Shouldn't PD be a "Content Site" by now and not just a forum?
discuss.
Yes.
But coming up with content is hard, and it's much easier to talk about drugs yet again, or bitch about X story from the headlines. Dong the latter will get you attention and discussion, doing the former will get you ignored.
All about incentives.
Quote from: v3x on June 27, 2012, 11:13:13 PM
Shouldn't PD be a "Content Site" by now and not just a forum?
discuss.
Edit: assuming content delivery system.
It's true that sites that allow for quick publishing to reddit/facebook/etc tend to attract more attention, I also think part of the downturn in new members is party that people don't want to use the slower forum medium any more.
Quote from: Faust on June 27, 2012, 11:18:26 PM
Quote from: v3x on June 27, 2012, 11:13:13 PM
Shouldn't PD be a "Content Site" by now and not just a forum?
discuss.
Edit: assuming content delivery system.
It's true that sites that allow for quick publishing to reddit/facebook/etc tend to attract more attention, I also think part of the downturn in new members is party that people don't want to use the slower forum medium any more.
I love the forum medium. It's a lot easier to keep track of things in a forum than in the "unrelenting stream of bullshit" medium used by facebook etc.
But when I fall asleep at night and dream of the world as I wish it was, PD is more of a discordian-ideals-in-practice site, which looks a lot like a News site, except anyone can post headlines, and comments take a back seat to the OP.
And there are ads for hentai all over the place, which I assume is a product of my subconscious, and we don't need to go into that.
Quote from: v3x on June 27, 2012, 11:13:13 PM
Shouldn't PD be a "Content Site" by now and not just a forum?
discuss.
:apple:
Quote from: v3x on June 27, 2012, 11:23:01 PM
Quote from: Faust on June 27, 2012, 11:18:26 PM
Quote from: v3x on June 27, 2012, 11:13:13 PM
Shouldn't PD be a "Content Site" by now and not just a forum?
discuss.
Edit: assuming content delivery system.
It's true that sites that allow for quick publishing to reddit/facebook/etc tend to attract more attention, I also think part of the downturn in new members is party that people don't want to use the slower forum medium any more.
I love the forum medium. It's a lot easier to keep track of things in a forum than in the "unrelenting stream of bullshit" medium used by facebook etc.
But when I fall asleep at night and dream of the world as I wish it was, PD is more of a discordian-ideals-in-practice site, which looks a lot like a News site, except anyone can post headlines, and comments take a back seat to the OP.
And there are ads for hentai all over the place, which I assume is a product of my subconscious, and we don't need to go into that.
Any kind of rant thread starts with a strong OP and has comments taking a back seat
A dialogue is the current backbone of the site, but done so though a single channel delivery system makes it more difficult for two or more different conversations to take place, dendrite comment systems are nicer in that regards, the closest we can achieve to match that would be split threads all over the place.
Quote from: Faust on June 27, 2012, 11:32:00 PM
Quote from: v3x on June 27, 2012, 11:23:01 PM
Quote from: Faust on June 27, 2012, 11:18:26 PM
Quote from: v3x on June 27, 2012, 11:13:13 PM
Shouldn't PD be a "Content Site" by now and not just a forum?
discuss.
Edit: assuming content delivery system.
It's true that sites that allow for quick publishing to reddit/facebook/etc tend to attract more attention, I also think part of the downturn in new members is party that people don't want to use the slower forum medium any more.
I love the forum medium. It's a lot easier to keep track of things in a forum than in the "unrelenting stream of bullshit" medium used by facebook etc.
But when I fall asleep at night and dream of the world as I wish it was, PD is more of a discordian-ideals-in-practice site, which looks a lot like a News site, except anyone can post headlines, and comments take a back seat to the OP.
And there are ads for hentai all over the place, which I assume is a product of my subconscious, and we don't need to go into that.
Any kind of rant thread starts with a strong OP and has comments taking a back seat
A dialogue is the current backbone of the site, but done so though a single channel delivery system makes it more difficult for two or more different conversations to take place, dendrite comment systems are nicer in that regards, the closest we can achieve to match that would be split threads all over the place.
Yes, that's how the dynamic works, but the visual appearance of a flat forum format doesn't really support that dynamic. I would think, ideally, that PD would present these "threads" as a central article and visually present comments as "background" information.
On the other hand, there are are threads which aren't really "rant-centric," where the forum dynamic works better. AND, there are "content" threads where the OP poses a question and there are multiple instances of 'content' developed in the ensuing thread.
I want to do some more yoochoob stuff since the first ones proved addictive. More varied content would be all kinds of superduper
Quote from: Placid Dingo on June 28, 2012, 12:04:37 AM
I want to do some more yoochoob stuff since the first ones proved addictive. More varied content would be all kinds of superduper
I want to do a radio call-in show. Like Dave Ramsey, except callers receive the Horrible Troof instead of sound financial advice.
Actualy if Suu's radio show had recorded podcasts (around 10-20 min) I'd listen the fuck out of them. Same with Vex.
Yes a lot of us would listen to that. Unfortunately that is just preaching to the choir. We need to befuck the masses with our shit.
Failwhale (IM collection) was an attempt to do that. My focus (which I still like as a strategy) was to focus on work by Discordians which didn't explicitly emphasize discordia. I think that tone could be effective in other media.
I could see the value in switching to an articles-with-comments format for rants, etc. In fact, I think that's kind of a fantastic idea. I'd like to see us also retain the forum for other chitchat, but the articles format makes more sense for a lot of the rants, analyses, etc that tend to sink into obscurity on the forum.
Quote from: Faust on June 27, 2012, 11:32:00 PM
A dialogue is the current backbone of the site, but done so though a single channel delivery system makes it more difficult for two or more different conversations to take place, dendrite comment systems are nicer in that regards, the closest we can achieve to match that would be split threads all over the place.
