Shauk

So yeah I know I can go pop in to the journals section but... I never know when there is an update, or a reply to my comment if I leave one.

is there anyways to get people to "see" these journals a little easier? i think we'd all get to know each other a little better if we kinda had more face time with eachother on a more "detailed" level.

Cynthetiq

I've researched the author who created the mod for our journals. There isn't a simple fix that does this. I know that it is probably just a simple SQL statement and putting it onto a page, but that's the theory, not the reality.

There's no subscription feature on the journals at all, a big limitation. I think that some of the intimacy of the journals section is that you have to be interested in a journalist enough to look there on a regular basis.

I'm looking at the newer version of vbulletin, but it doesn't have a journal, but more of a blog addon.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Hain

This is probably very ignorant, but why can't TFP journals have the exact same format as threads?

My journals are not just journals but also clips from news that I want to save, and it would be nice to have all the features that the normal threads have. The hide feature does not work in the journals. It will hide the text but does not click to expand.

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Cynthetiq

I'm not sure why the hide feature does not work, it has more to do with the way that the vbulletin hook is for that particular plugin and working with the journals plugin than it does with reflect to bbcode. If it was simply just bbcode, it would work the same as all other bbcodes do, example the mixwit and seeqpod bbcodes I recently created.

We aren't the author of the vbulletin journal, and I do follow the authors to keep up to date with what they are changing and modifying for the plugins we have and also plugins that maybe we should have. So far I haven't found one that made sense to add.

I used to clip news in the beginning of my journal extensively but stopped at some point.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Hain

I understand that no one here has written the Journal VB code. Must we use that code for the journals? Wouldn't our current forum style be sufficient? The real differences between our current forum and the journals:

1. allowing and blocking members from reading specific threads
2. and possibly allowing ordinary users to create "sub-forums" within the journal section. Each sub-forum is the member's journal, he can obviously only have one sub-forum dedicated to him, or the journal sub-forum can just be created at registration.

Difference (2) would allow these things:

1. each entry becomes it's own thread,
2. readers would reply to said thread just like any other thread,
3. we could see which entries have had recent replies.

Obviously I am a fan of suggestion (2), but I could live without it. If ever user could not create a sub-forum for their own journal, then all entries would be lumped together as well as all replies. The only problem becomes: blocking users from reading specific posts (entries) and knowing what reply goes to what entry.


Just my ideas... If I actually understood/appreciated the complexity behind it I would probably not be typing.

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The_Jazz

Augi, I think that you would find that most journal users would resist your proposed changes pretty actively. As a member, you could most likely count me among them.

From the moderator standpoint, you'd be opening the journals to spam. And that's very problematic given how personal many journals are.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Cynthetiq

something happend back during an upgrade and we lost alot of formatting and such, there was a period when there was no journals available. the journal community was on hold for a bit. there was an attempt at using the forum to create threads and people commenting via the threaded view. It was very confusing to many and just not easy at all.

suffice to say when the journals returned there was much rejoicing and happiness across the land.

Blocking users from threads is problematic, for forums it's done at usergroup level, doing it at member level is problematic since you'd have to be a administrator to do so. Even then it's not as simple as adding a name but actually going into the forum permissions and giving explicit rights to that member.

I suggest taking an opportunity to look at phpbb or vbulletin. Both have demos you can see the backend and tinker with. It

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Hain

[1] Why would it be "opening the journals to spam" more so than they all ready are? Only members are capable of seeing the journals, and even then either the entry must not be private or you be one of the members friends to view the journal.
[2] No argument from me that the journals are more personal than the main threads. However, I am not imaginative enough to fathom the problem of point [1]. Granted I:

1. have not seen and dealt with the things you have seen/dealt with and
2. might be less of a prick than I imagine since I can't see how people could abuse the journals if it were set up in my fashion.

I didn't experience this... So I don't know the extent of what went wrong nor have any insight to how people were going about this.

I imagined that this would be an issue. I could press further with an alternative but it would be moot at this point unless someone else things this is a good idea... as good of an idea as I see it anyways.

[/quote]I might however... these things really do not make sense to me until I have spent a good hour a day for 4 weeks plugging away at it (i.e. as if I were sitting in a classroom).



Honest to the gods, the way I see this thing working, I can't imagine what would be wrong or difficult with it (aside from problems noted). When I get an hour (or three...) to myself next week I can crank out an HTML mock-up of what I see in my head.

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Cynthetiq

try it here.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...91#post2447491

I made my first post, I can't comment on it or post a second journal entry today because the double post will automerge, that's the first problem.

so you make a comment, make sure to quote my OP so that it "stays" with that post later one.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

The_Jazz

In my opinion the changes you're proposing would make the journals more visible to first-time users. All spammers are first-time users. Deleting and banning spammers based on journal comments would require a lot more work by the staff. For instance, how would you report a journal comment as spam?

I guess I just see the potential for abuse in the system you're proposing. Which is why I'm set against it. Our current set-up isn't exactly broken, although I do admit it could use some tweaking.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Hain

1. The journals do not have to be part of the main forum portal. They can still be their own section hidden away in the basement and the only way to visit them is by clicking the link at the top of the portal "Journal Index."
2. How do we:
   1. report spam journal comments now?
   2. report spam comments in the forums now?
   Is there such a solution for (a)? We have an active solution for (b).

