Subject:
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Hide .off-topic & .admin posts from top page?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Thu, 9 Mar 2000 04:43:01 GMT
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Viewed:
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423 times
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In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> > [...]
> > Perhaps the top page should not consolidate the off-topic hierarchy (I'd
> > also suggest it not consolidate the admin hierarchy if this comes into
> > play).
>
> This came up once before. Inasmuch as off-topic threads flare up from time
> to time and clog the overall stream of messages for a few hours, they _are_
> part of the community, and to hide them from the top level of the group
> hierarchy would be to deny that.
I think you're spot-on there, Frank. I received a sobering email from a
community member tonight outlining his discontent and frustration with the
way the tone of things has turned lately. As a user of the web interface
(not really by choice is what I gathered, but that's beside the point), it
was impossible for him not to notice what he felt was an increasing lately
in bickering and ego-politics. (If I can get permission, I'd like to post
a copy of message publicly to encourage discussion to help shake out more
issues. Also, his words say far more than I could hope to summarize
accurately.)
> To hide the .off-topic.* hierarchy from the top page would also be to
> violate the orthogonality of the software design by introducing special
> cases. And while it might solve the problem for people who don't want to
> see those messages, it would create a new problem for people who -do- want
> to see the messages.
Hmm, where was my brain when I wrote that. It's much easier to ask the
people who do want to see the messages to go look for them explicitly than
to ask the scores of people who don't want to see them to try to please just
ignore them. And even if the people who are upset by the noise are in the
minority, the noise isn't really something that should represent what the
site is about. It shouldn't be hidden _completely_, but I don't see what
value it adds to the homepage.
> Again, the purpose of the top-level page is to show _all_ articles coming
> through the system -- for someone who wants to get the latest on everything
> -- not to filter it and show only LEGO stuff or only stuff in English. If,
> say, some day, one of the .loc groups has a massive flurry of several dozen
> non-English messages, that's OK too.
Well, the .loc groups aren't even remotely a problem of that type yet (AFAIK),
so, thinking more, I think what I wrote above is chatter.
> The main page isn't (and wasn't meant as) a newsreader. It's only to show
> what's passing through the system at that moment in time.
That may be, but for better or for worse, people are actually _using_ it as
a newsreader. So I guess, like it or not, it _is_ a newsreader of sorts.
And it's causing problems.
> > Now I see why you are looking at this channel stuff, that would allow
> > people to create a top page which consolidates the areas of interest,
> > and overcome the fact that the lugnet hierarchy can never be perfect.
>
> Ya.
But it's probably not enough all by itself.
--Todd
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Gods Monopoly
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| (...) This came up once before. Inasmuch as off-topic threads flare up from time to time and clog the overall stream of messages for a few hours, they _are_ part of the community, and to hide them from the top level of the group hierarchy would be (...) (25 years ago, 4-Mar-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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