CR4 Admin Blog Intro

Admin Blog, sounds like a good idea.
The Workbench Creations seem a bit thin on the ground lately...
Someone must be builindg something exciting...
I've mostly been doing bow stuff lately, but if I do anything of more general interest I'll offer it up.
Del

"So i iritates me when someone tells me to look it up on Google....."

I think one hurdler for those of us trying to help is when the questions are posed many times not much information is given so we users (helpers?) have no idea what the questioner has already tried.

One way get better answers faster would be to take the time to give some back ground such as 'I have already searched on Google (other sites) and found the answers to be inadequate' while even posting what was searched on Google. It may be that Google could find good information given different search criteria.

I think this Admin blog is a good idea because it can help subscribers understand more realistically the challenges faced by Admin. It came as a shock to me that Chris Leonard was leaving, and having several thousand bits of writing on here that I may have wanted to keep a copy of, and it dramatically changed my perspective.

In short, I had come to take CR4 for granted, and viewed it as somewhat eternal, being connected to such a large organization as Globalspec. In the discussions that flew around, I came to see it as a much more human enterprise, and that if I wanted to keep a copy of my writings, I would need to accept that responsibility myself, instead of naively believing that CR4 would always be there.

I think I've always brought a fair approach to dealing with controversy on CR4, but I'm not perfect either. My energy waxes and wanes when dealing with people, and it is perfectly understandable that a moderator's tolerance would also. I simply didn't think of the load upon CL and the CR4 admin staff.

I am still grateful for CR4 and have an renewed respect for the effort required to put on such a program. I think the blog can help everyone understand more about the people behind the site, and also about the best ways to find satisfaction with its use in one's life.

I would still like to have a 'voting' option to a post, as mentioned elsewhere. Is this blog intended to be a discussion of features we would like to see as users?

Chris

Thanks for your input Chris. And don't worry - CR4 isn't going anywhere!

You can continue using the CR4 Feedback forum to discuss user-suggested ideas. I'm currently compiling a list of them to prioritize for when we do have some programming resources devoted to CR4. You may see some of them pop up as blog entries here in the future.

If I want to unsubscribe to a particular thread, I must go to a separate page or two to do so. This is unwieldy. Can an Unsubscribe option be added next to the Subscribe and Rate options above each thread that would enable this without going through extra steps?

When I wish to read the new responses to a thread, I am now directed to its beginning, and then must switch to the most recent page. Can it be arranged instead to go to the most recent post first?

Both of these strategies would probably save a lot of page-jumping, as well as consuming fewer resources from the overall system.

Can an Unsubscribe option be added next to the Subscribe
It is alread there!
Click on the subscribe box on the thread to subscribe OR unsubscribe (if you are alread subscribed)!
Del

Del,

Thanks for the tip.

It's great that the feature already exists, it's too bad it's not intuitive (i.e. like switches to "unsubscribe" if you are already subscribed or is labeled "subscribe/unsubscribe").

Observation: now that I've written the word subscribe several times, it no longer looks like it's spelled correctly (even though it is). Is there a name for such a phenomenon?

Of movements in youth circles I dealt with as crew, I have to admit, I liked Slackers quite a bit. They seemed to be self contained and knew what they were doing. I particularly was impressed that a third assistant camera basically said to a First, "Duck you, I know how to do my job, and no one is supposed to run carrying these lenses." Then he would get on his Skate board and ride away like a wheeled Buddha. Truly I do have an affection for the unrepentant. I myself have regrets, but think those Slackers had a good idea, and simply avoided any reason to collect such reasons for self flagellation. I wish I had more been a Slacker, though I had my moments. Definitely the time my flight instructor pulled my power on take off, attempting to simulate engine failure, I did the Slacker thing. FLL 9 left, and I was not going to turn around in a Tomahawk, or run into the sea. Just looked at him and shoved the throttle forward.

Wonder if there are any Slackers in the Administrative Group. Hope so.

Meantime if ya'll are really going to enforce the rules, is this to be retroactive? Between Politics and History, and Religion, you could probably wipe out half my GAs, not to mention other stuff, like Intelligence.

One GA I have is for my contribution on whether or not one needed to be a Field Spy to run the CIA. I'm actually proud more of that post, than many others, and suppose it is the sort of post I'd like to transfer to my site.