No no no no no no. Each user would get a sub-forum dedicated to them. Only the owner could create new threads in the sub forum. Each entry would be a new thread. The first post would [almost certainly] be their entry and all comments are seen. Each entry is then clearly updated...


The entry order here would not have to be specific to the entry creation, and like our regular forums- ordered in terms of recent posts or thoughts to the entry. We can have a selector to choose the ordering just like in the regular forums.

Technical hurdles with my model as it stands:

1. Empowering users with private entries, including selecting which buddies can look at specific entries. This is the big one that even I don't like...
2. Updating the sub forums immediately under the Journal Index in order of recent thread (journal entry) creation or in order of latest comments to the thread (entry). One can easily notice that the sub forums of TFP's main portal are static. However, the entries need not be static like the journal entries currently are, as we could arrange them however one wanted by selecting the preferred sort scheme.

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mixedmedia

For my part, I would hate for the journals to be in thread format. I am just fine with the way it is now.

And we don't have spam in the journals now so there's no need for a method of reporting it.

I have to reiterate again how strongly I am opposed to putting journal entries and comments on the same page. It is very so.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Hain

If you can't tell, I can't stand the current method. I hate having to search through who just commented (like I have many comments to begin with) on what entry and that damned Hide feature doesn't work in the journals. I could either write shorter entries, or stop bitching... I do like doing both of those, though.

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mixedmedia

I understand, but to me changing the journal entries to mimic the threads would compromise the entire nature of the 'journal' aesthetic. Personally, I don't even need comments, although they are fun to have. But they do detract from the idea of the space being 'your journal.'

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Hain

@mixedmedia:
Understandable. If you don't care who else reads it, then this works. I do want people to read them, think about them, and maybe tell me I am not crazy. Else, I would not have written these entries for TFP to read them. I would have made all the entries private.

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mixedmedia

Well, I understand...but to me that is not the purpose of journaling.

It's more like you are wanting to use the journal for another purpose because it is the only workable outlet for it here. And I sympathize with that, but would still be very strongly opposed to changing the format of the journals to correspond with something that it wasn't set up for. I like that you can open it up and read the entries consecutively more like a book - a traditional journal - than a thread. It makes the space more your own. I view my journal like a scrap book and I do open it up and read what I wrote and how I 'decorated' it in the past, whereas, I almost never go back and read the comments after the fact.

But I'm sure you get my drift...I shut up now.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Hain

Yep... that is why I call my journal, my "Spam."


I always like bouncing my dreams, thoughts, ideas, whatever off other people because it challenges me and opens me to a variety of new ideas... and is a gage to make sure I am not going off the rails again.

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mixedmedia

again?

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Cynthetiq

What you are talking about isn't about journalling but about having private forum or blog space. Even with the subforum nature, that's a nightmare to manage if it's not a made mod.

Journals are more or less private in nature. Looking at LiveJournal, Vox, and the other journaling sites.

I think what you're looking for is some sort of blog ability. We currently don't offer that, vbulletin offers it as an additional plugin, but we've not updated to the latest version 3.7.0 and haven't really figured out the blog option for the moment.

We've done some preliminary blogging type ideas, but it still hasn't really fleshed out just yet.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Shauk

I gotta go with Augi, I mean, I generally don't care to raise a ruckus over it but, honestly, I have no idea if/when someone comments on my entries, why have commenting at all if I can't be apprised of the situation when it has updated?

honestly I think an even simpler fix would just have it notify the owner via PM when a reply was posted to a journal, and likewise, notify the person who commented in another person's journal when/if a reply was posted to their comment.

I've left my 2 cents on a few people's journals but i'll be damned if I'll ever see if that 2 cents turned into a dollar or not since I honestly can't remember who or which entries they were.

Cynthetiq

I don't disagree with you all, the author of the journal mod isn't making any updates to it.

It doesn't work in vbulletin 3.7.0 but does work with extra modification recoding to work within 3.6.8.

Okay, I did more digging, and I'm flat out wrong.

not about the journals and them updating or modifying them... that's a done deal.

it's about the hide tag:

I looked at the bbcode admin panel and the hide tag is a full bbcode. I don't know exactly why it doesn't work in the journals, but after looking at the bbcode, it's replacing it with some HTML tags which are not parsed in the journal section.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

mixedmedia

I'm not sure how far back people are commenting on your journal entries, but I can't remember a time when I received a comment on an entry that was more than a few days old. Could be that I am missing them, but I don't think so. Still, I don't understand why tracking comments should be a critical factor in the journal format. If there's a fix for notification of when and where comments are posted, then that's great. I hope there is. But, I don't think it's worth changing the entire mood of the journal forum for.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Shauk

Wasn't really talking about a format change like Augi was suggesting, just simply a notice via PM or something "so and so has responded to your entry, click here to go to it"

I don't really understand the concept of "moods" when it comes to forums or the code that powers them and the features that code offers. You'll have to forgive my bits and bytes embracing brain. ;p

Hain

While my previous posts don't seem to communicate it, I would be perfectly happy with this as well- and the hide feature to work.

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mixedmedia

I don't have a problem with either of those features.

eh, carry on...

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Cynthetiq

you're right... this is the best that the mod offers...

It has taken me some time to get used to the fact that when I look at my journal I click on the view comments menu to list all the recent comments. The re: :title: tells me which entry it refers to. In this example I didn't realize that while I was away Augi commented in my journal. I may not have seen it if I didn't bother to use the view comments.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.