patrick.net

Patrick says

What if I just set the home page to sort by comments or likes instead of latest activity?

You’ve tried that before. Made it sortable for the user.

You’ve tried a lot of different things. Why do you think it’s so impossible to please the small number of users that come here? Like, wtf do they want? Or are they just impossible to please whingers?

Any way to prevent the type of activity I'm seeing today would probably help. If sorting by likes is helpful I suppose. It's realistically not that hard to get likes though with with the anonymous option. I could do multiple browsers and use VPN from different locations. I'm going to test it out now.

Sort by comments then

Can't find a single thread not by freedom dude. What about captcha?

errc says

Sort by comments then

Sure. No problem doing that. Site worked fine prior to freespeak though. Check out the screen shots. It's clearly someone that has clips/responses ready to go and they're just copying and pasting the responses or it's a bot. Some of these responses are not possible versus the time of the previous post. The amount of links in that one screen shot isn't even fully captured. It's obviously copying and pasting. Not saying other users here don't do that. Most don't take a fucking liquid shit on the front page though.

We're talking 5 minutes after the previous post on the first screen shot for that manifesto with dozens of links. Then the lower screen shot is 3 minutes in between what could be considered an original comment. The timeline is not realistic unless all this was planned. Which it clearly was.

Wookie- freespeak is averaging one post every 2-3 minutes- no chance he/it reads them first. Interestingly it looks to be all legit articles with no fake news (to my knowledge).

It would take a while, but I think this is a planned and coordinated thing. He's (or she) got posts ready to go and then multiple comment replies to those posts. Most are one or two sentence comments. Then there are a few comments that are way longer than the time between the previous post would allow someone to actually type up a response and have it generally be grammatically and spelling correct. I don't think it's a bot. I think it's someone that has a planned, copy and paste attack/spam for forums. I can't say I've seen it before, but I don't know what other explanation there could be.

Wookie- it was also responsive enough that it had a response to me on the one thread where I asked it about "cameltoe".

It wasn't able to respond to a question about cameltoe but did give another coherent anti government response every time I asked it a question.

Whatever it was, it's gone now.

anonymous says

It wasn't able to respond to a question about cameltoe but did give another coherent anti government response every time I asked it a question.

Whatever it was, it's gone now.

I think it's a bit early to say gone. At least reviewing the posts, there have been breaks off 20-30 minutes before in the flurry of BS. Last post was only about 15 minutes ago. I don't know the purpose, but I think they were fishing for reactions. The first post and 2nd post since the account was started were far apart. Then the 3rd post got a 37 comment reaction and the shit show was on. Not sure if they just found an active forum and decide to spam it.

@Patrick, if anonymous is going to be a thing, can we at least see how many there are? I don't dig the option of being anonymous, but it would be nice to see how many non-registered users are viewing the site at that moment. You wouldn't need each one listed in the user section up top, but if it said something like "anonymous(18)" or something like that for the number of people lurking in the parenthesis. If the number is high maybe you'll get users looking to throw a post out there to see what the reaction is. Just a thought. Freespeak is a dick though.

We must stop freespeak! True Patnetters are having problems posting retarded threads & comments.

HEY YOU says

True Patnetters are having problems posting retarded threads & comments.

This is true. Freespeak is not allowing me to see the retardation of our fellow patnet users. I miss it.

Spoke too soon - freespeak is back. Please nuke it.

I have suspended the account of freespeak for now.

You suspend just the account linked to the email or the IP address? Might be back as anon under the Montana thread. Same one/two sentence cryptic post showed up there again.

Wtf need a post limit. Might as well be freespeck.net

Patrick says

I have suspended the account of freespeak for now.

I think you're going to have to suspend the IP address unless they're bouncing around on VPN. Coming back as new user nyc now very likely. And they're not replying to direct, nasty ass comments towards them that I've made. It's a bot or dedicated individual with massive amounts of copy/paste material ready to go.

