I wanted to see what others had to say about an item featured on the front page. It looks pretty nifty, but when I click on the ‘Discuss this item on BoingBoing’ it says that the discussion is closed, with no link to said archived comments. I then went to the store page, but there’s no opportunity for discussion or reviews there.
For something to be on the front page, I really feel it is important that there is an opportunity to engage in the dialog/interaction. Engaging dialog is, to me, a uniquely-BoingBoing experience.
Also, doesn’t it feel a bit weird that the BoingBoing Store has special rights to close discussion on the products sold?
So how come certain articles create a discussion here under the @boingboing user instead of failing for the reasons you described? Right now there are three threads at the top of the BBS frontpage that all list boingboing as the author, but the actual articles are attributed to Boing Boing, Sword and Laser, & Laura Hudson.
Author must have a BBS account The name on that BBS account must match the name of their WordPress account The BBS account must be in the "authors" group so they have permission to create topics in the Boing category So..
So all the articles with different authors are all posting under the Wordpress boingboing account? Alright, I can see how that works. Does that make this particular instance a failing of BoingBoing for not properly setting up all of their authors and contributors or a failing of Discourse for not being able to handle unexpected contributors?
Sorry, I should have been more clear about the example I was pointing at. This article, this article, this article, and this article are all attributed to different authors (Wink, Laura Anderson, Boing Boing, & Sword and Laser, respectively) on the BoingBoing front page. But here on the BBS all of theassociateddiscussionthreads are started by @boingboing.
How come Wink and the others have their discussions started under the generic boingboing username and other authors without BBS accounts fall into a failure mode?
I could swear they posted something last week and there were comments (mostly negative).
Specifically about the KeySmart - I’ve seen it called different names, but they’re always right around the same price. It’s nifty, but adds a little extra weight and can be kinda awkward when you add car keys to the mix.
There is no @winkbooks, no @laurahudson, nor @swordandlaser on the BBS. There is an @boingboing.
In the case of @boingboing, yes. Again, there are no BBS accounts that match the other three Wordpress usernames.
By the rules you’ve quoted several times now the Star Wars, Splatoon, and writer’s block articles should not have created discussions here on the BBS. But they did, and for some reason they all did it with @boingboing as the creator of those discussions. My question is what is the difference between @boingboingstore and @swordandlaser that allows the latter to have discussions on their articles while the former does not?
Right, I only see @boingboing as having a valid account on the BBS. Sword and Laser does not have a BBS account matching its Wordpress username, but a discussion was created here on the BBS anyways. Why?
So following this logic; if I make a BBS account with the exact name of the Wordpress account that posted the Boing Boing Store article (I’m assuming that’s @boingboingstore ) there will be a discussion thread in the BBS?
You’re not explaining it very well. Can you do so without simply posting the same three rules over and over, maybe expand on it a little, since people are clearly not understanding you so saying the same thing isn’t going to help.
Sorry, you’re right, I could have been more clear.
Usually when this happens it is because the author does have a BBS account matching their WordPress username, but is not a member of the “authors” group.
If you don’t have an account, and post on the blog, everything is posted by the user “boingboing”.
Perhaps the confusion was that generally we want authors (regular ones perhaps) to have BBS accounts so their posts come through as them and not as the generic BB icon “boingboing” user. This way you can also have a conversation with the author, too, if they are willing… which I believe is generally healthy.
If we look at the author “boingboingstore” on WordPress it is odd because someone of the earlier posts do have associated discussions under BBS user “boingboing”. And yet the later ones do not. You can see the same pattern in other posts by “boingboing” on BBS where these are authors that their posts are normally attributed, but … not … in some cases.
So yeah, fair enough, this might be some other bug. I know sometimes oddity in the way the post was created on the WordPress side (there are apparently a thousand ways to “post”, and not all of them go through the same code paths) can cause this.
So the complete rules for whether a discussion should be posted or not can be summed up as:
Author does not have a BBS account - discussion posted by boingboing
Author does have a BBS account
a) BBS username doesn’t match Wordpress username - discussion posted by boingboing
b) BBS username does match Wordpress username
i) Author is part of “authors” usergroup - discussion posted by author’s BBS account
ii) Author is not part of “authors” usergroup - discussion not posted.
I find the big problem with key rings is that they are not flexible enough in the way they allow your keys to sit in your pocket. This appears to solve it by being even less flexible, but at least forcing them into a shape that is more easily pocketable.
I use a fairly short length of nylon paracord, threaded through the keys, and knotted at each end. it allows the keys to fall however they please within my pocket, and also makes it easier to use my micro penknife without having to remove it from they keyring.