Questions do get me going and I hardly talk to many informed smart well educated people in the course of my normal small town day. Plus I have developed enemies in every powerful quarter in town who have colluded to crush me out of unethical self interest and venal pretending. -John Edwards lives very nearby and built an estate on a road I also built a home with one "temporary wife".

When Rome was coming apart people with means and sense got out of the city. IGX is one of those sorts of comparable places.

Nearby Troy, Ithaca is similar. Anyway I hope some of the Moderators are Slackers.

It looks like Del answered your first question. (Thanks Del!)

I'll add your other suggestion to our list. I know what you're talking about - especially with a certain very lengthy thread! Your idea may receive further discussion/input if you post it over on the CR4 Feedback forum as a new thread.

Of course that's really only of use if you use "Flat" display style. As a "Nested" viewer who skips about using "Next Comment" - often in separate tabs - it would be of less use, especially as I'm 10 weeks and 6 days (spearately - see the thread if you're confused) behind in my reading..._{and the OCD means I will catch up...eventually}

I realize it's a software tweak - but I'd've thought it would be pretty easy to have the "Subscribe" button caption change to "Unsubscribe" if already subscribed (looking at the source code, there's a flag called "m_isSubscribed", so it should be a trivial mod).

If you click on the "Subscribe" button when you are subscribed to the discussion, it tells you so, and gives you the option to unsubscribe. This isn't sufficient?

For some - but apparently not all of us. Please see #4 - which is the only reason I looked into it.

Now that you mention it, yes, and thanks! However, if I am already subscribed to a discussion, why would I ever think to punch the Subscribe button again? If it is a toggle, make it look like one; i.e., switch between Subscribe and Unsubscribe. Hint, hint.

Joseph Heller wrote a classic novel about pretty much this same idea....

I would like to see the CR4 site where I can refer to many Product Leaflets with technical details for future reference.This would help many of the engineers who are working on the designs,projects, procurement etc.

Although I am generally pleased with the CR4 guidelines, I do have a comment about helping students solve homework problems. Although it can get out of hand, I think students demonstrate curiosity and interest when posting their homework. In giving them professional and informed answers, we are assisting in their education. Another aspect of this was a recent inquiry that was terminated by admin. where some of the answers prior to termination were either misleading or wrong. In this instance, a teaching moment for both student and professional was lost. As a student, I learned that the answers to my problems did not always come from teachers and/or textbooks.

I guess it's time for Ed Weldon to comment here.

I'd like to see some way of encouraging guests to provide a bit more information about themselves or at least the context of their reply or question. I am reluctant to put effort into a comment that may fairly miss the mark because I didn't correctly read the one or two line question, often in fractured English or obscure acronyms. I think this is especially important for students.

Another minor annoyance is the text editor that lacks a right click copy and paste function. I do realize that this might be a bigger programming project than I make it seem like.

Let's try to not excessively complicate the rating system.

I don't think we should try to compete with Wikipedia or the like. On the other hand when you craft an answer that is simple, readable and understandable by all levels of readers you have accomplished something worthwhile. In preparing a comment in CR-4 I'll often go to the Wikipedia article to see what's there that I can use or just to find a correct spelling of a word or name. The evolutionary aspect of Wikis is to be well respected. The best ones will lead off with simple explanations and leave the math and such til later.

One more thing I'd like to address to CR-4 users. GlobalSpec puts a lot of resources into this forum. We should encourage their continuing support. To that end I think it would be quite appropriate for subject selected related links and advertisements to appear on CR-4 topic pages. (Ha, ha.....this should keep the programmers busy for a while) It might even be helpful to some of us posing questions or studying answers. I'm not asking for popups or annimated banner ads. But there's no such thing as a free lunch (the current political climate notwithstanding). OK, my shield is ready. You can hurl your slings an arrows now.

Ed Weldon

You can right click and paste, but first you have to right click on "bypass custom menu" then click on the little popup telling you the next time your right click it will bring up standard menu. If you miss (or mess up) you will have to right click to bring up the bypass button again but you will not get he popup again, just right click and paste your text.

I use Firefox and like the way I can highlight and then drag and drop text into the post space. I do the same with pictures sometimes. I also get red squiggly lines telling me I have misspelled something. I can either use the spell checker to fix it or right click through the bypass button and right click on the red squiggled word to fix it.

