If it's a bit quiet today that may be because everyone is at BBU 2013, Me Río del Valle, London Hoop Fest or BUC.
Viewing all threads involving Ian F
I just hit 2 bird over the valleys out of 10. This pleased me greatly.
As you were.
I can't quite decide whether you've just committed some horrific act of animal homicide, or are talking about some sort of kendama trick. I also can't figure out which one's worse...
I thought so
# by Little Paul, 2012-12-31 11:49 GMT Parent
It does make me think though, what would a "like" button do in the context of the edge?
The edge isn't like facebook or other similar networks where there are multiple groups of people with small sections of crossover (where a like button would make a post from outside your social circle visible to you) - so what would a like button do?
Just accrue points on the post in question as a sort of badge of honour? (which has "gaming" problems)
Work as a personal bookmark?
Smalltalk isn't quite fast enough to warrant a "best of the board" list of popular posts, but if things picked up it might be.
Or would it tie in to the network scoring stuff which the edge has in the background (but which it hasn't ever really used)?
# by Little Paul, 2012-12-31 11:54 GMT Parent
Perhaps a better option would be the facility to vote posts up or down, like YouTube comments. Gaming could still be an issue, but really why would anyone bother? It ought to be trivial to restrict votes to one per account.
# by Danny Colyer, 2012-12-31 18:11 GMT Parent
Likes motivate me to write the things I have to say in a funnier way, and to not write everything that is on my mind all the time but only respond when I have something to add :).
Upvoting/Liking works on sites like Youtube, BBC's HYS, /. etc. because they very quickly get thousands of posts which are impossible to wade through. The upvoting systems reduce the thread to only include the interesting posts while hiding the rest. The objective being to create a more condensed interesting read. Today we've only just hit 3140 posts across 546 threads over a whole year. We just don't have the volume to make it worthwhile as a content filtering system, there is not enough content to filter.
I've seen forums where each post has a 'thank you' button & lists all the users that have said thank you for a post. Which has the unfortunate side effect of creating a forum with massive lists of names everywhere. But that bit could be hidden & instead I could create a page which would list along the lines of:
Tom, Dick & Harry thanked you for this post.
Vishnu, Ganesh & Shiva thanked you for this post...
...could be quite nice. I could maintain a thank you count for each user & have a thanked hall of fame.
Inspired by the Doctor Who Christmas special I had an idea where you could tag any post with a single word that describes what they think of it, then others could click on your tag or tag it with something else creating a tag cloud with the more popular tags in a larger font.
Would any of this encourage people to talk more though? Why reply to say what you think when you can just click a button?
I like the idea of a "thankyou" button, with the number of people who thanked the author being available to the author, but not anyone else.
Then people get a way to express their liking for other peoples posts, but because the results aren't displayed publicly (and "likes" have no visible effect to the rest of the site visitors) it should minimise the "I'm not going to write anything unless I think it'll generate likes" effect.
Mind you, writing anything in the hope of generating a "like" response isn't that different from writing anything hoping to generate a reply so it's probably not a huge problem anyway.
I like the tagging idea, but I'm having trouble getting my head around how it could be represented visually without cluttering up the board.
# by Little Paul, 2013-01-06 11:19 GMT Parent
[Agree] [+1] etc
It's really hard to get people to use, rather than just observe, a speciality site, especially in the face of the hegemony of Tweetbook. (Note how the first post in this thread wasn't posted here, for example.) While I half-like LP's unobservable Thanks idea, it could be confusing for the potential thanker.
That said, there are times when I have nothing significant to add to a post, and so would feel disinclined to bother posting a reply saying "Ha-ha!" or suchlike, but I probably would click a [Funny], [Agree], [Disagree], [Like] or similar button.... perhaps even more often than not? There is a balance to be struck, and it's for the webmaster to decide at which end of the scale things are weighted, or whether to go somewhere in the middle.
[More waffles], anyone?
(Note how the first post in this thread wasn't posted here, for example.)
Ahem.
In my defence The Kendama Forum is horrendous for dial up users (& I'm NOT the only one! :P) mostly because of the constant round trips to Facebook & Twitter for every post in the thread. That page took just under 3 minutes to load for me, & that's with images turned off!
