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Chris-Kaiser wrote: So you propose to replace one monopoly with another.
Absolutely not. Our "Alternet"(tm) will not replace, but exist as part of, the current internet; it will provide, as the name suggests, an alternate mode of communication on the 'net.
Chris-Kaiser wrote: And how is this better?
This is better because it will provide a choice where previously there wasn't one. Individuals can use whichever method they prefer. Or both.
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The Grand Negus wrote: . When the time comes, we will introduce an "Alternet"(tm)
So is that actually trademarked, or are you merely tacking on a TM to lend it misplaced credibility?
Oops - soory. I see AlterNet has already happened[^]
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: So is that actually trademarked, or are you merely tacking on a TM to lend it misplaced credibility?
There are two ways to get a trademark or a copyright (neither of which matters much because the guy with the most money and lawyers wins in the end anyway). One method is the to register first and then use the name or copyrighted material; the other is to stake the claim and see if you can get away with it. Having neither the money nor the inclination to waste on lawyers, we generally take the latter route.
My database design methodology, for example, goes by the name "Extended Relational Analysis" with the obvious acronym ERA. It was introduced (and trademarked) during those exciting decades when the "Equal Rights Ammendment", also known as ERA, was daily news fodder. I'm happy to report that we've co-existed peacefully with those other advocates for over 25 years. Steve Jobs and the Beatles (two of four now dead), on the other hand, have had significantly more trouble with that "Apple" moniker...
Chris Maunder wrote: Oops - soory. I see AlterNet has already happened[^]
Yes, we're aware of this (we have Google, too). But the names refer to quite different things (like database methodologies and constitutional amendments), so perhaps it will all work out. On the other hand, if it's more like computers and recording companies, well, then we're probably headed for a name change!
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The Grand Negus wrote: Nevertheless, on this (and many other sites) the user is unable to do what those one-megabyte, one-megahertz Macs could do
Well, if those one-megahertz macs had WYSIWYG HTML editing components for use in browsers then I would have been impressed. This is a website, not a desktop application, and so we rely on what the browser can do for us, not the client OS or hardware.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: we rely on what the browser can do for us, not the client OS or hardware.
Which is exactly my point. We need to get away from this paradigm. Working entirely within the limitations of ill-defined standards implemented on incompatible browsers is not an effective means of systems development.
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The Grand Negus wrote: Which is exactly my point
Really? Let me quote:
"Let me help you out. Since the first Macintosh was introduced decades ago, it became obvious to nearly every normal person that wysiwyg editing is superior - far superior - to the "edit here and preview there" approach. Nevertheless, on this (and many other sites) the user is unable to do what those one-megabyte, one-megahertz Macs could do. It seems that Shog has addressed and solved the problem, in his spare time, while the "professionals" at CodeProject either don't see the problem, or don't care, or whatever"
I thought your point was "Shog, in his spare time has solved a problem that we 'professionals' have not been able to solve."
We'll add features in the order that we feel benefits the majority of our readers and which we can accomplish with the time and resources we have at our disposal. I value your criticisms but find your method of expressing them counter-productive.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: I value your criticisms but find your method of expressing them counter-productive.
I'm having a bit of trouble believing this since you've recently implemented a "feature" that allows any two or three of a handful of cranks to delete my messages from the forums as "spam or inappropriate". A wide variety of my posts - some with ratings as high as 2.7 (indicating that someone appreciates them) - have been violently removed in this fashion. And it is all the more difficult to know where one really stands because some of these cranks have managed to achieve very high status levels, skewing the votes in a most distressing manner.
In any case, our proposed solutions to the industry's problems involve major surgery applied across the board to problems we view as systemic - so unless you're ready, willing, and able to "take on" Microsoft instead of "teaming up with" Microsoft, it's unlikely that we'll be seeing eye-to-eye anytime soon. Nevertheless, I will try to be more circumspect and discrete in the future, selecting my examples from elsewhere. Believe it or not, my goal is not to add to your burdens.
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That's really weird. Can you replicate this on other machines? Other non-Vista machines?
There's a line "document.MessageForm.ContentText.focus();" in the OnLoad method of the parent window that should be called only for the parent, not the child window. I've no idea why it's being triggered by the browser by the child window.
I can force the child window to be modal by forcing it to keep focus. Would this be useful or annoying?
