Suggestion Box Other Stuff Items
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Suggestion Box for banniNation Improvements New Items * Template to Add a New Suggestion * Most Active Suggestions (Moved to page because of too many comments) * New Suggestions Older Open Suggestions (These items are still open for voting!) * Suggestion Box Queue Items * Suggestion Box Comments Items (Tagging Items Included) * Suggestion Box Metrics Items * Suggestion Box Other Stuff Items Suggestions Being Implemented or Archived (Closed to voting) * Under Development * Quality Assurance * Implemented Suggestions * Stalled and Rejected Ideas Suggestion Box Total Table of Contents (ALL items not on main page indexed here) * Suggestion Box TOC
[edit] How to Vote
* Log in (same user/pass as Bannination) * Click "edit" on the section you want to vote on, * Find the line that corresponds with your vote, Yea/Nay * Add a comma to the last name in that line, * Type three ~'s to add your name without a timestamp, * Click Save.
Please click (edit) next to the subsection you want to vote or comment on, and not the entire page, to avoid accidentally erasing someone else's changes to this page.
[edit] Other Stuff
Anything that doesn't fit into the other categories.
[edit] Weekly Updated Static Page
- Submitted by: Ratfucker
- Submitted on: 15:08, 9 August 2007 (PDT)
Description
- A static page, maybe weekly updated to reduce DB hits, that lists certain things that we might want to look for. Some ideas include: Links to threads with 500+ comments (since most tend to fall into epic status eventually), etc. Add your own ideas in the comments.
Comments
- Another idea: Top ten threads of most CPH at peak (is this stuff saved in the DB, grahams?) Ratfucker 16:03, 9 August 2007 (PDT)
- Gather votes for what you want and i'll see what i can do. CPH is unfortunately another one of those transient things, although i certainly have enough data to step back through a historical thread and compute the top CPH Grahams 22:01, 29 August 2007 (PDT)
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Ratfucker, Eddyatwork, Faethe, Space | None |
[edit] Site activity indicator
- Submitted By: Vin diesel
- Submitted On: 05:40, 6 August 2007 (PDT)
Icon on the front page which indicates all recent site activity
- A single-number measurement of site activity could be calculated by combining ARR scores for threads (measuring recent activity) and some derivative of page hits (to include people who are reading threads or the queue but not posting). The front page could then have an icon near the top which shows a graphic rating of recent site activity, like the nabbit voting icons, but larger and more clear. Cranky had suggested a volume indicator that showed our site goes to 11; if it was a CSS field, it would be easy to customize this graphic in different ways that were more or less flashy and complex, for fun.
Comments
- When I start submitting links in the morning, I usually try to wait until it looks like people are awake-- I try to guess it from new queue submissions, signs of voting in the queue, and new posts. This way would automate that process a bit, and would include people who are just reading last night's threads (but who are at least awake and available to vote on links that are submitted.. meaning it's worthwhile to submit them and they won't automatically vanish for lack of votes). Plus I just think it would be cool and handy to have that metric available at a glance. --Vin diesel 05:40, 6 August 2007 (PDT)
- This is a total CPH shown at the very bottom of the index page. I'll defer to UT on how to represent that graphically Grahams 22:02, 29 August 2007 (PDT)
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Vin diesel, Eddyatwork, Faethe,Xenotoxin, Space |
[edit] Use a ticketing system
Description
- Use a ticketing system such as Trac or RT for collecting suggestions (and bug reports). This will (a) make it easy to search them, (b) make it easy to refer to them and deal with dupes, (c) make it easy for people to watch the discussion of stuff they particularly care about, (d) make the indexing less manually intensive.
Comments
- We're consider it, but it's quite a bit of work to get something like that off the ground and then we'd have to figure out how to integrate it with our authentication system.
- All in all it's a lot of work for relatively little gain. We may start using rt to handle incoming email requests, but giving everyone access to a bug system seems like a lot of work.
