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chochu3
Hazard to Others
Posts: 185
Registered: 21-10-2003
Location: South Side Tejas [Cloverland]
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I agree.
One post said I prefer 20/40 joints over 19/22, I could give a shit; a lot of people like to give their opinions which is one form of irrelavent
posting or someone posting how a certain chemical is real hazourdous, I think we all know what we are doing and if one doesn't then one should
download one of the many books posted about this type of info.
Some of the other post are of the type where one does not agree that a certain reaction will work. I gotten a few of these, but these are not so bad.
I will always reply to these so a reference can be read and seen and further my knowledge among others.
The other reason its happening is because of the respect one gets from having more posts I believe (higher title). I hope one of these days I may have
a title as such, but others will know I'm full of shit if my posts don't mean shit so remember this he-bitch.
I think the reason for this is because of the shutdown of the hive.
Another thing I like to add about post whoring is where one write a formula and another posts how it is not balanced.
Sorry for the going on and on and by no means do I portray myself as perfect. These are just the things I find should not be posted and are by no
means should be a guide to delete such posts as the latter complaint could have helped someone in knowing how much chem should be added to another
reactant or to avoid a different product.
[Edited on 31-1-2006 by chochu3]
\"Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither, like blind led by the blind.\" -
Katha Upanishad
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CherrieBaby
Hazard to Self
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Registered: 4-3-2005
Location: London
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I don't think that post whores should be deleted but I do think that irrelevant stuff should be removed from a thread, ideally with a link to the new
sub-thread in the Detritus forum.
For instance, take a look at this
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=4918&a...
Microwave ovens morphed into slagging off Brainiac. I notice that one of these was from 12AX7 again.
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DrP
National Hazard
Posts: 625
Registered: 28-9-2005
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Hmm.. sorry  - I started talking about Brainiac in that thread because of the
solvents in the microwave suggestion - I'm sure it is OK and safe in practice but thought I'd mention that they do regularly explode microwave in
this way. - the conversation just led on from there. I did put in a laughing face ' ' to indicate that I wasn't being all that serious, however, obviously all care would need to be taken to avoid any
contaminant which could create a spark. Sorry - I guess as I'm quite a new member I'm still getting used to what is appropriate.
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Sandmeyer
National Hazard
Posts: 784
Registered: 9-1-2005
Location: Internet
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Mood: abbastanza bene
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| Quote: | Originally posted by CherrieBaby
I notice that one of these was from 12AX7 again. |
Anyone can make a misstake now and then, but it takes a real genius to constantly post missinformation. It came as no surprise to see that he takes
the Bible literally.
[Edited on 27-2-2006 by Sandmeyer]
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Rosco Bodine
Banned
Posts: 6370
Registered: 29-9-2004
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Mood: analytical
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Sandmeyer
Anyone can make a misstake now and then, but it takes a real genius to constantly post missinformation. It came as no surprise to see that he takes
the Bible literally.
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http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/jc_maxwell.as...
More on geniuses and the bible .
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franklyn
International Hazard
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I have the answer, please read on _
The important issue here is the dilution of informative and insightful
commentary with what amounts to memorialized instant messaging,
making it tedious to sift through what one can consider to be bull.
These issues are pandemic to all discussion forums on the Internet
regardless of editorial and topical inclination. It cannot be expected
that an enthusiastic adolescent is going to make observations having
the relevance that a 30 something working engineer will make. On the
Internet no one knows you're a dog.
A problem with strict adherence to this principle is that useful and
important threads become relegated over time far down in the
thread stack. I have seen threads of interest ( to me ) cited years
ago and probably forgotten.
The first post which opens a new thread must be the heading for
that thread or else it's sure to go off on a tangent discussion.
Establishing the etiquette of opening a new thread with a quote and
link as a reference would allow side issues and discussions without
irrelevant contributions in the parent thread.
To be fair, this can be remedied democratically in the following way.
Each individual post is identifiable and can be assigned an integer value
from say - 20 up to + 20. Anyone can cast a vote worth one count
plus or minus on any post, to either razz  or to acclaim .
