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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
[snipped some good discussion and examples]
> 0-50 => (blank)
> 51-75 => ° (Highlight)
> 76-100 => °° (Spotlight)
>
> Thomas (and anyone else), does this seem like a positive change to you?
>
> My thinking here is if people can see _exactly_ what they're doing when they
> mark articles, and if they are physically unable to "begrudge" articles, then
> only good can come from this. And if the LUGNET Spotlight page can be
> automated to display things based directly on these recommendations, then
> we'll have a collaboratively generated Spotlight page more representative
> of community opinion, instead of one which is hand-picked by a single person
> (currently the case).
>
> In this sense, the highlights (down with ratings!!!) are sort of like a
> community project -- people working toward a common goal rather than serving
> their personal interests.
This does seem like a positive change. I appreciate not having as many
choices. I personally have not been a victim of getting low ratings on
messages that I cared about, and people have been very positive about
models/MOCs that I have posted. But I think this (highlighting) system is
better.
I do have one concern and that has to do with automatically generating the
Spotlight page based on these recommendations. The concern is that
significantly fewer posts will show up. Reloading the current Spotlight page
indicates that only one post (Brad Justus' Lego Direct post) in the 4-5 days
it shows would warrant being on the page. I think that either the threshold
should be lowered, or that some hand-picking will still have to be done. Or I
suppose you could automate it so that any posts that have received some number
of spotlight recommendations (like 3 or 4) regardless of other recommendations
are listed on the Spotlight.
Just some thoughts,
John Gramley
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In lugnet.admin.general, John Gramley writes:
> [...]
> I do have one concern and that has to do with automatically generating the
> Spotlight page based on these recommendations. The concern is that
> significantly fewer posts will show up. Reloading the current Spotlight
> page indicates that only one post (Brad Justus' Lego Direct post) in the
> 4-5 days it shows would warrant being on the page.
Good point, but keep in mind that it's using old data -- collected under the
old system. Having an explicit "Spotlight" highlighting choice may (ought to)
make this not only easier but clearer for people.
> I think that either the threshold should be lowered, or that some hand-
> picking will still have to be done. Or I suppose you could automate it so
> that any posts that have received some number of spotlight recommendations
> (like 3 or 4) regardless of other recommendations are listed on the
> Spotlight.
Yup, the threshold can be set to 75 or 80 or 60 or whatever it turns out to
need (since everything internally is still 0-100). The "Spotlight" choice
that people pick is just a recommendatoin (taken seriously, of course) but
perhaps the Spotlight page "itself" could have its own opinion (i.e. the
threshold) if it needed to.
Wanna get it 100% automated, if possible. Not sure what to do about the left
column though -- no one has said it's useful or not useful. But IT's what
chews up so much time, and why I need desperately to shed the Spotlight from
my daily/weekly duties.
> Just some thoughts,
Thanks!
--Todd
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> In lugnet.admin.general, John Gramley writes:
> > [...]
> > I do have one concern and that has to do with automatically generating the
> > Spotlight page based on these recommendations. The concern is that
> > significantly fewer posts will show up. Reloading the current Spotlight
> > page indicates that only one post (Brad Justus' Lego Direct post) in the
> > 4-5 days it shows would warrant being on the page.
>
> Good point, but keep in mind that it's using old data -- collected under the
> old system. Having an explicit "Spotlight" highlighting choice may (ought to)
> make this not only easier but clearer for people.
Definitely agree. It sure makes it easier for me to know what to rate and
what the rating specifically.
> > I think that either the threshold should be lowered, or that some hand-
> > picking will still have to be done. Or I suppose you could automate it so
> > that any posts that have received some number of spotlight recommendations
> > (like 3 or 4) regardless of other recommendations are listed on the
> > Spotlight.
>
> Yup, the threshold can be set to 75 or 80 or 60 or whatever it turns out to
> need (since everything internally is still 0-100). The "Spotlight" choice
> that people pick is just a recommendatoin (taken seriously, of course) but
> perhaps the Spotlight page "itself" could have its own opinion (i.e. the
> threshold) if it needed to.
Do you mean something like it could "change its mind" daily to make sure that
some minimun number of posts show up?
> Wanna get it 100% automated, if possible. Not sure what to do about the left
> column though -- no one has said it's useful or not useful. But IT's what
> chews up so much time, and why I need desperately to shed the Spotlight from
> my daily/weekly duties.
I completely understand wanting it automated. Now about that left column...
I have always thought it was uselful but not necessary. Most subject posts
are clear enough to not need the summary. Maybe the usefullness of the
subject line could be considered when trying to decide whether to rate as
spotlight or just highlight.
