How do you all feel about the new posting rules?

I can't help it, when you come on a forum, and there are more posts from monitors than members...somethin' has gone terribly wrong...LOL

Remember that talk we had about being political in these situations? All you have to do is give out a negative pressure differential on the admins' arses and then stab them from behind when they're not paying attention.Did I just say that?

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The Laminator

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Does this mean I'm an awful troll again? I hate when that happens...I'm just trying to give constructive critcism, thats all. They can take it or leave it.

If you're going to be a troll, be a good one... like me.To get back to the main topic of this thread, I think the new rules are working quite well. It has helped me to focus my ideas whenever I wanted to post a new topic. However, coming up with anything more complicated than this will confuse the heck out of newbies and drive away some current members.

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The Laminator

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Well, The internet has definitions of trolling and spamming. I think RAZD has has a link to it. I don't meet the requirements.

Internet Trolls (hyperlinked new) - Approximate Reading Time: 7 MinutesandIdentity and Deception in the Virtual Community (hyperlinked new) - Reading time a lot longer ... but worth it. Page down to [Deceptions and manipulations] - about half way down - if you don't want to read the history and background.Trolls can be specific posts (designed to raise a retaliatory flame type post in response) or a persona that trys to lead one on to ever more ridiculous heights, or whatever. Essentially they try to disrupt the board and create discension in the ranks.But that is off topic ... ... might make a good short subject?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Thank you sir! Is it trolling if you are honest and stating your motives up front....I think not.

Not a good Idea. If an established RUSSIAN scientist understands that I am posting here and kindly spent $$$ to update (me)on his research the problem is not in my posting but in others' understaning. PLEASE UNDERSTAND I AM NOT YOUR whipping boy nor poster child. I dont like them either but I have not tried to BECOME an ADMIN. You think I make"" up biophysics? in English words??? well I still use WORDS Gladeyshev has used even SIGNS of his own design. Imagine then what my posts would be like if I only used SYMBOLS and gave no CONTEXT_____!!I can find the verb in his work you only need find the corresponding noun in mine.

Brad, I for one don't consider you a "whipping boy" or "poster child". I do have difficulty following you at times because you have a tendency to comment on the writings of others, like Gould, without providing context. You also use too many run-on sentences.Sometimes you are easier to follow than at other times. An example of one of those easier times would be your proposed topic. I read it and I think I understand it, at least for the most part. I hope you will make the edits that the admins are advising so the thread can be opened for debate.My impression of your posts must be similar to the impression uninformed posters have of scientists like Loudmouth. He has a difficult time making his posts easy to understand for those who have little scientific knowledge. You are similar, but at an even higher level. Even those of us with moderate knowledge of science have difficulty following you because you assume we know what Gould (for instance) said in a particular instance when we actually have no idea.In other words, I think if anything you're too smart for us.

OK, I threw it into the "Free For All". Maybe the discussion should start with why I was reluctant to move the topic to active debate?Maybe Brad (in a new message) would like to try a rewrite of message 1?Adminnemooseus

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WHERE TO GO TO START A NEW TOPIC (For other than "Welcome, Visitors!", "Suggestions and Questions", "Practice Makes Perfect", and "Short Subjects")Comments on moderation procedures? - Go to
Change in Moderation?
or
too fast closure of threads

I only came to that realization fairly recently. It is true however that Mark understands Gould fairly if not comphrensively well. So rather than try to explain Gould, Me AND Gladyshev I am convincing myself only to speak of Gould discontinuous "time" in some continuity of physicality in Georgi's work. I am personally more for GP than SJ but of course perfer perfer my own reading anyway. Thanks for the comment maybe I just didnt understand Yaro's mention of me.[This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-29-2004]

I think the idea of new topic approvals is a good one, and that the implementation can be cleaned up a bit to be less obtrusive and more natural.

• Starting a new topic should be easy and natural. The "new topic" button should work in all forums. When the submission is complete, it should go to the Proposed New Topics forum, except in some designated cases where it goes straight to the forum. The user should also be presented with a "successful submission" page, which indicates that their submission has entered the system and now awaits an approval. This notice should briefly advise the user how to monitor for comments on the topic.
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• Feedback to the user should be easy and natural. At present, it is rather hard to find the "Proposed New Topics" forum, since it is not part of the main menu as far as I can see. The "Bits and Bytes" menu needs to be updated with links to "Proposed New Topics" and "Suggestions to Proposed New Topics". However, read on...
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• Guidance for users needs to be documented and very easily accessible. The best way for this to occur is to update the Getting Started page. I'm thinking of making a concrete proposal on this.
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• The list of new posts can be a lot less cluttered if by default it does not show threads in Proposed New Topics that have been closed due to an approved new copy of the thread in another forum. It will help newbies to manage their proposed new topics if the forum is not cluttered with a lot of closed threads.
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  If I understand matters, the current list of closed proposals is a safety measure while the new system is being tuned. I think the idea is that we will eventually move to a deletion of approved threads from the proposal forum. When and if this occurs, the Proposal forum will be a lot less cluttered.