I like comment trees too, although they really need to be easily collapsible and have a smart sorting system. Currently (most) people here avoid thread-jacking with dumb remarks out of politeness with regard to the "more contentful" discussion. With tree-threads there's no need for that because everybody gets to chat in the part of the discussion they enjoy.
However some dumb punning subthread can get really huge, and depending on how the branches of a thread are sorted, it might float to the top, overshadowing a smaller, quieter, but possibly also more intelligent discussion. Simple voting systems when calibrated correctly do a really good job at fixing this, while still keeping the "view" of a thread the same for every viewer--but I'm afraid voting points would just lead to drama on PD, though they also work really well if you don't show the numbers, but use them for sorting
only.
Anyway, the only way I'd see tree comments happen, is if we took on a whole different forum software.
---
Question, v3x, what does a "content site" mean? I'm not at all sure what it'd look like?
I wanna get a bunch of sick people together and make a malcontent site!
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 28, 2012, 04:34:44 PM
Quote from: Faust on June 27, 2012, 11:32:00 PM
A dialogue is the current backbone of the site, but done so though a single channel delivery system makes it more difficult for two or more different conversations to take place, dendrite comment systems are nicer in that regards, the closest we can achieve to match that would be split threads all over the place.
I like comment trees too, although they really need to be easily collapsible and have a smart sorting system. Currently (most) people here avoid thread-jacking with dumb remarks out of politeness with regard to the "more contentful" discussion. With tree-threads there's no need for that because everybody gets to chat in the part of the discussion they enjoy. However some dumb punning subthread can get really huge, and depending on how the branches of a thread are sorted, it might float to the top, overshadowing a smaller, quieter, but possibly also more intelligent discussion. Simple voting systems when calibrated correctly do a really good job at fixing this, while still keeping the "view" of a thread the same for every viewer--but I'm afraid voting points would just lead to drama on PD, though they also work really well if you don't show the numbers, but use them for sorting only.
Anyway, the only way I'd see tree comments happen, is if we took on a whole different forum software.
---
Question, v3x, what does a "content site" mean? I'm not at all sure what it'd look like?
I would imagine keeping the forum as is, but diverting the front page on the PD domain from "here's a short list of some static content but mainly a link to the forum," it could be similar to a news site where current events (not news necessarily, just organized that way) are presented. Similar to Cracked or The Onion, or FOX NEWS for that matter.
So basically some functionality that allows a post to be "upgraded" to a more static article, more prominently linked, with the original author having the ability to still edit or even retract it, preferably urging said author to add some sort of CC copyright notice if they hadn't already.
Question remains, who's to decide what posts get upgraded? If everyone can just do it to their own posts it'll get a mess real soon, but if there's going to be some sort of moderator they'd need a bit of dedication to curating content that doesn't stop after the first few weeks.
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 01, 2012, 02:52:49 PM
So basically some functionality that allows a post to be "upgraded" to a more static article, more prominently linked, with the original author having the ability to still edit or even retract it, preferably urging said author to add some sort of CC copyright notice if they hadn't already.
Question remains, who's to decide what posts get upgraded? If everyone can just do it to their own posts it'll get a mess real soon, but if there's going to be some sort of moderator they'd need a bit of dedication to curating content that doesn't stop after the first few weeks.
What about some sort of system for upvoting/promoting posts, and if enough people upvote a post it gets promoted to the front page?
Man, I think that kind of site format would be incredibly awesome. With interesting content rotating on the front page, that would be pretty hot. We have a lot of high-quality writers/thinkers here, and a lot of the good stuff is just sort of getting lost... this would be a way to put it to good use and revive that antiquated front page into something both interesting and useful.
I'm getting kind of moist just at the idea of it. Do you think this is something that could actually happen?
Depends on its implemented system. If its manually pushed by mods of admins it's a few hours work. If its an automated system using upvotes. That could be a big job. If it was just cross posting to a Wordpress or other cms front page that could be pretty simple too.
Quote from: Faust on July 01, 2012, 04:54:39 PM
Depends on its implemented system. If its manually pushed by mods of admins it's a few hours work. If its an automated system using upvotes. That could be a big job. If it was just cross posting to a Wordpress or other cms front page that could be pretty simple too.
What if it started out being manually pushed? People could nominate posts by reporting them or crossposting them in a nomination thread, perhaps. Wordpress seems like a great way to start.
Quote from: PROFOUNDLY RETARDED CHARLIE MANSON on July 01, 2012, 04:39:23 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 01, 2012, 02:52:49 PM
So basically some functionality that allows a post to be "upgraded" to a more static article, more prominently linked, with the original author having the ability to still edit or even retract it, preferably urging said author to add some sort of CC copyright notice if they hadn't already.
Question remains, who's to decide what posts get upgraded? If everyone can just do it to their own posts it'll get a mess real soon, but if there's going to be some sort of moderator they'd need a bit of dedication to curating content that doesn't stop after the first few weeks.
What about some sort of system for upvoting/promoting posts, and if enough people upvote a post it gets promoted to the front page?
Man, I think that kind of site format would be incredibly awesome. With interesting content rotating on the front page, that would be pretty hot. We have a lot of high-quality writers/thinkers here, and a lot of the good stuff is just sort of getting lost... this would be a way to put it to good use and revive that antiquated front page into something both interesting and useful.
I'm getting kind of moist just at the idea of it. Do you think this is something that could actually happen?
THIS YES THIS.
Original content could be nominated or flagged for publication to the front page somehow (I like the idea of upvoting for this), and maybe a second area where threads are linked based on amount of activity.