John Gramley
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In lugnet.admin.general, John Gramley writes:
> > Yup, the threshold can be set to 75 or 80 or 60 or whatever it turns out to
> > need (since everything internally is still 0-100). The "Spotlight" choice
> > that people pick is just a recommendatoin (taken seriously, of course) but
> > perhaps the Spotlight page "itself" could have its own opinion (i.e. the
> > threshold) if it needed to.
>
> Do you mean something like it could "change its mind" daily to make sure that
> some minimun number of posts show up?
Ya, something like that -- I was just being nebulous -- needs some magic
sprinkles applied somewhere to make it work. Maybe letting the user set the
threshold would simply solve it.
> I completely understand wanting it automated. Now about that left column...
> I have always thought it was uselful but not necessary. Most subject posts
> are clear enough to not need the summary.
Ya, the left-column (weblog style) methodology is best broken out separately
into a real weblog (which will be perfectly simple with the member-pages
feature -- that's what the Spotlight actually uses currently).
> Maybe the usefullness of the
> subject line could be considered when trying to decide whether to rate as
> spotlight or just highlight.
Ahh, yes...that might help.
--Todd
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In lugnet.admin.general, John Gramley writes:
> [...]
> > Yup, the threshold can be set to 75 or 80 or 60 or whatever it turns out to
> > need (since everything internally is still 0-100). The "Spotlight" choice
> > that people pick is just a recommendatoin (taken seriously, of course) but
> > perhaps the Spotlight page "itself" could have its own opinion (i.e. the
> > threshold) if it needed to.
>
> Do you mean something like it could "change its mind" daily to make sure
> that some minimun number of posts show up?
No, but one example of the Spotlight page having "its own opinion" might be
if it gave a significantly higher precedence to articles appearing in
newsgroups containing the name "announce", regardless of current human input.
That is, maybe the Spotlight page would consider that, say, two inputs of 100
(i.e., Spotlight) had been input along with all other input. That way, it
would only take 1 other person to mark an announcement as "Spotlight" before
it appeared there (depending on the threshold).
Similarly, it could un-give precedence to anything in a group "off-topic",
which wouldn't prevent .off-topic.* messages from ever appearing, it would
just make them much harder to appear there. But maybe that would already be
taken care of by the fact that no one had marked an .off-topic.* message as
"Spotlight." Maybe only "announce" needs an extra boost. Yeah.
--Todd
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John Gramley wrote:
> > Wanna get it 100% automated, if possible. Not sure what to do about the left
> > column though -- no one has said it's useful or not useful. But IT's what
> > chews up so much time, and why I need desperately to shed the Spotlight from
> > my daily/weekly duties.
>
> I completely understand wanting it automated. Now about that left column...
> I have always thought it was uselful but not necessary. Most subject posts
> are clear enough to not need the summary. Maybe the usefullness of the
> subject line could be considered when trying to decide whether to rate as
> spotlight or just highlight.
I liked the left column since it allowed me to go to the link mentioned
in the article directly, and not have to open the message to get to it.
Perhaps it could be replaced with a "references" column, that will just
extract the Links/Posts/Sets whatever that are mentioned in the
article... not great, since it'll be hard to get the description
correctly, and it'll get extra stuff as well... but it could be useful,
IMO.
:)
Dan
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John Gramley <jkgii@aol.com> wrote:
> I do have one concern and that has to do with automatically generating the
> Spotlight page based on these recommendations. The concern is that
> significantly fewer posts will show up. Reloading the current Spotlight page
The theory (my theory, anyway *grin*) is that the new system will shortly
result in more people participating, so it'll all work out.
One concept would be to have the spotlight threshold be related to the
number of ratings made within the relevant period. This would 1) scale up to
the future when millions of people read lugnet daily and 2) make it possible
to do weekly or monthly spotlights.
--
Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
Boston University Linux ---> http://linux.bu.edu/
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In lugnet.admin.general, Matthew Miller writes:
> John Gramley <jkgii@aol.com> wrote:
> > I do have one concern and that has to do with automatically generating the
> > Spotlight page based on these recommendations. The concern is that
> > significantly fewer posts will show up. Reloading the current Spotlight page
>
> The theory (my theory, anyway *grin*) is that the new system will shortly
> result in more people participating, so it'll all work out.
Agreed. I will be using the new system more than the old.
> One concept would be to have the spotlight threshold be related to the
> number of ratings made within the relevant period. This would 1) scale up to
> the future when millions of people read lugnet daily and 2) make it possible
> to do weekly or monthly spotlights.
I would love to see weekly and monthly spotlights. Great idea!
John Gramley
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In lugnet.admin.general, Matthew Miller writes:
> [...]