The best way to give feedback to a user on their proposed topics is still being explored. Here are some thoughts.

• The Grand Unified Suggestions Topic Message 1 is not particularly intuitive. Feedback is separated from the original post, and the user may be distracted with a lot of other irrelevant feedback on other topics given in the same thread. However, GUST does have the advantage of giving a "bump" on the list new topics for a user to see, and avoids a proliferation of feedback threads.
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• Another approach is to edit comments into the original post. This gives useful feedback without distracting a user with a whole bunch of other pending approvals; but there is no "bump" involved, except by a parallel post in the GUST. A defect is that this feedback can be removed by the user when they make corrections to the original post. GUST feedback remains on record as given.
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• One approach which cannot be used at present is for the moderator to make a followup post in the Proposed New Topics forum. I'd like to raise this as a possible improvement. If the feedback was a followup to the original post, then it would avoid a proliferation of threads, since no extra thread is involved. It would give a bump in the list of messages. Of course, only approved moderators could make such a feedback post. It would allow the feedback comments to remain on record for admins generally. It would allow the distinct "Suggestions" forum to be retired as redundant.

When a new topic is approved, only the original post should be transferred to the new thread. I don't know how difficult that would be to implement. As a stop gap measure, to keep a record of how the system works, I propose that the approval process be as follows:

• The user submits a new topic, from any forum. It gets automatically directed to the "Proposals" forum, where only moderators can post.
• Moderators post feedback as normal replies to the proposal. Feedback may advise the user to edit the original post if necessary.
• Moderator decides that the new thread is read to go.
• A complete copy of the proposal thread is copied to a special "Log of Proposals" forum, which is normally hidden and only exists as a safety measure and to help admins monitor and tune the system.
• All posts except the first post are then deleted from the proposals forum.
• The complete thread, which now has only one post, is moved into a new forum, with no record remaining in the proposals forum. The topic is now ready to go. Added in edit -- this should also "bump" the new thread to the top of the list of new posts.

Thoughts?Cheers -- Sylas[This message has been edited by Sylas, 04-29-2004]

With the caveat that we don't want anything delayed if it requires significant programming changes.(I do remember that I volunteered to help with that , but now I'm in the middle of redecorating for a house sale)If anything can be done quickly I would vote for this.

quote:

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One approach which cannot be used at present is for the moderator to make a followup post in the Proposed New Topics forum. I'd like to raise this as a possible improvement. If the feedback was a followup to the original post, then it would avoid a proliferation of threads, since no extra thread is involved. It would give a bump in the list of messages. Of course, only approved moderators could make such a feedback post. It would allow the feedback comments to remain on record for admins generally. It would allow the distinct "Suggestions" forum to be retired as redundant.

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The above sound mighty good. I think originally I didn't want to clutter the proposed topic with editorial suggestions. Thus the separate "Suggestions to PNT" forum.I will think more about this suggestion. I think there is a good chance of it being implimented tonight (as in U.S. time zones).There are software changes that would help. I don't know what Percy has in the works. Like I've said before, the system I started works (albeit less than well) with the existing software, and can easily be undone.AdminnemooseusAdded by edit: I kind of like using the "copy/move" method for the proposed new topics, rather than the "move then deleted original" method. That way we have a perminent record of the proposed topics, in the "Proposed New Topics" index page. Unfortunately, the "copy/move" method also results in the original getting bumped when the move is made, and thus extra clutter in the "All Topics" page. Pehaps Percy could set up a way to preserve the originals without them getting bumped.The more practical reason for now showing the bumped closed proposed topics, is that it shows the system in action. Lacking much other guidance to where to find the "Proposed New Topics" "Start a New Topic" button, these bumped topics also provide additional places to find that "Start a New Topic" button.[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 04-30-2004]

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WHERE TO GO TO START A NEW TOPIC (For other than "Welcome, Visitors!", "Suggestions and Questions", "Practice Makes Perfect", and "Short Subjects")Comments on moderation procedures? - Go to
Change in Moderation?
or
too fast closure of threads

This proposal is deliberately aiming for ease of implementation. I've made some more comments in the admin forum as well, on speculations about implementation details, but this thread has the more complete picture of how it should appear to users.Cheers -- Sylas