patrick.net

The reason why deletes are needed is that trolls will constantly us alts to repost. And trolls make other people think it's just not worth their time to write something in a forum.

PatNet had a fine mechanism where if a user's post got deleted, they would be emailed a copy of it so that they could post it in their own thread if they felt it was necessary. Even trolls used this feature extensively. The delete is effectively soft.

The point is that the troll will fail to disrupt the conversation.

Is it merely coincidence that the same people threatening to leave the site if trolling and personal attacks are addressed, are the same people who always respond to debate and discussion over the nuts and bolts of their positions, by saying "I don't have the time to explain!"

The problem comes down to this. Free-for-all shouting matches are not an effective way to communicate. In all discussion, there has to be rules for spoken or written conversations whether on the Internet or in person.
- You have to use the same language, or your audience won't understand you.
- You cannot speak at the same as others. Nor can you listen to two conversations at once.
- You have to listen to the other side, and they have to listen to you. Neither you nor they can construct counter-argument and attack the central point of the other side without listening to the other side in order to understand what that central point is.
- You have to make the best effort to clearly communicate what you actually mean. This requires both honesty and writing or speaking skills.
- You have to make the best effort to understand what the other side means. This requires both honesty and reading or listening skills.
- You have to give everyone the benefit of the doubt initially.
- But you also have to disengage conversation with trolls. Ignoring them doesn't work. Trying to have honest discussion with them doesn't work. Only being brutally unaccepting of them works.

Without adherence to the above rules, free speech cannot and will not happen. Free speech is not free of cost. It takes effort to practice.

Personal biases get in a way, deleting people's posts seems like it's just a decision on who gets the final say in what is ok to say. Both good and bad.

Well, there is a way to eliminate personal biases, but it would take considerable effort. One could write an A.I. to determine the trolliness of posts and of users and purge comments appropriately. However, this is a very non-trivial project. It's the kind of problem that is interesting to work on, but requires considerable free time if it's not your job.

This is exactly the kind of thing you'd expect Google labs to work on. It would really leverage their crawling technology.

errc says

Why do you so strongly support personal attacks,

What? Where did you get this from? If you check my interactions on PatNet, you'll see that I tend to pull off from discussion once insults begin to fly. I also rarely insult. Compare my comments with yours in this thread.

Noting that people have let a troll get into their heads is not the same as supporting trolling.

My point here, if it still not clear, is that I do not think that deleting comments is the best way to deal with personal attacks. I have been dealing with them by simply not giving shit and ignoring the comments of the offenders. Just like I'll do with you now.

rando says

I want to find some set of self-service rules that lets readers get what they want without my being the judge of content.

I think ignore works like a champ. I've only had to use it on a few people, and it works.
I can even temporarily ignore someone that may have posted a recent not work friendly picture on the main page, until that post has left the main page.

I would like to give kudos to Patrick for going back to having a thread number in all the URLs. The only thing that would be better would be to have the starting DATE (YYYY-MM-DD or similar) in there, too ;)

Current example:

https://patrick.net/1302130/patnet-improvement-suggestions
https://patrick.net/?p=1302130&c=1375150#comment-1375150

Earlier year 2016 example:

http://patrick.net/Corporate+buybacks+are+99%25+of+NET+stock+purchases+in+2016+so+far
which is now
https://patrick.net/1289861/corporate-buybacks-are-99-of-net-stock-purchases-in-2016-so-far
and under the hood has URLs like this for the comment section:
https://patrick.net/?p=1289861&c=1271301#comment-1271301

I realize that the numeric thread ID always existed under the hood--just want to laud that its now always visible together with the thread title. Thanks, Patrick. It is just the better way to do it. Having a thread with just a Title to identify it seems not so robust when trying to refer to or find old threads one might have saved. What if two have the same title, for example,

A Preview Button for posts!

Is there a way to dislike & ignore everyone with one click?
Post HEY YOU next to all his dislikes & ignores.
It nice to let people know what one thinks of them.

HEY YOU says

It nice to let people know what one thinks of them.

When people dislike they usually comment. Not so much when they like/agree.

I remember clicking "dislike" only twice. One of them by mistake, which I neutralized with a "like."

HEY YOU says

Is there a way to dislike & ignore everyone with one click?

Yes, delete your PatNet bookmark.

justme says

What if two have the same title, for example,

Can't happen, because title is a unique field in the table.

justme says

The only thing that would be better would be to have the starting DATE (YYYY-MM-DD or similar) in there, too ;)

Could do that, but then urls get longer. Maybe that's ok. In fact, it would be easily to put the date in the "slug" title like this:

https://patrick.net/1302399/2017-02-2-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-amazon

@justme Good enough?

>>https://patrick.net/1302399/2017-02-2-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-amazon

@patrick, sure, that will work although I hope you mean always DD and not just D (probably just a typo). Leading 0s are a must for easy sorting!

That was just a typo. How about https://patrick.net/1302399/2017-feb-02-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-amazon

If you sort the URLs it will still be sorted by creation date since the post_ID comes first.

justme says

@patrick, sure, that will work although I hope you mean always DD and not just D (probably just a typo). Leading 0s are a must for easy sorting!

Yeah, DDs are better than Ds for sure.

Although some say more than a handful... I ain't one of them.

Lol, I can totally get by with firm well-formed C's.

justme says

The only thing that would be better would be to have the starting DATE (YYYY-MM-DD or similar) in there, too ;)

@justme your wish has been granted.

Post slugs now start with YYYY-MM-DD.