The other option is move to a WYSIWYG editor but I just worry so much about HTML grafiti already. Giving people the ability to make their posts have 18pt bright yellow font at the click of a button just seems to be asking for trouble 
It's meant to be about the message, the text, and not about the formatting...
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: Can you replicate this on other machines? Other non-Vista machines?
Yes, I can replicate the behavior on 2 other XP boxes, one running IE6 and the other IE7.
Chris Maunder wrote: I can force the child window to be modal by forcing it to keep focus. Would this be useful or annoying?
Imho, equally annoying. Ideally the reply or preview window's modality should be controlled by the user (a la normal Windows behavior) by simply selecting the window they want to have focus.
Chris Maunder wrote: The other option is move to a WYSIWYG editor
Oh God, no.
Don't worry about - I can learn to live with it.
/ravi
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Chris Maunder wrote: That's really weird. Can you replicate this on other machines? Other non-Vista machines?
I almost reported this as a bug once, but then I realized that while I was waiting for the preview window to appear I would inadvertently click in the parent window bringing it (eventually) bring to the front, leaving the preview behind. I know the other guy says he can reproduce the problem, but perhaps it's something like this.
Chris Maunder wrote: The other option is move to a WYSIWYG editor but I just worry so much about HTML grafiti already. Giving people the ability to make their posts have 18pt bright yellow font at the click of a button just seems to be asking for trouble. It's meant to be about the message, the text, and not about the formatting...
Then make the thing straight text - simpler, more reliable, and no preview required.
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Chris Maunder wrote: The other option is move to a WYSIWYG editor but I just worry so much about HTML grafiti already. Giving people the ability to make their posts have 18pt bright yellow font at the click of a button just seems to be asking for trouble
Perhaps having an alert stating that "TROLLS will be shot" whn you detect such posts will deter them?
But anyway Shog's model seems to work well, why not use something like that?
Brad
Australian
- Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript"
A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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How about you set up a peer system where authors who do not speak fluent English can get a volunteer to proof read their article and make suggestions to grammar and spelling. I think this would be great for some authors who cannot always voice themselves in English and I know it would be great to receive active collaboration from peers before actually completely submitting the article.
What do you think?
Brad
Australian
- Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript"
A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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I think it's a great idea - even those of us who are fluent English speakers need proof-reading! I agree it's always helpful to get feedback before posting something.
Speaking from professional experience, proof-reading is not generally a very attractive job, but I suppose you could attribute some kind of kudos points to encourage people to do it.
Having a pool of trustworthy people to edit articles would also possibly relieve the pressure on whoever is in charge of moving things from UserItems to their final categories - something that currently takes several months.
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Emma Burrows wrote: Speaking from professional experience, proof-reading is not generally a very attractive job, but I suppose you could attribute some kind of kudos points to encourage people to do it.
Actually, I kind of enjoy it myself - as long as it's not my only job. It's nice after a day of intense brainwork to be able to do something a little less taxing on my brain while still making money. Add to that that I can be helping CP, and it's quite attractive!
Emma Burrows wrote: Having a pool of trustworthy people to edit articles would also possibly relieve the pressure on whoever is in charge of moving things from UserItems to their final categories - something that currently takes several months.
Chris is working on this, so hopefully things will get better soon! I'll probably end up as one of the editors. Chris and I have been discussing the possibility, but right now he must be busy because I haven't received a reply from him for about a week.
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J. Dunlap wrote: It's nice after a day of intense brainwork to be able to do something a little less taxing on my brain while still making money
I'm not sure that Brad was originally talking about paid editors; obviously, as a job, it's a slightly different matter. I was questioning how many articles people would edit with no reward at all (things like having your name on the article or in a "best editors" list, etc, being rewards in my opinion).
Job-wise, I certainly think that if CP is having trouble finding an in-house editor in Toronto, or even if they do, they should consider employing a free-lance editor or two (hint, hint  ).
As to the job satisfaction, it certainly depends on the money, but also the quality of the original and what you're supposed to be checking... If it's only language, then you're right, it can indeed be relaxing. OTOH, I've proofed documents that required a great deal of editing and terminology research because the author had done such a poor job, and ended up feeling that I should have written the thing from scratch (and got the higher fee...).
Either way, I would definitely volunteer. I like it around here, and my nitpicking instincts can't help feeling that some articles do need a little help. 
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Emma Burrows wrote: I'm not sure that Brad was originally talking about paid editors
Correct, I don't know why Chris would ever consider the whole paid editors only thing. I think a few key editors to wath over things and a group of volunteers would help big time.