Drew

You have led a charmed life not to be exposed to the MS-Word red (spelling) and green (grammar) squiggles! Their spelling checker isn't too bad, even though it once corrected a reference to WA State Governor Christine Gregoire to "Groggier"...

Their grammar checker is oftentimes a dunce, but I cut them some slack because of the complexity of the task.

One of the threads to which I am responding, "Were There Giants in the Land?", has had a few posts deleted on account of excessive politics and/or religion. I can agree with deleting offensive posts, but wherever possible I would prefer flagging over deleting. If poor arguments simply vanish, no one can refute them. Similarly for over-unity or other pseudoscientific topics.

Simply deleting such posts invites charges of censorship, which may sometimes be justified; but exposure and counter-argument are likely to be better. Labeling such posts allows readers to ignore or respond as they wish; deleting them prevents refutation and/or resolution.

perhaps by using the strikethrough for the offensive material, and a note by admin?

I have sseen i other blogs where an offending post has been omitted, and subsequent responses to the offending post (posted before the offending post was censored) lead to confusion, and in some rare cases, others being offended because they believe the reponse was possibly directed at them rather than a non-existant post. If a post is found offensive or otherwise in violation of the rules of the game, a marker should be inserted indicating the post has been deleted, and possibly why (Violation of Posting Rules is a bit broad- vulgar, political, religiously contentious, etc. are a bit more discriptiove...). An admin log of such deletions could also help in identifying frequent offenders...

right on brother!

Love it!.

Milo

1. Is it possible to make attachments of say a large word file or ppt file etc?
2. I had difficulty in pasting a word file with pictures, drawings. I overcame it- by pasting drawings to irfan file and then copying the irfan file to CR4. See if this can be simplified.
3. Instead of doing spell check after writing(sometimes we may forget), is it possible that like in word document - I can keep the spell check ON - as I keep typing- so that I can correct (or select a suggestion) on line immediately
4. I did not see a satisfying answer to a question- Can I unsubscribe from a specific thread, not from CR4. May be I wish to rejoin (or just look up comments) the thread later- if still active !?

Look at post 7.

Use firefox.

Paste photos etc. separately.

Read a bit more, Ky.

To clarify KY's comment:

Firefox automatically spell checks for you. It puts the red squiggly lines under misspelled words. You can then use the editor's spell checker or right click on the word, "click on bypass custom menu", right click again on the red squiggled word and it will come up with a list of suggestions for correction.

If not using the editor, you have to bypass the custom menu every time you need to correct a misspelled word.

Drew

this is great, CR4 with its growing members and guests, is allot like a business with its employees, its very hard to manage it, not so much they like each other but to get to have them get along. And like a business, some may get lost in the process.

I do not think that deleting posts, is good, but redlining it would prove better and less confusing.

And keep the good answers rating simple, if members mean what they say that GA do not mean much or carry weight to them, and if they get a good answer for just being humors, or ganging/bulling, it should be self monitored by members with a off topic. Though it does not seem to work too good as of late.

Milo put it well don't recall exact words but the sharpness of response could be the result/condition of the economy

GA is for the solving of the problem.

Like to see how it evolves.

p911

I have enjoyed, and hopefully made positive contributions to, CR4 for nearly 4 years, and hope to continue. That's long enough that if I saw a set of rules when I joined, I no longer remember. With all the recent talk about rules, I decided to take a look. I navigated to the page titled 'CR4 Rules', expecting to see some (rules).

The only thing is see there that might be considered 'rules' is:

"By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-orientated, hateful, threatening, spamming, off-topic, or that otherwise violate any laws"

Where are the rules?

If that list represents the rules, why does it forbid 'off-topic', yet CR4 provides a specific check box for indicating that a post about to be submitted is 'off-topic'? I frequently find 'off-topic' posts useful, and sometimes more interesting/useful than the original topic.

The "off-topic" check box is there in case a user wants to focus strictly on "on-topic" content; they can ignore these posts through the visible "off-topic" tag. It is in the best interest of the thread and other users to stay on-topic so that the value of the thread is not compromised. However, you are correct in that some off-topic posts are good for the thread. As long as the "off-topic" comment does not violate any of the previous laws you have listed and adds value to the entry, it is generally acceptable.

