BBB gets the message

I wondered that myself.

BBB,

2 things from me -

There are a lot of changes - much of it isn't so much "techie" as it is "slang". But if you don't understand what "tags" (or something else) are, then why not ask a question and let someone explain it to you in terms you can understand? Some people are better at translating this stuff into "normal people speak" than others. That's what seperates a good computer trainer from a bad one.

As far as your comment to Robert concerning the number of posts voted down and such. I also just did a quick look. I looked at your last 50 topics which have all have had responses on the "new" A2K. 20 of those have a positive overall rating (i.e. more than 1 "thumbs up".). 9 have an overall thumbs down. 16 of them have a "1" rating which means that either no one has voted on them at all or the votes have balance out. Being that the majority of your posts are related to politics where people tend to take one side or the other I don't find those numbers surprising. If I posted a thread titled "Obama is a jerk!" I'd expect that the Obama supporters would vote it down. In your particular case you may also be being hurt by the fact that another highly controversial poster has posted in several of the threads. It is entirely possible that people are voting down the threads so that they don't see the other user rather than you.

You might be "getting a message" from the voting but I'm not sure that the message you are getting is the actual nessage being sent.

Craven,

Not sure if this is a local problem for me only or what, but I've been trying to create a new topic for about the last hour now, using both the Ask a Question and the Start a Discussion links. I also tried it with tags and without tags on the originating post. The post previews just fine but once I hit the button to post it I get an output of a lot of programming code for about three screens. Have been repeating the attempt from scratch about every 10 minutes with the same result.

Hmm, same thing is happening when I try to post in this thread so maybe it isn't me.

Phoenix just posted about the same problem. I've experienced it once as well.

BBB,
I'm so sorry to hear about your son. I can imagine that with all the stress you are going through, the changes on a2k are even harder to swallow. You just want to come to the place that was like a second home. And someone rearranged all the furniture.
When you have the patience, I think you'll find that you'll pick alot of it up. I'm just getting used to it myself, and there is still a ways to go.
Your freinds are still here. And they will help you.
And Craven will get this sorted out in time.
(hug)

BBB, I'm maybe half your age, and I don't know the answer to your question ... and frankly, I don't really want to know. I'm not a fan of the tags.

But there have been changes and improvements to the site since it was relaunched a week ago, and I'm sure there will be more on the way. I'm hoping the tags will just disappear one morning -- but I'm not holding my breathe the way Craven speaks so fondly of them.

You and I don't see eye to eye on much ... there can be no denying that. And I imagine I have been one of the more vocal critics of many of your threads/posts in the past. But even so, I would hate for you to leave this site ... primarily because I know you love it so much.

Give it some time and I suspect the site will evolve, and at the same time you will become more comfortable with the changes that are occurring.

(And I'm very sorry to hear about your son's health.)

Another fun feature of the new site.....

Thank you, and sorry if I've let my rhetoric get out of control.

Cycloptichorn

As far as what a tag is, I'll give an example in clerical lingo. It's that notation you make on a document for the file clerk so they know which folder to place the sheet of paper. When all those sheets of paper with the same notation accumulate, you separate the sheets of paper into a folder of their own and give it an additional label/tag.

For example, you might have a bunch of rental lease agreements with the tag "Lease Agreements" noted on them. Eventually that file of lease agreements gets too large and clumsy to locate things so you might divide up the documents into cities or building addresses. You'd file them in a sub-folder with the tag "Lease Agreements - Albuquerque." You might also have another drawer labeled New Mexico with subfolders of Albuquerque or Rental Properties that has cross references to the lease agreements file.

When you want to review the lease agreement for an apartment in Albuquerque you go directly to the Lease Agreements - Albuquerque tag or find the cross reference in the New Mexico drawer and locate it that way.

Tagging is nothing more than a filing system with a whole bunch of cross references. In the folksonomy version each person can personalize those tags to something more specific or add more synonyms to further cross reference the topic for themselves and others.

thanks for adding your tag. this isn't the right forum for discussing tags, either, but you just illustrated something for me. i've used tags & read about them, but didn't know only the top 5 are shown. and in another thread, i gave what might be the way to edit one of your tags, but i'm not sure, because this info is all over the place & difficult to find without reading everything. (incidentally, here's my tag editing suggestion: http://able2know.org/topic/121000-4#post-3366861

yeah, be snide with complete anonymity

precisely!

Dayum... I dont even make that much in a year, not net anyway

Best wishes to your son, BBB!

Hey BBB - I'd encourage you to keep posting. I don't read everything you post but you do good thread titles that make it easy to decide whether I want to read further.

A lot of the stuff you post isn't commented on by anyone - so I can't any reason to thumb it down if the user is sorting by new posts.

BBB: before you give up completely, try clicking on My Posts at the top of the page. it's been just revised to work exactly like it did on the old a2k. ;-) it pretty much makes tags useless for me.

Are you sure we can't donate anymore? It appears to me we still can. When Sozobe created Rendezvous Point, a little website for us to meet when the main site is down, she included a link, "Donate to Able2Know", which pointed to PayPal and had everything filled out but the amount and your login information. I just tried it, and will report back when I know if it works or not. The transfer goes from a German bank account, so it may take a few days till I know. But so far it looks good. No error message or anything after I clicked "donate now".

Click here for PayPal's A2K donations page.

Happy donating!

We don't accept donations. And that's not my personal paypal account anymore, so please don't send donations there. We use that for business and donations will just be returned (minus paypal fees) so you'd only help paypal by doing so.

+1

Ms Boogie don't you dare leave. You have made some of the most incredible material available to A2K and your contributions far surpass the mouthy opinions of persons far less erudite than yourself.

Leave and I will come to Albequerque and slap you silly. Then we can go out and get drunk and talk union.