A running count is kept of the score. This has the effect of bringing to light
and the top of the thread stack, those threads of value ( with high + count ).
If you post low quality content, viewers can vote to razz you. Bad
content is automatically purged when the preset threshold of - 20
is reached.
This is precisely the method employed by some search engines to
establish relevance to a topic, the number of hits or visitations to
a site or page.
.
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Nicodem
Super Moderator
Posts: 4230
Registered: 28-12-2004
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All these problems (if problems at all) could be simply solved by enforcing scientific discourse.
I know only of one forum where scientific discourse has been successfully enforced and maintained while most members were not scientists.
Unfortunately that forum is now dead.
But the way this was achieved was very tedious and took a lot of effort from the moderators, the software programmer, senior members and so on. The
result was however fascinating. New members were discouraged whenever they posted already answered questions (the famous “UTFSE!”), misinformation
(by a “misinformation” label on the post), didn’t used at least the basic scientific discourse or were claiming without reference (by being
flamed for it and given a good example). There were only two subforums where scientific discourse was not being a prerequisite to post, one was like
Whimsy here and the other was impossible to discipline due to the special nature of the topic, regardless how hard the moderators tried. There were
also the “karma points” that functioned similarly like Franklyn proposes above.
It was a very tough training and not all new members survived trough it, but those who did, matured to a higher level. I’m sure many ex members
(many of them now part of this forum) can tell you the same. Furthermore the board software was of the most sophisticated form one can imagine and the
programmer could make a fortune by commercializing it. It allowed for anything one needed, visualization of the SMILE chemical structure codes,
multiple attachments (up to 10MB!) with pictures being displayed, simplified external links (to patents, medline, etc.) and internal links (with full
reference).
What I’m trying to say is that there already is a known working model. No need to reinvent what already proved to work perfectly. The question is:
1.) Do members want to communicate in a scientific discourse at all?
2.) Do the administrator and the moderators want such a change?
3.) Can the board software be changed at all?
I would say some members don’t want scientific discourse, would prefer kewlish communication while many don’t even know exactly the esence of
science is. So the answer to the first question is not that straightforward. The same goes for the second question. This would mean a lot of effort
and more responsibility for moderators so it would be fully understandable to simply avoid any change. I have never noticed any noteworthy change in
the board software so perhaps the answer to the third question is a plain negative.
[Edited on 6-8-2006 by Nicodem]
…there is a human touch of the cultist “believer” in every theorist that he must struggle against as being
unworthy of the scientist. Some of the greatest men of science have publicly repudiated a theory which earlier they hotly defended. In this lies their
scientific temper, not in the scientific defense of the theory. - Weston La Barre (Ghost Dance, 1972)
Read the The ScienceMadness Guidelines!
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
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Mood: Waiting for spring
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Adopting strict moderation is hard, because to work it needs to be uniform as well as strict; otherwise people perceive favoritism, and I want to
avoid actual and perceived favoritism in the handling of rule enforcement. Additional features for behavior management would be helpful; for example,
on some boards the mods/admins can hand out time-limited probation during which members cannot post, flagging the offense that caused probation as
well. This requires features in the board software that we do not have. I occasionally give time-limited posting bans but I have to manually set and
unset them.
The board software has a number of unfinished features even though it's supposed to be in a stable release -- a stunning testament to its creators'
vision, I'm sure. If I were starting the board today I doubt that I would use XMB, but my choices were more limited a few years ago.
I don't know PHP but I do have a fair amount of programming experience; the board could probably be customized given sufficient time, but right now I
feel like I'd be starting with heavily flawed source material (though it is GPL, which makes customization easy, legally). Migration to other board
software might be another option eventually; either all content here could be moved to static archives or I could try to write some software to
migrate content to a new board, keeping it 'live.'
