BindleSnitch Membership Update
We have been evaluating how BindleSnitch is being used, and we are thinking about making some changes to the system in order to simplify things.
We have observed that Bindle is being used as a publishing platform, but it is not being used as a social media tool to communicate privately with each other. The Profiles section, which is where the social media functions are found, isn’t being used.
We have also noted that the bonus categories have failed to generate any interest. It seems that it is enough to publish whatever you want to publish using the main menu choices as categories.
We are therefore considering the following changes:
- The removal of the “bonus categories” menus
- Transfer of articles in the bonus categories to the ETC category (which is something you will have to do by revisiting the articles that you may have in the bonus categories – Johnny and Kosh each have one in fiction – the other categories are not even working for some reason so I can’t see if there is anything in them.
- We will also be removing the profiles item in the members memu. You can always reach your profile by clicking on your byline in any article and you can find anyone else’s profile by clicking on their byline.
- We are not going to remove the profile pages because we might want them back later.
So, the main difference will be that we are going to remove the bonus category menus and also remove the bonus categories as well.
The rationale behind this is that there is no good reason to hide art, fiction and poetry from the home page and put them into a section where they will probably never get read. Makes no sense. It was a bad idea from the outset, and I always had second thoughts about it.
I will wait until the end of this week for comments before we remove the bonus category menus.
Alan
09/29/2020 @ 11:49 am
I better go see what fiction is there. Yes, simplify. The only benefit of the categories at this point is search engines. Your private message function is too difficult to find and use. I usually resort to email when I know someone’s address because I don’t have a convenient enough choice. When everyone seemed happiest was when we had the original Open Salon format which was simpler than anything that followed. Though I might be alone in this, I’d almost consider dropping the ability to reply to specific comments and tell people to say to whom they were replying in the comment itself; that way the sequence is easier to follow and figuring out if there have been any recent comments becomes easy.
09/29/2020 @ 11:56 am
Thanks for the feedback, It is much appreciated. I am not sure about what you mean with respect to commenting on comments. Explain more if you might.
09/29/2020 @ 11:52 am
I checked my fiction. Screw it. It’s a minor book review. If it were fiction I’d written I’d move it.
09/29/2020 @ 2:58 pm
Is there any way you can make the comment streams flow like an interactive conversation rather than a hodgepodge of seemingly disjointed contributions?
09/29/2020 @ 3:10 pm
There are basically two models to choose from. This one, where comments upon comments are displayed in an indented hierarchy, or one in which replies to comments are not allowed, in which case you end up with a chronological listing of all comments. My feeling is that the latter model results in more confusion because contributors don’t always specify by name the contributor to whom the reply is addressed. The current model makes that clear intuitively that night now I am reply to you.
09/29/2020 @ 3:11 pm
There are basically two models to choose from. This one, where comments upon comments are displayed in an indented hierarchy, or one in which replies to comments are not allowed, in which case you end up with a chronological listing of all comments. My feeling is that the latter model results in more confusion because contributors don’t always specify by name the contributor to whom the reply is addressed. The current model makes that clear intuitively that night now I am reply to you.
09/30/2020 @ 8:32 am
@Alan;
In case you haven’t noticed, I make an effort to identify the person to whom my my response is directed….As I have done here by using the @ to designate the individual I’m addressing…
However, the single stream chronologically correct model seems to work best especially if contributors are encouraged to identify the person to whom a comment is addressed…
In my view chronology is important to cohesiveness in any discussion….
09/29/2020 @ 3:12 pm
As you can see, the first comment is clearly a response to your question. The second iteration of the same comment looks like a new comment when it is really a reply to your comment.
09/29/2020 @ 5:05 pm
Alan,
I’m saying what Ron said more clearly. Personally, I’d rather have to say to whom or what I’m replying to in a single stream because I don’t have to look in multiple places to keep track off the overall stream. I might go back to that and find I was wrong, but this also gets confusing because of how many indents are possible.