remember what it is.

gracias.

22:13 / 10.02.02

Sorry, um, I should probably already know the answer to this... any idea when this is happening?

00:01 / 11.02.02

Pocket Barbelith.

I love that name. Makes me feel all Pre-Crisis and multi-dimensional.

08:21 / 11.02.02

The move may take place tomorrow, or it may be later on in the week depending on whether or not we can iron out a couple of problems...

14:55 / 11.02.02

This might be a re-e-e-eally stupid question but is there an Ignore facility? Can I choose, individually, for X's posts not to show up on my Barbelith?

If not, can we have one?

15:00 / 11.02.02

This feature is currently being discussed. And if implemented would be bloody lovely.

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:03 / 11.02.02

If we do have an 'Ignore' feature, will we have the option of turning it off again?

15:14 / 11.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Tom Coates:
This feature is currently being discussed. And if implemented would be bloody lovely.

Excellent, a <plonk> button.

quote:Moriarty said:
I love that name. Makes me feel all Pre-Crisis and multi-dimensional.

As long as it doesn't make you feel like a hero reborn.

16:09 / 11.02.02

This feature is currently being discussed. And if implemented would be bloody lovely. – Tom

Brooklyn loves ya, Tom!

An ignore function would be an EXCELLENT idea.

16:14 / 11.02.02

ok. two things:

1) If we built in an ignore function, you would of course be able to change that in your profile. People would be, I guess, easily turn off and onable.

2) How would people feel about admins and moderators being able to suggest someone to be ignored? Like a global private message to everyone, saying "****** has suggested that ******* be placed on your ignore list... Do you want to ignore them? YES | NO"

16:19 / 11.02.02

I'm not sure what that would serve except to feed a 'peer pressure' type of thing.

"the moderator doesn't like him so maybe I shouldn't either".

16:23 / 11.02.02

How would people feel about admins and moderators being able to suggest someone to be ignored? Like a global private message to everyone, saying "****** has suggested that ******* be placed on your ignore list... Do you want to ignore them? YES | NO"

Hmm...that's bound to bring up cries of "Clique!", I fear... Also, chances are if it's gotten to the point where a moderator has to do that, most posters may very well already be ignoring the person to be ignored.

I could see it as being useful in forums where many posters don't go to other forums and may genuinely not be aware of the trolling until said troll posts in that forum. but in that case the moderator could post a gentle reminder that there is an ignore function, and feel free to use it if you are uncomfortable with anyone's style of posting. That might be better, as it's less specific and won't put anyone on the spot.

pointless and uncalled for

16:24 / 11.02.02

1) Yes I find this a highly valuable idea. I toyed with censorship issues but ultimately I decide what I read off the net and in other locations, the same applies here.

2) No, absolutley not. I find this idea singularly reprehensible. It may be fair to provide a full description of the function but under no circumstances do I think that it would be right for administrators or moderators to be in a possition to make this kind of advice. It's open to abuse, may lead to factioning and frankly I think ultimately be a detraction from the quality of this board.

Maybe a more suitable option, in the event that two posters are in un-thread-related conflict, that a moderator suggest use of the ignore function.

The funtion should be kept between individual posters and should not be advertised. People should not be encouraged to follow the crowd, especially around here, they should be encouraged to make their own decisions.

Edited to add that there sould be some kind of notification of multiple suits posting from the same IP address. It's no guarantee of the same person using another suit but will certainly increase our being able to determining if this is this is the case and thus ignoring the same person with a different name.

[ 11-02-2002: Message edited by: Wisdom of idiots ]

02:50 / 12.02.02

I'd actually rather have option 2 than option 1. Some of the best threads in the past year or two have resulted from posts that could have just been ignored. Presumably, any single Barbie could petition a moderator to provide the option, based on whatever grounds; if enough similar petitions were sent, a global pm could go out. The object of the message would also receive it, conveniently doubling as a warning.

Might cut down on confusion, too. The possibility exists, however slight, that each poster could ignore the poster sitting next to hir in the circle.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:23 / 19.02.02

Here's an idea - how about if each forum (or at least the 'serious' ones) had a section for permanent links. Anyone could suggest them, but the Moderators of each forum could decide what goes up... It would be great way of preventing repetition. I'd love it if the Switchboard could have links to Indymedia, ZMag, George Monbiot's site... And I'm sure places like the Comics and Music forum would benefit from this as well.

Maybe each forum could have mini-FAQs as well? Glossaries of commonly-used terms, etc...

Matthew Fluxington

10:30 / 19.02.02

yes, I agree with Flyboy on this - this is something that was very useful on my old net forum, which was music-based. It eliminated the need for people to continually ask for where they can find obscure records, good zines, free mp3s, and encyclopedic resources online. Failing this, maybe each forum could have its own FAQ section which would contain this info and any other major information useful to newbies to the forum. Can't help but feel the Headshop and Magick forums would be well-served by this sort of thing...

10:43 / 19.02.02

1)About the ignoring option: Wouldn't that be hazardous in the sense that, if you ignore "X" and don't see hir posts, and then "X" posts something that takes some thread to a new direction... wouldn't you feel a little disorientated for not being able to read what "X" posted?

2) Is there a way of keeping certain threads in an archive than people can consult? I'm thinkin about those "Barbelith X" threads: "Barbelith Tarot", "Barbelith BOOK CLUB" etc. They're usually big and full of informations, links etc. So that people could consult them.

12:14 / 19.02.02

Here we go. Let's have rules instead of trust...

Trust Tom. This board's been running three years and he's kicked exactly two people off, one for stalking and one for being a total prick.

This community is small enough that we can actually take each case on an individual basis, and we truly don't need rules.

So why, oh why, would we create them?

12:19 / 19.02.02

Um... because Tom wanted general thoughts/opinions on how the architecture of the board could/should be altered to better fit our needs/wants?

12:30 / 19.02.02

Failing this, maybe each forum could have its own FAQ section which would contain this info and any other major information useful to newbies to the forum. Can't help but feel the Headshop and Magick forums would be well-served by this sort of thing... – Flux

The Magick definitely needs something like this. If I see one more "How do I make a sigil?" question over there...

Seriously, it would cut down a lot on the repetition that pervades every time new people start posting.

13:00 / 19.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Ganesh v4.2:
Um... because Tom wanted general thoughts/opinions on how the architecture of the board could/should be altered to better fit our needs/wants?So why do ou needs/wants include mechanisms when these can never cover all the bases and we're all capable of making intelligent judgements on the facts?

For the sake of less effort? Less time and energy spent on these issues? So that we don't have to think about each case so exhaustively?

Tom, please, complicate the issue as much as possible. De-streamline. Require thought.

13:40 / 19.02.02

Preaching to the converted here, Dao; I'm all for case-by-case troll analysis and so on. I would like an Ignore option, though, and there are other ideas worth throwing around while Cal's in the process of building. When I met up with Tom, he certainly made a good case for 'hard-wiring' at least some stuff into the walls of the place...

14:22 / 19.02.02

To be honest, I wasn't quarrelling so much with you, anyway. Just a note of caution.

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