I'm going to rest for the night. I expect this to be cleared up in the AM ; )

Also, before I hit bed for the night. I am intentionally trolling nyc now. No response so far. Feel free to mark my comments as uncivil. I have to be careful not to fall into the ways of the troll.

me123 says

WookieMan says

I have to be careful not to fall into the ways of the troll.

Too late.

Nah, I'm good.

best way is limit the number of threads/day.

Now its nyc

For just pennies a day you can protect innocent Snowflakes like Wookieman from being triggered. Show you care and send just 77 cents a week for your contribution.

I ignored freespeak and now I only see a couple new threads per page.

Tenpoundbass says

For just pennies a day you can protect innocent Snowflakes like Wookieman from being triggered.

That's rich. Wanting to be able to even have a functioning forum is being triggered? I guess I'll have to adjust my point of view on this and many other things, because apparently the new norm should be chaos and things that don't work.

For like 6 hours yesterday there wasn't even a possibility to keep up with the content this person was posting and the barrage of cryptic comments. Even if it was relevant to someone, we would miss out on your gems TPB. So in a way, I'm snowflaking for you buddy.

Onvacation says

I ignored freespeak and now I only see a couple new threads per page

No other active user here has ever come close to making me want to ignore them for the most part. If it keeps up today, freespeak/nyc is going in the garbage.

User nyc deleted. It's just spam.

Patrick says

User nyc deleted. It's just spam.

Thanks @Patrick. @Tenpoundbass - My snowflaking works! I won!

WookieMan says

but I think they were fishing for reactions.

It's either 4chan or nsa bots.

OK, I implemented a first pass at daily post limit of 7. No limit on comments yet, just posts (aka threads).

Patrick says

OK, I implemented a first pass at daily post limit of 7. No limit on comments yet, just posts (aka threads).

@Patrick, having post limits has been my wish for years. 7 is a start, but I think ONE or maybe THREE would be even better.

EDIT: Let me refine that a bit: New users: 1 post/day, 2 posts/week, Established users, 2 posts/day, 5 posts/week. Weeks could be rolling 7-day periods. The quality and usefulness of patnet is inversely proportional to the number of posts. New users are people who have been registered less than 1 year. People who change their usernames should be considered new users. The changes in username are hugely annoying and should actually be forbidden altogether. In fact, please revert all usernames back to their originals.

Heck even 10 is an improvement.

justme says

having post limits has been my wish for years.

Thanks for telling me. What else is on your wish list?

justme says

Let me refine that a bit: New users: 1 post/day, 2 posts/week, Established users, 2 posts/day, 5 posts/week. Weeks could be rolling 7-day periods. The quality and usefulness of patnet is inversely proportional to the number of posts.

Unless they are threads started by Libbies/Dems, or TDS posts, then the sky is the limit, right?

justme says

The quality and usefulness of patnet is inversely proportional to the number of posts.

I think quality of posts is the most important thing, but how best to select for quality?

Up and down voting doesn't work very well without a lot of users.

Patrick says

I think quality of posts is the most important thing, but how best to select for quality?

Up and down voting doesn't work very well without a lot of users.

You select for quality by restricting the number of posts, so that people who post quality posts do not get drowned out by the idiots that post endless drivel. Limiting posts provides incentive to write quality posts.

Up-and-down voting works if quality posts do not get lost in a pile of crap before people can appreciate them. Up/Down scores also need to be separated so that people can see activity level not just the final score. Just seeing N-N=0 does not tell me anything about a post, nor can it be used to rank the post for activity.

@Patrick

HOW TO RESTORE PATNET TO ITS FORMER GLORY:

This is a list of suggestions and remarks, some of which I have made myself over the years, some made (also) by others. Some of the suggestions have been implemented, some have come and gone. The suggestions are listed more or less in order of importance to me.

1. post limits

New users: 1 post/day, 2 posts/week, Established users, 2 posts/day, 5 posts/week. Weeks could be rolling 7-day periods. The quality and usefulness of patnet is inversely proportional to the number of posts per day. New users are people who have been registered less than 1 year. People who change their usernames should be considered new users, but changing username really should be forbidden.