I do not like the idea of Wordpress though, unless it can be modified so it doesn't look like "just another wordpress page." Wordpress is basically a streaming blog, and it would just be a long list of threads instead of being presented with multiple "headlines" simultaneously.
That's just the front end you are used to. It's easy to make Wordpress look very nice without too muh work. Especially as we would be hiding it's controls. I'll have a look some evening after work this week and see what kind of premade solutions there are out there.
Quote from: PROFOUNDLY RETARDED CHARLIE MANSON on July 01, 2012, 04:39:23 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 01, 2012, 02:52:49 PM
So basically some functionality that allows a post to be "upgraded" to a more static article, more prominently linked, with the original author having the ability to still edit or even retract it, preferably urging said author to add some sort of CC copyright notice if they hadn't already.
Question remains, who's to decide what posts get upgraded? If everyone can just do it to their own posts it'll get a mess real soon, but if there's going to be some sort of moderator they'd need a bit of dedication to curating content that doesn't stop after the first few weeks.
What about some sort of system for upvoting/promoting posts, and if enough people upvote a post it gets promoted to the front page?
Man, I think that kind of site format would be incredibly awesome. With interesting content rotating on the front page, that would be pretty hot. We have a lot of high-quality writers/thinkers here, and a lot of the good stuff is just sort of getting lost... this would be a way to put it to good use and revive that antiquated front page into something both interesting and useful.
I'm getting kind of moist just at the idea of it. Do you think this is something that could actually happen?
You never used IRR9 (Irreality) did you? It had this exact feature (you could vote in the forums, on personal blogs, and in the galleries).
Squink and peeps made one of the best social networking sites in existence (even compared to those today). Too bad it imploded due to *whatever*.
I really like this idea. I would be willing to help code, with graphics/CSS, etc. I propose we elect a temporary leader to hammer out details and a workplan.
Suggestion:
Instead of electing a leader, we hold a NIXON'S FESTERING CORPSE REVITALIZATION CONTEST
>> WOMP together an awful mockup of how you think the front page should look (just a picture, no functionality or code required. can be sloppy - just get your point across). POST IN THE FREAD. or wherever.
>> WINNER RECEIVES NOTHING.
this would be a "democratic" way to brainstorm that gives us ideas from everyone, without turning off people who don't know how to code (like me). the actual work could be done after we've narrowed down what we actually want the site to be like.
Here's my entry:
(http://i.imgur.com/Y0aZw.jpg?1)
I'm sure some of you are now saying "but Cain, that's exactly what the front page looks like right now."
Yes. It is.
The problem with PD isn't software based, there isn't a software solution. No amount of rearranging deckchairs is going to change the fact that it is people's attitudes that need to change, not our "web 2.0 user drive feedback functionality" bullshit.
If it makes you feel any better, I saved the screenshot in Paint, so it's kinda WOMP.
Quote from: Cain on July 02, 2012, 07:28:44 PM
Here's my entry:
(http://i.imgur.com/Y0aZw.jpg?1)
I'm sure some of you are now saying "but Cain, that's exactly what the front page looks like right now."
Yes. It is.
The problem with PD isn't software based, there isn't a software solution. No amount of rearranging deckchairs is going to change the fact that it is people's attitudes that need to change, not our "web 2.0 user drive feedback functionality" bullshit.
If it makes you feel any better, I saved the screenshot in Paint, so it's kinda WOMP.
I appreciate your jaded and cynical sentiment, but I must disagree. Not because you're not right, because you are right. But I'm not trying to "solve a problem with PD." It's that I think the community at PD realizing a potential that we're not currently realizing.
Also, the creative output of PD is much higher and of better quality, even during Drug Wars, than most places that publish opinion and satire (read: Fox News, The Onion, etc.), and the "bulletin board" format doesn't display that creative output as well as an article-based front-end would. Also I wouldn't suggest replacing the forum at all, because I'd hate to fuck up the vibe we have here.
Semantics.
Enjoy wasting your time to bring about a better method to put articles no-one will read on the front page.
Well, it can't hurt to try, though I am sharing Cain's pessimism.
(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1715856/pd-spagup.png)
Quote from: v3x on July 02, 2012, 07:11:02 PM
Suggestion:
Instead of electing a leader, we hold a NIXON'S FESTERING CORPSE REVITALIZATION CONTEST
>> WOMP together an awful mockup of how you think the front page should look (just a picture, no functionality or code required. can be sloppy - just get your point across). POST IN THE FREAD. or wherever.
>> WINNER RECEIVES NOTHING.
this would be a "democratic" way to brainstorm that gives us ideas from everyone, without turning off people who don't know how to code (like me). the actual work could be done after we've narrowed down what we actually want the site to be like.
FACEBOOK PARTY!!!
Quote from: Cain on July 02, 2012, 07:44:49 PM
Semantics.
Enjoy wasting your time to bring about a better method to put articles no-one will read on the front page.
The only evidence I need to indicate that people would be interested in those articles is the monthly PD top searches.
OK
i feel that despite my forumtardedness, i have a grasp on the notion being suggested here. if we're choosing topics to appear on the main page feed, the search topics would possibly at least, be more directly associated to relevant board material, i would assume.
VISITORS
would absolutely, in my opinion, be scrolling through this material, because it is simply, predominantly presented when one is immediately viewing the board.
THE FORUM
would possibly be more active with individuals actually tuned into what really is happening in a relevant way, on the board, ...maybe?
What we need to do is install Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, phpBB, MediaWiki and some other shit, Tumblr and Twitter it up, and feed all of them our content, then randomly select which content management system each user will experience the website through.