> One concept would be to have the spotlight threshold be related to the
> number of ratings made within the relevant period. This would 1) scale up to
> the future when millions of people read lugnet daily and 2) make it possible
> to do weekly or monthly spotlights.
Another alternative might be to let the user give the threshold and time-
period they want at view-time! :-) Someone in a super-hurry who only stops
in once a month might want to set the threshold to 95 and 30 days. Someone
who dips in quick daily for 20 minutes might want a threshold of 75 and 1 1/2
days. And someone who has been away on holiday for a week might want to set
the threshold to 50 and 8 days. Would that be useful?
--Todd
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> Another alternative might be to let the user give the threshold and time-
> period they want at view-time! :-) Someone in a super-hurry who only stops
> in once a month might want to set the threshold to 95 and 30 days. Someone
> who dips in quick daily for 20 minutes might want a threshold of 75 and 1 1/2
> days. And someone who has been away on holiday for a week might want to set
> the threshold to 50 and 8 days. Would that be useful?
Yes, please. But I personally would like to see that as possibly an
additional choice and to always have a "standard" daily spotlight. I know all
I would have to do is innput the right values and I could get it myself, but I
liked the Spotlight page being a kind LUGNET daily journal, a record of sorts.
John Gramley
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In lugnet.admin.general, John Gramley writes:
> In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> > Another alternative might be to let the user give the threshold and time-
> > period they want at view-time! :-) Someone in a super-hurry who only stops
> > in once a month might want to set the threshold to 95 and 30 days. Someone
> > who dips in quick daily for 20 minutes might want a threshold of 75 and
> > 1 1/2 days. And someone who has been away on holiday for a week might want
> > to set the threshold to 50 and 8 days. Would that be useful?
Whoa -- dang -- I didn't realize how easy this would actually be to do when
I wrote that. Here's something sorta like that (it goes back a maximum of
7 days):
http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi
> Yes, please. But I personally would like to see that as possibly an
> additional choice and to always have a "standard" daily spotlight. I know
> all I would have to do is innput the right values and I could get it myself,
OK, try that thingie there above -- just click up that URL. It defaults
(right now) to 1 day and a threshold of 65. Subject to tweaking later,
naturally. Ideally the threshold for Spotlight should be 75-ish, but things
need time to adjust.
> but I liked the Spotlight page being a kind LUGNET daily journal, a record
> of sorts.
ya, it needs to be able to instantly generate a page for any given day, eh?
OK, something for later. This is just proof-of-concept for now, sorta.
Boy, if this works, this will really save time.
--Todd
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> Whoa -- dang -- I didn't realize how easy this would actually be to do when
> I wrote that. Here's something sorta like that (it goes back a maximum of
> 7 days):
>
> http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi
Could you also add a way to limit the groups from which the spotlight pulls
articles? Also, it's very hard to see how articles have been rated with the
little circles. I think it would make the highighting much more useful to the
casual reader if it actually highlighted the newsworthy articles. For example,
the subject field is currently color #E0E0D8, right? What if highlighted
articles were color #FFFFCC and spotlighted articles were #FFFF99 ? Wouldn't
that make it easier to find good posts right away? Or would that throw off the
ratings by making people ignore unrated articles and just increase the ratings
of articles already rated?
--Bram
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> Whoa -- dang -- I didn't realize how easy this would actually be to do when
> I wrote that. Here's something sorta like that (it goes back a maximum of
> 7 days):
>
> http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi
Looks good.
> > Yes, please. But I personally would like to see that as possibly an
> > additional choice and to always have a "standard" daily spotlight. I know
> > all I would have to do is innput the right values and I could get it myself,
>
> OK, try that thingie there above -- just click up that URL. It defaults
> (right now) to 1 day and a threshold of 65. Subject to tweaking later,
> naturally. Ideally the threshold for Spotlight should be 75-ish, but things
> need time to adjust.
I agree. 65 works okay for the last day, but 75-ish will be better long-term
when more people are making recommendations.
> OK, something for later. This is just proof-of-concept for now, sorta.
> Boy, if this works, this will really save time.
This is a really good idea. I agree with Bram that when this is up and
running, the user's skip-filter settings could be applied to the results to
help limit what's displayed. But the settings should also be easily
bypassable so you can pick either one.
John Gramley
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi
Great work :) just curious, how is it sorted? It seems to be sorted by
elapsed time... shouldn't it sort by rating, perhaps with a time formula to
lower the rating?
:)
Dan
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In lugnet.admin.general, Dan Boger writes:
> In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> > http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi
>
> Great work :) just curious, how is it sorted? It seems to be sorted by
> elapsed time...
See text at top of page there.
> shouldn't it sort by rating, perhaps with a time formula to lower the
> rating?