I assume you get that you are disinclined to post the sort of thing that upvoting systems are designed to filter out?
Having a tagging or 'micro opinion' system is of course different from upvoting. Micro opinion systems are good because they lower the barrier for participation so theoretically more people should get involved. I think a lot of sites are going down this route because of the explosion of phones & tablets. These are primarily consumer devices which lack a comfortable/efficient method of input. They are designed to display content, not create it. Users of these things are not going to take the time to tap out why they enjoyed the juxtaposition of two opposing methods of how to perform the same trick which highlighted the pros & cons of each, but they can tap the button labeled 'like'.
But this is so ambiguous, why do people like it? On November the 5th we celebrate the gunpowder plot to blow up parliament. Some of us celebrate the failure, some of us appreciate the attempt!
I don't like (+1) the idea of micro opinions because it smacks of Orwellian Newspeak. By limiting the vocabulary you limit the discussion. Plus is there any substance behind the clicking of a button? From this article (a good read):
In other words, Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.
Cynical? Moi?!
WRT to the forum, I must admit I'd noticed a bit of a performance hit, and no-one seemed to be using those buttons anyway, so I've disabled that mod.
How's the performance now over there in the 90s?
PS Yesterday I hit Bird Fly Over The Valley 2 out of 10.
I was gutted. ;)
Much better, less than 3 seconds :)
As a bonus the threads are a lot less cluttered & easier to read now too.
'Look, it's not going to do anything, alright!!'
lol
That's a beauty! SO... when are we all going to be able to have them?
# by RegularJugular, 2013-01-03 21:26 GMT Parent
In case any brits are interested, I've just noticed this is on iplayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00m0mbt/Storyville_20082009_Man_on_Wire/
"Documentary telling how Frenchman Philippe Petit fulfilled his dream of walking on a wire strung between the rooftops of New York's Twin Towers in 1974. (R)"
If you're outside the UK, you might need to find some kind of proxy or vpn to watch the above link. Sorry!
# by Little Paul, 2012-10-12 19:42 BST
Do watch this if you haven't already, it is a fantastic documentary.
I particularly enjoyed the bit when they'd lost the arrow & they were in a desperate panic that they wouldn't be able to go ahead if they couldn't get the rope across between the towers.
I didn't know what to do. So I took off all my clothes...
I've never understood the French.
I remember seeing the documentary, it was a really good one but I didn't really warm to the French bloke very much for some reason. At around about the same time I saw it there was a series on Channel 4 called Daredevils (I think). One of the episodes was about a slack-rope walker in the US somewhere, I remember thinking that although the C4 documentary may not have been of the same quality the slack-roper was a far nicer and more interesting man.
# by pumpkineater23, 2012-10-14 15:27 BST Parent
Dean Potter. He's also one of the most well known free-solo rock climbers.
Here's 10 minutes of it, I wish there were more.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/9xll4m8
On the extras on the DVD is a delightful animated version of the story in the style of a child's picture book. Don't know if it's on the iplayer version but I've found it on YT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEowf-AAKZ8 Enjoy.
If there's anything I can't stand it's a dusty campsite! How's this one shaping up?
See you all later.
Ian F
Which one? Boulder?
# by Little Paul, 2012-06-15 12:06 BST Parent
Thought the comment was attaching itself to WJD UK ( Monkeys, computers etc, etc.) Looks like the convention world is going to see some climate differences this weekend!
Circumstance dictates I must go for the soggy option.
Ian F.
Ahh, it would only attach itself to an event if you include the events hashtag (in this case #WJDUK would do the job)
I wonder if there's a need for streamlining that, so that if you're looking at an events page and hit the link to talk about the event on smalltalk, it automagically includes the hashtag.
Also - dusty camptise? In the UK? After the weather we've been having recently?
# by Little Paul, 2012-06-15 13:34 BST Parent
My error, it's a clear enough instruction on the WJD-UK page to insert the hashtag. Just dissapointed it kind of spoiled my 'Dusty Lake District Gag'. Now where are those chest waders?
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