Philforum Focus Group

The thing I am missing the most is the 'favorite threads' and 'favorite posts' along with the proper Find functionality. I use these to save particular topics and then refer back to them. I think that is main thing I'm missing, thanks. other things seem to be coming along OK. Thanks to whoever is doing all this work for doing all this work. Very Happy

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@jeeprs,

we used to have a favorite thread and favorite post thing on philosophyforum?

gee, i would be missing that too had i known about it...

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salima, jeeprs, jqweed, prothero, deepthot, rlogic, allan mc, krumple, aedes, xris, dave,........reconstructo...... glad to see you'll struggling to catch a breath likeme.......... i feel lost, and drowned, wanting to touch all the straw-(men and women) and get to feel a sense of security........... so glad you all are here.

I realise, now how good philforum was, and how indebted we were to Justin and his gang, who visualised, conceptualised, planned and programmed a great site for all of us to have a royal go at each other. Kennethamy, and didymos must be missing their honours and lables. Hope they too hang around and continue pester our ego. No offense, i just started thinking how they made us think, which was good in a sense. I would recommend ken to be a moderator here.

Well, the present site owners, i note are also doing a great job to answer almost all questions........ therefore, i may stick around for a while and see if we are accommodated well, or would they make us feel like mere paying guests.

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@Jackofalltrades phil,

Jackofalltrades phil wrote:

Well, the present site owners, i note are also doing a great job to answer almost all questions........ therefore, i may stick around for a while and see if we are accommodated well, or would they make us feel like mere paying guests.

Please do stick around. There's a lot of work that needs doing, but let's give the place a chance.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

The thing I am missing the most is the 'favorite threads' and 'favorite posts' along with the proper Find functionality. I use these to save particular topics and then refer back to them. I think that is main thing I'm missing, thanks. other things seem to be coming along OK. Thanks to whoever is doing all this work for doing all this work.

Ditto. I *think* I'm seeing all the new traffic by monitoring "New Posts". This does show all new posts, doesn't it? (in other words not filtered in any way)

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@Khethil,

check your preferences by clicking on "my preferences" at the bottom of the page. There are certain ways that posts will automatically be collapsed unless you set your preference to see everything. You want:

Topic Preferences
Enable Topic Filter: No

Enable Post Filter: No

Show Signatures: (whatever you prefer)

Expand all Posts: Yes

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@Jackofalltrades phil,

hi jack! i hadnt seen didymos on the old forum for some time, was afraid he was one of the ones who had left. aedes, who i heard had left the old forum before, is here and posting-he was a great asset to us there.

i notice a lot of our work was lost though, due to the text format incompatibility i guess. for instance, looking back on my 'topics' which mostly included creative writing, a lot of them are blank. hehehe-maybe they were there too and i didnt notice.

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@salima,

Robert asked that people would point that out to him so he could fix it. If you have the link(s), address it to him on the thread he started about that:

http://able2know.org/topic/152799-1

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@salima,

Aedes is here? Wow, that's good news. I haven't heard from him in months. Glad to see your face, too, salima.

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@jeeprs,

You might find that tagging topics helps for that. If you tag a topic it shows up in your "my tags" list so you can use that as a way to bookmark topics (and organize them).

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A couple of folk have mentioned wanting more edit time and here is some feedback I was hoping to solicit on that (just gonna repost my reply):

Quote:

You can edit more than once, but there is a time limit. This one's a balance issue, so help me get it (I know it needs to be longer, how long is key).

On philforum I remember complaints about people materially editing posts after they have been replied to, and there's opportunity for clear malice. In addition, with ability to edit forever moderators would have to monitor content forever (otherwise I can edit in spam links later for example).

In short, there has to be some kind of limit, and sure, it can be longer than what it is now. What are your thoughts? Where should the line be? A lot of sites give you a few minutes, I'm thinking the absolute maximum should be something like half an hour and we only do 5.

My best guess at a reasonable improvement would be 300% of our current limit, at 15 minutes. What do you think?

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@Robert Gentel,

15 minutes sounds like plenty. 5 is a little tight.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

15 minutes sounds like plenty. 5 is a little tight.

