Posted on 03/02/2008 4:54:00 AM PST by sit-rep
Why all of a sudden am I loading the Latest articles page?
It used to be clicking on messages in the upper right corner solved the problem. Now, I finally found "Comments" down the right side a bit, but every time ya hit browse now coming out of a thread, I return to latest articles page!
WWWWWHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTZZZZZZZZZ - UUUUP!!??!!!
Whaaa?
Can't search on his name because his account is banned/suspended. I've been sending up prayers for Jaysun's "cancer" crisis, so this news is very surprising. I've always enjoyed his threads and posts. Is there a Readers Digest version of how it came to be known that he was faking cancer, and is that definitely true? So disappointing.
The short version is that he admitted he was lying and then the thread was pulled.
Yeah, people are like that. We each to feel, each step of the way, that we chose the next step, and the step was forward. But there is a wide range of user skills, and a wide variation in how much of that skill is unconscious muscle memory versus potentially conscious awareness of what the software is doing or could be doing.
When you start thinking of some of your users as the "enemy", rather than as blessings, you're toast.
Let me step back from the precipice here a bit.
John and whomever else is behind the curtain here in Freeper Land run one of the most remarkable, successful web sites and forums in human history. They do more, with less, providing the platform for a level of (usually) healthy interaction, informing and organizing that few other web sites, if any, can touch.
The site is fast, it handles huge loads, a wide variety of people figure out how to use it successfully, they do it on a budget that's astonishingly dirt cheap, and they've been doing it, with high availability, almost non-stop, for over a decade now (did we miss celebrating a ten year anniversary back there?), which is like forever in the life of the internet.
I salute John.
So ... how do handle change.
Well, what Google does, who with their Google.com interface runs an even more popular interface, with a 14.27 gazillion times bigger budget, is to run new fancier interfaces, along side the well known one. They never plan to remove the well known one, and they change it with a delicate touch that mostly avoids forcing anyone to relearn anything, even in the small detail. But alongside, they run fancier interfaces, which those of us who are feeling more adventurous can use, if we like.
Only those who ask for the new interface get it (see further iGoogle.com).
However, I'm not sure if that's an option here. I don't know if FR can and does have the presentation portion of its backend software sufficiently separated from its core data engine and core forum software internals, that we could run two interfaces, one classic (legacy) and one more leading edge, more fluid, more rapidly changing, at the same time.
Now if John could do that, he'd a a coding God that Larry Wall, Linus Torvalds and Ken Thompson would all bow before. But if John is a mere mortal like the rest of us humans, then one cannot expect that he's been able to produce this fine site while preserving a nearly perfect Model-Viewer-Controller separation of internals and presentation that allows for naturally plugging in alternative presentation (aka viewer) modules, along side the existing one, cleanly and efficiently, with little effort. That's simply too much to ask.
So ... well heck I don't know ... change is difficult in such cases.
Thank you for the 4-1-1. I can’t understand why anyone would claim to have cancer and ask us to pray for them. He must be a very disturbed young man. How sad.
LOL!
It’s no improvement, that’s for sure.
Perhaps he thought he could fix it faster and less intrusively than it turned out.
Most people can handle it fine, and those that can't can come on this thread and the one you posted to find out what is going on.
That's my take. I hasn't bothered me at all, I just looked at the processes and went to comments and continued on with what I was doing here.
That being said, he could have posted a notice of what he was doing before he began.
It's been done that way before.
Not only can I follow it, I’ve experienced it. :)
I seem to have lost the “browse” feature. Uh-oh.
Thank you! I feel yours as well!
If you want to find the Religion ones, you can to to "edit" in MS explorer (upper left corner) and click on "Find (on this page)" and type in religion and it will help you find the Religion comments.
I like the (RSS) feed and the Active Articles link.
Thank-you.
I follow you, sandyeggo...
Hey, I’m not adverse to change when change makes sense, but truth be told, I’m not seeing the sense in these changes.
I don’t mind much having to hit “Comments” twice, but I DON’T like that you can’t hit “Comments” in each individual forum. I DON’T like having all the Comments lumped in together.
Can someone explain how these changes are better than the way things were before? It’s not just muscle memory; this just doesn’t seem to make any sense. Perhaps I’m missing something important. If so, maybe somebody could clue me in to the big “Hey, this is GREAT!” secret.
Regards,
PS: No, I’m not just a whiner; I dare anyone to find another post of mine in which I whine about how FR is run.
Here is a mew one I havent seen in the past:
Bad Request
Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
"It's funny, all the posters seeing the changes and watching the changes changing and getting all va klempt over it."
ROTFL
Yeah, I've been enjoying the circus of complaints. Just like previous upgrades. Then after everyone gets used to the new format, they all love it, LOL.
Here's a couple of links to some earlier formats (does anyone really want to go back?):
Federal Reserve Proposes Tax on Cash Held By Private Citizens
I just wish I had a link to one of the very first format - that would probably silence any opposition to upgrades, LOL.
Message to John: Thank you for all your hard work and all that you do.
Bad Request
I got that, but I thought it was because I was asking for Anna Kournikova photos.
And here is the front page of FR from Last Updated December 15, 1996
You've come a long way, Baby!
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