[geeklog-devel] [Fwd: Re: Geeklog and Groklaw]

[Tony Bibbs]

Some clarification to the list I sent.

--Tony

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: Geeklog and Groklaw
Date: 	Fri, 20 Aug 2004 15:21:50 +0000
From: 	Pamela Jones <pj at groklaw.com>
To: 	Tony Bibbs <tony at tonybibbs.com>
References: 	<200408182042.i7IKgpu32509 at statler.metalab.unc.edu> 
<69B65C55-F17F-11D8-9895-000D93C0C6E2 at groklaw.com> 
<412610B2.1000109 at tonybibbs.com>



Hi Tony,

Couple of things:  rakaz and mathfox are two different people, but both
work on Groklaw. But mathfox is the webmaster.

Second, on the request you list as number one:  I need to explain
better.  What mathfox has said is that if I simultaneously open up two
copies of the same page of Groklaw, it can cause problems.   I would
like to be able to do that, because of the reasons I mentioned. But on
that request (as distinct from my request re static pages), I am not
asking that it be viewable on the same page. Two open at the same time
without crashing.

Also, on public requests for help. Please remove the moderator request
regarding hiding.  I have enough diligent Utah people attacking me for
moderating as it is. I'd appreciate keeping that part more private.  

Thanks,

PJ 

On Fri, 2004-08-20 at 14:54, Tony Bibbs wrote:
> I've forwarded your input on to our developers and cc'd you both in.  
> PJ, as you think of more things feel free to send them to me.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> --Tony
> 
> Pamela Jones wrote:
> 
> > Hi Tony,
> >
> > Thank you for Geeklog. I've enjoyed it a lot. I'm thrilled to hear you 
> > are working on making it scale, and just in time!   I think there are 
> > some issues having to do with scale that we are starting to run into.  
> > MathFox has done some  personalizing, as you probably know.  But with 
> > a thousand comments on a story yesterday, well...it's a lot.
> >
> > He thinks maybe I caused the problem with the disappearing stories, by 
> > having three different pages of Groklaw open at the same time. I don't 
> > think that is it, though, because I wasn't working on Groklaw at the 
> > time, and was doing email instead when it happened. On the other hand, 
> > he's usually right. It might be a good idea if you contact him and you 
> > two can talk with more specifics. I'm cc'ing him with this.
> >
> > Also, comments are starting to disappear sometimes.  I don't know 
> > why.  We are analyzing the logs now, so I can't really answer your 
> > question as to why yet.  We have issues with bandwidth because ibiblio 
> > rations us, and sometimes it's hard to know what is a real problem and 
> > what is just an ibiblio issue.  But when the disappearing stories went 
> > poof, all three turned up as drafts, but early versions, missing huge 
> > chunks, and with comments attached, but not necessarily attached to 
> > the right story.  When I looked at the stats, it would say 6 hits, 27 
> > comments, which is impossible, obviously, or at least inconceivable, 
> > and there wouldn't be 27 comments in any case, so while some data was 
> > saved, it was garbled.
> >
> >  I'm generally a problem.  I do like to open several pages at once and 
> > work that way, and MathFox scolds me about that. If you could make it 
> > so I could do that, I'd be thrilled. For example, I like to open an 
> > article and go down the comments and have a second window open with 
> > the page where I can edit any mistakes I've made and readers catch.
> >
> > Also, in a perfect world, I'd be able to go through comments, flag the 
> > really good ones and they'd show up in a special place at the top of 
> > the list, a kind of Best of the Comments on this Article, so really 
> > busy folks could just read those.  I'd like it so I could "anoint" a 
> > crew to handle that choosing. With me being able to overrule them.
> >
> > I'd also love it if I could hide comments and have them show up 
> > nowhere unless I made them visible again.  The troll dance.  That way 
> > moderators could hide a comment, and I could later go through and 
> > either confirm by deleting or restore, if they go too far.  But they'd 
> > have to disappear from search and every form of view.
> >
> > Another thing I'd love would be if we could have it so quotations, 
> > blocks of text in an article, could optionally have a slightly darker 
> > shading than the rest of the page, so it would be clearly a quotation, 
> > without having to use quotation marks.
> >
> > It would be nice if there could be a work area, where everyone could 
> > work on a document together, which I could let certain groups have 
> > access to.  It's the single hardest part of Groklaw, the difficulty of 
> > working together fast when we're all over the world.  I know I could 
> > do it now if I give everyone the power, but for security reasons, it 
> > has to be a walled off area, so they can't wander about.  My readers 
> > know how to do everything, and sometimes we get volunteers with an 
> > agenda, so I need to be careful.  When we do audio transcripts, for 
> > example, we typically break it up into mp3s and then everyone gets 
> > sent one. It would be pleasant to be able to have folks just come and 
> > grab what they want and have a place to input the result on Groklaw, 
> > instead of it all being funneled through me.
> >
> > I'd love it if there was a way to have comments up to a certain number 
> > and then they'd click to read the rest.  When we get 400 plus per 
> > story, and sometimes more than twice that, it slows things down quite 
> > a lot.  If the only way to do it is a la Slashdot, though, I'd rather 
> > stick to what we have already.  I hate the Slashdot method, because it 
> > repeats way too many comments on the next page.
> >
> > Sometimes readers ask for the ability to edit their own comments or 
> > even delete them.
> >
> > It would be very nice if the static pages could be viewed in edit. For 
> > example, if I want to edit the IBM timeline page, I have to open two 
> > windows to be able to see what I'm doing, because in edit, you see 
> > only the html, not the finished look, and you really want both.
> >
> > Someone is trying to work out a  way to write a script to quickly 
> > change a pdf to plain text.  If it were built in, my whole life would 
> > get better.
> >
> > Sorry you asked yet?
> >
> > : )
> >
> > When we figure out what happened with the disappearing story, I'll 
> > write to you again and let you know.
> >
> > I love the idea of working together, because there will surely be more 
> > Groklaws in the future.  Mathfox  has, I believe, donated some stuff 
> > back. But some things we kind of keep under wraps for the moment, 
> > mainly because I'd rather the astroturfers not know all our tricks.
> >
> > PJ
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Aug 18, 2004, at 4:42 PM, tony_bibbs wrote:
> >
> >> PJ,
> >>
> >> I'm Tony Bibbs, one of the maintainers for Geeklog.  We have watched 
> >> Groklaw grow and have been excited to see it has, for the most part, 
> >> grown with the site.  I noticed you have run into a problem with lost 
> >> stories and I'd like to get some insight into the cause so we might 
> >> address this should it prove to be an issue with the Geeklog code or 
> >> the Geeklog database.
> >>
> >> I've read many of the posts related to this and everybody seemed to 
> >> have an opinion on how to improve things.  Mine is quite simply, let 
> >> us work with you to address any issues you might have...it only helps 
> >> us make Geeklog better and you get, I hope, the reassurance we value 
> >> you and your site.
> >>
> >> So that you know, I'm responsible for the next version of Geeklog 
> >> (version 2) and it is going to be built with large scale deployments 
> >> in mind and will include an upgrade path from 1.3.x.  To that end if 
> >> you have any suggestions on how we might improve Geeklog we would 
> >> love any feedback you might have.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> --Tony
> >>
> 
>