thread central has 9400+ posts in no less than 95 pages and the search robot of Archinect only works for the first message of each thread (something, I hope, that will be fixed for the Archinect 3.0 version because it makes no sense to do a search on a 100+ posts thread to get only what's in the first message)...
so the red dots are what in some php forums are known as a "sticky thread" (or something like that)? .. how the Archinect intelligentsia determines if a thread must have a red dot? I see it's not because of having more than X answers or X views.. so what makes exactly a thread worthy of an exclusive red dot?
the green, sustainable thread being green sounds funny, but I don't understand the purple thread .. will there be more colors in the future? what a blue thread, or an orange one will mean?
.. I guess we're in the middle of a process of being transported to a new land, so can a Moses-like Archinect masterplanner can answer some of these things? ... Gràcies a lot.
Lose the red dots. The point of the internet forum as a medium for communication is the lack of editor filter... when a forum loses the looseness, the unedited, free speach aspect to it, then it might as well be... a magazine.
Features should be features, there are news sections, links to blogs, etc. The orange featured blog entries are good, basically links, the featured job post in red, the blue featured discussion, green for an official special event thread like green week, these are all good. But if you want your forum to remain on the cutting edge, and keep taking advantage of the point of this medium, open discussions and free democratic participation, avoid any sort of prioritizing of other threads. I've seen alot of forums become lame because forum moderators go too far structuring them (putting in too man rules, too many dumb stickied threads, and politicizing the content...) A forum should be open and uncensored unless content is harmful (like bigotry or general trolling)
threads should not be given any "star" special priority... that's just lame, it's censorship, archinect will be steadily going from 'pimpin' edgy, free forum to... what? politically driven and profit driven commercial lame duck forum that has ad banners everywhere and where information is filtered, not free discussion, not really 'connecting architects since 1997' at all...
I don't have anything against banners, ads to generate revenue to keep the site going, but you should keep in mind that your greatest asset as a media source is uncensored real speach. Lose the red dots... If as editors you want to draw attention to certain threads, create an editorial page that highlights interesting threads and say why you think they are interesting.
I feel like the red dots on this forum are kindof like when the NHL, national hockey league and television networks started using computer generated "blue streaks" to follow the puck because they were worried that the average dumb fan in america wouldn't be able to follow the game without them... It was a lame idea and short lived, fans "blue streaked" their feet into the league's ass.
i think archinect is getting too organized for my taste
also as this community gets tighter and more people are more connected, we start to have more and more rules : no silly questions, no newbie simpathy, limited amounts of flirting permitted, red dots, green dots, threads into their little categories, etc.
I think we should as well have a government and elect a ruler next.
brink & ckl how then would you propose to curb contributions that are causing a decline in participation?
I'm not anti, as I was very interested in the cross-pollenisation of threads (hence thread central, green central, etc) and respect the new efforts of archinect as such. It is just another filter or optic that we can use as a tool to understand and/or contribute to, the dialogue
I say if itsn't broken, don't fix it
archinect isn't losing anything and participation isn't declining, it's actually going in the right directions - witness the informal organization to save the Grosse Pointe library which is something amazing
curbing is dangerous
when you click on discussions, you are given the option of filtering what type of discussions you want to read. many people will probably choose a particular thing they are interested in, while others view all topics.
if you think there are contributions that cause a decline in participation, address the individual who is making those posts. personally, i don't really see it, why should anyone care if mdler and tumbleweed fool around on archinect... everyone has the choice of reading or not reading what they want. it's not a reason to censor. let people decide for themselves what is worth reading or not... censorship is lame and does not promote criticism... who is to say what is more or less important discussion, what should be the "elite" thread or topic?
if you don't think your readers have the intelligence to decide for themselves what is or isnt relevant, then you will lose any readers who do.
re: cross polleniation between threads...
why not make running editorial threads... things like thread central, green central etc. whatever you want, but... keep those things separate from main forum body threads. Stickying or adding special red dots will reduce readership of "non officially sanctioned" threads, and so, its not really about cross pollenation... total bullshit. it's about control of visibility and readership, not encouragement of free speach.
i don't know how it was introduced on the TC, but when I saw the red dots, I thought archinect was highlighting threads they thought were interesting and perhaps playing off of the red dot design awards, a bit....
A suggestion: would it be possible for our login cookies to remember our viewing preferences? I like to see all the topics mixed together, and I'm glad the link is still there to do that, but it's a drag to click on it everytime. Kinda nitpicky but there it is.
765: I agree.. my Archinect link in the Favs folder goes directly to the archinect.com/forum address which takes you to the non-indexed page... but everytime I click in the discussion link (at the left menu) it brings you to the indexed page again.
something which I'd find useful is highlighting the threads that have new messages since my last visit (with a dark grey or whatever, but without extra graphics -dots, starts, etc..- next to the thread's title..., while leaving the ones that doesn't have new messages with a lighter grey or any other color) ...
I think this is probably the best and more useful characteristic of the php forums, you can check out immediately where there are new things to read, and not wasting time revisiting threads that you don't remember if you have posted or not or if there are new messages, etc..
May 6, 07 8:15 am ·
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Red dots?
Sorry if it's been asked before, but what it means that a thread is highlighted with a red dot at the left of the title?
and also, what about the colored threads on top?