I still think that having all the changing aliases of all the usual suspects on their "home page" would be useful.

Agree. I'd much rather the homepage be most recent posts.

OK, ad hominem comments will no longer be deleted right away, but instead will go to ad hominem comment jail where they can be viewed by everyone and edited by the comment owner.

If a comment in jail is edited, I'll get notified and look at it again, perhaps removing it from jail.

The ad hominem comment jail link is now also in the footer.

So what's the difference between "active" and "comments" on the front page?

"active" is all posts ever, sorted the most recent creation time or last comment time.

"comments" is posts created in the last day, sorted by the most comments.

You can now follow specific topics, for example #housing

You'll get an email of each new post in housing. But you won't get duplicates if you're already following the author.

Not tested yet, might not really work.

Let me know if problems.

I've done away with the 2k comment limit @Dan8267 and hopefully simplified making comments and posts.

Let me know if problems!

@Patrick, the ignore link is gone. Please bring it back before the trolls start taking advantage of it. I, for one, will ad hom any troll doing any post on my thread while the ignore/ban function is disabled.

Hmm, don't know where that ignore link went. Will put it back.

Dan8267 says

ignore link is gone. Please bring it back

@Dan8267 OK, it's back now. Was a typo.

If people would just stick to arguing the point rather than hating on the person personally, the forum would be a lot easier to run.

But I guess that's true of life as well.

rando says

I've done away with the 2k comment limit @Dan8267 and hopefully simplified making comments and posts.

Let me know if problems!

Oh god Patrick, I don't think you know what you've done.....

@Patrick, the new login via emailed link feature is broken. Worst still, the old login mechanism no longer exists.

On a system where somehow the cookie got deleted, I tried to log in via the new mechanism. I never receive the link in email, and there is no fallback mechanism.

More importantly, the new system has no value. At best it could be an alternative mechanism, but certainly there is no up side to using it as a replacement for providing a username and password, even if the user name is a person's email and his display name is something else.

By forcing a user to login with an email link, you are taking something that is extremely easy and making it difficult and much more likely to fail. Now in order to log in a user, PatNet is dependent upon that person's email provider working, not filtering the link you send, your site sending the mail properly, and the link mechanism working. Even if done right, it actually opens a window for hacking because anyone who gains access to a person's email account now automatically has access to PatNet.

In the very least, PatNet should authenticate users directly using a username/password combination.

OK, I put it back manually in the database:

update users set user_name='jazz music' where user_name = 'jazzmusic';

Spaces in names cause a lot of complications with the code, so I've been modifying the code to not allow new names with spaces.

One small example is that you need to escape spaces in urls: https://patrick.net/users/jazz%20music

@Patrick, consider getting rid of Thunderdome threads. We've tried them now for months, and they are never productive conversations and only serve to further hostilities between users and discourage new people from joining PatNet. We need new people.

Patnet needs to get rid of everybody but me (Pat can be a silent partner) so that I can rave and crow incessantly without interference.

@Patrick, can you change my username to dan'; delete from user where username = 'Tenpoundbass'; --? I've been having trouble doing this myself. I think the form doesn't handle this name.

@Patrick what's the thought process behind allowing users to delete their comments? Obviously they can change comments with edit, but straight out deleting seems strange. If you don't like what you said, change it or comment that you may have fucked up. I think if a comment is deleted there should still be a place marker there numerically as you currently have it, but with no content or maybe stating it was deleted. That way as users see more blank comments from an individual they'll know which users are prone to deleting something they didn't think about before hitting submit. It's almost like they can put themselves on ignore/block (whatever it is) for deleting their own comments and people will figure out who to avoid. There's honestly no reason to delete a comment on an anonymous forum unless you're worried about your meat curtains getting hurt.

Dan8267 says

consider getting rid of Thunderdome threads. We've tried them now for months, and they are never productive conversations and only serve to further hostilities between users and discourage new people from joining PatNet. We need new people.

Yes, you're probably right about that. Should also probably ban "fuck" and "cunt" in post titles. And have the nudie photos not visible unless user is logged in. Search engines ding me for that.

WookieMan says

I think if a comment is deleted there should still be a place marker there numerically as you currently have it, but with no content or maybe stating it was deleted.

Yes, this would make sense, and keep the numbering consistent in a thread. I could leave the "edit" option and if people want to delete a comment, could just edit it down to almost nothing. I think there has to be at least one character in the comment.

You can still edit a comment, but now delete should be gone.

Also:

* thunderdome threads are no longer special, and have the "ad hominem" link
* post with porn images will not be visible unless user is logged in
* you will not be able to create a post with "cunt" or "fuck" in the title

Hopefully these things will attract more users and cause search engines to look more favorably on patrick.net.

All politically incorrect speech is still allowed and encouraged. Just try to be civil to the other users when making your point.

jazz music says

Don't you use the [delete comment] feature in Facebook?

Seems like a basic feature to offer for so many good reasons.

Don't want to derail the original intention of this post. But the delete function in any forum or social media is complete garbage. Anyone supporting it probably has kids named Winston and are part of the Ministry of Truth all while enjoying a nice memory hole ;) If you have 2nd thoughts after posting something, maybe you're not intelligent enough to be posting on the internet? Whats the phrase, "think before you speak and/or type" from the late great Ed Roberts.

This is why facebook is trash. Grow some balls or don't post it. Just don't delete it.

You can quote anyone's comment to preserve it.

Of course you could have edited the quote, but people will catch on to that pretty fast.