- Seems like a bit of work for minimal gain. Can't the wiki be used for something like this? Making a page to track issues or bugs? Ratfucker 02:05, 5 August 2007 (PDT)
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Eddyatwork, Ratfucker |
[edit] Integrating With Blogs
Description
- I'd be interested in people's thoughts in peoples thoughts on integrating us more with the blogging community. I've never really blogged so i'm not sure how best to do that. But our RSS feed seems to show up on most aggregators now so we're making a start.
- We could automatically create links back on each story page that point back to the blog in question. That way people would have an incentive to write about bN stories on their blogs because in turn they'd get more traffic. It certainly has potential for abuse, but we might be able to run with it for a little while (or even allow each registered user the ability to list their blog url in their profile so we can associate links back to the user in question).
- Is it worth having Digg This buttons on our discussions since they are essentially original content?
Comments
vin diesel <--- Disembodied name.
- I see it and I didn't put it there. God curse the eyes of whomever did. --Vin diesel 20:19, 5 August 2007 (PDT)
- Meh. I wouldn't use it. Just a matter of my personal preference, but there are VERY few discussion sites where I will submit their threads as links to a news story (or any other reason), when I could just submit a direct link to the story--meaning, I'm not going to submit digg's thread about the bridge collapse, or fark's thread about it, or reddit's thread about it, unless there is something exceptional about their discussion that sets it apart from every other forum's discussion about the bridge collapse. I'll link straight to the news instead so we can have our OWN thread about it.
- When links are submitted on digg or reddit which link to a blog/forum, which in turn links to a good news story, frequently someone else immediately resubmits the news link (minus the blog) with the exact same headline and "[un-linkjacked]" (something like that) at the end. The idea being that people usually see it as a cheap attempt to get blog traffic, linking to the blog instead of to the story it's linking to.
- The few exceptions I make personally are for metafilter, slashdot, and boingboing (in descending order). That's because metafilter and slashdot often collect several related links together in their "headline" to provide wider coverage, along with a bit of useful summary in the headline; and boingboing sometimes includes interesting editorials that are a few paragraphs long (before the link itself), and which I think can add real value to a link by putting it into context.
- We don't have that, and I can't think of any instance where I'd see a thread here and expect it to get dugg (get lots of diggs by other people on digg, I mean), by anyone other than people who already like this site and are trying to get its name out there. And I wouldn't put it past other people to start looking for our links and burying them as blogspam if we did that.
Please do not strip names and timestamps from comments left by other users.
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| brazil | Vin diesel, Eddyatwork, Ratfucker |
[edit] Curbing Moderation Abuse through Alts
- Submitted By: Ratfucker
- Submitted On: July 23rd
Description
As far as alt making, proxy hopping nancying goes... something could be worked out here.
New users only would have queue voting abilities from the start (or queue voting abilities after a minimum of 5 mainpaged submissions) and set a requirement that they cannot vote in threads until they reach a post count of at least 50-100 public comments (meaning anonymous posts wouldn't count) before they would be allowed to vote on posts in threads. That would require active commenting and participation on this site, at least enough time for one to get a feel on how the site tends to click before they are trusted with the option to participate in user moderation. (Ratfucker)
Comments
- I disagree with your suggestion that people can't vote in the queue until 5 mainpaged submissions. Some of us don't often feel like contributing actual content (I've been around since the beginning and I only have like 18 mainpaged articles) but we still should have a voice in what content comes forward to be discussed. Otherwise, the idea of suppressing proxy hopping nancies is good by me. Sarmydoc
- I'd vote for at least a simple time window before newly created alts can be used, like TOS's 24 hour period. --Vin diesel 01:44, 31 July 2007 (PDT)
- I think that's too much of a deterrent to new users. I know when i first signed up for fark it was because i'd spent an hour or so preparing a photoshop and then discovered i couldn't post it for 24 hours. I was not happy and don't think i came back for a few weeks.
- Since most of the voting down occurrs in political threads, maybe a wait limit before posting in threads already tagged politics? For people with existing alts, the wait period won't prevent them from voting down comments they disagree with. --jafo 10:05, 02 August 2007 (PDT)
- I think that's too much of a deterrent to new users. I know when i first signed up for fark it was because i'd spent an hour or so preparing a photoshop and then discovered i couldn't post it for 24 hours. I was not happy and don't think i came back for a few weeks.
