by apodman » Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:07 pm
I think the Forum administrators, who all wear multiple hats already, are well advised to use the phpBB software straight from the can even if it has design flaws that occasionally might invite extra threads. You can tinker with commercial software, but then you're committed to doing it all over again when the next version of the product is released.
I like one thread per APOD and occasionally one thread per APOD-related topic that does not exclusively discuss a single APOD. However, general topics that relate to more than one APOD should not go on forever (imagine 100 pages of "gravitation" or "cosmology" or "globular clusters" or "Mars").
I think an orderly and minimal number of threads should be accomplished by contributors setting a good example and moderators doing housekeeping only when someone makes a mess. I think the moderators do as good a job combining, locking, moving, and removing threads as the contributors do creating and naming them - room for improvement for sure, but it works pretty well as it is and gives me very few problems finding previously posted material as long as I don't expect it to leap onto my screen without my investing any effort in the search.
If a moderator is going to combine two or more threads, it is important to do it soon after each additional thread is created (such as when a newcomer hits the wrong button). Otherwise, comments and replies can get shuffled and interleaved incomprehensibly when they are merged. Using the Quote feature helps avoid this problem, but many contributors who don't anticipate a later merge rightly avoid clutter by not quoting everything and just replying directly (which works fine until the merge and shuffle).
These next suggestions require some contributor discipline: How about "don't post anything too silly in a serious discussion" and "don't post anything serious in a silly discussion". Okay, we're here for fun as well as enlightenment, so we can't ban "silly", but don't mess up a serious thread with it - if you have the urge to be light-hearted and creative, save it for the next likely APOD that does not draw serious technical discussion. But what should a serious contributor do when a silly thread has already been established? Why should the point get lost in the clutter? I suggest that the serious contributor start a new thread and name it well to distinguish it from its less serious cousin. I suggest that the moderators see what the serious contributor is doing and not merge the threads; in fact, if contributors have combined serious and silly (or other incompatible) material, a moderator could split the posts into two or more topics. Renaming topics for clarity is another moderator option that might be easier and better than merging in some cases.
And now I'm just like the newcomer who can't find the right button - I can't find anything that will let me vote in the poll. I'm logged in and it says "You can vote in polls in this forum" at the bottom of my screen, but I don't see how. Could someone be so kind as to educate me?
I think the Forum administrators, who all wear multiple hats already, are well advised to use the phpBB software straight from the can even if it has design flaws that occasionally might invite extra threads. You can tinker with commercial software, but then you're committed to doing it all over again when the next version of the product is released.
I like one thread per APOD and occasionally one thread per APOD-related topic that does not exclusively discuss a single APOD. However, general topics that relate to more than one APOD should not go on forever (imagine 100 pages of "gravitation" or "cosmology" or "globular clusters" or "Mars").
I think an orderly and minimal number of threads should be accomplished by contributors setting a good example and moderators doing housekeeping only when someone makes a mess. I think the moderators do as good a job combining, locking, moving, and removing threads as the contributors do creating and naming them - room for improvement for sure, but it works pretty well as it is and gives me very few problems finding previously posted material as long as I don't expect it to leap onto my screen without my investing any effort in the search.
If a moderator is going to combine two or more threads, it is important to do it soon after each additional thread is created (such as when a newcomer hits the wrong button). Otherwise, comments and replies can get shuffled and interleaved incomprehensibly when they are merged. Using the Quote feature helps avoid this problem, but many contributors who don't anticipate a later merge rightly avoid clutter by not quoting everything and just replying directly (which works fine until the merge and shuffle).
These next suggestions require some contributor discipline: How about "don't post anything too silly in a serious discussion" and "don't post anything serious in a silly discussion". Okay, we're here for fun as well as enlightenment, so we can't ban "silly", but don't mess up a serious thread with it - if you have the urge to be light-hearted and creative, save it for the next likely APOD that does not draw serious technical discussion. But what should a serious contributor do when a silly thread has already been established? Why should the point get lost in the clutter? I suggest that the serious contributor start a new thread and name it well to distinguish it from its less serious cousin. I suggest that the moderators see what the serious contributor is doing and not merge the threads; in fact, if contributors have combined serious and silly (or other incompatible) material, a moderator could split the posts into two or more topics. Renaming topics for clarity is another moderator option that might be easier and better than merging in some cases.
And now I'm just like the newcomer who can't find the right button - I can't find anything that will let me vote in the poll. I'm logged in and it says "You [b]can[/b] vote in polls in this forum" at the bottom of my screen, but I don't see how. Could someone be so kind as to educate me?