It would quite easy to offer a sorting choice --
a) Newest first ("weblog" style)
b) Most recommended first ("weekly top 40" style)
c) Fuzzy combination of both ("today's top stories" style)
--Todd
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Todd Lehman wrote:
> > > http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi
> >
> > Great work :) just curious, how is it sorted? It seems to be sorted by
> > elapsed time...
>
> See text at top of page there.
doh, yup... it's right there.
> > shouldn't it sort by rating, perhaps with a time formula to lower the
> > rating?
>
> It would quite easy to offer a sorting choice --
>
> a) Newest first ("weblog" style)
> b) Most recommended first ("weekly top 40" style)
> c) Fuzzy combination of both ("today's top stories" style)
mmm... fuzzy :) by day then by rating? nod... even put a separator
between days, somewhat like the current (Static) spotlight...
:)
Dan
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In lugnet.admin.general, Dan Boger writes:
> > > shouldn't it sort by rating, perhaps with a time formula to lower the
> > > rating?
> >
> > It would quite easy to offer a sorting choice --
> >
> > a) Newest first ("weblog" style)
> > b) Most recommended first ("weekly top 40" style)
> > c) Fuzzy combination of both ("today's top stories" style)
>
> mmm... fuzzy :) by day then by rating? nod... even put a separator
> between days, somewhat like the current (Static) spotlight...
Hmm...Maybe, but I meant fuzzy in the fuzzy-logic sense -- take the internal
score (0-100) and convert it to a real number in the unit interval [0,1], then
take the age of the message relative to the specified time period and make
that also a number in the unit interval [0,1]. Then combine those two numbers
(either via addition or multiplication or max-function) and sort by that.
I believe this is the algorithm used by "real" news like, for example, CNN
Headline News. It lets something slightly older but with a higher score
outrank something slightly newer but with a lower score, but also lets
something newer with a high score outrank something older with the same score.
Thus, everything making it into that list starts out at some position and then
either goes up a bit (if more people come along and rate it higher) but always
is guaranteed to drop at some point. Super-duper-duper important news tends
to hover near the top much longer than "only" important news.
--Todd
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Todd Lehman wrote:
> Hmm...Maybe, but I meant fuzzy in the fuzzy-logic sense -- take the internal
> score (0-100) and convert it to a real number in the unit interval [0,1], then
> take the age of the message relative to the specified time period and make
> that also a number in the unit interval [0,1]. Then combine those two numbers
> (either via addition or multiplication or max-function) and sort by that.
> I believe this is the algorithm used by "real" news like, for example, CNN
> Headline News. It lets something slightly older but with a higher score
> outrank something slightly newer but with a lower score, but also lets
> something newer with a high score outrank something older with the same score.
> Thus, everything making it into that list starts out at some position and then
> either goes up a bit (if more people come along and rate it higher) but always
> is guaranteed to drop at some point. Super-duper-duper important news tends
> to hover near the top much longer than "only" important news.
nodnod, that's what I expect from the top40 page, but for the spotlight
(which I do like to think of as day oriented) the age of the message
shouldn't matter that much, cause the set we're ranking is (should be,
IMO) restricted to one day...
:)
Dan
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Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote:
> in once a month might want to set the threshold to 95 and 30 days. Someone
> who dips in quick daily for 20 minutes might want a threshold of 75 and 1 1/2
> days. And someone who has been away on holiday for a week might want to set
> the threshold to 50 and 8 days. Would that be useful?
Definitely. Downside: it requires some comprehension of what the numbers
mean. It'd be nice to have decent auto-calculated day, week, and month
pre-made options.
--
Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
Boston University Linux ---> http://linux.bu.edu/
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In lugnet.admin.general, Matthew Miller writes:
> Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote:
> > in once a month might want to set the threshold to 95 and 30 days. Someone
> > who dips in quick daily for 20 minutes might want a threshold of 75 and
> > 1 1/2 days. And someone who has been away on holiday for a week might want
> > to set the threshold to 50 and 8 days. Would that be useful?
>
> Definitely. Downside: it requires some comprehension of what the numbers
> mean. It'd be nice to have decent auto-calculated day, week, and month
> pre-made options.
Canned queries? Ya sure, definitely, things like this?--
http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi?threshold=60&days=1
http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi?threshold=75&days=4
http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi?threshold=80&days=7
(with meaningful link labels, of course :-)
--Todd
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Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote:
> http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi?threshold=60&days=1
> http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi?threshold=75&days=4
> http://www.lugnet.com/spotlight.cgi?threshold=80&days=7
*grin* Very difficult to implement, I see.
Actually, it'd be cool if it could auto-calculate a reasonable threshold for
a given period. That may not prove to be necessary though.
--
Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
Boston University Linux ---> http://linux.bu.edu/
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