Often times a reader will post a comment. Then a second reader will post a reply that, though relevent to the comment, misses the main thought. For example, a comment might have a typo in a hyperlink that is noted in a reply. If the orginal commenter could login and post a revised version of his own original comment, the standing replies could be automatically collapsed (unless otherwise flagged). This revised comment could appear in place of the earlier version. Of course, the previous versions of the comment would always be available, so someone could not change their position to make repliers look foolish.
This would save page space for comments that are actually relevent to the topic.
Also, could the comment preview include a spellcheck feature?
And could each story have a comments summary where all of the links from the comments are presented together (along with links to the originating comments), ranked by mod points?
When previewing a reply, could the site find other comments with simillar language, or hyperlinks and alert the poster that the comment may be redundant? The poster might then opt to post a more differentiated comment.
The rankings could go one step further by allowing reader to group comments together according to similarity.
Also, links to could be added to comments for readers to find other comments simillar, or dissimilar to the one being read.
Remember that sometimes flaimbate, and possibly even trolls, are not entirely a bad thing. The contrast of some of these highly polarizing comments can force people to more articulately stating their own statements. It also can point out the weakest points of the oposition's stand. (It's like we need the dark to realize there is light). If you are not attracting any dissenters, then people aren't caring enough about your blog.
Also, could there be a way (other than posting anonymously) for people to collapse their own comments to just the subject line? Sometimes there may be a mildly important comment to be made within the context of an earlier reply, but not neccesarily within the comment of the original story.
For instance: a story about a politician making a controvertial statement about global warming. Most comments may follow the path of debating the points of global warming itself. Whereas, some posters may be interested in a discussion thread detailing statements from the same polititian that are contradictory to the statements in the story. These comments may not be relevant to the story, but that doesn't mean they are irrelevent entirely.
Could there be a simple box where a user could enter keywords to search for comments, or automatically add mod points for matches? The seaches could also be added to a user's profile to automatically reorder all later comments for that user. That way, readers could more quickly access the comments that are most relevent to them, based on the number of matches with the keyword list. A simmilar system is already in place for comments to be filtered based on friend/foe, or types of mod points.
And could comments be ordered according to number of replies?
And could stories themselves be modded up or down, like digg?
Could you change the way the messages go into overflow? Take for instance a situation where a story already has 300 comments. The page may overflow where you will see an index of subject lines at the end of page 4, if you ever read it that far to see them.
Instead of having a cliff, could the threshold for minimum comment points be adjusted upwards? Thatway, if a reader looks at such a story with 300 comments, perhaps only the ones with 3 or more points would be displayed by default. By having fewer total pages with higher quality posts per page, the reader experience would be improved, especially if the reader was looking at an archived story. It would be akin to an automatic comment summarization.
Could the message board incorporate a auto-collapse feature that would track the messages that were displayed during the last visit? The next time the user loads the page, only messages that have been posted only after the last page view would be expanded. That way, the comments would appear to be fresher. Of course the subject lines would still be available for a user to click to view a collapsed comment again.
Alternatively, could the posts be color-coded to show their relative age? The older the comment, the less relavent it becomes, and thus could be colored in a more modem fasion that a 5 point newer comment, perhaps in a more bold color.
On most sites, all comments essentially go into one huge thread. Is there a way to add categories for a user to choose from when posting.
Some of the complaints on this site are that disenting view are automatically modded down for no other reason that they are dissenting. Perhaps there could be checkboxes for categories to post the comment to such as "Devil's Advocate" or "Conservative Viewpoint". If people don't want to be bothered with other views, they can automatically fiter these out. Alternatively, if people want to see only the conservative viewpoints seperate from the liberal, they can select these seperately.
The categories might be somehow made dynamic, picking up on the number of times a non-common word is used in previous postings. That way, a policical story might get categories like "Taxation", "Economy", or "Elections", but a science story could get "Environment", "Economy", and "Hoax"
On Slashdot, comments are either hidden (as a subject line, or "Below Threshhold"), or displayed in their entirety.
Perhaps instead of showing comments in their entirety, you could show previews. The length of the preview could correspond to the mod points.
For instance:
-1 = Below Threshold
0 = user name only
1 = user name + Subject Line Only
2 = user name + Subject Line and first line of comment (Or x number of characters)
3 = user name + Subject Line and first two lines of comment (Or x times 2 number of characters)
5 = Comment posted in its entirety
The usernames or subjects could be links to the entire comments for when the reader is interested.
The benefit would be an overall improvement in quality of post per inch of screen space.
Could you develop a system that filters messages like spam? If a post contains keywords that add up to be more that the limit for the site (or user logged in) the post would automatically get modded down.