Almost all forum-type software is terrible for threads that are long and/or have multiple branches of conversation. Even the Hive's nice custom forum
software didn't attempt to tackle this problem. For long conversations I prefer hierarchical replies rather than strictly linear threads -- you can
easily see examples of this paradigm at slashdot or kuro5hin in 'nested' comment display mode. I think some mailing list archives also display this
way. The important thing is that it always identifies the flow of conversation (who responded to what, and in what order) even when people do not
explicitly quote what they are responding to.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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The_Davster
A pnictogen
Posts: 2861
Registered: 18-11-2003
Member Is Offline
Mood: .
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I will get on my knees and beg for you to reconsider if changing to a slashdot like forum is ever seriously considered. Or send you, say palladium.
If people used the 'reply with quote' button effectivly the same effect could be had.
I was browsing Chemicalforums a while ago, and they have some sort of option that when you find a post helpful you give the poster a 'scooby snack'.
It also works in reverse. I think this is what franklyn was suggesting, and I do like the idea, assuming it gets a better name than 'scooby snack'.
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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I would not change to a slashdot-type system because it is geared to an article/discussion pattern; the only thing I prefer about it is the
possibility to display replies with a structure that reflects the flow of conversation. Quote with reply isn't really the same. On a slashcode site,
if 3 people reply to the same post, all 3 replies can appear nested at the same depth and adjacent to one another. With standard forum software, even
if 3 people reply with quote to the same post, the 3 may be widely separated in the thread because there are other conversations taking place
simultaneously. For example, if we have a discussion about hydrogenation that has two main thrusts, one on catalyst preparation and the other on
difficult substrates, reply-with-quote will indiscriminately mix the two themes. Slashcode-type discussion can display them so that related topics and
sub-topics are grouped together, and it leads to lower textual clutter because less quoting is needed to maintain context.
I have seen several sites with user moderation where people can encourage or discourage posts they see with a point system. It works poorly if there's
a lot of poor posters moderating as well as posting (see again: slashdot) but it might work okay here, if we were using software that supported it.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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12AX7
Post Harlot
Posts: 4803
Registered: 8-3-2005
Location: oscillating
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Mood: informative
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Let's just move to alt.chemistry.sciencemadness. :^P
Every news client I've used (..OE..) supports threaded replies.
Tim
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Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
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I like the format here and find it very easy to use. I never have any trouble following the threads as they read like "people in a room having a
conversation." I have read some other forums -- slash dot style I believe. I found them hard to follow and didn't like them at all. I like the fact
that those interested in chemistry, for whatever reason, and of diverse backgrounds, can feel accepted here.
If a poster gets out-of-hand mostly senior members take care of that through ridicule, threats, etc. That's the way it should be. We shouldn't be
overloading our moderators. They have enough to do as it is without getting paid for it.
I do wish new people would UTFSE, however, before starting a new thread.
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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Chris The Great
Hazard to Others
Posts: 463
Registered: 29-10-2004
Location: Canada
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I have had one experience with the type of forum described (slash dot style or whatever you want to call it) and there was a simple option in the user
control panel to display threads either in a linear fashion (as is most common) or nested and grouped by topic. So if it is implemented, I would make
it optional since not everyone wants that type of forum.
I used to enjoy it but find that the linear display is easier to read.
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Organikum
resurrected
Posts: 2337
Registered: 12-10-2002
Location: Europe
Member Is Offline
Mood: frustrated
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Fuck it. Its just fine as it is. For personal purposes I save threads in "print" as I get them whole and delete the noise*.
*includes many of my posts.
/ORG
PS: Don´t idealize the Hive. We all miss it and Rhodium and the others who stole it may burn in hell eternally. Osmium twice. But it was not we want
it to bee. Or was it just what we wanted it to bee?
Anyways. Hey Rhodium you fucking bastard release the information you are now preholding to the ex-moderators and some "selected" ones (elitist
asshole. you don´t even know how to make methylamine from hexa), release this information AND the locked threads which are much to nice. Come on!
Give us the url and the password or just put it up on bittorrent. But you pisser don´t talk to anybody but to your alter ego Lili who doesn´t talk
to anybody else. Fucking closet homos.
Rhodium you were entrusted as an archivist of the Hive and you stole the archives. You are not what we hoped you are.
