[07-MAR-2016] Current status of BLF upgrade process

+1

+2 :smiley:

+3.999999 O:-)

I’m probably over-complicating things again. I’m getting the feeling that I’m designing some sort of handlebar heating mesh, powered by dynamos attached to the wheels, to keep my hands warm during cold winter bike rides. Maybe it could even use body heat, transferred via tubes with one-way valves from the torso to the fingers and back, pumped by the sheer motion of activity. That way it could work for joggers too. Finally, a way to avoid frozen fingers during winter activities!

And then someone comes along and says, “Wear gloves, dummy.”

And finally the bumbling fool is enlightened.

But usually there is no passing sage, so I spend life dancing around good ideas without ever seeing the gloves.

Perhaps the answers would be more clear if I got a good night’s sleep, but I just can’t seem to get the calibration quite right on my spring-and-pulley configurable night-time horizontal body-suspension system.

Keep it up TK, I’m a big Rueben Goldberg fan.

I find Bort thinks several steps ahead and most people think he behaves like your explanation then wonder why the next step burned them (while Bort shakes his head). Systems thinking is awesome, but sometimes we miss the obvious while 99% of the time we do better then we would otherwise.

+1.1 :wink:

And I keep thinking well behind the curve. :D ;) O:-)
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Good points (excuse the pun :stuck_out_tongue: ) thus far everybody. Thanks for the input!

I’m not sure where this fits into the discussion, but I remember when I first implemented the spam button here on BLF I had the user’s cumulative spam score visible, only to the user if memory serves me correctly. But since some users inevitably misused the spam button to try to remove / report controversial posts or even hit it accidentally, from time to time users would see they had a spam point or two. Their points would eventually be erased automatically, but even so my PM inbox was usually flooded with requests to reset their spam score, and some even wanted me to backtrace who was responsible. As soon as I hid the spam score completely from everyone, there have been no more issues.

Greetings SB,

Nice amount of progress you’ve made. The spam thing and even an offensive button can be as troublesome as they are helpful. I see a fairly equal lists of pros and cons. The previous spam button asked you to verify so it seems it was hard to mark someone as a spammer unintentionally. I hit it by accident several times but always hit cancel when it asked me to verify and I assume that made it like it never happened. People using it intentionally for the wrong reason creates unnecessary work for you. I’ll throw in my two bits anyway but know that I’m comfortable with whatever you decide.

What about a simple report button followed by a category selection?

My ideal report button would follow with choices like this:

  • Offensive (this one is tricky because what offends people varies greatly)
  • Spam
  • Wrong Forum category
  • I hit the button by accident

Just a few thoughts. I know the offensive one can create a lot of material to review. Should profanity have its own selection or just lump it in with offensive? I’ve had threads I started where someone posted something that included profanity. Since it was a thread I started I simply sent the user a PM saying I appreciated their enthusiasm but would they mind removing the profanity. Worked out fine. My 10 year old likes to read over my shoulder sometimes and I want to feel safe with him doing so. Anyway I just wanted to add my thoughts. I don’t object to a helpful button either. If it ends up a contest to see who can be the most helpful well I guess I’m just ok with that. :wink:

Edit: if anything like a helpful button were initiated I like what TK said about it being limited to say the last 100 posts or so or maybe the slate gets wiped clean every six months or something. Whatever you do just don’t add a “too long-winded” selection or I’m toast!

Hope with favor my words you’ll anoint
Without bending your nose out of joint
All I’m trying to say
I wish there was a way
To possess an unbiased viewpoint

I’ll say it again— the most important next feature should be a “Jack’s Limericks” page. Make it obligatory reading for all new users before they can post. :smiley:

Indeed, there should be a collection page of them

We should have a collection page of the important posts, probably starting with CRX’s page but covering things like beginning in flashlightism and so on, in an easy to find dedicated place

You mean like this?
Buried Treasure

:smiley:

Good points here J-Dub74, thanks for the input.

Thanks SB…and you’re welcome. :smiley:
Speaking of my being too long winded here’s a situation that created a bit of grief (for me) a few nights ago. I was up too late bouncing between tabs, drafting two separate PM messages to BLF friends. After spending an hour or so typing these novels my laptop battery died. I foolishly had the power settings tuned as such that I had only a few seconds warning before it shut down. Restoring my internet session did not restore my words. Here is where an auto-save function would have saved me a lot of time rewriting. The same has happened to me when posting in a thread. On occasion, due to some little glitch or another a page of carefully crafted words are eaten by the cyberboogieman.

Is an auto-save function feasible? Too problematic? Too much server space eaten up by drafts of unsent messages and posts? I try to craft my lengthier work in Word or some other format when I think about it in order to avoid these losses but since we have this thread going I figure I’ll throw it out there. If it’s not possible with this software or simply too problematic on your end I’ll just try to be more careful. Let me know your thoughts.

I assume this was with the Advanced Post Editor? Because in my testing on Firefox with the Simple Post Editor it does autosave text when I kill the browser and re-open it. The Advanced Post Editor doesn’t have it yet, but it does appear to be possible to configure.

Profanity is an interesting issue. For some, simply using a word is offensive regardless of context. For others, it’s just another word and not worth noticing. I’ve probably used the wrong words by accident a few times because for me it’s like trying to remember not to say avocado, so if someone points it out I’ll gladly change or remove it.

I’m not really worried about those kinds of cases though, since they’re easy to resolve already.

Instead, I’m more concerned about other types of cases. Someone recently made a comment which intentionally escalated some drama using insults and challenges, and I sent a private message asking them to stop adding fuel to a fire… and I wasn’t the only one who asked. They told me the fuel makes the fire prettier, and added another line worth of drama to the original comment. I was a bit surprised by this reaction so I looked up the person’s other comments with the handy new “My Posts” feature, and found they had a fairly consistent history of borderline trolling.

It’d be nice to have something built in to help deal with that. Most people won’t go far enough to PM an administrator about these things, but they’re often willing to click some sort of ‘dislike’ button.

Dislike buttons have quite a few problems, which have already been brought up, really it feels like more negatives than positives. Except for this:

I have to agree, I think many people don’t want to pm the admin even if they feel there is a problem. For that reason I lean towards it being useful. And maybe needed.

I’ve also had incomplete drafts dropped when flipping between tabs on safari using the spe.