Quote from: Signor Paesior on July 03, 2012, 07:08:24 AM
What we need to do is install Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, phpBB, MediaWiki and some other shit, Tumblr and Twitter it up, and feed all of them our content, then randomly select which content management system each user will experience the website through.
A lot of work. If it's going to be that scale I'd have to charge for my time.
Quote from: PROFOUNDLY RETARDED CHARLIE MANSON on July 01, 2012, 04:39:23 PMWhat about some sort of system for upvoting/promoting posts, and if enough people upvote a post it gets promoted to the front page?
Man, I think that kind of site format would be incredibly awesome. With interesting content rotating on the front page, that would be pretty hot. We have a lot of high-quality writers/thinkers here, and a lot of the good stuff is just sort of getting lost... this would be a way to put it to good use and revive that antiquated front page into something both interesting and useful.
I'm getting kind of moist just at the idea of it. Do you think this is something that could actually happen?
Yes! Something like that would probably be the most straightforward and obvious way to do it. And that's a good thing.
Glad you suggest it because I usually come up with too complex things. Also I wasn't sure if voting would push hot buttons or not (but I believe that's just karma-style voting).
It needs to be the simplest thing that could possibly do the trick because then, even if Cain turns out to be right, it's not too much wasted effort.
Still,
Quote from: CainThe problem with PD isn't software based, there isn't a software solution. No amount of rearranging deckchairs is going to change the fact that it is people's attitudes that need to change, not our "web 2.0 user drive feedback functionality" bullshit.
I both agree and disagree. Yes it's fundamentally an attitude problem. And no, software isn't going to solve it
directly, and especially not "web 2.0 user feedback bullshit", whatever that would be.
However, I believe one of the most effective ways to change such an attitude is by broadcasting the type of attitude/content/discussion we would like to see. Like attracts like.
Because directly trying to change the attitudes of individual members of PD is not going to work. It's in fact worse than "probably a bad idea".
But changing the attitude of the
community as a whole is a different thing. New people that join because they read our best shit and love it, intrinsically will have a different attitude than new people that join because they see our current most recent discussions and bulshitting and join regardless, or new people that join because their friends said they should.
I believe EOT is saying the same thing with "individuals tuned in".
And as I said I do believe that it is fundamentally an attitude problem, so if you can come up with better ways to change it, there's no reason why not to attack the problem from multiple angles. Flat out telling people on PD they should change their attitudes is one approach that I'm a bit cynical about, though--especially in the long run.
And even if that fails there seem to be a lot of people that would love to see our best shit organised in a better way if only to save them from drowning in an ocean of lesser shit, to archive and keep.
Quote from: Signor Paesior on July 03, 2012, 07:08:24 AMWhat we need to do is install Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, phpBB, MediaWiki and some other shit, Tumblr and Twitter it up, and feed all of them our content, then randomly select which content management system each user will experience the website through.
Ooh yes and A/B testing the fuck out of it!
Well, what are you waiting for, set up a Kickstarter, get a co-founder, make a launch partier and do a round of angel investors! And by "doing" I mean "receiving".
Let's open up a can of brogrammers!
(Faust I believe Signor Paesior was taking the figurative piss)
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 03, 2012, 10:13:59 AM
(Faust I believe Signor Paesior was taking the figurative piss)
I actually think its a good system, if it was designed to be scalable to plug into whatever the new fad website is it would allow very swift and automated cross site publishing. There are existing systems out there that do that but they cost a fortune.
...not letting this topic fall off the first page and languish forever (yet)
another AMAZING SUGGESTION: rewire the Newsfeed so each page-load displays a random snippet in a predictable "old-fashioned TOP SECRET stamp" style somewhere on the page. AND, since discordians are fucking difficult to get along with we should offer various themes for the site, so people can pretend they're visiting the type of site they wish PD was: "click here to pretend PD is a TECHNOLOGY SITE!" and BANG the background goes all brushed-metal and there are blinky lights; or "click here to pretend PD is a RELIGION SITE!" and angels and shit come flying out of nowhere and strum harps.
feel free to ignore these.
Trip mentioned Karma-style voting... does SMF have that capability, but for posts rather than posters? That seems like a super-easy way to manage it.
I am really excited at the idea that this could actually happen, if for no other reason that then when people ask me what Discordianism is all about, I could point them to the front page and say "check this out and read a few of the articles", and they would come away with a decent idea of what Discordianism is about NOW, and not what it was about 50 years ago. It would also make the front page something like what 23ae was supposed to be, but all of our content would come from within, from posts and conversations that are already happening on a regular basis.
There is a karma system in the back end. But it does seem to be posters not posts. It still comes back to automating something to push content to the front page. I'd say in the first run it will be manual. When people think something is good it will get cross posted to the front page where it will remain for some duration.
The next opening I'll have for free time to work on the site is in two weeks time so I'll see about doing something with this then.
I'm currently working flat out on the end of a project, and writing proposals so I will have continued work after this one ends but there should be some leeway.
Cool!
Quote from: Faust on July 08, 2012, 12:01:02 AM
There is a karma system in the back end. But it does seem to be posters not posts. It still comes back to automating something to push content to the front page. I'd say in the first run it will be manual. When people think something is good it will get cross posted to the front page where it will remain for some duration.
The next opening I'll have for free time to work on the site is in two weeks time so I'll see about doing something with this then.
I'm currently working flat out on the end of a project, and writing proposals so I will have continued work after this one ends but there should be some leeway.
Those little free phpbb forums have something called a "portal" that shows parts of recent content, it's not the regular front page, it's something separate. Would it be hard to set that up?
I've been playing with the PD.com RSS feed in a Concept Mapping application that can query OpenCalais and AlchemyAPI for meta-data tags.
