Free Republic "Bump List" Register

[John Robinson]

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles.

Free Republic Bump List Register

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Bump for support!

[webber]

I have no idea what you guys are talking about when to talk about "list", "bumping", "pinging", "BTT"'ing, etc. What is the purpose of all this? How do you access the list? how do you start a list? Why would you want to have a "list"? I've been submitting, and posing for a little while now, but never used the above features, but now that it's being talked about a lot, I became curious as to what they are talking about and what I may be missing out on. Please descibe it to me like I just joined FR, and know nothing except how to post an article and post a reply because........that's all I know how to do. I've used the BTTT, Ping things without REALLY knowing what that does or means except that it gives an "affirmative" response to the post I'm replying to.

[Quix]

Much Thanks, John.

Your tireless service in behalf of our Country and of us is awesome.

Blessings on you and all close to you.

[Quix]

AND

I maintain a small AGGRESSIVE PRAYER LIST

for those more Charismatic oriented types and others who are experienced and/or dedicated to aggresssive, focused, spiritual-warfare sorts of prayers for usually fairly high prioritity situations and issues.

[Quix]

Could we use "INFANTICIDE" with "abortion" or replace "abortion" with it? It's more honest to the realities. And it robs the killers of some of their whitewash.

[GraniteStateConservative]

What reason is there that we don't have the ability to search threads according to certain criteria (who posted the thread/reply, who it was to, when it was posted, what words were typed in the thread/reply, etc.) like places like DelphiForums have?

[Quix]

Uhhhhh,

I save mine in a Word doc file

and copy and paste it each time.

[Quix]

Have been to, I think, all the links you suggested.

Still thickheaded about where, how and should I try to add:

AGGRESSIVE PRAYER LIST

For those particularly dedicated to intense spiritual-warfare prayer about high priority situations and issues. I now have about 20 on the list.

I just keep them in a Word file and copy and paste when needed. Should I be doing something different or not?

[Quix]

I also started my own personal

NEVER PING

list for those who sounded like or actually who told me on query that they never wanted pinged for any reason.

[Timesink]

What reason is there that we don't have the ability to search threads according to certain criteria (who posted the thread/reply, who it was to, when it was posted, what words were typed in the thread/reply, etc.) like places like DelphiForums have?

That's JohnRob's department; he wrote the software. I don't know anything about the programming nitty-gritty.

[John Robinson]

Processing power. We didn't have much to spare up until recently.

[GraniteStateConservative]

So we will soon have that capability? Will it index all previous postings and threads?

[John Robinson]

Long ago, it was possible to write any name in the "To:" field on a reply. People would post a reply to a fictitious name, say bang_list, if the article the reply would be attached to was of significant interest to some group of people. Individuals from the interested group would then be able to search the "To:" field for these replies. This provided an ad hoc index of articles for special interests.

Because the former implementation of the "To:" field caused a record keeping headache, not to mention its terrible inefficiencies, I modified the programming to accept only real user names (internally, this is much more efficient.)

However, it wouldn't be possible to maintain the ad hoc index if only real users could be addressed, so I created a special class of records that could be addressed and searched similar to users. This is what became the ill-named bump list register. I've regretted naming it that ever since. :-D

I've threatened on many separate occassions to move all these bump lists into keywords or topics of their own, but just haven't yet attempted this massive undertaking. There just never seems to be enough time for all these projects. :-D

[John Robinson]

Addendum:

I created the bump list register as a public-maintained resource. But probably because of its poorly chosen name, and deficiencies in the user interface, it was often screwed up. I locked it down and proceeded to work on implementing keywords, etc.

I honestly think the whole design of the bump list stuff is one big flaw, so I haven't bothered cleaning up the implementation.

[John Robinson]

I don't know about soon. And I'm not sure to what extent the indexing will be. There are a number of technical issues that must be considered, and a lot of programming in the way. Search engine enhancements aren't even on the project list at this moment. I guess I understated the requirements.

[Timesink]

I have no idea what you guys are talking about when to talk about "list", "bumping", "pinging", "BTT"'ing, etc. What is the purpose of all this? How do you access the list? how do you start a list? Why would you want to have a "list"? I've been submitting, and posing for a little while now, but never used the above features, but now that it's being talked about a lot, I became curious as to what they are talking about and what I may be missing out on. Please descibe it to me like I just joined FR, and know nothing except how to post an article and post a reply because........that's all I know how to do. I've used the BTTT, Ping things without REALLY knowing what that does or means except that it gives an "affirmative" response to the post I'm replying to.

"BTTT" isn't a command at all. It's just an acronym for "Bump To The Top!". If you make a post in any thread, addressed to anyone (or no one), that thread is immediately "bumped" to the top of the Latest Posts page, which for most Freepers is the "front page" they use when checking out what's going on discussion-wise. In other words, all it does is make sure that for the next few minutes, anyone accessing the Latest Posts page will see that that thread exists. It's done when a Freeper thinks a given thread is important enough that more people should see it. That's all there is to BTTT.

