I need to update my FAQ. So, let me know what you think newcomers need to know about the site.
Or what you want to know.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
What are the differences in all these ways I can choose to view comments?
How hard would it be to have a button that took you to replies to your comments? I remember Kos had a bitch of a time because he tied that functionality to the hotlist and put it on the front page.
Would it be that hard if it was tied to a link or another page? It is hugely useful and makes conversation easier.
Another question that I’ve long had over at dKos. That site, and this one soon, is read my many more people than are actually registered. Is there any way of getting a handle on what they are reading of ours and with what intensity?
I’ll take a look at the FAQ and see if I get any ideas.
One thing you can do is hit the site meter, on the bottom right of the page and you can see some data about this site.
more along the lines of individual pages. For example, we no longer look at diaries that are a few hours old (Kos) or a week old (Booman) but to an outsider what we had to say about a particular issue might be interesting even if it is months old. Kos for instance keeps about the last three months. As time goes by stuff gets erased, which is a pity but understandable. And at Kos there is the dKosopedia too, to keep some of what we figure out.
Incidentally one of the things I love about this site at this time is how some important diaries stay up longer and get discussed in a slower and more intimate manner. dKos, while a wonderful place, can also resemble piranhas attacking a cow. A couple hundred comments latter and you can’t even bear to look at the thing.
re the ability, if possible, to have stats on individual pages (number of hits, for instance)
Will it count unique hits or each time someone goes back to follow-up when there’s been additional comments?
Since I don’t know how site stats work I’m curious…
Sometimes I’ll read a diary when it comes up initially and then – cool thing here – I can go back and read comments that post after I’ve read. Many Faces of Democracy is one of those that I’ve been following for several days.
So am I a unique read each time?
Will the diary writer id be exluded from the stat’s?
Sorry if these are stupid questions shrugs off into the night
–
as ‘they’ say there are no stupid questions, unless your wondering if chicken of the sea is chicken or tuna(ala jessica simpson).
Actually, I think everything does remain available over at dKos — you just have to dig around for it in the Archive. If you go the the detailed search page, there’s a box labeled “Search Archive”. Running the search with the box checked will pull up all the older materials (stories, diaries, comments, etc.). It’s not obvious, and should be more clearly described, but that’s an issue for Markos to deal with.
Would you consider putting up some technical instructions, for example how to post an image?
I know there is some HTML below but I could not figure out how to post the image.
The scroll box html would be nice too.
Type the code below without the space between the < and img src and the > and the ” at the end of the code.
< img src=”http://www.image location here.jpg” >
example:
It’s the same as DKos where I posted many images.
The instructions below, threw me off.
VSPACE and HSPACE are margins, I have since learned.
thanks again
and be sure to include tips on how to add: width=”250″
How/where do you add the width=250 code?
Lionel, here’s how i do all my images :
IMG SRC=”nameofimage.jpg” border=0 align=right vspace=5 hspace=5 alt=”nameofimage”
to post a link and how to do the cool gray quote box. I can post a link in my sleep now, but newcomers have trouble with this. And I don’t have the quote box thingy memorized – I always have to go to the Kos FAQ’s to find it.
BTW, BooMan, I know you love it, and I think I know why you do it, but I really hate the scroll box quotes. I find them very hard to read. I read fast, and there’s not enough visible in the box to read the way I read – but it doesn’t work at all if the text is moving (ie, trying to scroll while reading). If that makes any sense. Maybe it’s just me.
But I’d rather have a “Read more” to click on for long quotes.
Janet-
I understand what you’re saying.
I’d like people to use the scroll box for long quotes in comments. That is the main advantage of the scroll box. If you’re not interested you can scroll right past it.
For the FP, I only intend to use it if (as with the Byrd interview) the article is basically nothing more than a long quote that doesn’t like to be broken up.
Anyway, I like it for its functionality, not its aesthetic value. I hope I don’t bug you too much with it.
you give me a link, where I can go read what-ever-it-is on a regular page. (The Byrd interview was transcribed from the video by diane101, and there is no link?)
It’s a deal. Good idea.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0504/07/ip.01.html
For newbies, it’d be good to have a very clear “how this site works.”
I have a friend who could not figure out how to recommend a diary. He just didn’t see the Recommend button. So, it might be good to explain the logistics.
Also, people who are new don’t understand ratings systems such as 0/1
Yes, when I first went to Kos I had no idea what was going on and couldn’t figure anything out. A lot of people like myself also while spending time on a computer don’t know that much about it and everything should be spelled out almost as if you’re not that smart. I don’t know if that came out right but people who are more computer savy sometimes forget how intimidating this all could be to navigate and figure out.
you are quite right. I think savvy web entrepreneur should consider that there are alot of people who could participate more vigorously, and creatively if some of the tech stuff was made more accessible, meaning presented and explained in terms that non-tech people can understand.
