Linking Related Threads

Because Lou Arab, a moderator, clearly didn't understand my point in that thread, I suspect that many other babblers didn't either, so let me try restating the issue (along with a band-aid solution):

As long as the phenomenon known as "closed for length" continues to exist (and I'm afraid it will exist decades from now if, among thousands and thousands of babblers, there is a single, solidary babbler using dial-up access), perhaps would could remind those who start a new continuation thread (e.g., "XXX, Part 2) to take a moment to put a link of the prior thread into the OP?

Automatic pagination would take care of the need to manually link to previous threads. There are other problems with manual pagination (when it is done). Sometimes orphan threads are created when someone creates a "continued here" link but  users don't see it, start another thread (linked back or not). Now we have a "continued here" link that points to a tread that is not the continuation of the thread.

8% of Canadians who have internet access use dial-up, some of them because they have no other service options or because they are poor and cannot afford the usually more expensive higher speed options. Organisations who claim to support maginalized people should continue to support dial up users.

But, that common-sense approach has long ago been rejected here.  Therefore, we are left with the necessity of manually-linking related threads.  And, any time a manual step is built into a process, that manual step will be a weak link in the system (because too often it simply won't get done).

Hell, that number could be 1% (with 99% of babblers using broad-band) and we'd still have the scourge of "closed for length".

thanks scott.  marginalized for the moment would describe my situation, there being a couple of places where I have to spend that money, rather than on speedy internet service ...or on TV or a cellphone or...

By what standard?

I've got a clue for you, GV, you're not "marginalized" economically when there are two billion people in the world living on two dollars a day or less.

that's cool, sven. that's awesome that there are 2 billion people that are poorer than gv or only make 2 dollars a day or less. but that just kind of got lost on me regarding pagination. but then again, as a student with more debt than i can shake a stick at, i suppose i should lecture you about how you shouldn't really lecture other people regarding their perceived economic status, monsieur legalist. perhaps you could use previous savings for a year or so, sell your car, get rid of your tv, move to a rent controlled area, and only take the equivalent of 2 dollars a day (after taxes, of course) from your daily pay and shovel the rest into a fund to help people out. then i'm 100% down with the way you just criticized GV

i'm a big supporter of it, would love to see it, because you can usually customize how many posts are displayed per page in lots of message board software, like phpBB IIRC, which can help out our dial up compatriots. plus, it is awesome. however, what would happen to older archived threads? it would probably be chaos to retroactively impose pagination, amongst other tech problems i can foresee.

however, it may not be feasible to institute that. i'd like to see what our mods have to say vis a vis any conversations with IT that may have had this topic. one day, though, we shall live to not see 'closed for length'

edited to add an extra sentence and correct who sven was referring to. gv, not sven.

It has nothing to do with pagination, actually.

I was commenting on GV's woe-is-me lamentations about being economically "marginalized".

Unless a Canadian is homeless and living under a RR bridge, virtually all Canadians are wealthy on any meaningful world-wide scale.

To argue otherwise is to basically view the world very provincially and to accept this definition of being economically "marginalized": Person A makes more money that Person B.  Therefore, Person B is economically "marginalized".

Really, Sven? Really?

You feel it's aokay to say that without knowing George's full situation?

Because the poverty of the developed world is still poverty. Even if it is a person with a (leaky) roof over their head and (old, stale, cheap, unhealthy) food in their (no-longer functioning) fridge.

Just asking, when was the last time you felt ashamed because you couldn't go out with your friends and pay a bill. Or were ashamed to have them see that you lived in a roach infested shitty apartment? When was the last time you felt poverty?

Ah, yeah.  Really.

I can see why an inwardly-focused person would feel bad about not being able to go out to a restaurant with friends (after all, "It's all about me.").

Well, why doesn't that person think about people who are really marginalized in this world (people have no food, they have no shelter, they are actually dying of starvation and dysentary).  And, then, our "marginalized" Canadian should think: "Wow.  I've got a computer (even if it's dial-up), enough food to eat, a roof over my head, and clothes on my back (and, in Canada, a health system that will take care of me when I'm sick)."

But, no.  It's back to this "logic": Person A makes more money than Person B.  Therefore, Person B is economically "marginalized".

