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Diffstat (limited to 'faq.php')
| -rw-r--r-- | faq.php | 39 |
1 files changed, 17 insertions, 22 deletions
@@ -13,19 +13,19 @@ $output = " </DD> <DT><B>What is $sitename all about?</B></DT> - <DD>$sitename is a news and discussion forum. People log in to the site, read the news, select one or more items and start to discuss and post their reactions. $sitename is a community site that relies solely on reader-contributed content.<P>First off, we strive towards discussion rather then to deliver news on its own: discussion can really make a story considerably better as user comments frequently `upstage' the story itself.<P>Secondly, we aim towards a high quality of content and content posters by using and experimenting with several techniques and systems such as trust metrics, scoring, moderation and collaborative filtering.<P>Last but not least, this site has no real editors as all content is moderated and voted on by all registered users. This means that the community is truly the editor of this site as the community has the final decision on the content. This also implies that we, the $sitename team, are creating nothing more then a tool or an environment to make these things happen.<P></DD> + <DD>$sitename is a news and discussion forum. It is a <I>tool</I>. And as a tool, it aims to create an environment to make discussions possible. $sitename is not an organization, but a non-profit hobby project instead.<P>People log in to the site, read the news, select one or more items and start to discuss and post their reactions. $sitename is a community site that relies solely on reader-contributed content.<P>First off, we strive towards discussion rather then to deliver news on its own: discussion can really make a story considerably better as user comments frequently `upstage' the story itself.<P>Secondly, we aim towards a high quality of content and content posters by using and experimenting with several techniques and systems such as trust metrics, scoring, moderation and collaborative filtering.<P></DD> + + <DT><B>Isn't $sitename similar to slashdot.org and kuro5hin.org?</B></DT> + <DD>To some extend, yes. Credit where credit is due: we borrowed many ideas (like the interface and moderation) from <A HREF=\"http://slashdot.org/\">slashdot.org</A> and <A HREF=\"http://kuro5hin.org/\">kuro5hin.org</A> because they have many good ideas about discussion forums. We do not use their code or any permutation thereof as $sitename has been written entirely from scratch. Our goal was to create a similar base initially, and to go from there and to transform $sitename into something different by adding new and unique features.<P></DD> <DT><B><A NAME=\"moderation\">Why moderatiom, trust metrics and collaborative filtering?</A></B></DT> <DD>To help individuals and communities address the challenges of information overload.<P>As each new piece of information competes for attention, people quickly tend to become overwhelmed and seek assistance in identifying the most interesting, worthwhile, valuable or enteraining items. Not to mention the fact, reader-contributed content and other levels of interactivity tend to become chaotic, bloated and disreputable.<P>Therefore, we decided to develop a public system powered by a community that aims to bring quality content to everyone's attention and to filter out all junk: to <I>sort the wheat from the chaff</I>. The output should be something clean and homogenized featuring quality content, and should slide down the gullet far more easily. Another objective is to provide a customized service according to public and individual preferences, whether expressed or inferred.<P>Yes, you are right. It all sounds a bit idealistic, not to mention hypothetical. However, don't get this wrong: this isn't a new concept, various such systems exist nowadays (like <A HREF=\"http://slashdot.org/\">slashdot.org</A> or <A HREF=\"http://www.kuro5hin.org/\">kuro5hin.org</A>). We just happen to want our own system.<P>Last but not least we, the $sitename team, don't want the responsibility to manually review each post and to select the ones worthy. Systematic editing by individual editors is nice and dandy, if you get paid for it or if you have some time to kill. Afterall, we are not writers, critics nor reviewers for that matter; we are programmers, designers and technicians.<P></DD> - - <DT><B>Isn't moderation elitist?</B></DT> - <DD>To some extent, yes. The system is not designed to allow totally open and unfiltered access. It is intended to create a good place for people who are interested in a topic to come together and communicate. You can't communicate over a noisy channel, so part of our job is to reduce the ability for malicious users to create noise.<P></DD> - + <DT><B>How does submission moderation work?</B></DT> - <DD>--- under construction ---<P></DD> + <DD>Anyone who happens by, and has some news or some thoughts they'd like to share, can submit new content for consideration. After someone has submitted something, their story is added to a queue. All registered users can access this list of pending stories, that is, stories that have been submitted, but do not yet appear on the public front page. Those registered users can vote whether they think the story should be posted or not. When enough people vote to post a story, the story is pushed over the threshold and up it goes on the public page. On the other hand, when too many people voted to drop a story, the story will get trashed.<P></DD> <DT><B>How does comment moderation work?</B></DT> - <DD>Comments that gain the approbation of participants gradually move up through statistical effects and pointless comments sink into oblivion.<P>--- under construction ---<P>Hence, the purpose of comment moderation is two-fold: <UL><LI>To bring the really good comments to everyone's attention.</LI><LI>To hide or get get rid of spam, flamebait and trolls.</LI></UL>In the latter, comment moderation provides a technical solution to a social problem.