And now I have a question for you,Bart...


***If you don't like the new Prince.org,why the hell are you still here? All you do is complain.

I agree with much of what Bart is saying.

The prince.org news service was, in my opinion, its primary strength. Version 2.0 of the site has commendably tried to separate, to some extent, the news from the opinion - granted - people can still build threads of opinion around news items.

However, the introduction of dedicated (and apparently popular) discussion threads, seems to have been at the expense of the news service. Ideally, this service could better inform the discussions and foster more intelligent interaction within the community that has developed since org 2.0 emerged.

Partly because the value of the news service appears to have been overlooked or suffered, and partly because some of the features that Bart mentions are not available, this opportunity is being missed.

I disagree.The news is still there on the front page for anyone who wants to read it.The discussion threads do not affect the news page at all.It's just that,clearly,more people prefer to comment on the discussion threads instead of the news threads.

...and why, if someone could so clearly see all the ways it could be better, not do a 'better' site of his own, rather than just criticize someone else's site?..

Most of us seem to enjoy the new site.

This site has MANY features that the old site didn't have (the org notes,the profiles,the freedom to start your own thread,etc).

But,of course,YOU have to be the old,bitter "party poop" who wastes all his time bitching and complaining.

This is BEN'S SITE

Bart, this is just a list of helpful suggestions that you somehow needed to turn into a sermon. You don't know how to promote your ideas.

What is wrong with "the Org"...
- Why is the "submit news" box so small it wraps even really short URLs, when so much of the browser surface is wasted on empty space? ( http://www.prince.org/news/submit.html )

- The Org keep records of who submits what news. Then why don't they develop that system into something USEFUL? Why not give those that submit news a page listing which stories they've submitted, and their current status (online / rejected / moved to another section of the site / still not checked), instead of sending crappy standard email replies which don't even mention the story you've submitted?

- Why doesn't someone's public profile contain a list of all news stories he/she submitted (only the ones that are published, of course), so people can check out whether a poster has a history of reliable news submissions when one of his stories seems feeble, or whether he/she has a bias?

- Something I notice a lot if seeing links to non-existing stories in the news threads. For instance, "Downtime today" ( http://www.prince.org/msg...&tid=11271 ) has this link: "Next news item >> Prince Featured In 'CityList Section' of..." ( http://www.prince.org/msg...&tid=11278 ), but when you go there, what does it say? "Thread missing or not yet approved -- Sorry, the requested thread doesn't seem to be available." fact is that this is a serious design error, that link simply shouldn't be there.

- If there's an OrgNote for me, why do I have to hover over "extras" to get to the OrgNotes section? Why doesn't the alert that I've got an OrgNote waiting (at the top of the homepage) contain a direct link to the Notes?

- Why is the curent Org in fact a DOWNGRADE of the previous system:
* with much of the search functionality gone (PPML, FAQs,...),
* with none of the old news stories transferred to the new site in some sort of archive section,
* with slower webserver performance,
* with threads that have become only slightly more readable (ever heard of a treeview?),
* with a ridiculous "everyone can post whatever they like, just as long as we don't get bothered with too many complaints (and then it doesn't even matter if the offensive post in question violates our rules, it's just we don't like the hassle of dealing with stupid complaints from people that don't have a spine)" attitude that completely contradicts the old PPML principles of moderated talk?

And this is just the stuff I thought up in the past 10 minutes or so. Why didn't Ben & Kevin think of these months ago when they were designing the system?
[This message was edited Fri Mar 29 3:12:30 PST 2002 by BartVanHemelen]

* with a ridiculous "everyone can post whatever they like, just as long as we don't get bothered with too many complaints (and then it doesn't even matter if the offensive post in question violates our rules, it's just we don't like the hassle of dealing with stupid complaints from people that don't have a spine)" attitude that completely contradicts the old PPML principles of moderated talk?

LOL...Ben,you know that even if you made all the changes that Bart suggested,he would STILL spend all his time complaining.He would find a million more things wrong with this site (the same way he complains about everything Prince does...lol).But,that's Bart for you;)

2a. No way to see 'history' of stories submitted by a specific person, etc.
True. No one but you has asked for this, but I do intend on adding something like this. From your profile page, you'll be able to click 'view posting history' or something similar, and get a list of linked titles to threads and news items you've posted.

2b. No way to see 'status' of items you've sent in / emails are crappy.
Probably won't build something to show the status of in-flight items

5. Search capability (PPML, FAQ) gone
This will be addressed. I am working on a VERY nice search system, that will work across the site, and by MUCH faster than the old system was.

6. The old news stories aren't here.
Yes, they are... and have been since day 1.

7. Slower webserving
Actually, faster webserving, but heavier pages. You only notice this on slow connections (which I realize a lot of people do have.)

At the old prince.org site, people were using the news comment feature as a discussion board--they'd even "hijack" news items and use the comment function to discuss something totally unrelated to the news item above it. Meanwhile, the popularity of the PPML rapidly sank. To me, that suggests people prefer the web discussion.

And although the signal-to-noise ratio was better on the PPML, at least we still have some moderation powers to keep things under control.

To you, perhaps. To me, it suggested that the Org suffered -- and still suffers -- from an influx of people who shouldn't be posting at all.

DavidEye said:

Funny how Ben agrees with virtually all I said. I guess the joke's on you.

BartVanHemelen said:

But who are YOU to say who should and should NOT be posting (even if its a ridiculous post?) Is this is a dictatorship? You sound just like Prince with his rules and regulations as to who and who can't post whatever...

Indeed, I stand corrected, they're at http://www.prince.org/news/ (you'd think that going to a site's news section will get you directly to the latest news, but not @ the Org -- go figure...) and then "older news". They're there, indeed, yet buried.

To you, perhaps. To me, it suggested that the Org suffered -- and still suffers -- from an influx of people who shouldn't be posting at all.

Then -- at the very least -- why not implement thread approval before anything is posted?