A "bump" is synonymous with a "BTTT." I think BTTT is used more by really old-time Freepers, while everyone else tends to just say "bump." They are totally equal.

To "ping" is simply to respond in a thread to a specific person or group of persons. Say for example your Freeper friend Fidel is a total tinfoil kook who lives for conspiracy theory threads about TWA Flight 800. The next time you noticed one posted, you would click on the "Post Reply" button of any post in that thread. Except on the next page, you'd blank out the "To:" field and replace the name in it with the name "Fidel." That way, the next time Fidel logs in, he'll see that someone has left a post for him, and when he checks, he'll see a link to the TWA 800 thread. And as I said, you can ping multiple people in a single post. Some people have set up informal "ping lists" for those interested in various subjects. For example, lots of people are on Freeper mhking's "Hold Muh Beer" ping list, where he pings Freepers to at least a dozen news stories per day about people making idiots out of themselves.

As for "bump lists": Essentially, they're glorified ping lists. Instead of an individual having to manually keep a list of all the Freepers interested in a particular topic, he/she could create a "bump list" for that topic and simply "ping" one name instead of 10 or 50 or 100 names. People interested could then simply periodically check the bump lists they were interested in by visiting the bump list page and clicking on the lists they liked (Here is the list of available bump lists; just pick one at random and click on it; War_list remains extremely active). Or they could make bookmarks for their web browser, etc.

I speak of bump lists in the past tense because, while the ones that currently exist work fine, no new ones can be created, and haven't been for almost a year. This was a decision made by John Robinson, who wrote the FR software. He was going to replace bump lists with keywords (which you see at the beginning of every thread), but for unknown reasons he only barely got started on the keywords feature before he stopped work on it. And bump lists, sadly, were left dead. But the bump lists we still have are used a LOT.

[Timesink]

I created the bump list register as a public-maintained resource. But probably because of its poorly chosen name, and deficiencies in the user interface, it was often screwed up. I locked it down and proceeded to work on implementing keywords, etc. I honestly think the whole design of the bump list stuff is one big flaw, so I haven't bothered cleaning up the implementation.

John: I remain willing to serve as an ad hoc Bump List Manager if it would help. I could clean out the dead wood "oops i screwed up please delete this" lists, keep the big list up-to-date with comprehendable descriptions of each lists , links to bump list graphics, etc, if it would help any. I remain a giant bump-list fan, as do most Freepers, I believe.

[Timesink]

I don't know about soon. And I'm not sure to what extent the indexing will be. There are a number of technical issues that must be considered, and a lot of programming in the way. Search engine enhancements aren't even on the project list at this moment. I guess I understated the requirements.

Do you think there's any chance at all that taking advantage of Google's freebie site indexing program would provide at least a modicum of full-text searching?

[m1-lightning]

I honestly think the whole design of the bump list stuff is one big flaw, so I haven't bothered cleaning up the implementation.

John: I remain willing to serve as an ad hoc Bump List Manager if it would help. I could clean out the dead wood "oops i screwed up please delete this" lists, keep the big list up-to-date with comprehendable descriptions of each lists, links to bump list graphics, etc, if it would help any. I remain a giant bump-list fan, as do most Freepers, I believe.

I disagree with the "bump list stuff is one big flaw" unless there's more to it than needing database maintenence. I'm fairly new to FR and have figured out that the Bump List Register is a very useful tool. I happen to be a database manager and I know that indexing articles significantly reduces the number of searches conducted. You get a much more quick, thorough, and accurate result in clicking on 'media news' in the register to find related articles than you do by searching for specific instances in the titles.

I like clicking on the 'US:Illinois' topic to see what's in the news in my state. The 'Topic' and 'keyword' process is a great idea in the fact that it is such an easy and simple sort group but there are two problems that I want to point out:

There are articles related to PETA where 'PETA' does not exist in the title. I can google search FR for keywords like 'Hillary' and 'New York Times' but I could google search it to death and still not find anything on 'biased media'. Clicking on a keyword in a thread gives me a much more thorough result than searching for it. The problem is that I have to search for articles to find that keyword. There is not an accessible keyword index page similar to the Bump List Register.

Also, the topics and keywords get abused and a good example would be adding 'US:Illinois' to a thread that's about Colin Powell and the UN. I say mega dittos to Timesink... the dead wood needs to be cleaned up.

I'm a big fan of the Bump List Register too and I'd like to either see the Bump List Register expanded to be more detailed or revise the keywords to be accurate and accessible. I would be willing to help out Timesink on the cleanup procedure.