- I'd vote for at least a simple time window before newly created alts can be used, like TOS's 24 hour period. --Vin diesel 01:44, 31 July 2007 (PDT)
- I disagree with your suggestion that people can't vote in the queue until 5 mainpaged submissions. Some of us don't often feel like contributing actual content (I've been around since the beginning and I only have like 18 mainpaged articles) but we still should have a voice in what content comes forward to be discussed. Otherwise, the idea of suppressing proxy hopping nancies is good by me. Sarmydoc
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Ratfucker, FarkmeBlind, Sarmydoc | Kesshi, Eddyatwork, pilto |
[edit] A Way to Search Threads
- Submitted by: Ratfucker
- Submitted on: Around July 11th.
Description
A static, weekly updated page that we can visit to find our, meaning only visible to ourselves if required, entire posting history?
Comments
- Maybe this would be a good compromise to searching? If it ran once a week, it couldn't be that bad, especially at a low-usage time. Elchip 13:58, 11 July 2007 (PDT)
- A way to search the threads, Google isn't cutting it.
- I wouldn't hold my breath for this one, search is expensive in database usage --Ludditemike
- Maybe have a separate host for search that has duplicate version of the DB? I don't know how rich you guys are. :) --clifton
- Any other ideas?
- Google search bar that allows you to search within all pages on the site? That would require modifying robots.txt to allow Google to index the site and its threads, I'm afraid. Ratfucker 02:30, 20 July 2007 (PDT)
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Ratfucker,clifton |
[edit] Permanent whine thread
- Submitted by: Unknown
- Submitted on: Around July 8th
Description
A permanent whine thread under the Beer Garden, with a hot nut activity indicator. So that there doesn't always have to be a new thread for whining, and it can be a back and forth conversation without filling up this suggestions page. Or maybe if the Beer Garden had a hot nut, people would use it more instead of making new whine threads. The whine thread should be called the crying lounge, and have streaming audio of the Cure playing at all times.
Comments
- Yea, so long as the part about the streaming audio was a joke :) Elchip 19:23, 8 July 2007 (PDT)
- Problem with these sort of things is that it opens up a moderation nightmare, how do you ensure that all things considered 'whine' is kept to this thread or that it is used instead of other threads. It creates another static thread that will wax and wane in use like the BG. Ratfucker 13:54, 9 July 2007 (PDT)
- Also, I don't believe that what we'd call whining is what the submitters think they are doing. Therefore, I don't believe it'll catch what you want it to. -Andbruno 08:01, 10 July 2007 (PDT)
- Whining is a euphemism for all sorts of complaints and suggestions and questions, and not enough of that stuff goes in the biergarten.
Process check - this one has been hanging around for a month, pretty much deadlocked in voting, with no recent interest expressed by either side as far as I can tell. In my opinion, trying to coerce people who want to whine into a designated 'whine' thread would be about as easy as herding cats, or nailing Jell-O to a tree. I move that this suggestion be moved to the boneyard or the 'parking lot' or whatever place is reserved for 'not dead yet, but pretty damn close' action items. If you disagree, now is the time to speak up. Cranky bastard 23:47, 5 August 2007 (PDT)
- I do completely disagree that it would be difficult or comparable to catherding--if there was an agreement to do it, it would be quite as simple as the current herding of NSFW images out of NSFW threads. Once people agreed to the policy, either they could start voting down the meta posts that weren't in the meta-thread or the beer garden; or a function could be implemented which would transfer posts over there, if they got voted down with a reason of "meta" (see the other suggestions about metamoderation and requiring a reason for downvoting). However, some of the people who complain in meta-threads that "this isn't going to work if we do this every time", don't bother to check the SB and vote yes or no on this.. so for lack of people paying attention, yeah, it's a dead suggestion. But not even remotely hopeless for the reason you gave, any more than it's hopeless to stop people posting NSFW images in SFW threads :/ --Vin diesel 05:14, 6 August 2007 (PDT)
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Vin diesel,MuninsFire,elchip, Finkmota | brazil, ratfucker, CaponeX, Andbruno, Kesshi |
[edit] Preview of upcoming link
- Submitted by: Vin Diesel
- Submitted on: July 6th
Description
The upcoming link (the headline in the queue with a star next to it) should appear on the front page with a label like "coming soon", and clicking on it takes you to the queue--it might even inspire more queue participation that way. It'd also be nice if it had its own CSS class so that fancy-pants people can give it a scrolling marquee appearance or something with custom style sheets. --Vin diesel 12:28, 6 July 2007 (PDT)
Comments
- This is actually a little tricky to do technically without incurring a whole load of database activity when the index page loads. I could work something out but it might not always be accurate Grahams 14:33, 10 July 2007 (PDT)
- Personally I'd be every bit as happy with one that's updated once per 5 minutes or whatever to avoid hitting the database --Vin diesel
- Can't you just cache it every time the "starred" post gets updated?