(http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n262/telarus/PDdotComRSS_070812.png)
Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on July 08, 2012, 01:37:59 AM
Quote from: Faust on July 08, 2012, 12:01:02 AM
There is a karma system in the back end. But it does seem to be posters not posts. It still comes back to automating something to push content to the front page. I'd say in the first run it will be manual. When people think something is good it will get cross posted to the front page where it will remain for some duration.
The next opening I'll have for free time to work on the site is in two weeks time so I'll see about doing something with this then.
I'm currently working flat out on the end of a project, and writing proposals so I will have continued work after this one ends but there should be some leeway.
Those little free phpbb forums have something called a "portal" that shows parts of recent content, it's not the regular front page, it's something separate. Would it be hard to set that up?
My experiences with phpbb have not been great. It allows a lot of modifications but is terribly unstable.
Quote from: Telarus on July 08, 2012, 10:19:34 AM
I've been playing with the PD.com RSS feed in a Concept Mapping application that can query OpenCalais and AlchemyAPI for meta-data tags.
(http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n262/telarus/PDdotComRSS_070812.png)
This is an interesting way of going about it. I've never used the sites rss feed, that brings up EVERY new thread in a specific forum doesn't it? Have you found a way to tailor it to pick out specific threads?
I think this is a great idea, and that the manual-first approach is the smartest way to go. And I agree with Trip about changing attitudes etc..
I have some experience with WordPress... It's a very easy, user-friendly system to use, though a bit bulky. You can customize it to an amazing degree using pre-packaged themes and plug-ins, but you do need to admin it smartly because it's a bit easy to break when you do things outside the user-friendly UI (in particular, whenever an update breaks permissions). And there are plenty of themes that make it look like a news site, seriously, probably hundreds, which can be further customized either through a UI or using CSS.
Basically, with WordPress you could have the new homepage up, running, and looking like you want it to, with maybe five hours' work. An hour's work if you don't customize it much except for installing a theme, and dozens of hours if you want to make everything perfect. Seems to me like setting up a slightly customized WP site and then giving a few people editor powaz there for posting nominated posts would be a really easy way to get it going and see how it works out. (Editors can add and edit posts and pages but can't fiddle with the site's settings, iirc. There is also an author category which only lets you add posts and edit your own posts, and maybe edit comments on your own posts. And there's a contributor category which is even more limited, iirc.)
Quote from: PROFOUNDLY RETARDED CHARLIE MANSON on June 28, 2012, 04:28:40 PM
I could see the value in switching to an articles-with-comments format for rants, etc. In fact, I think that's kind of a fantastic idea. I'd like to see us also retain the forum for other chitchat, but the articles format makes more sense for a lot of the rants, analyses, etc that tend to sink into obscurity on the forum.
This.
I like this.
Quote from: Faust on July 08, 2012, 10:40:45 AM
This is an interesting way of going about it. I've never used the sites rss feed, that brings up EVERY new thread in a specific forum doesn't it? Have you found a way to tailor it to pick out specific threads?
The main site feed seems to post the last 5 posts. I'm sure that could be configured. Haven't checked out the sub-forum feeds, tho.
I'm learning Ontologies/Semantic Web stuff.... since most of the crawlers out there are specifically setup to read meta-data inserted throughout the page (
and all the major news services use this to tag all of a stories' content automatically on the first pass). You know those sites which auto-highlight certain words and then link them to product pages ? Yeah, that's a horriblly intrusive use of the Semantic Web stuff. But Google, etc, all use the semantic tags that aren't seen by human readers to filter/sort/serve search results. Which is an awesome (behind the scenes) use of the Ontologies, etc. [I'm sure Faust is somewhat familiar with this, just in case anyone else wondered what I was going on about...]
If we do setup a feed site (and I like the ideas here), where we nominate content to post, then I can help tag it all appropriately so we can get more search engine traffic.
FWIW, WordPress uses tags both for internal searchability and for crawlers (and there are plugins to make it even more crawler-friendly) and tags are ridiculously easy to use there. And there's a plugin called Zemanta (available for other systems as well afaik) which suggests tags based on what tags are common and found in the wording of the post.
I get these emails from wordpress.com about new themes, and here's one that could be pretty useful for making a magazine-style homepage:
http://thecolumnistdemo.wordpress.com/
Ooooh. I like that template. Lots of good layout space and good image use.
Yeah, I like it too!
I had played around with something that tried to mesh articles and forums together. Basically the idea was that everything was in a forum, but if a specific flag was set on an OP, it became an "Article" in the front end CMS. Comments to the article were simply the thread discussions.
If an OP is written to stand on its own (Poetry, Essay, Rant etc) it gets flagged as an article. If its just a kickoff for a discussion it lives in the forum only. So if you looked at the site through the 'forum' view it was just as it is today. If you looked at the site through the CMS view, you saw the OP's that had been flagged as articles with a link to the thread itself labeled "Discuss Here" or something obvious.
In that case, we'd only need to create a front end view which selected thread OP's with the article flag set and some CSS for formatting.
I think... I think... it could be done pretty easily.
ETA:
Even more simple...
We create a Forum specifically for 'articles'. Then the "magazine" view simply pulls the OP's from that specific forum/subforums, presents them as 'articles' with links to the thread for discussion. I'm pretty sure this could be hacked together without much work.
As for how it would affect the site psychology... I think it would definitely change things. Content that is meant for large scale consumption would be highly visible... Roger's rants, Cain's Political discussions etc all stand on their own... discussion of them is great, but there's never gonna be as much discussion on those thread as there is on a thread about drugs, daily life, random Fox News BS etc. In this format, their content would stay visible rather than drowning in a thousand other discussions. Anyone visiting the 'zine view would see their stuff without digging through all of our chaotic chatter.