Fifteen sounds good to me.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

You can edit more than once, but there is a time limit. This one's a balance issue, so help me get it (I know it needs to be longer, how long is key).

On philforum I remember complaints about people materially editing posts after they have been replied to, and there's opportunity for clear malice. In addition, with ability to edit forever moderators would have to monitor content forever (otherwise I can edit in spam links later for example).

In short, there has to be some kind of limit, and sure, it can be longer than what it is now. What are your thoughts? Where should the line be? A lot of sites give you a few minutes, I'm thinking the absolute maximum should be something like half an hour and we only do 5.

My best guess at a reasonable improvement would be 300% of our current limit, at 15 minutes. What do you think?

Is there some detriment to you or the site if you allow users to edit for a very long time - like say, an entire year?

Your one point was that it would create extra work for moderators, but isn't that a non-issue here, given the no-hand-holding policy you've instituted?

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@Zetherin,

Yes, there's a detriment, to Mods and to users. With that much time to edit, let's say I open a topic called, I dunno, show your hands if you love evolution. And 500 people do so. Then -- because I am a prankster, I change the topic (which is a good 11 months old and long forgotten by most -- don't forget how fast things can fly by here because there is so much info) to show your hands if you believe in creationism.

I've just gotten 500 people to give support to my position. Now, you might dismiss that as being nothing, but this site is extremely well-optimized from an SEO perspective. Hence a future Creationist sees, aha, look at all the great Creationism topics!

And so -- while we have no problem with allowing both sides to post, of course -- the issue is that the Creationists' numbers are coming about due to false pretenses. It unfairly and incorrectly changes the character of the board. If I change my mind, I change my mind -- but in this case I've also forcibly changed 500 other people's minds, too.

Furthermore, if I get a job as an email marketer, what's to stop me from adding my spammy tagline to my old post? Then my company gets a boost -- and what appear to be 500 fans.

As Mods, we get the brunt of the complaints on the Help Desk for such nonsense, which of course means more work for us, and the membership can feel cheated by this kind of a cheap trick, as well they should feel.

Don't laugh and dismiss this -- it can happen although not necessarily on an 11-month scale.

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

Is there some detriment to you or the site if you allow users to edit for a very long time - like say, an entire year?

Your one point was that it would create extra work for moderators, but isn't that a non-issue here, given the no-hand-holding policy you've instituted?

We still moderate spam and porn and illegal content and with unlimited editing what spammers will do is post without links and then once the posts are off the new posts radar they'll add the links. This is the main issue with it, as moderators tend to review about a 24 hour window of posts and with unlimited editing they'd have to periodically review every post on the site.

There's also the material edit issue, where people play games with others and edit what they wrote after others have replied, something that has come up both here and on philforum (if I'm not mistaken).

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For what it might be worth, my outlook on the editing time thing is that since there is the post 'preview function, and using it will allow editorial editing without too much trouble, it should be encouraged while the actual editing time need not be any longer than 15 minutes.

Additionally, I would very much encourage careful thought going into posting itself, and proof-reading--so as to maintain a certain quality of posting, and to reduce content (non-editorial/grammatical) error. (of course, that's just me...and is something that most often does not sit so well on our common internet discussion boards.)

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@Robert Gentel,

Well, on the philforum, most of the changes made to old content were more article based than discussion. Sometimes members would recommend adding things, and the author would go back and change it. On rare occasions, a member would go back and alter what they said a week later, but generally, those members were never a real part of the community and the threads were not very popular to begin with.

Personally, 15 minutes is fine. I have used sites with 10 minutes for editing after posting, and it was still just not long enough for some posts.

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@Theaetetus,

I think that kind of activity (that you are calling article based) is going to be better served by the able2know pages feature, which will be collaboratively edited articles with revision history (i.e. a wiki).

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@Robert Gentel,

I am sure you are right. Many of my posts were little more than hacked out class or reading notes, response papers, and rough copies of academic papers. The ones that were informational rather than argumentative were always incomplete, with big holes that it would have been nice if someone could have came behind and added to it.

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