Feedback Thread: Discussion (>'.')> <('.'<)

@JPB,

JPB wrote:

Cool, but I think the net effect will be that immature trolling will proliferate (once again) in the threads. Folks that troll via posts or tags are looking for an audience. Once they realize they're their only audience it will (imo) come back into the posts.

I don't think they are mutually exclusive activities, and for the most part I think they were already in the topics. At least in the topic the posts are accountable to user voting and they can take care of it that way, but right now the amount of good use it takes to outweigh bad use is not fair (e.g. it takes 2 people using 5 tags to get rid of one graffiti tag, that's a 10-1 imbalance making the graffiti tags much more prominent than they deserve to be) so when it's corrected the community will have a more level playing field with the graffiti taggers.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

This goes far towards defeating the purpose of the new a2k, to make less work for him and to allow the user max control over his experience.

That is not true, it will be a relatively small amount of work (couple days to a week) and will correct an imbalance where right now an individual has disproportionate influence over the community. Right now it take 10 good tags to erase a bad one, fixing this imbalance is not to abandon our principles it is to make the democratization more fair.

So if the community finds the tags useful as forums they will be more likely to appear there, right now the graffiti appears wherever the community has not yet agreed on 5 total tags and this sets the bar too high, the community has to do much more than the graffiti tagger and this is not in line with our ideals, it should better reflect what the community as a whole wants, not what individual users think is witty.

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@tsarstepan,

We'll never charge for the basic services in a2k, but having paid services (of which search could be one, ad removal another etc.) is an alternative revenue option to ads. Right now ads can't pay for search, but if the members are interested enough they can (if enough express interest we'll make it earlier and charge a membership fee that enables access to it). But eventually I would like to have a free search here, and that is the timeline it is currently on.

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like the idea of a mobile application, not a priority but a cool thing

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@electronicmail,

Mods are moderators. Yes, we post here. The only known ones are me, Robert Gentel (the site owner) and Nick Ashley (site developer). Other moderators are not revealed. This is our site's policy.

Our tags are (generally) not graffitti tags because we -- as it is a part of our jobs -- attempt to tag threads properly. Don't know any other way to say this. We tend to tag threads as things like Forum Help versus Whiny Losers. The former is a good tag, assuming it is germane to the actual topic. The latter is a graffitti tag, even if it is actually germane to the topic being discussed.

Sorry - no time to check your topic - I am a volunteer and have company here this weekend.

I have no idea who decided to speak for the forum as if that person were an authority. Sorry, cannot help you on that.

Gotta run and see how my mother has rearranged my kitchen. Shocked

electronicmail wrote:

Mods = moderators? Are they also posters? If they are why are their tags not graffiti tags? Do they also get to mess with "popularity" rankings? I've an open question on that one http://able2know.org/topic/152761-2#post-4188201 nobody answered it so far.

I stopped posting after that but I'm back because I see an honest effort by Robert Gentel to fix this Animal Farm A2K forum aspect. I got nothing against any philosophy forum members because I can't tell them apart from any other members. But I think it's counterproductive to have some posters more equal than others. One of those haughtily told me "WE respect <insert name here> ". WE? Who's WE? Parenthetically the <insert name here> poster was an obvious idiot with nothing to contribute. As were some the other "WEs" who piled on to the thread, one honestly calling those "WEs" a "posse". Cancelling A2K "posses" imho is way to go.

1 Reply

@jespah,

Ooooooo mysterious! I never knew there were secret mods.

http://www.rus-sell.com/image_id11368w0h0_Soviet_KGB_propaganda_poster_DON%60T_BLAB!.jpg

You never know who is behind you in line. You might be talking to a mod!

A
R
This is how they crush the hamster uprising.

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@djjd62,

A doppelganger site for mobile phones? I endorse that idea!!

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@failures art,

ooooOOOooohhhh (makes mysterious haunting sounds) ....

Ninja Stealth Hamsters.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

ad removal another etc...

errrrr... I don't see any ads... used to... none now tho!

(in a sandbox in firefox)

1 Reply

@djjd62,

dj said...

"in life, the race is long, but in the end it's mostly with yourself, worry not about the others"

he forgot to say "live long and prosper"...

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I'm happy with the site as is. I will accept any changes in the best spirit I can.

Thanks Robert for providing this marvelous means for me to communicate on a world wide scale.
Whether you think so or not this site has broadened my horizons increadibly.

Thanks Nick for the developmental and other tech work you do.

Thanks Jespah for everything.

Thank you secret ninja mods for your time and wisdom. <looks around furtivly>

Edit" I was just thinking today about weather i would be able to access the site whilst on a plane to England.
So maybe the mobile app might be usefull but thats more about my data plan than app.
Further edit: I hardly ever tag threads and I virtually never notice the numbers or thumbs or any effect they might have popularity wise.

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@Robert Gentel,

I'm not sure how you would distinguish "graffiti tags" from legitimate tags.

Something that looks like graffiti to you might be useful information for other folks. Things are often tagged with useful information, even if we don't really need a separate forum for each tag.

"Humor" and "cat humor" and "feline humor" and "animal humor" and "funny video" and "funny videos"might all legitimately describe a particular thread. We don't really need forums for all of those categories, IMO, but the visible tags can be useful to me if I'm not in the mood for a funny cat video.

When you roll out your new system, can you tell us how it works so that we can use it effectively?

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

Very good point, DrewDad. I find them helpful, well, probably we all do.

I don't think you're ever going to do away with graffiti , people being what they are. And it doesn't bother me.

Maybe Robert can change things so that the OP can determine the forum it belongs in, via tags, and make other posters' tags are irrelevant? That way it wouldn't get tagged to all those forums, inappropriate or not. And I know some people don't tag their own topic, but if you made that a requirement prior to submitting the thread, that'd solve that problem.

1 Reply

I just remembered a suggestion that came up a while ago and I was curious if it is a part of any of the things to come.

Is anything going to allow for us to stop seeing a topic once we've posted on it without voting the topic down? There are lots of topics that come up on "My Posts" that I no longer read or contribute to, but I don't wish to vote them down.

Is there going to be a "quit following" option in anything that is coming in the future updates?

A
R
T

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@Robert Gentel,

I'd eventually like search to be better, but am in no hurry.

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@Mame,

Some original posters tag in a very peculiar fashion that doesn't represent their threads very well, not limited to misspelling, but completely not understanding categories. I like the present system, with the modification Robert is describing to better balance out the power of graffiti tags re useful category tags (the business of it taking (what was it? five tags by two users or two by five users?) many tags to get rid of one insult(wit?) tag as a major category.

1 Reply

@failures art,

Good call Art!

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@Izzie,

I used to get adds on every page and didn't mind a bit. Actually, it was kind of cute, seeing what ads someone thought would fit the thread context.

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@ossobuco,

Looking back at what I voted thumbs up -

Priorities -
user defined color
change balance of graffiti to category tags
voting overhaul/modification
my tag grids
improve pm's
search - no hurry, just that I'd strongly like robust search sometime

Not so high priorities -
Organize the Questions thing better
Chat
Photo
Blogs (I'm not sure if I gave that an up vote or left it to think about)
Mobile, of no interest to me, but I can see it would be a good idea

As discussed elsewhere, that there is a planned option to have the tracking NEW be tied in to chronological sequence - I'm now all for that as the best of both worlds, for me.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

One small comment which you may have posted you are considering, Robert or Nick -
having us be able to choose whether we want New Posts All Topics or Filter Noise as default.

1 Reply

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