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 Administrative / General / 5031
5030  |  5032
Subject: 
Re: Cleaning up the main homepage
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.admin.general
Date: 
Thu, 9 Mar 2000 12:29:20 GMT
Reply-To: 
LPIENIAZEK@saynotospamNOVERA.COM
Viewed: 
564 times
  
I think moving off-topic and admin was the right thing to do (can you
have an alternate version of the main page, not the default, that has
them as well, or is that too much code)

However I question moving market.auction if market.bst wasn't moved, and
I question moving .jambalaya as that one is all about fun and community,
or is supposed to. I just don't think that the anti auction bias ought
to show through that clearly.

I support not having misplaced posts but that doesn't mean I see
.auction as a second class citizen. (although admin, as a governmental
function, IS. government MUST stay in its proper subservient place or
it's too big)

Todd Lehman wrote:

All,

I've been up most of the night tonight recoding and retesting the code on
the server which displays lists of messages, in particular the root home
page <http://www.lugnet.com/>, which gives a top-level overview of current
activity in the system.

Recent off-topic (non-LEGO) debates in .off-topic.debate and one of the
.admin groups have really begun to wear on a number of people.  (In fact,
one person left in utter despair this week.)  This needs fixing fast, or
we'll lose more people.

It was always the intention of the homepage to show a quick summary of recent
activity in the system, but it was never the intention for "icky" stuff to
choke out the "fun" stuff.  In the past, the "icky" stuff was easier to
ignore, but as we grow, the "icky" stuff tends to stand out more, because
there are more people around fanning the flames.

Off-topic debates and administravia of certain types also tend to generate a
lot of rapid replies -- often blizzards of posts.  Naturally, these can
really overwhelm or scare away people who come here to get a break from the
real world and who just want to enjoy some good old-fashioned LEGO discussions.

Thus, to lessen the noise levels on the root homepage, the server now "hides"
messages appearing in the following parts of the newsgroup tree:

   lugnet.admin.*
   lugnet.market.auction
   lugnet.market.jambalaya
   lugnet.off-topic.*

(This isn't perfect, and the list may need a bit of adjustment up or down,
but I think it's a good starting point  And actually, I wish this had been
in place since day one.  I hope many people haven't been scared away because
of this flaw.)

The main homepage and subsequent pages via the "more" links are the only
places where these groups are hidden from the display.  You can still see
the groups in all their glory by clicking into them using the links in the
light blue band at the top, or by using the Traffic Report page:

   http://www.lugnet.com/news/traffic/

Additionally, when an article in a list is hidden, it tells you how many
articles in hid and in which groups (with links).  Just in case you want to
check it out.  For example,

   (Not shown are 3 messages from lugnet.off-topic.test, lugnet.admin.general,
   lugnet.market.jambalaya)

While this change probably comes as a "good thing" to most web-interface
users, I realize that it may also come as a "bummer" to some people (power
users, or those who want to read everything as soon as it appears) in that
it makes them work a bit harder to uncover every single last message.  I'm
sorry for that, and I hope at some future point to have a completely different
and more customizable solution in place, but for now, this seems like the
right thing to do.  It's the lesser of two evils.

Someone said it pretty well the other day...I can't remember the exact quote
but it went something like this:

  "It really bummed me out when I went to the lugnet homepage and _all four_
   of the latest messages were the subject line about this stupid religious
   debate.  I don't care if my god can whoop your god.  Can we get back to
   talking about LEGO?"

The religious debate messages _were_ properly all placed in the .off-topic.
debate group, but they also showed up on the main homepage.  Although the
main homepage wasn't designed as a newsreader, that's how people use it.
This change is for those people.

Additional background:

   http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=4812
   http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=4814
   http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=5012
   http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=5019
   http://www.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=4449
   http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=4817
   http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=5014

--Todd

[flames/comments/opinions/huzzahs to .admin.general]

--
Larry Pieniazek - lpieniazek@mercator.com - http://my.voyager.net/lar
http://www.mercator.com. Mercator, the e-business transformation company
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to lugnet.

Note: this is a family forum!



Message has 4 Replies:
  Re: Cleaning up the main homepage
 
(...) Ditto. (...) Ditto. (...) Ditto. Julie (...) recent (...) discussions. (...) "hides" (...) lugnet.admin.general, (...) different (...) (24 years ago, 9-Mar-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
  Re: Cleaning up the main homepage
 
Replying to several messages at once... (...) So you want *more* people to post on admin issues? Seems like that would increase the noise, not improve the situation. (...) I'd say "pot, kettle, black" but I'm about as guilty as the next guy... (...) (...) (24 years ago, 9-Mar-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
  Re: Cleaning up the main homepage
 
(...) I know what you mean about .jambalaya posts being about fun and community, but, aren't 95% of the messages just noise like "please add me to the list for this box, thanks"? Actually, no one complained about .auction and .jambalaya directly as (...) (24 years ago, 9-Mar-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
  Re: Cleaning up the main homepage
 
(...) Yes, I agree it's all about fun and sharing, and I'd love to participate this kind of things but it is fun for only for the participants. Anyway, it's not a big issue anyway..:-) Selçuk (24 years ago, 10-Mar-00, to lugnet.admin.general)

Message is in Reply To:
  Cleaning up the main homepage
 
All, I've been up most of the night tonight recoding and retesting the code on the server which displays lists of messages, in particular the root home page (URL), which gives a top-level overview of current activity in the system. Recent off-topic (...) (24 years ago, 9-Mar-00, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.announce)  

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