One of the biggest challenges that such a system would face is the fact the most sites will order the oldest posts first. Thus, these get read more times, and get proportionately more points up.
This would seem to make sense because other posts may need to be read in context with the previouse messages.
However, this same principle negates the effect that the later posts are often times more valuable that the first posts, because they incorporate thoughts from the earlier posts (usually more efficiently). That is to say, when a new topic is opened up, the earlier posts will make the most basic statements. The later posts will combine these into more complex, but relevant conclusions. But these later posts are the same ones that would not get modded up because the simple posts have "gotten in the way," and the readers never follow along long enough to get to them.
Do you REALLY trust online gambling sites to draft out of your bank account?
No, I REALLY don't. I don't think any Slashdotter would. What I do think is that people that have a gambling addition may not think things all the way through. They just know they have to put $200 on the Colts right now, becuase it's just before kick-off. And the Colts are a sure winner, so there is no chance of loosing money out of the checking account.
Or if the Colts don't cover the spread, they will be sure to make it up next weekend.
The lies you were told were nothing! The sales rep from Comcast told me that Vonage causes cancer, stole my girlfriend, and wrote the screenplay for Firewall!
There is no way to "solve" the terrorist problem on the home front either.
What if, from the "Home Front", the United States just stopped attacking non-terrorst countries. By not creating a terrorist factory, like the new Iraq, the supply would be choked off before it could take root.
I'm going to start an ISP based on the NetFlix buxiness Model! I can advertise ridiculously high speeds based on my new "Large Packet" technology (A coulple of portable hard drives stuffed into a FedEx Packet).
Slashdotters: Please reply with comments including your credit card numbers to sign up for the service!!
People need to stop worrying about this system being mismanaged by the party in power. The system will be perfect. Just ask the people making it a Diebold!
Companies that register trademarks, such as "iPod", must protect unauthorized uses by taking the infringers to court. If they fail to do so, others can start using the trademark legally, because the trademark owner would have abandonded it.
From WikiPedia (If it's on the Internets, it must be true...)
Abandonment of trademark is understood to happen when a trademark is not used for three or more years, or when it is deliberately discontinued; trademark law protects only trademarks being actively used and defended. An example of an abandoned trademark is aspirin, once a mark of the Bayer company, now considered a generic term.
It turns out there is an 'ongoing investigation,' which includes 'outside agencies,'
Kudos to you! I'm surprised that you have gotten as much information from them as you have. When a breach occurs, a company's first response is always to circle the wagons and cover up the mishap a soon as possible. This means keeping the bad press from anyone that doesn't already know, especially including the people in their customer service department who could let a thing like this slip.
But in answer to your question about how soon should people be notified, it's kind of a funny question. Your personal information has probably been aquired by four or more fraudsers already. So it's like asking, "How soon would you like to know that your phone number has been published in the phone book?" Or "How soon would you like to know that anyone can get your house number by walking down your street and looking at the mailboxes?" How soon would you like to know that your personal information has gotten out? It's already out there. Your social name, address, birth date, driver's license number, social security number, etcetera, have already been gotten by the criminals. If they didn't steal it, they probably just bought it from the credit bearueas.
Exactly! No phone service monopoly would ever think of blocking a competitor! That would be... I don't know, EXACTLY WHAT SLASHDOTTERS EVERYWHERE PREDICTED!!
See also:
In addition, what kinds of ads will these products be based on? If I am creating a document for company X and company Y has bought adspace from Microsoft, will my competitor's ad be superimposed over my company's logo, or will it be attached at the bottom of the document?
Then again, Microsoft would not want to tarnish its reputation by infecting everyone's documents with its ads...
Slashdot Mirror
This would save page space for comments that are actually relevent to the topic.
Also, could the comment preview include a spellcheck feature?
And could each story have a comments summary where all of the links from the comments are presented together (along with links to the originating comments), ranked by mod points?
The rankings could go one step further by allowing reader to group comments together according to similarity.
Also, links to could be added to comments for readers to find other comments simillar, or dissimilar to the one being read.
Also, could there be a way (other than posting anonymously) for people to collapse their own comments to just the subject line? Sometimes there may be a mildly important comment to be made within the context of an earlier reply, but not neccesarily within the comment of the original story.
For instance: a story about a politician making a controvertial statement about global warming. Most comments may follow the path of debating the points of global warming itself. Whereas, some posters may be interested in a discussion thread detailing statements from the same polititian that are contradictory to the statements in the story. These comments may not be relevant to the story, but that doesn't mean they are irrelevent entirely.
And could comments be ordered according to number of replies?
And could stories themselves be modded up or down, like digg?