<P></DD> + <DD>If you create an account and log in, you will be able to moderate comments. This lets you assign a score to a comment on how good you think the comment was or how visible you think it should be. When more then one person rates a comment, the overall rating is just a simple average of all ratings. Comments with a high ratings are more visible then comments with a lower rating. Like that, comments that gain the approbation of participants will gradually move up through statistical effects and pointless comments will sink into oblivion.<P>Hence, the purpose of comment moderation is two-fold: <UL><LI>To bring the really good comments to everyone's attention.</LI><LI>To hide or get get rid of spam, flamebait and trolls.</LI></UL>In the latter, comment moderation provides a technical solution to a social problem.<P></DD> <DT><B>Why would I want to create a user account?</B></DT> <DD>No $sitename participant can use his own name or handle to post comments until they sign up and submit their e-mail address. Those who do not may participate as `$anonymous', but they will suffer numerous disadvantages, not the least that their posts begin at a lower score.<P>In contrast, those with a user account can use their own name or handle and are granted various priveleges: the most important is probably the ability to moderate new submissions and to rate comments. Also, registered users can tune the site to their personal needs. For instance: they can select one of the available themes to alter the look-and-feel of the site or they can fine-tune the values of various settings to their likings.<P></DD> @@ -42,9 +42,6 @@ $output = " <DT><B>Why did my comment get deleted?</B></DT> <DD>It probably didn't. It probably just got moderated down by our army of moderators. Try browsing at a lower threshold and see if your comment becomes visible.<P></DD> - <DT><B>Can I syndicate content from this site?</B></DT> - <DD>--- under construction ---<P></DD> - <DT><B>I found a bug or encountered a problem, what do I do?</B></DT> <DD>Write us a bugreport or send us a patch! Writing a good bug report takes patience, but doing it right the first time saves time for us and for you. It is most helpful when a good description of the problem is included in the bug report. That is, a good example of all the things you did that led to the problem and the problem itself exactly described. The best reports are those that include a full example showing how to reproduce the bug or problem.<P></DD> @@ -53,21 +50,19 @@ $output = " <DT><B>What features does the engine have?</B></DT> <DD> - <LI>a theme system: the entire website is fully themable in terms of colors, layout, look-and-feel and markup.</LI> - <LI>a user account system with session management, secure authentication, human-readable password generator, user and page preferences, comment tracker and so on.</LI> - <LI>a discussion system: supports different display (<I>threaded</I>, <I>flat</I>, <I>netsted</I>) and order (<I>newest first</I>, <I>oldest first</I>, <I>highest scorings first</I>), comment moderation, customable HTML-support, etc.</LI> - <LI>a database abstraction layer: allows the website to run on top of different database systems.</LI> - <LI>anonymous reader/poster support across the entire site in case visitors prefers to remain anonymous or in case cookies are disabled.</LI> - <LI>a submission queue and submission moderation.</LI> - <LI>an embedded diary system.</LI> - <LI>an administrator section which is considered the control center of the website.</LI> - <LI>a RDF/RSS backend which allows third party websites to become <I>channels</I> in your website with a minimum of extra work.</LI> + <LI>A theme system: the entire website is fully themable in terms of colors, layout, look-and-feel and markup.</LI> + <LI>A user account system with session management, secure authentication, human-readable password generator, user and page preferences, comment tracker and so on.</LI> + <LI>A discussion system: supports different display (<I>threaded</I>, <I>flat</I>, <I>netsted</I>) and order (<I>newest first</I>, <I>oldest first</I>, <I>highest scorings first</I>), comment moderation, customable HTML-support, etc.</LI> + <LI>A submission queue and submission moderation.</LI> + <LI>An embedded diary system.</LI> + <LI>Anonymous reader/poster support across the entire site in case visitors prefers to remain anonymous or in case cookies are disabled.</LI> + <LI>An administrator section which is considered the control center of the website.</LI> + <LI>A database abstraction layer: allows the website to run on top of different database systems.</LI> + <LI>A RDF/RSS backend which allows third party websites to become <I>channels</I> in your website with a minimum of extra work.</LI> + <LI>...</LI> <P> </DD> - <DT><B>What is your privacy policy?</B></DT> - <DD>--- under construction ---<P></DD> - <DT><B>What is your disclaimer?</B></DT> <DD>All messages made available (including any discussion goups and bulletin boards) and any opinions, advice, statements or other information contained in any messages posted or transmitted by any third party are the responsibility of the author of that message and not of $sitename. The fact that a particular message is posted on or transmitted using this website does not mean that $sitename has endorsed that message in any way or verified the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message.<P>Furthermore, all persons who use $sitename are advised not to use them for solicitations or any other commercial purposes. We make no representation regarding the merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose of any message posted by any third party. Users are encouraged to seek the advice of their appropriate professional advisors, when evaluating the information contained in any message. $sitename is not responsible for any defamatory, offensive or illegal conduct of any user.<P></DD> |