But that is the issue that you just 'don't get' here. That person can be taken care of our medical system. And they'll damn well need it because during the winter they may not be able to afford the heating bill or good food. And if you think that not being able to afford an external social life is 'no big deal' try living  in a city in Canada where there. is. nothing. to. do.

months on end, you don't have a god damned cent to 'go out'. i'm not talking about going to a fancy restaurant, i'm not talking about going to see a movie. i'm talking about you don't have a cent to your name for such 'frivulous' activities such as having a social life. because you know, in canada we have a health care system. so that when you get depressed you can wait for weeks to see a therapist and if issues of depression can be treated, you don't have to worry about it because a nice doctor will prescribe anti-depressants. and it isn't like those will eat into your budget and make it harder for you to have a social life.

but i digress. pagination, it's a helluva thing.

Hey, I've been there.  My life didn't end.

Sorry, but not being able to go out to eat or to the movies won't get my sympathy.  A person starving to death (or constantly on the verge of doing so) gets my sympathy (and my money).

EnMasse has pagination.  I like it; navigation's much easier there than here.  So is posting, linking and quoting, for that matter.

I've seen that as well.  In fact, how many boards are there that don't use pagination???  I'm sure I've seen another one but the only one I can think that employs "Closed for length" is babble.

I think it is worth noting that enMasse uses free software and costs around $500/year to run. B&R costs less that $200/year to run and rabble/babble apparently spent in the order of $50000 for the broken shit-show that powers this site. (how many MONTHS of begging did it take to get links a different colour?)

Yep, I'm certainly not starving, Sven (except maybe for a chance to see you, up close). Doing without broad-band or TV or a cellphone is not suffering. Oh, there are some program I miss, but not many. And the relative impoverishment won't last for much longer. But what I don't understand is how someone with such a closed linkage to humour, can function in any social situation.

I had not realized I'd turned on the old violin solo, and I was certainly not  out for your "sympathy". In fact, I would crawl bare-assed over a mountain of broken glass just to avoid the "sympathy" of an attenuated sliver of humourless shit  such  as yourself.(edited to add humourless)

Frankly I do not give a shit what other sites use.

Conformity to some sorta conceived norm, is pretty damn yucky IMV.

Which of course is why I would never go to chain restaurants unless traveling and there was nothing else around.

It is not about going to automatic pagination because other sites do, it is about changing to a system that works better.

BTW, enMasse users got to VOTE (it is one of those democratic things) on whether to auto-paginate or not. How are such decisions made here?

That's the challenge when software is customized, no?

I started reading Down and Out in Paris and London yesterday. I highly recommend it Sve.

On the issue of closed for length and pagination: it's been fought many times with the same outcome. Babble is not a democracy.

Another suggestion for the mods to consider:

When posters are in the midst of a very active back-n-forth discussion in a 100+ post thread, it would be nice if the mods wouldn't step in the middle of the discussion and put the kibosh on it with a "Closed for length" declaration.  It's a total buzz kill...and too often it simply ends the discussion.

How 'bout waiting for a bit of a lull in the convo before droppin' the axe?

Speaking of linking related threads:

babble policy - closing threads policy

Closing threads for length in the new babble [22] (started by yours truly)

and numerous other side-swipe mentions of this archaic and puzzling practice.

I've seen this movie. I know how it ends.

Sven wrote:

Another suggestion for the mods to consider:

When posters are in the midst of a very active back-n-forth discussion in a 100+ post thread, it would be nice if the mods wouldn't step in the middle of the discussion and put the kibosh on it with a "Closed for length" declaration.  It's a total buzz kill...and too often it simply ends the discussion.

How 'bout waiting for a bit of a lull in the convo before droppin' the axe?

a: I do give some thought to that, and sometimes leave it go for a while, or open a second one with appropriate links myself if it looks like it will just keep going.

b: One persons active back and forth is another persons sandbox-like pissing match. If the buzz gets killed that easily maybe there wasn't that much buzz to begin with.

c: These threads really bring out the passive-aggressive in some people.

One thing that Drupal offers out of the box is the ability for every user to set their comment preferences.  So users could specify how many comments to display on the page.  This would allow dialup users to specify a lower number if they prefered.  It would mostly allow people to read threads the way they wanted.  Users on highspeed would be able to load 400 comments per page if they wanted and put the whole thread on the page.  People who like pagination could set it up the way they liked.

The main drawback as i see it is that it would force dialup users to use paging.  If some longer threads did go for hundreds of posts, dialup users wouldn't be able to view a long list.

Anyway this is a pretty simple thing that Drupal is built to do.  It's just a setting in the comments fieldset in the forum type.  Turning it on would be easy and it could just as easily be turned off if desired without haveing messed anything up.  Depending on how the theme is built it may look too big or too small but it may be just right.  I would be willing to advise on this if desired.