- I'm against this because I believe it would not encourage people to view the queue. --Kesshi 15:15, 10 July 2007
- I'm with Kesshi on this one. Without meaning to sound like a jerk, WHY do this? Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see the attraction. We can see what is going to be frontpaged by looking at the queue. Mughi 14:18, 23 July 2007 (PDT)
- I pretty much live in the queue whenver I'm on site, and I still miss headlines that make it through, and see other people as well posting "wow, I didn't see that in the queue" when something dumb is frontpaged. Having a preview on the front page would encourage people who don't normally look at the queue to go there for voting (make sure the front page just shows you the link and top headline, doesn't let you vote), and it would help people catch stupid stuff that pretty much sneaks through to the front page because people didn't pay attention for a few minutes. --Vin diesel 05:29, 6 August 2007 (PDT)
- I'm with Kesshi on this one. Without meaning to sound like a jerk, WHY do this? Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see the attraction. We can see what is going to be frontpaged by looking at the queue. Mughi 14:18, 23 July 2007 (PDT)
- Perhaps a sidebar on the main page with a few teaser links of the current top 3 links in the queue? More positive enforcement for voting? Just make the links go straight to the queue or make a link next to the teaser that says Vote Now -- Finkmota
- Yeah, a top 3 thing would probably be even better, because then it gets people interested if they see a second or third link that they like more than the first one, and they're motivated to vote it up. --Vin diesel 05:29, 6 August 2007 (PDT)
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Vin diesel, brazil, MuninsFire, elchip, Finkmota | Kesshi,Mughi |
[edit] Auto-rotating bios
- Submitted by: Unknown
- Submitted on: Around July 10th.
Description
In your own profile, when you go to "choose a biography", every submitted bio could have a checkbox next to it so you can mark it as approved or not approved.
The original functionality (where you immediately choose a biography) would remain, but in addition, you can click something to enable rotating bios, where on a certain schedule (maybe daily, weekly, or selectable by each user individually), your bio will automatically rotate among all the ones you've approved in your profile.
Comments
- Do we really have that many voyeurs here that we need more than one bio? --Kesshi 15:31 10 July, 2007 (PDT)
- Against this idea simply because you can edit your own BIO that is linked from the site to the wiki bio. The idea seems unnecessary. Ratfucker 16:37, 19 July 2007 (PDT)
- I think that user-managed extended bios on the wiki provide individual citizens the ability to change their bios at will, on whatever schedule they feel is appropriate. Centrally managed bios were an interesting first step, but perhaps we've moved past that? I'm not voting "yea" or "nay" on this suggestion - I'm just asking whether or not the question has become moot. As for the site code, perhaps we need a "none of the above" option for bN bios, just to direct attention to the wiki extended bio pages? Cranky bastard 23:37, 22 July 2007 (PDT)
- Come to think of it, I think you could just delete all your bN bios and have the same effect as a "none of the above" option. Cranky bastard 13:56, 23 July 2007 (PDT)
Process check - this suggestion is almost a month old, with voting split evenly and no recent comments other than my own. Rotating user bios based on complex per-user scheduling criteria would require over-engineering the solution by a factor of at least 11, I think. Picking a set schedule for rotating all user bios sounds simple, but it's not - we're already on the ragged edge of what we can reliably accomplish with a single cron script, and as the banniNation grows, it becomes less and less likely that we can write code to "Do {x} for all user accounts" and count on it running to completion. Cranky bastard 00:05, 6 August 2007 (PDT)
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Vin diesel, MuninsFire, fark | Kesshi, Ratfucker, Finkmota |
[edit] The Pit
- Submitted by: Elchip
- Submitted on: July 8th.