Hell, sometimes I think of something I'd like to say on one of their posts, but they've been lost to the thread pile. IF they were available on a 'front end' it would make it much easier to find and discuss even weeks after the OP. It would also open discussion up to people that aren't here all the time, maybe only show up weekly or are around for the first time.
Can one of the admins tell me (via PM is fine) which database/version and schema we're using with SMF? Playing around a bit here...
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on July 20, 2012, 09:46:46 PM
If an OP is written to stand on its own (Poetry, Essay, Rant etc) it gets flagged as an article. If its just a kickoff for a discussion it lives in the forum only. So if you looked at the site through the 'forum' view it was just as it is today. If you looked at the site through the CMS view, you saw the OP's that had been flagged as articles with a link to the thread itself labeled "Discuss Here" or something obvious.
I really like this concept, it would make the integration between the site's two "faces" much more natural. But I am a bit worried that people are too lazy to click "discuss here", then suddenly see the 20 weird comments the spags here have already made, and register and join the discussion. I mean, it's fine if it's more about showcasing quality material than attracting more interaction, but in today's web doing that is kind of weird. Maybe it would be possible to have the area under the article automatically show the comments from the forum, with a special theme/css set-up that makes it looks more like just normal comments under an article, and with some automatic guest log-in for adding anonymous comments? Like basically something that's technically simple, actually doesn't create any parallel system to the forum, but makes it feel like a normal blog/'zine where anyone can comment?
Quote from: Cain on July 02, 2012, 07:28:44 PM
Here's my entry:
(http://i.imgur.com/Y0aZw.jpg?1)
I'm sure some of you are now saying "but Cain, that's exactly what the front page looks like right now."
Yes. It is.
The problem with PD isn't software based, there isn't a software solution. No amount of rearranging deckchairs is going to change the fact that it is people's attitudes that need to change, not our "web 2.0 user drive feedback functionality" bullshit.
If it makes you feel any better, I saved the screenshot in Paint, so it's kinda WOMP.
I claim copyright of richard nixon's festering corpse.
And on another note, did somebody say content?
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on July 20, 2012, 09:46:46 PM
I had played around with something that tried to mesh articles and forums together. Basically the idea was that everything was in a forum, but if a specific flag was set on an OP, it became an "Article" in the front end CMS. Comments to the article were simply the thread discussions.
If an OP is written to stand on its own (Poetry, Essay, Rant etc) it gets flagged as an article. If its just a kickoff for a discussion it lives in the forum only. So if you looked at the site through the 'forum' view it was just as it is today. If you looked at the site through the CMS view, you saw the OP's that had been flagged as articles with a link to the thread itself labeled "Discuss Here" or something obvious.
In that case, we'd only need to create a front end view which selected thread OP's with the article flag set and some CSS for formatting.
I think... I think... it could be done pretty easily.
ETA:
Even more simple...
We create a Forum specifically for 'articles'. Then the "magazine" view simply pulls the OP's from that specific forum/subforums, presents them as 'articles' with links to the thread for discussion. I'm pretty sure this could be hacked together without much work.
As for how it would affect the site psychology... I think it would definitely change things. Content that is meant for large scale consumption would be highly visible... Roger's rants, Cain's Political discussions etc all stand on their own... discussion of them is great, but there's never gonna be as much discussion on those thread as there is on a thread about drugs, daily life, random Fox News BS etc. In this format, their content would stay visible rather than drowning in a thousand other discussions. Anyone visiting the 'zine view would see their stuff without digging through all of our chaotic chatter.
Hell, sometimes I think of something I'd like to say on one of their posts, but they've been lost to the thread pile. IF they were available on a 'front end' it would make it much easier to find and discuss even weeks after the OP. It would also open discussion up to people that aren't here all the time, maybe only show up weekly or are around for the first time.
I really like this idea, and if people have in the past written articles they'd like moved to the articles thread, they can either repost them or ask a mod to move them.
Requiring registration to comment is very common these days, so I don't think that would be a deterrent for people who wanted to join the discussion.
SO LET'S DO IT ALREADY! GOSH!
I've installed a local environment that matches the PD.com set up.
I have found the following:
We can create a "View" over the tables in SMF which gives us back a specific set of information matching what we want. We can create a php script (or a more complex PHP framework using Model/View/Controller) to query the view and return the Title, Author, Content as well as the Board Name (to be used as a Category on the front end) and the topic ID which is used to link the article to the thread within SMF.
So the basic function works right now on my system... its ugly, because I'm not doing any kind of template, but it works. It spits out:
Title
Author
Content
Title
Author
Content
etc.
This weekend I'm gonna try to build this out in a MVC framework and maybe create some kind of basic template for the content.
I love you guys.
I's got PM from Rat and his idea seems solid. Hey and since the Young Researchers are closed over summer holidays for the next 2-3 weeks I might actually have time to work on this too :)
Alternatively,
Quote from: Telarus on July 08, 2012, 10:19:34 AM(http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n262/telarus/PDdotComRSS_070812.png)
Telarus, how do we make it so the front page looks like THAT?
:)
So thinking about basic front end requirements:
Display all articles, based on DATE (most recent first), include pagination.
Display articles only from a specific board (category).
Display articles only from a specific author.
Basic search on article content.
Content should include:
Category, Title, Author, Content, link to discussion
Am I missing anything?
I think that's a good place to start. The only thing I'd add to that is that not all of our content is strictly "essay form," and we'll need an attractive and efficient way to display images and PDF content as well. But that'll probably come later and there's no need to complicate your efforts now.
Quote from: v3x on July 30, 2012, 05:44:13 PM
I think that's a good place to start. The only thing I'd add to that is that not all of our content is strictly "essay form," and we'll need an attractive and efficient way to display images and PDF content as well. But that'll probably come later and there's no need to complicate your efforts now.
