On Nov 10 2008, 9:17 am, salmobytes <salmoby..._at_closenuf.org> wrote:
> I'm thinking about starting a hobby project.
> I wrote a files-based Bulletin Board years ago.
> I'd like to convert it to a more database-like system, so
> password-identified users could edit old posts.
>
> Forums are inherently hierarchical
Discussions that evolve in forums are in fact not hierarchal.
Claims that they are arise, I believe, chiefly from a lack of
imagination and brainwashing by current interfaces.
For example, one often finds the need to respond, with one
post, to many prior posts across multiple levels in a typical
hierarchal view such as the "tree" view Google groups creates.
That is what I am doing write now. This paragraph responds to
several posts at different levels in the google tree that all
claim forums are hierarchies. However, since google provides
the capability to "reply" to but a single message I had to
choose one thus perpetuating this false structuring.
What's more, a forum post may respond to content from
other forum topics, other forums or even entirely different
sources such as articles, emails, books, television, etc.
Even more amusing is that posts can actually preemptively
respond to posts from the future! This most often happens
when ignorant or lazy or time constrained or just plain
stupid participants blurt out their two cents without having
comprehended or read or cared (respectively) about said prior
post that already address their belched vociferous reply.
Furthermore, different parts of single post may reply to
different subsets of prior posts, topics, forums, external,
or future sources. Likewise those parts may respond only
to parts of said sources.
Thus, often in a general and very useful sense a post does
not have a "parent" post in the narrow sense of a hierarchal
tree as some have claimed here.
To improve the design flaws or your (and most or all other
forums) I would humbly (because am and certainly not expert
enough to claim this as a very "good" set of requirements)
suggest that you aim to achieve at least the following:
Phase 1 : Basic
For every post the ability to:
- refer to multiple posts (including THIS post and
posts in other threads and forums)
refer to external sources
denote that a referent REPLIES to a referent
Phase 2 : Content Parts
For arbitrary parts of posts the ability to:
4) refer to multiple arbitrary parts of multiple posts
Phase 3 : Temporal Correction
For arbitrary content parts the ability to
5) edit the content part to add or remove referents
Phase 4 : Semantic Enrichment
6) In addition to the basic REPLIES, the ability to
denote that a referent SUPPORTS, DISPUTES, REBUTS,
AGREES, CLARIFIES, CALLS-UTTER-BULLSHIT, etc a
referent (possibility including THIS).
I think you would find that the above far more advanced forum
fits nicely into a relational model and would support more
efficient and productive discussion. For example, imagine how
much easier it would be to refute a vociferous ignoramus when
they continue to repeat the same bullshit. You can simply edit
one of your prior responses adding a CALLS-UTTER-BULLSHIT
reference to their latest post and immediately it could appear
in various forum views.
KHD
Received on Sun Jan 04 2009 - 00:02:07 CET
