Brahma Blogs

This team blog is designed to allow a group of friends who have known each other for 20+ years to share their thoughts on culture, politics, religion, relationships, etc.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Frustrated keeping up with old threads

So far, the only way I can keep track of comments posted to old threads is to start at one end or the other of the list of all posts, then one-by-one examine all the comments to see if any are new. Can I suggest that we start a new post, rather than comment on an old one, once the thread gets more than, say 3 days old?

posted by R @ 2:11 PM  

9 Comments:

  • At 2:25 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I agree that we need to find a better way to continue each old thread. Perhaps the institution of a policy such as the one you suggest would suffice. I suspect, however, that this Web interface is just so cumbersome that I shall never be pleased with it.

    A mailing list would certainly be more convenient, even if it does not provide the proper eye candy for Curtis, and even if we already receive too much e-mail. A good MUA (such as Mozilla Thunderbird) makes short work of spam, and the list server could add a special tag to each subject line to identify every message from the list.

    Anyway, I hope that we find a good solution that fosters communication among us. I have so far enjoyed the dialogue.

     

  • At 4:18 PM, Blogger cvo said…

    I'm open to suggestions.
    The only thing I can do with this particular format is cut down the number of posts on the home page so that there are only a few days' worth.
    I'll change that right now.
    I was leaving old ones up so that new members like Walter, Lark and Lila could get an idea of what we had been doing so far.

     

  • At 6:45 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Ack! Would my recent posts to old threads then become invisible? I hope not.

     

  • At 8:10 PM, Blogger cvo said…

    No, the recent threads would just become part of the October Archives I believe along with the corresponding comments.

     

  • At 8:20 PM, Blogger cvo said…

    Tom,
    I just looked in the October archives and all of the posts and comments are still there.
    I've reduced the number of days on the home page to 5 so the posts move to the Recent Posts column for a few days and then into the October Archive (or whichever month we happen to be in at that point).
    Each of the posts will always have its own page where you can read the comments if you wish to go back to them.

     

  • At 8:18 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Curtis, I've done a bit of research, and I have a suggestion. The constraints on the solution to the problem seem to be as follows:

    (a) My chief complaints are (1) that the Web interface here is slow and cumbersome and (2) that there is no convenient way to keep an old thread going. As it turns out, the solution to both of these problems is to be had in a mailing list.

    (b) Russell seems to share with me the complaint about continuing an old thread, but he would prefer not to receive more e-mail.

    (c) You seem to like a good Web-based interface in which graphical images may be exchanged.

    My suggestion, then, is that we establish a Yahoo Group. In fact, I have already established one for test purposes. A Yahoo Group is a mailing list with a Web interface. One who joins the group can choose whether or not to use the e-mail interface. For example, I might choose to receive via e-mail every post to the group, but Russell might choose to post and to view new messages only through the Web interface.

    Let me know if you would like to test out the group that I set up.

     

  • At 10:47 AM, Blogger cvo said…

    Before we do a wholesale switch, I would keep in mind that it took me 2 weeks to get all of us signed onto this blog because not everyone checks their e-mail or computer every day.
    I also think the majority of this group are not near as techno-savvy as Tom and Russell including me (and I've owned and operated a commercial website before).
    Even though the web interface is a little clunky, it is SIMPLE and easy to check for someone who surfs the web occasionally.
    Having said that, I agree that there are probably sites with better features that would suit our purposes in a more functional way.
    Tom, tell me where to go to check out the Yahoo Group so I can test it out and if it seems like it'll work, we'll take a group vote and see about moving everybody over to it.

     

  • At 3:17 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    I am not advocating that we do anything ASAP. Because of the difficulty in doing any switch-over, I want to make sure that we find something that everyone agrees is really good. Before I recommend anything, I want to find something that I think is worth recommending. It will take time. I'm trying out a couple of different possibilities. One is a Yahoo Group. Russell is a current Yahoo Group user; he might have some relevant comments. Another possibility is running the GNU MailMan list server on my firewall machine at home. I'll let you know when I have each of my current experiments set up properly so that you can evaluate them.

    I really hope that I am not causing you too much angst by my promotion of a change. It's just that I can't stand this interface, and I believe that we can establish a system that will better serve the establishment of an on-line community.

     

  • At 4:23 PM, Blogger R said…

    I do think the Yahoo site would address my concerns, except that I don' know if we can import the current threads. One thing I don't like is the ads and pop-ups.

     

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