I want to know too.
green because it's a green thread. purple because it's a feature. the red dots? i have no idea.
according to archinect, a red dot is a thread that the big floating green head at archinect thinks is worth checking out.
it was mentioned in thread central
just don't eat the brown acid...
thread central has 9400+ posts in no less than 95 pages and the search robot of Archinect only works for the first message of each thread (something, I hope, that will be fixed for the Archinect 3.0 version because it makes no sense to do a search on a 100+ posts thread to get only what's in the first message)...
so the red dots are what in some php forums are known as a "sticky thread" (or something like that)? .. how the Archinect intelligentsia determines if a thread must have a red dot? I see it's not because of having more than X answers or X views.. so what makes exactly a thread worthy of an exclusive red dot?
the green, sustainable thread being green sounds funny, but I don't understand the purple thread .. will there be more colors in the future? what a blue thread, or an orange one will mean?
.. I guess we're in the middle of a process of being transported to a new land, so can a Moses-like Archinect masterplanner can answer some of these things? ... Gràcies a lot.
red dots? maybe you should go see your doctor....
a sticky thread is a thread that stays at the top of the forum pile
Lose the red dots. The point of the internet forum as a medium for communication is the lack of editor filter... when a forum loses the looseness, the unedited, free speach aspect to it, then it might as well be... a magazine.
Features should be features, there are news sections, links to blogs, etc. The orange featured blog entries are good, basically links, the featured job post in red, the blue featured discussion, green for an official special event thread like green week, these are all good. But if you want your forum to remain on the cutting edge, and keep taking advantage of the point of this medium, open discussions and free democratic participation, avoid any sort of prioritizing of other threads. I've seen alot of forums become lame because forum moderators go too far structuring them (putting in too man rules, too many dumb stickied threads, and politicizing the content...) A forum should be open and uncensored unless content is harmful (like bigotry or general trolling)
threads should not be given any "star" special priority... that's just lame, it's censorship, archinect will be steadily going from 'pimpin' edgy, free forum to... what? politically driven and profit driven commercial lame duck forum that has ad banners everywhere and where information is filtered, not free discussion, not really 'connecting architects since 1997' at all...
I don't have anything against banners, ads to generate revenue to keep the site going, but you should keep in mind that your greatest asset as a media source is uncensored real speach. Lose the red dots... If as editors you want to draw attention to certain threads, create an editorial page that highlights interesting threads and say why you think they are interesting.
I feel like the red dots on this forum are kindof like when the NHL, national hockey league and television networks started using computer generated "blue streaks" to follow the puck because they were worried that the average dumb fan in america wouldn't be able to follow the game without them... It was a lame idea and short lived, fans "blue streaked" their feet into the league's ass.
i think archinect is getting too organized for my taste
also as this community gets tighter and more people are more connected, we start to have more and more rules : no silly questions, no newbie simpathy, limited amounts of flirting permitted, red dots, green dots, threads into their little categories, etc.
I think we should as well have a government and elect a ruler next.
has archinect jumped the shark?
jumping the red dot?
brink & ckl how then would you propose to curb contributions that are causing a decline in participation?
I'm not anti, as I was very interested in the cross-pollenisation of threads (hence thread central, green central, etc) and respect the new efforts of archinect as such. It is just another filter or optic that we can use as a tool to understand and/or contribute to, the dialogue
I say if itsn't broken, don't fix it
archinect isn't losing anything and participation isn't declining, it's actually going in the right directions - witness the informal organization to save the Grosse Pointe library which is something amazing
curbing is dangerous
there are enough filters... maybe too many.
when you click on discussions, you are given the option of filtering what type of discussions you want to read. many people will probably choose a particular thing they are interested in, while others view all topics.
if you think there are contributions that cause a decline in participation, address the individual who is making those posts. personally, i don't really see it, why should anyone care if mdler and tumbleweed fool around on archinect... everyone has the choice of reading or not reading what they want. it's not a reason to censor. let people decide for themselves what is worth reading or not... censorship is lame and does not promote criticism... who is to say what is more or less important discussion, what should be the "elite" thread or topic?
if you don't think your readers have the intelligence to decide for themselves what is or isnt relevant, then you will lose any readers who do.
re: cross polleniation between threads...
why not make running editorial threads... things like thread central, green central etc. whatever you want, but... keep those things separate from main forum body threads. Stickying or adding special red dots will reduce readership of "non officially sanctioned" threads, and so, its not really about cross pollenation... total bullshit. it's about control of visibility and readership, not encouragement of free speach.
i don't know how it was introduced on the TC, but when I saw the red dots, I thought archinect was highlighting threads they thought were interesting and perhaps playing off of the red dot design awards, a bit....
website: red dot
I agree with brink about the red dots.
A suggestion: would it be possible for our login cookies to remember our viewing preferences? I like to see all the topics mixed together, and I'm glad the link is still there to do that, but it's a drag to click on it everytime. Kinda nitpicky but there it is.
765: I agree.. my Archinect link in the Favs folder goes directly to the archinect.com/forum address which takes you to the non-indexed page... but everytime I click in the discussion link (at the left menu) it brings you to the indexed page again.
something which I'd find useful is highlighting the threads that have new messages since my last visit (with a dark grey or whatever, but without extra graphics -dots, starts, etc..- next to the thread's title..., while leaving the ones that doesn't have new messages with a lighter grey or any other color) ...
I think this is probably the best and more useful characteristic of the php forums, you can check out immediately where there are new things to read, and not wasting time revisiting threads that you don't remember if you have posted or not or if there are new messages, etc..
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