This topic makes me so angry when I am drunk that I feel inclined to post Osmiums real name here. But who would pay for the children? Oh he doesn´t
anyways? We should have known this.
[Edited on 7-8-2006 by Organikum]
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Nicodem
Super Moderator
Posts: 4230
Registered: 28-12-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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The "linear threads" are way better than that complete chaos of nested replies. The forum is slowly evolving anyway. I mean, it is not
regressing isn’t it.
But I still vote for the implementation of the "UTFSE!" rule. Not using the search engine by the newbies before posting is in my opinion an expression
of disrespect to what others have already achieved and posted, and that is showing disrespect to the forum itself. Why should members be spoon feed?
PS: Org., you are taking this way too personally. Your feelings are understandable and shared by many but your response is not really mature. Perhaps
you believe you see the whole picture and have your rights to be pissed, but I don't know what really happened and somehow I doubt you know all there
is to know too. There is no need to wash dirty laundry in public, isn't it? At least, I hope it made you feel any better as that was probably the only
think that you could gain.
…there is a human touch of the cultist “believer” in every theorist that he must struggle against as being
unworthy of the scientist. Some of the greatest men of science have publicly repudiated a theory which earlier they hotly defended. In this lies their
scientific temper, not in the scientific defense of the theory. - Weston La Barre (Ghost Dance, 1972)
Read the The ScienceMadness Guidelines!
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12AX7
Post Harlot
Posts: 4803
Registered: 8-3-2005
Location: oscillating
Member Is Offline
Mood: informative
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Don't mind Org, I think he mentioned drunkenness.
One forum I'm on has a check box when starting threads "Have you searched?". If you don't check it when posting, it pops up a dialog reminding you.
Tim
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not_important
International Hazard
Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
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Mood: No Mood
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I'm going to toss in a few comments, now that I've been around for a few days, as a user of computer hosted discussions going back to BBSes of the
early 1980s and Usenet.
First off, I want to say that this is a pretty well run system. I know it is not easy to keep a mostly open discussion board from decaying into chaos;
it tends to make administrators cranky and to burn out. I t's not even herding cats, it's herding butterflies. So, good job, folks.
This sort of system is different than a conversational or topical commentary orientated one, such as slashdot, in a sense it can be closer to a
library than a discussion.
The large number of topics seems to lead to a number of old, in a sense stale, threads; this can make it difficult to locate historical discussion,
even with the search function. Topic drift means that a section of a thread may really belong to a different thread than the one it is in.
It might be useful if the forums could support another level of topic, so that 'Reagents and Apparatus Acquistion' might have subdivisions/subforums
of 'reactive metals (Na,Mg..)', 'acids and bases', 'common organics', and so on. Get the number of threads down to where visual inspection can find
the one you want.
A way to prune and graft posting could be handy - a section of (topic drifting but useful) messages could be moved into a forum where it was a better
fit, leaving behind a stuf that states that messages have been moved 'here'. This would also handle those new threads that should have been in an old
established thread, uproot it, tack it onto the end of where it should have been, leaving just the now locked starting post with an appended comment
that it was moved and a pointer there. Try to avoid 'flame the n00b', a moderator judgement call if this is just an overeager posting to be
redirected, or a case for Detritus.
One reason I like threads is that they give you something a bit like this without actual prune and graft, if the reply-to is used more or less
properly then topic-drift tends to be easily skipped by when reading the main thread of conversation. But this is a subject that received no end of
... heated discussion back in the mid `80s.
I like the idead of the search pop-up when starting a new topic. It can be ignored, but at least it's a nudge that doesn't require adminstrator
effort, and gives the administrators some backing when they have to cut a thread - 'you were asked if you had searched, and the topic is in this old
thread'.
Better than the passworded sections would be 'blessing' a user to allow access to a section of the board, adminstrator managed bits of a user profile.
Not only access, but optionally visibility of the area, new users don't even know about the area until they are blessed. Yes, this opens up the
favouritism issue, true. But it removes the problem of passwords being given to people who perhaps shouldn't get them, and gives the forum management
the ability to withdraw access when it has been abused.