Description
I know I've said this a billion times, but I still think it's a good idea. Stories that don't make it out of the queue (items that get zapped are an exception) go to a separate page called "The Pit" (or some other clever name) where you can view the stories, but not comment on them. Elchip 19:34, 8 July 2007 (PDT)
Comments
- I'll vote a tentative yea (at least on trying it out) but only if the pit is for links and not discussions, there's no point to pitting discussions
- That's why I said "stories" instead of "items" :P Elchip 20:04, 8 July 2007 (PDT)
- Conditiona Yea here. They only go to the Pit if they have a score high enough to make front page, but did not.
- I vote 'nay'--it'd become filled with a load of useless links, some of which would be broken--it'd be more a dumpster than anything. I would reconsider if it was implemented with only the last 24 hours' worth in there. MuninsFire
- If links are broken, they get zapped. Perhaps, then, only include links with a net positive score that don't make the cut.
- Either way, I'd want a time limit on what's available. No point in five-year-old goatse links. MuninsFire
- Some stuff gets voted down because it deserved to be voted down and shouldn't be seen, otherwise you'd have a nice static, perma link for spam, illegal stuff and whatnot. Ratfucker 16:38, 19 July 2007 (PDT)
- That's why stuff that gets zapped isn't included. Okay, how about only things that end up with a net positive score, but aren't high enough to go on the frontpage?
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Elchip, Vin diesel, cheap vodka, brazil, Kesshi, jafo | MuninsFire, Andbruno, fark, Ratfucker |
[edit] HTML formatting
- Submitted by: Meta
- Submitted on: July 14th.
Description
It's frustrating being unable to emphasize words, cite book titles, and so on, because all that stuff apparently gets stripped out. It would be nice if most of the basic span-level HTML formatting was available. I'd suggest the following minimal list: a, abbr, acronym, address, big, blockquote, cite, del, em, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strong, sub, sup, tt. (I'd like pre too, but I recognize that someone would inevitably use it to fsck up the page layout.) - Meta 21:41, 14 July 2007 (PDT)
Comments
- why is most html stripped? Are superscript or blockquotes that harmful?
- The HTML sanitizer code is pretty gnarly, and mistakes made in that area are usually quite spectacular. Old-timers may remember when I frantically pounded on the code to fix an error and make the new-line / <br> functionality work again. Our reluctance to reopen this can of worms is not particularly rational, but it's there, just the same. All I can say at this point is that we probably need to see more votes in favor of this suggestion before either one of us is willing to run that gauntlet again. Cranky bastard 00:16, 6 August 2007 (PDT)
- Why not just use HTML::Scrubber? Meta 08:50, 1 October 2007 (PDT)
Voting
| Yea | Nay |
|---|---|
| Joe091,ignoramus, Meta |
[edit] Navigation Box
Suggestion Box for banniNation Improvements New Items * Template to Add a New Suggestion * Most Active Suggestions (Moved to page because of too many comments) * New Suggestions Older Open Suggestions (These items are still open for voting!) * Suggestion Box Queue Items * Suggestion Box Comments Items (Tagging Items Included) * Suggestion Box Metrics Items * Suggestion Box Other Stuff Items Suggestions Being Implemented or Archived (Closed to voting) * Under Development * Quality Assurance * Implemented Suggestions * Stalled and Rejected Ideas Suggestion Box Total Table of Contents (ALL items not on main page indexed here) * Suggestion Box TOC
