Well yes but @beschizza said he is changing that topnav pretty soon so we would be basing that on a categorization that is soon to be obsolete. Might be better to synthesize the fake category name if someone has renamed uncategorized … But that was never the intent of that feature, the renaming was intended for localization, so it’s also weird as it is.
BoingBoing has been practically my home page, for a number of years now. However, I rarely participated in comments. Despite spending hours of my internet-day cruising the site, my comment total was in the low double digits.
I’m not entirely sure why, although Discus was definitely part of the issue. A lot of people have stated that the new format “derails” discussion, and yes, one does have to pay a bit more attention. But Discus just kept pushing replies farther to the right, before auto-killing them; not only did this sometimes result in total loss of interest (if that chain of replies was on an uninteresting side topic), but it was pretty frustrating if one was arguing a detailed point. On balance, I find the new layout more congenial, even if it is occasionally confusing.
Another reason was, frankly, probably that darn Antinous. Dude was kindofa jerk. Call me old-fashioned, but the term “Moderator” means someone who engages constructively to either manage a volatile situation, or facilitate the removal of a conversational roadblock. While I realize that Antinous was a well-regarded fixture of the BB comment community, he really should have had a special title. Like, I dunno, “Instigator.” It was weird and intimidating to log in for an occasional comment, and have the supposed sheriff just jump all over you, usually with cryptic sarcasm, and often based on a never-admitted misreading of your intent. Over time, I started to see his “value,” but the randomized hazing/aggression nearly killed my will to participate, on a couple of occasions.
Anyway, I’ve been digressing.
This whole changeover has motivated me.
Me too. I have been much more engaged in comments since the switch, perhaps because of the changes in format, or perhaps just because I had to go through like, 4 steps to log in the first time. Sunk costs! Whatever the reason, I’ve probably matched my all-time number of posts (since, maybe 2007?) in just the past couple of weeks. I find that I’m actually using the new forum system like I use facebook: checking the main BB page for new content, but almost immediately jumping to BBS to see what’s going on, and sometimes even skipping step one altogether. In other words, I actually feel involved.
Just thought the admin-types might want to hear that it’s not all doom-n-gloom, out here… 
6 Likes
We do not share personnel, contractor, vendor or other business changes unless we feel some specific need. Never have. This is not surprising or exciting.
Um… ok.
It may not be “exciting”, but I do find it surprising considering boingboing’s fairly consistent past of feeling some specific need.
It was announced when Teresa Nielsen Hayden started and stopped moderating as well as when Antinous, Avram Grumer was brought on, changed positions, etc. – So please try not to be too exacerbated with my “surprise” that there was no mention of these recent changes.
Same page for years: http://boingboing.net/about
Except there’s no longer any link to that page and/or brief bios in the right column as there was for years. The “about” page is an orphaned link from the rest of the website.
I assume this is all just temporary glitches, but I just wanted to let you know how excited and surprised I was about it.
ಠ_ಠ
5 Likes
This is how Randall Munroe handles his fan forum. He drops the link from the front page from time to time based upon who-knows-what. The fans are perplexed, some not.
The answers you are getting are so pro-forma corporate lie-o-speech that it makes me, again, bring up the possibility that we are being subjected to some kind of social experiment.
Jason is dodging the Antinous question. Perhaps we should let him.
The other possibility is that the site was sold for an ungodly sum that came with these bizarro requirements to button down the hatches and get the place in ship shape. Arm twisting via wallet.
The other unfortunate reading is a growing desire by the boingStaff for the place to reflect a specific politics without the burden of entertaining any opposition POV.
1 Like
the possibility that we are being subjected to some kind of social experiment.
Is that code for being trolled?
It’s a meta-troll. An over-arching concept designed to frustrate your every attempt to engage it.
Wow, now that I have described it it sounds about right.
Not to take away from Discourse, unless . . .
BB’s discussions that I’ve followed over the past 6-7 years rarely got ‘pulled’ in more than a 1/2 dozen directions; mostly in 3-4. They were directions that related to the posting being commented on. This is an essence of why BB’s comments ruled awesome…
Hey, regarding Antinous… You’re wanting a big story but there just isn’t one. Antinous is a terrific person and all of us like and respect him tremendously. We will miss him as a moderator. He knows that. (Also, I don’t think we made a specific announcement when Teresa stopped moderating.)
You’re right that the About Us page needs updating. It’s on “The List” and has been for a while.
Oh, I gave up on the smiley emoticons a while ago. It’s all in a kind of bitter fun and conspiracy slumming that seems somewhat appropriate. I’m still here, every day.
and frequently mis-understood. My fault, wired weird.
In my way of always suggesting very expensive and time-consuming solutions - I’d say some meta-navigation of comment threads would work, where the theme of each chain is automatically identified (or manually assigned for important topics like gun control, birth control, TSA control etc), i.e. tagged, and then represented in some flow-ish fashion.
So for instance if gun nuts post post post and disregard the “organised militia” component of the 2nd amendment, I could go and play in their little PR sandbox.
Speaking of that, do we have an example of astro-turfing or clear PR activity since the switch to bbs?
I was heartened to see this BB post:
During my over-Atkins diet weekend I was becoming my own inner concern trolley and worrying that BB has pulled the pedal off the controversy gas just a little.
Now I really, really want some Hollywood people to start munching at my posts. For laughs.
Wah?
Do you know if it was due to the changes in commenting?
Yep. Interactivity and group participation has always been the internet’s greatest weakness. So annoying and aesthetically irritating!
Not displaying the comments on the same page as the article is very damaging to a healthy comment system. By sending my attention off to another tab, I am losing the context of the original article. I want to be able to scroll up and take a look at the OP, then jump back down to the comments. Severing this connection is like eating plain toast and then licking a stick of butter.
Overall, I really dig Discourse - just not this particular implementation.
9 Likes
“Severing this connection is like eating plain toast and then licking a stick of butter.”
I don’t feel the same way, but damn, that is a great metaphor! Nice one.
6 Likes
There’s no shakeup (except for Antinous resigning) – it’s just hidden because our nav is terrible. It’s gonna be fixed imminently
1 Like
The new nav is going to be ‘type of post’ based rather than ‘subject of post’, so it might not be a good fit for BBS.
Something like:
BLOG • FEATURES • VIDEO • PODCASTS • FORUMS • ABOUT US
Not particularly sexy as forum categories!
On the other hand, we use tags promiscuously at BB. How hard would it be to let anyone just enter a single tag for a post and let that be the thing that shows up in indexes? Then they could evolve, as it were, as favorite tags become very frequently used (music, gadgets, lies, kittens) by BBSers.
I imagine this wouldn’t work as categories in BBS, as there’d be countless of them very quickly. But perhaps as a secondary taxonomy within a particular category or completely abstract from categories in general.
1 Like