2. username changes forbidden (email changes ok)

The changes in username are hugely annoying and should actually be forbidden altogether. In fact, please revert all usernames back to their originals. Exception granted for Patrick to beat BerufsVerbot.

3. quality control:

You select for quality by restricting the number of posts, so that people who post quality posts do not get drowned out by the idiots that post endless drivel. Limiting posts provides incentive to write quality posts, and to write quality comments.

4. up-and-down voting:

Voting works if quality posts do not get lost in a pile of crap before people can appreciate them. Up/Down scores also need to be separated so that people can see activity level not just the final score. Just seeing N-N=0 does not tell me anything about a post, nor can it be used to rank the post for activity.

5. Ignore function should exist, and each user should have ignored-by-N-people showing. The latter is very important, because new users need to see who is being either a troll or just wildly partisan.

6. editorial focus: a blog should have an editorial focus.

7. make patrick.net acquire the quality of being a REFERENCE site where people go back to find thoughtful discussions on important topics. Be more like a wiki, in spirit if not in format. It is not a high number of new posts or comments per day that is the goal. The goal is to have many readers, readers who come to patnet to LEARN and contribute. Search engines seem to favor "new" content (by date). Is there a workaround for that?

8. show hash (salted) of ip address for each user/post. This cuts down on using multiple usernames

9. The term "incivility jail" is misleading. The comment is right there, you just have to click on it to see it. If the comment can get out, it is not in jail.

10. "Thunderdome" fighting cage for those who want to quarrel in an unrestrained fashion: it does not seem to work. Trolls want to quarrel for maximal disruption. They wil not go to the Thunderdome by their own choice.

11. threads should have yyyy/mm/dd in their URL, so that one can more easily search by date.

12. I don't particularly like the new "headline-hyperlinks-to-reference-article" scheme. I guess there is some reciprocal backscratch commercial reason for this, if patnet becomes known as a traffic driver, but is it worth it?

13. misleading headlines: headlines that are outright lies, say something entirely different than what the thread is about, are badly written, or are bad attempts at sarcasm. Certain users have a propensity for this crap.

14. comment layout: please insert a space between the comment header and the first line/paragraph of comment. If there is only one paragraph, comment is too easy to overlook.

15. I'm happy that mobile-client layout disease has not taken over patnet. Or at least I can still get headlines without those photos that most often tell me nothing and just take up space.

This very comment is in grave danger of being all but lost because of the volume of crap every day. Oh, the irony.

Patrick says

I think quality of posts is the most important thing, but how best to select for quality?

Up and down voting doesn't work very well

It's not even the number of users.

PNet has demonstrated what I've also observed on other forums and comment sections with voting. The more politically associated a topic and comment are, the more likely to get a high number of up or down votes.

The correlary is that moderate or apolitical posts get almost no votes either way, despite these viewpoints typically expressing more thoughtful commentary.

My conclusion is up/down voting is more often a reflection of tribalism and emotional reaction.

Philistine says

PNet has demonstrated what I've also observed on other forums and comment sections with voting. The more politically associated a topic and comment are, the more likely to get a high number of up or down votes.

The correlary is that moderate or apolitical posts get almost no votes either way, despite these viewpoints typically expressing more thoughtful commentary.

My conclusion is up/down voting is more often a reflection of tribalism and emotional reaction.

Very astute, and something I have been trying to crystalize in my mind for some time. It is true, the logical, thoughtful posts get almost no traction or interest, whereas the emo laden rants about Trump or Hillary get all the action.

In other words, this site will never be of any real consequence because no one wants it to be. Anything that takes thought or effort is nowhere near as entertaining as the mindless tribalism of the "liburals" and the "repubfucks".

Philistine says

My conclusion is up/down voting is more often a reflection of tribalism and emotional reaction.

I think you are right.

Mommy, Mommy, can I be a sanctimonious consequencor when I grow up, pronouncing dark judgment on everybody else on the internet and pissing on them from a lofty perch as if I am above it all?