Ratings and the rate-all button explanations. Used to take me forever at dKos to rate because I thought I had to rate each post before moving on.
We aren’t too big yet but the right mouse click on ‘post a comment’ to open in a new window is my favorite trick for commenting and rating on a long thread.
And now…back to some regularly scheduled opinions and snark!
can I order a stiff drink if needed?
could I find a really really good cigar here?
could I have really great cup of coffe while reading?
could all my questions be answered, and if so, would I agree?
never mind, I’ll just have a drink of moonshine, light up a cigar, drink my coffee, and I’ll answer my own questions, but, that last one is a problem, because in today’s world, I don’t agree with anyone… ; )
(just could’nt resist to make a pun on the play)
Sowwy…. LMAO
Truthfully, I think it’s so much easier to navigate than the other sites, everything is where it needs to be, and wish to thank each and everyone who has taken the precious time, dilligent work and effort to create such a wonderful place to exchange idea’s, thoughts, and most of all, our souls’ hope.
I give each and everyone of you wonderful people, a humble bow, and a piece of my heart, where you will remain, for the justice of free thought, you so deserve.
Anyway to get an awesome plugin like this one for DKos:
BBCode
It’s an awesome, right click way to insert graphics, to highlight and bold, underline, etc.
Thanks for the tip, aureas.
Has he found a proper name yet?
I was mighty fond of Rovitt 🙂
I thougt Darwin won. I sure hope so….
Two mistakes you can make:
(1) fixing things that don’t need fixing
(2) not fixing things that need fixing
The world diary section seems to be error #1.
I’m not going to insist you get rid of it because that would be another error #1, but it does seem to just add confusion IMO.
FAQQ: what does the West / Midwest / South / East things do? And you have open threads on top of that. I don’t get that.
I agree, think the whole regional bar should be changed to open thread, ask booman, questions or whatever but something useful, these are not.
I like the separate recommended world diaries but I’m finding the regional bar confusing. An open thread / ask Booman is a great idea Diane.
And how about a block above site for talking with other commenters, and one for the diary of tell me who you are, so we can easily go and see something about a member and new members can sign on there.
about the confusion.
The Open/World thread is a permanent Open thread.
The other regional threads are for chatting with those people near you geographically. Once they reach 250 comments, a quarter of the comments will be deleted. So there will always be content there.
Seems to me that people in the regions are not chatting with each other,
1 it may be not enough member yet, but
2, it may be that most of us are not as concerned with regional issues, mainly national amd international.
I don’t pay too much attention to state issues unless there is a problem or an election. I am more concerned with the country in general so that I have a state in the end to care about and not have it blown into oblivion because of one of Bush’s mistakes and fumbles.
Anyway, you can see that not many use regional section.
Also could you please make the numbers in the Hot list red,it’s hard to see the numbers as they are so small.
should appear in just one section. I’ve noticed that most diaries promoted to the front page leave the rec list, an extremely good thing that does not happen at Kos.. If it was easy I would recommend that that diaries should not be on both lists at the same time but I do think this problem will solve itself as the site grows.
FWIW, I really like the world diary rec list and not just because I get on it. It offers a more leisurely way for non-US residents to interact with US-residents, among other things.
I’ll submit a wacky idea: “world” users of this site should be able to grant honorary “world” status on a diary they think should sit around for a while. : )
I am curious why or how diaries stay on the rec. list so long, with few comments, while other lively diaries slide right out of sight. Is there any sequence to the rec. list.
How about a previously rec. diary list, that old diaries go to die.
Also great idea of Athenian:
“””I’ll submit a wacky idea: “world” users of this site should be able to grant honorary “world” status on a diary they think should sit around for a while.””””
I am also curious what others think about recent comment list, I like it a lot, but I do think it has some drawbacks, in that one tends to just read that little part of a diary, and it can be misleading if you do not read the whole diary.
Also I have almost killed my computer with all the refresing I have to do to keep current on the site, but I don’t think there is anything to be done about that.
I understand that we sometimes have diaries on both the regular and the world recommend list.
The regular list is for the best diaries on the site, period. Sometimes, that will include diaries submitted by world users.
However, diaries about American issues have a built in advantage as almost 90% of BooTrib users are American.
The World diaries assure us that we can always see the 6 most popular diaries submitted by world users.
Darwin is the Frog, and natural selection is the process for getting your diary on the recommended list.
Darwin’s a major hero of mine – and I thought, of us all. Isn’t the frog supposed to symbolize Rove and similar scum, whom we aim to see frog-marched to jail?