Instead of having a cliff, could the threshold for minimum comment points be adjusted upwards? Thatway, if a reader looks at such a story with 300 comments, perhaps only the ones with 3 or more points would be displayed by default. By having fewer total pages with higher quality posts per page, the reader experience would be improved, especially if the reader was looking at an archived story. It would be akin to an automatic comment summarization.
Alternatively, could the posts be color-coded to show their relative age? The older the comment, the less relavent it becomes, and thus could be colored in a more modem fasion that a 5 point newer comment, perhaps in a more bold color.
Some of the complaints on this site are that disenting view are automatically modded down for no other reason that they are dissenting. Perhaps there could be checkboxes for categories to post the comment to such as "Devil's Advocate" or "Conservative Viewpoint". If people don't want to be bothered with other views, they can automatically fiter these out. Alternatively, if people want to see only the conservative viewpoints seperate from the liberal, they can select these seperately.
The categories might be somehow made dynamic, picking up on the number of times a non-common word is used in previous postings. That way, a policical story might get categories like "Taxation", "Economy", or "Elections", but a science story could get "Environment", "Economy", and "Hoax"
Perhaps instead of showing comments in their entirety, you could show previews. The length of the preview could correspond to the mod points. For instance:
-1 = Below Threshold
0 = user name only
1 = user name + Subject Line Only
2 = user name + Subject Line and first line of comment (Or x number of characters)
3 = user name + Subject Line and first two lines of comment (Or x times 2 number of characters)
5 = Comment posted in its entirety
The usernames or subjects could be links to the entire comments for when the reader is interested.
The benefit would be an overall improvement in quality of post per inch of screen space.
Could you develop a system that filters messages like spam? If a post contains keywords that add up to be more that the limit for the site (or user logged in) the post would automatically get modded down.
This would seem to make sense because other posts may need to be read in context with the previouse messages.
However, this same principle negates the effect that the later posts are often times more valuable that the first posts, because they incorporate thoughts from the earlier posts (usually more efficiently). That is to say, when a new topic is opened up, the earlier posts will make the most basic statements. The later posts will combine these into more complex, but relevant conclusions. But these later posts are the same ones that would not get modded up because the simple posts have "gotten in the way," and the readers never follow along long enough to get to them.
See also: SlashDot.Org
No, I REALLY don't. I don't think any Slashdotter would. What I do think is that people that have a gambling addition may not think things all the way through. They just know they have to put $200 on the Colts right now, becuase it's just before kick-off. And the Colts are a sure winner, so there is no chance of loosing money out of the checking account.
Or if the Colts don't cover the spread, they will be sure to make it up next weekend.
They just need to win enough to pay the rent...
If only there was some way for companies to draft money directly out of a checking account!
The lies you were told were nothing! The sales rep from Comcast told me that Vonage causes cancer, stole my girlfriend, and wrote the screenplay for Firewall!
What if, from the "Home Front", the United States just stopped attacking non-terrorst countries. By not creating a terrorist factory, like the new Iraq, the supply would be choked off before it could take root.
Slashdotters: Please reply with comments including your credit card numbers to sign up for the service!!
People need to stop worrying about this system being mismanaged by the party in power. The system will be perfect. Just ask the people making it a Diebold!
Wait, I just got an invite from Microsoft Bob. Who should I pay for this privlege?
From WikiPedia (If it's on the Internets, it must be true...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonment
Kudos to you! I'm surprised that you have gotten as much information from them as you have. When a breach occurs, a company's first response is always to circle the wagons and cover up the mishap a soon as possible. This means keeping the bad press from anyone that doesn't already know, especially including the people in their customer service department who could let a thing like this slip.
But in answer to your question about how soon should people be notified, it's kind of a funny question. Your personal information has probably been aquired by four or more fraudsers already. So it's like asking, "How soon would you like to know that your phone number has been published in the phone book?" Or "How soon would you like to know that anyone can get your house number by walking down your street and looking at the mailboxes?" How soon would you like to know that your personal information has gotten out? It's already out there. Your social name, address, birth date, driver's license number, social security number, etcetera, have already been gotten by the criminals. If they didn't steal it, they probably just bought it from the credit bearueas.
Or Credit Card Company.
Or magazine publisher.
Or your state's Department of Transportation...
http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,201239 8,00.asp
What do you expect from a Rocket made by "HungryMan?"
Yeah, I remember it well. The porn really sucked back then.
http://news.com.com/Telco+agrees+to+stop+blocking+ VoIP+calls/2100-7352_3-5598633.html
Then again, Microsoft would not want to tarnish its reputation by infecting everyone's documents with its ads...
"The team's next journey will involve a cash-powered boat where they will use $556,000 in one-dollar bills for fuel."
No word yet on weather this next boat can be adapted to accept a check.
Thanks folks, I'll be here all week! Don't forget to tip your waiters!