If the images are embedded in a post, then they should display OK. This will basically take the content of the post, switch the markup from SMF markup to HTML and then make it available to the front end.
The PDF's... we could probably create static links somewhere to make those available on the front.
I've always liked forums that had portals to make context easier to access
Whooo Code Works! Now just need to make the template pretty!!
Yay!
Dude, I would totally be down to help with that. I may have a phone interview later this morning, I'll check back here later today.
It would be great if PD could work like this: http://www.visuwords.com/
That won't get confusing or annoying at all!
Quote from: :regret: on August 02, 2012, 05:50:24 PM
It would be great if PD could work like this: http://www.visuwords.com/
That won't get confusing or annoying at all!
I'm glad you're being sarcastic, because that would actually make me completely give up on coming here altogether.
Maybe we should have a PDCOM 1.0 first.
Just saying.
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 02, 2012, 06:50:17 PM
Maybe we should have a PDCOM 1.0 first.
Just saying.
It's been in beta testing for almost a god damn decade.
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 02, 2012, 06:50:17 PM
Maybe we should have a PDCOM 1.0 first.
Just saying.
:D
We do have... its dysfunctional, but it exists. All this will do is make a blogish front end for all those nice rants, essays, political commentaries etc. If people still don't post, we're no worse off... if they do, it provides a portal with no additional work on the part of the poster.
The worst it can do is display the best of old posts as a blog kinda thing... the best it can do is inspire posts, get some interest from outsiders and highlight some of our kickass writings... all without needing additional interfaces, management etc.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on August 02, 2012, 06:56:44 PM
We do have... its dysfunctional, but it exists.
It's a fucking morgue.
Portal it up all you like. Nobody's going to read it.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on August 02, 2012, 06:56:44 PM
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 02, 2012, 06:50:17 PM
Maybe we should have a PDCOM 1.0 first.
Just saying.
:D
We do have... its dysfunctional, but it exists. All this will do is make a blogish front end for all those nice rants, essays, political commentaries etc. If people still don't post, we're no worse off... if they do, it provides a portal with no additional work on the part of the poster.
The worst it can do is display the best of old posts as a blog kinda thing... the best it can do is inspire posts, get some interest from outsiders and highlight some of our kickass writings... all without needing additional interfaces, management etc.
2cents: I hope it's not in "endless single column" format, or at least it's fairly easy to move beyond that format when we want to.
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 02, 2012, 06:57:42 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on August 02, 2012, 06:56:44 PM
We do have... its dysfunctional, but it exists.
It's a fucking morgue.
Portal it up all you like. Nobody's going to read it.
I will sneak it into my company's online education courses, which are used by like 20% of all school districts in America.
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 02, 2012, 06:57:42 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on August 02, 2012, 06:56:44 PM
We do have... its dysfunctional, but it exists.
It's a fucking morgue.
Portal it up all you like. Nobody's going to read it.
Maybe...
:lulz: (had to say it)
Quote from: v3x on August 02, 2012, 06:58:31 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on August 02, 2012, 06:56:44 PM
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 02, 2012, 06:50:17 PM
Maybe we should have a PDCOM 1.0 first.
Just saying.
:D
We do have... its dysfunctional, but it exists. All this will do is make a blogish front end for all those nice rants, essays, political commentaries etc. If people still don't post, we're no worse off... if they do, it provides a portal with no additional work on the part of the poster.
The worst it can do is display the best of old posts as a blog kinda thing... the best it can do is inspire posts, get some interest from outsiders and highlight some of our kickass writings... all without needing additional interfaces, management etc.
2cents: I hope it's not in "endless single column" format, or at least it's fairly easy to move beyond that format when we want to.
SMF splits things up into "Categories->Boards->Topics->Messages'. We're grabbing content from one Category. We select the Boards as 'Categrories' for the aggregator/blog/portal/thingy. We select authors from the first message in all topics as "Authors". We select the first message in all topics as "Articles"
At this time, the code spits out a menu to select by author, category or the default which is all articles from that board. We can show one or more articles per page with pagination at the bottom < 1 2 3 > kinda thing (as it works right now), or we could split the content across columns... format it in some other new way... whatever we want basically.
The articles are in an indexed array based on a limit (number of articles per page) and a limit start point (page 1,2,3 etc). We can manipulate those in whatever crazy way the template wants to.
The template I threw together for testing has a left menu for authors, right menu for categories and displays two posts per page in the center... but thats cause I was focused on function ;-)
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 02, 2012, 06:57:42 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on August 02, 2012, 06:56:44 PM
We do have... its dysfunctional, but it exists.
It's a fucking morgue.
Portal it up all you like. Nobody's going to read it.
Is there a particular reason why you keep repeating this mantra just about every other day now?
Because I don't know about anybody else but the effect it has on me is that it really really makes me want to contribute
less?
Especially doing it in a thread where people are actually working together on making this site
nicer. Because hey, something that gets people enthusiastic, Rat's been PMing me with all sorts of bits of code (sorry that I reallyhaven't had time yet to join in on it, Rat) and this thing is actually taking off and you know what? Let's take a huge steaming dump of shit on it! Never mind! This thread is now about how PD is dead and everything is futile and people reading and posting about the wrong things or whatever it is.
And it's not even true! I've been reading and replying to all sorts of interesting stuff on PD today and there's a fuckton of interesting threads I still have to read.
As is the other part! "Portaling it up" will put those threads and topics that are not boring or trivial or whatever the hell the problem is with threads about cake or reggae into the spotlight and more people will read them. And I'm not really sure why you claim otherwise, while on the *other* hand you're complaining the reason they apparently don't get read enough because those awful threads about cake are taking all the spotlight (apparently) ... :?