I think Darwin won because of the blinking ad for Darwin fish symbols. It created a ‘subliminable’ advantage.
There were some early discussions/nominations in this thread:
Some thoughts about the Frog
Then there was a poll in a diary with this heading:
– for some reason, the link does not work – “Sorry. I can’t seem to find that story.”
I guess Darwin won the poll.
OK, thanks…
The link worked for me – but I saw no good argument for the name Darwin on that thread, except on the premise that froggie = the shackled American people, which flies in the face of Booman’s remarks about frog-marching.
So I personally will not be calling him Darwin, the poll be damned.
Having only been a user here for a very short while (I still feel just like a guest), I’m hesitant to sound off, but here goes:
I like the concept of the World Diaries, but have a minor gripe. The qualification for inclusion in the category is that the diary author is a registered user from outside the U.S. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for the recommended world diaries list to be restricted to international content? Though I certainly respect the value of having someone overseas comment on U.S. domestic issues, it’s a little deceptive that those authors can write about either international or U.S. issues and still have the work qualify as a World Diary. Yet if a U.S.-based diarist wishes to write about international issues, it is impossible for that diary to qualify in the category.
Right now, I don’t think that there’s a problem with a good diary sliding away too quickly not to be noticed, but as the popularity of the site increases, this could become an issue down the road a bit. Would it be possible to create a selection box so that when anyone is writing a diary, it has to be classified as either U.S. domestic or international, with the latter being eligible for the World Diary list, regardless of the location of the author? I don’t know if this is technically feasible, though, just wondering. If the value of my two cents worth of opinion hasn’t fully vested yet, please feel free to disregard.
On an unrelated note, I do very much enjoy the ability to have discussions here that go on for a much longer time than they do at more heavily trafficked sites, so that there isn’t quite the same mad rush to post a comment in the hope that the diarist/writer hasn’t already moved on to the next topic.
I like Recommended World diaries in a separate box–guarantees a non-US point of view, even when you don’t recognize the diarist’s user name or issue. But could they either appear on the recommended world OR the recommended diaries(general) box? Very confusing when some appear on both and often remain on recent diaries as well.
Maybe one of the open threads could be converted to an action thread? Booman Tribune is an awesome place to pick up great action ideas, but I rarely have enough to deserve a whole diary, just a “here’s the issue, click here or write here to support, oppose, etc….”
As to FAQ, what does the [!] mean? I’m your slow student, and it took me forever to figure this out on DK.
[!] simply means you have not read the diary yet.
I figured that out after a while, but I thought Booman might like to include it in the FAQ for his site’s new users.
I feel inspired after the VERY CIVIL dialogue we’ve been having about Palestine/Israel that NO ONE HERE did ratings abuse.
Part of the reason I LO-O-O-O-O-V-E this site!
There is a difference between trolling – i.e., you, Booman, are a fucking bastard who should go fuck off – and constructive dialogue – i.e., I think Bush is a great guy. The former is a candidate for troll rating (depending on the overall tone of the thread). The latter is a free expression of an idea that shouldn’t be stifled, otherwise the site loses folks being able to engage each other.
Problem with dKos, for instance, is it has the effect of being an echo chamber for those ideas that are only extremely popular to its members, by folks troll-rating ideas which may be controversial or not reflective of popular opinion among Kossaks.
I’d love to NOT see that trend repeated here, if at all possible.
I sure had the wrong opinion of you.
Heh.
Sincerely, “Bush is a great guy” is not exactly constructive dialogue, at least to my way of thinking. (“Bush is slime and lives under the house” is the same, just expressing the opposite point of view.) It’s just a vague opinion. Constructive dialogue would be something along the lines of “In person, Bush is very easy to get along with. He listens to points of view, even when he doesn’t agree with them.” You might not agree but it’s a good starting point for a discussion.
Or something like “The Senate should just go ahead and confirm Jubilation T. Cornpone even though they rejected him before. I’ve read some of his decisions from the state bench and he seems to be upholding the community standards.” It’s a more concrete point and more debatable.
Trolling is a tough thing to gauge. I agree that civility is the key, though, and when the subject is politics it’s hard to keep that in mind.
Does Booman Tribune have trusted users? If so, what good is it to be one? Are there any benefits to being one? Is this an indication of something other than longevity?
Personally I don’t really care, but it seems to be a big area of discussion over on Daily Kos, so it might be worth mentioning.
Seems the abilities are the same as at DK. Seeing hidden comments (of which there is only one – a dummy), and to ‘mega-troll’ rate (a ‘0’), which has not been used apart from referenced dummy. Don’t think I’ve seen anything but 4-ratings so far.
I believe the algoritm to become TU is very similar, also.