And this is more just a peer review system I am suggesting. This way it is easier for everyone to understand and much more productive environment.
Brad
Australian
- Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript"
A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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Bradml wrote: I don't know why Chris would ever consider the whole paid editors only thing
Because we've tried volunteers many, many times over the last 7 years and they don't last. If you pay someone then you can be guaranteed of having them work. If someone is volunteering you have no right to yell if the backlog gets bad. Invariably volunteers last for about 2-4 weeks and then they need to get back to their real lives.
Editing also requires a great deal of attention to detail and once you've found someone good it's easy to track and check their work. Having numerous volunteers, all of whom work sporadically, means you may need to check work more often than normal simply because they may have forgotten some of the smaller details.
With regards to peer review: what sort of system would you consider? A pre-publishing review or a post-publish review?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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I agree that you would probably get better work from a paid editor. That being said it isn't like it woud be hard to setuo a payment system for editors who do the work online. This way if they don't meet the satisfactory output they will not recieve the same pay (depending on the way you set it up).
Al that being said having a few platinum members volunteering when you get a major backlog would definately be of huge benefeit to you guys.
Annd with regards to the peer review, I was thinking of a pre-publishing system where peers (Golds + Platinums to keep standards whilst conserving numbers) can nominate themselves and select the fields of articles they would like to deal with (C++, C, PHP, Assembly, VB etc.) and then when a new poster asks for peer review the article is placed in a special holding cell for the potential peer.
Or you could have a system where articles up for review are listed to the peers and they can select one they are interested in editing. Make sure to limit this to one at a time though, otherwise old kyle may just have some fun with it. The aricles listed would be in the peers chosen field.
Brad
Australian
- Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript"
A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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Bradml wrote: when a new poster asks for peer review the article is placed in a special holding cell for the potential peer.
Typically I find that if someone is actually asking for peer review then typically they don't need it. The very act of asking shows they care about it so have already put in sufficient effort for an article to be posted (at least as an unedited). The real value of peer review would be to hold all articles from authors who have not yet posted an article and not allow the article to be read until it's been approved. That would remove the junk articles we get.
The problem there is that there is a very real chance articles could remain in the pool for quite a while before being given the go-ahead which could be very discouraging for authors.
Now if we had a full time editor onboard we could make it there job to review the list remnants every day... 
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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I think this would most benefeit members from a non English speaking country so that they can communicate with the rest of us. As an added bonus all the other others may just find comfort from a peer review system.
Brad
Australian
- Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript"
A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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Chris Maunder wrote: Now if we had a full time editor onboard we could make it there job to review the list remnants every day...
You know my offer .
Brad
Australian
- Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript"
A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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Bradml wrote: You know my offer
And I know you stubbornly refuse to come to Toronto 
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: And I know you stubbornly refuse to come to Toronto
Tell you what, I'll send you a cutout of myself that you can stick in front of a desk and yell at whenever something needs doing.
Brad
Australian
- Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript"
A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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Chris Maunder wrote: If you pay someone then you can be guaranteed of having them work.
That's what I thought too. However, as Brad said, I'm sure most people will have at least a Paypal account. Paying editors by the piece (or by word count) would give them an incentive to do more than a couple of weeks' work for you. Enough editors "on call" as it were would help you when things get too much. You could either pay immediately on reception or get the people to invoice you per month (which would further separate the clowns from the serious people, IMO).
As to picking trustworthy people who can do the job properly, I agree with Brad that Code Project membership status would be one way to determine whether someone is generally serious about this site. The writing abilities of article authors can easily be checked, and although forum postings will generally be of a less polished standard, reading a few will tell you whether the person can string two words together properly. Beyond that, of course, a good old resumé will help you find people who have actually done this kind of thing before.
Anyway, I would definitely be up for it! I'm a Gold member, I've written a few well-rated articles, I've done freelance editing before, and I even have a Master's degree in English. What more could you want?
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Emma Burrows wrote: What more could you want?
Someone in Toronto
I'm working to get a couple more contract editors onboard just to help get the load off me but we are working as hard as we can to have someone in the office who will be part of the team, who can discuss taxonomy, trends, what we can do to help authors and who will be dedicated full time to the task of editing.
Part timers will help get us through but we need to have someone full time, on staff. It just makes everything about 100x easier.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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