Such a feature might work well with with user feedback rating. Enough thumbs=up from older/well-liked users would both tell a user how well their
posting were received and possibly elevate them in 'rank', giving them access or posting-access to other areas (meaning some areas might be read-only
to new users).
The "twit bit" concept seems to be missing from current discussion software. At the simplest, a (administrator set) twit-bitted user's posting would
only be visible to that user and administrators. In fancier implementations twit-bitting someone would result in a whole new region of the board
opening up, that was generally ignored by administrators and that ordinary users didn't or could choose not to see. the twitted users, thiking they
had been given special access, tended to run wild there; but as only twits and trolls were around they tended to soon become bored with flaming each
other and leave for rad BBSz where they could trade software and postage stamp sized p0rn GIFs. Ordinary users say none of this; as what are now known
as sock-puppets tended to end up in the twit bin together they would happily leave their "well, I think UzErX is K3wl" postings under the delusion
that they were accomplishing their goal.
Sorry for the rambling nature of this post, it's getting late and I'm not terribly coherent (and I need to find a new proxy yet).
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Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
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Most of the suggested changes are software features. All of those features are already present in other forum systems, if not the current system.
Unfortunately, all free forum software (and almost all paid forum software) seems to be written in PHP (XMB is) or Perl. The former is an abomination
and the latter I find at least unpleasant... so there's not been much enthusiasm on my part for customization. The related problem is that forum
software is typically riddled with bugs and security holes, so I don't even get a nice canvas to start dablling on.
If there is forum software out there that is not written in PHP, and has a reasonably good featureset and low incidence of security
or other problems, it might be worth considering a migration from the current system. Perl would at least be tolerable to work with for customization,
if I could start with a reasonably good system. I'd even consider paying for good software, because implementing something robust
from scratch is a huge undertaking. Plus member donations have taken the sting out of providing for the welfare of Sciencemadness as a forum.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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not_important
International Hazard
Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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I'll agree on the difficulty, and was either aware or suspected it would take a software change. I was just tossing in an outsider's view.
I've done some programming in PHP/SQL, more in Perl, a lot more in C, assembler, Forth, and Fortran. PHP has some good points, as well as annoying
aspects; but I find it much less annoyance than C++ or Pascal. Or ASP.
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DeAdFX
Hazard to Others
Posts: 339
Registered: 1-7-2005
Location: Brothel
Member Is Offline
Mood: @%&$ing hardcore baby
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Magpie
If a poster gets out-of-hand mostly senior members take care of that through ridicule, threats, etc. That's the way it should be. We shouldn't be
overloading our moderators. They have enough to do as it is without getting paid for it.
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I would rather have moderators as the police as opposed to "forum vigilantes" or senior members. If we have a random group of senior members, rule
enforcement will be too random. I assume that the moderators/administrators of this message board want the rules enforced a certain way and to
guarantee that senior members interested in maintaining the intelligence quotient of this board should ask for moderating privileges. This way if the
moderator is a complete asshole, jerk or just plain incompetent his moderator powers can be removed. On the flip side sometimes people will only
listen when there are 30+ other people saying the same god damn thing to them. Also compared to other forums, the forum seniors here seem to be much
nicer[except in whimsy but that’s understandable].
Side comment. I also find forum vigilantes to be a little on the self righteous side. They are a little to willing to call people names (like
asshole/dumbshit/fucktard/etc) for newbish mistakes. Now whether or not the person is a dumb fuck in real life I don’t think flaming someone out is
the greatest way to say you are wrong. If a forum senior can clearly and patiently address the person’s mistakes without flaming them the first
time around that would be great. If the newbie still doesn’t get it then that’s a different story....
Like all things in life when assholes start accumulating power the world is a shittier place…
[Edited on 27-8-2006 by DeAdFX]
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S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
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Unfortunately, getting bitch-slapped is the only language idiots really understand. If the dipshits had any reasoning ability, others would not need
to tell them to drink bleach and die. I'd rather see abuse of the abusers than any board changes. The idea of a perfect society where everyone is
nice, blah blah, is just an idea and can't work because we're in the real world with real people.
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