I think that the news links half of a page is supposed to provide links to legitimate articles about a specific topic (e.g. real estate) and the forum half of a page is supposed to provide commentary by patrick.net readers.
There is a problem with the news links that I believe used to not be a problem. The problem is that forum items show up as links. For example:
To make matters worse, any URL in a forum item is showing up as a news link.
Several users have mentioned that the news links have dropped in quality since Patrick left the task of posting them to the readers. I am absolutely fine with readers posting the news links and think they will provide just as many as Patrick was able to on his own. I also think that Patrick was right to take this off of his plate. I think fixing what appears to be a technical problem might address many of the quality issues that have been raised.
invite response
I think that the news links half of a page is supposed to provide links to legitimate articles about a specific topic (e.g. real estate) and the forum half of a page is supposed to provide commentary by patrick.net readers.
There is a problem with the news links that I believe used to not be a problem. The problem is that forum items show up as links. For example:
and
http://patrick.net/?p=1216165
Those are not news links.
To make matters worse, any URL in a forum item is showing up as a news link.
Several users have mentioned that the news links have dropped in quality since Patrick left the task of posting them to the readers. I am absolutely fine with readers posting the news links and think they will provide just as many as Patrick was able to on his own. I also think that Patrick was right to take this off of his plate. I think fixing what appears to be a technical problem might address many of the quality issues that have been raised.
Biff
#housing