Oh and did I mention, yes I think I mentioned it before, that every time you post something like that it feels like a personal insult and really I wouldn't know in what other way to take it?
Should we maybe make an UNLIMITED "THE BOARD IS DED" REPOSITORY thread?
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 02, 2012, 09:41:45 PM
Should we maybe make an UNLIMITED "THE BOARD IS DED" REPOSITORY thread?
You know, I had a pretty reasoned response until I came to this line.
But instead, I'll just fuck off and let you visit an empty board once a month or whatever it is.
Later, asshole.
It would be cool if there was a way to run PD through Flipboard to have that kind of layout.
GD,
Loves him the Flipboard.
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 02, 2012, 11:50:11 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 02, 2012, 09:41:45 PM
Should we maybe make an UNLIMITED "THE BOARD IS DED" REPOSITORY thread?
You know, I had a pretty reasoned response until I came to this line.
But instead, I'll just fuck off and let you visit an empty board once a month or whatever it is.
Later, asshole.
Playing around with code gives us a fun project to do which gives us the same pleasure as it does you to write a rant.
Rat has put a lot of work into this over the last couple of weeks, It is very disheartening to do that and then be told there is no worth in it.
Quote from: Faust on August 03, 2012, 01:48:01 PM
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 02, 2012, 11:50:11 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 02, 2012, 09:41:45 PM
Should we maybe make an UNLIMITED "THE BOARD IS DED" REPOSITORY thread?
You know, I had a pretty reasoned response until I came to this line.
But instead, I'll just fuck off and let you visit an empty board once a month or whatever it is.
Later, asshole.
Playing around with code gives us a fun project to do which gives us the same pleasure as it does you to write a rant.
Rat has put a lot of work into this over the last couple of weeks, It is very disheartening to do that and then be told there is no worth in it.
1. I'm a bad person.
2. Rat's a big boy. He'll be fine. I never at any point said to stop doing it or not do it.
3. It is also disheartening to puke out a rant, and then get 20-50 views and 3 comments. But I continue, and Rat is no less a rock n roller than I am.
Though it's not an ideal situation, I think it would be preferrable for 50 people to read it and not respond (for whatever reason (and there are many, as I'm sure we'll find out downthread)), then for no one to read it at all.
And I think Rat's idea would ensure that the rant wouldn't sink to the bottom of the board.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on August 03, 2012, 02:27:02 PM
Though it's not an ideal situation, I think it would be preferrable for 50 people to read it and not respond (for whatever reason (and there are many, as I'm sure we'll find out downthread)), then for no one to read it at all.
And I think Rat's idea would ensure that the rant wouldn't sink to the bottom of the board.
I am not arguing against Rat's idea, not in the slightest.
I know, I was more thinking along the lines of, "hey, someone's reading it, at least".
It would really suck if I wrote a rant with less than five views. To have 50 people read it, regardless of comment, is pretty good for a board population of this size, I'd say.
Actually, I think Roger's main point is right. If no one is producing cool shit, then it doesn't matter what sort of interface we create. We have a 'people' problem, not a 'technical' one and its difficult, if not impossible, to solve people problems with technology.
Mostly, I got a bit of a bug about the idea and wanted to see if I could make it work, regardless of its value to the future of PD.com. Now that it works, once we make it pretty and upload it, I'd like to think it will accomplish one good thing. It will take the "Best of" rants, essays etc and make them easily available to anyone who happens to hit our portal/blog/aggregator thingy. Maybe the board will die, but even so, it would be leaving behind a legacy of awesome content. At the very least, I hope this will provide a useful interface for Eris to blow a few minds with that content. At best, maybe it will inspire some new blood.
And either way I rolled a natural 20 on Technical Wizardry and my ego is enjoying itself :lulz:
Puking out a rant and getting 25 views and 3 comments is disheartening. That's what the PD2 project is intended to fix, or at least help with.
I don't think anyone here is less on board with modern Discordian thought than they ever have been, but PD is becoming more and more of an echo chamber for that thought. Most rants are preaching to the choir, frankly. The intention of this idea isn't to transform PD into anything that it isn't already -- a clearinghouse for those rants and our collective philosophies -- but to give us a platform from which it is easier to disseminate that material to a wider audience.
That's what I'm hoping this will evolve into, anyway. Not just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship, but installing a new engine, or whatever else you want to do with that metaphor.
So speaking of that, anyone got thoughts on what this interface should look like? If anyone wants a copy of the CSS and template I threw together, I can send it via email, just PM me.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on August 03, 2012, 05:08:59 PM
So speaking of that, anyone got thoughts on what this interface should look like? If anyone wants a copy of the CSS and template I threw together, I can send it via email, just PM me.
I really think a "news-site-esque" format would serve the purpose better than a blog type interface. Something that looks modern but professional - not suit and tie professional, but "we're doing this on purpose" professional. Something that doesn't scream "fringe group" or "Internet amateurs" right away. Something that looks established, like this doesn't exist
only online, it's just the online arm of something that exists in the real world -- because that's what it is.
I realize none of that is helpful.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on August 03, 2012, 05:08:59 PM
So speaking of that, anyone got thoughts on what this interface should look like?
Newsy as opposed to blog-like.
Room for comments, as in Newsweek's layout? I'm on the fence about this.
Quote from: The Dead Reverend Roger on August 03, 2012, 05:47:41 PM
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on August 03, 2012, 05:08:59 PM
So speaking of that, anyone got thoughts on what this interface should look like?
Newsy as opposed to blog-like.
Room for comments, as in Newsweek's layout? I'm on the fence about this.
Comment link takes the user to the thread here. Hopefully it will drive new users.