Having gone through all of the responses to a particular thread with 1500+ posts at the time of the exercise (and using my own judgement regarding what I would consider "on topic" and "off topic"), I find that a lot of "off topic" posts are actually quite pertinent, and a lot of "high GA" posts actually have nothing to do with the subject matter. I have also seen ratings apparently change from "GA" to "Off topic", apparently because of some disagreement (not always apparently due to technical issues) between the rater and the ratee. Overall, my perception of the rating system is that it is pretty useless because of the way the system is used by members.

Another point- using my own criteria for judging the long, long thread, only about 10% of the content is actually of any value. I suspect that, while someone else might have different criteria for evaluating the usefulness of any particular reply, I would suspect that, especially with regards to longer threads, they would find a similar level of "value". The way I calcualte the 10% is I download a page of posts as text, check the size of the file, strip out what I don't think is important (including a lot of header and tail data) and check the size of the resulting stripped-down file. This is where I find that a lot of posts rated as "off topic" actually have some value to the subject at hand, while a lot of posts with multiple "GA's" do not always yiled valuable information...

As a photographer the known ratio among professionals is 1 out of ten. For writers it is not that different really, though close enough that it is real work.

1 out of ten is applicable if you are good.

It truly is nice to have an editor to work with, since I myself get tired of my own stories. I used to take a lot of time, and do a lot of rewrite, but now I don't. Writing journalism, and then some ad copy pushed me to learn to a bit at least how to write fast.

Last GA I lost, I lost because I reported myself for another fit of bad temper in a reply to Captain Moosie. As Editorial you yourself would have cut the post, that had GAs from use on the subject. You, CW have already been elected Mayor. The reason for that is that I and others recognize you as a fine editor, and I have publicly complained here that no Veterans were hired at the time of the administration change.p] It is too bad you were not hired and given a paycheck for your work.

While it is true that Chrisg and Garthh worked with you for the edit of Shipping Container, you, were and will be the main man. Best, RSD

Perhaps a solution could be to have a G.A. that is awarded by a consensus of votes (or by qualified members) as the correct answer, and another G.A. like award for humorous or supportive ratings.

They could be a guru / star system (with a % given) to give inexperienced users an idea of who to listen to on a particular thread. Currently the guru label is awarded for quantity, not quality. I think there should be something awarded to members who tend to know what they are talking about so users who are inexperienced can know who is sitting at their computer wearing a tinfoil hat and who really knows what they are talking about. _{<note...some tin foil hat wearers do know what they are talking about i just meant that as an expression>}

Drew

if there were no off topic posts, cr4 would turn to vapour! entire threads would disappear (bath breaking?) omg. even some members would disappear!

Yeah, but my Grin would remain....

Quote chrisq288:

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see
Insanity a one see can target else hits no"

There are some of us who embrace all three. It is good that we find space for their types. .......Ed Weldon

"Insanity a one see can target else hits no"

Translation: You can't see me!

"their types" - excuuuse Meee!

My father always told me

"There is a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like and idiot".

Which reminds me of a few other words of wisdom from him:

"The definition of a farmer is a man out standing (outstanding) in his field"

and "Never call your wife a doll for a doll is an empty headed play thing....even if she is a doll".

The last one is probably more dated as I don't thing many guys younger than 50 call women doll or doll face anymore.

To Admin-

Have a look at the thread "Publishing Research Papers on the Web" for an idea about adding a "repository" for technical contributions (i.e., summaries of some of the better threads on CR4) that could serve as a basic reference library...Including contributions by those willing to contribute...

heres the link

In today's CR4 story I liked the topic Funny Drag: Newsletter Challenge (05/04/10). Now how do I keep track of the discussion without making any contribution? Meaning I want to subscribe to the thread, but but not be part of it. How do I do it?

Just above the original post, to the right, are three buttons, one for subscribe, one for rating, and one for display style. Click on the subscribe button, and you get a drop down menu, with another subscribe button on the bottom. Click on this, and you are now subscribed to the thread, without submitting a comment.

Just hit the "Subscribe" button at the top of the discussion. Soon there will be an "unsub" button there, so they say.

Just press it again.

Can we not see who's giving us OT ratings for no reason. That way we can at least know who's trying to shut us up. Maybe making their lack of integrity public will make them think twice about doing it.

Giving an OT does not shut you up. Your comment is still available for all to see.

Just because you may not know the reason they gave you an OT, does not mean they didn't have one (although it may be a stupid or mean spirited reason).