h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I didn't release about that Lucinda, if the suggestion gets implemented, then you could simply look for the last thread the author posted to. It might be a little fiddly, but would solve the main problem, which is getting through all the conversations that other people have responded to, particular if people have subscribed to peer review.

I would expect, though, that a simple last posting, or last login date would be easier to implement.

Also, Anna, regarding suggestion 1), there has been discussion on this thread for using the last login date instead. Mina brought this up in post 5. This would be more accurate as a reflection of whether someone has left the building. There is a problem as this is proposed to be optional, but I proposed that if someone opted out of showing their last login date, some sort of indicator would appear if someone had not been on the site for 2 months, to let the scouts check whether someone is absentee, or not.

However, having the last post date would be useful, as that is what us scouts are supposed to use anyway to judge if someone has left the building.

Also, I think suggestion 2) would probably not be very useful, as it would have everyone who had left the site, including people who have already had their entries removed from peer review, and the like.

I do still think that suggestion 3) could still be useful, as it would mean we (the scouts) could open the list, and then systematically run down the list, checking each author is really absentee (using 1) or some variation on 1), and then make a note of the entry name and number, to submit to the scouts mailing list for moving to the flea market (or back to the entry as appropriate).

Currently, we have to look through peer review (say), and look for entries that look like the author might have been away for 2 months, only to find that a fair number of them are regulars I haven't heard of, or posted last week, or something like that. Having suggestion 1) would make this process quite a bit easier though.

I like idea 1 and 3, 2 would include the people that stay for a day then leave, of which there are 100s. It has been suggested that a last posted date should not be optional because that info is already availible. Technically speaking the last logon dates are availible already, it would take a lot of work but you could get Who's Online to make a log on you computer of when everyone logs on. From this you would see who had not logged on for 2 months. This would be a stupid and pointless amount of work, but if someone is paranoid enough not to want the date they last logged on visible they could be paranoid enough to expect people to do this sort of thing. The info could be made visible to scouts only, which would make a few people less wary.

Tango

> "If someone is paranoid enough not to want the date they last logged on visible they could be paranoid enough to expect people to do this sort of thing."

I'm paranoid enough not to want the date I last logged on visible, but not paranoid enough to expect the average man in the street to go to the hassle of logging Who's Online. It's one thing having information available to heavy duty tech-aware stalkers, who are rare - it's quite another to have it available to anybody who can wield a web browser.

If you're going to implement #3, you might as well have it automatically move all such threads to the Flea Market, and save Scouts the effort...

-Martin

One other little snag with the infamous point 2...

The moment you have a list of non-active researchers available, every man and their dog can tell exactly how many active researchers there are using this site... Something that Jim's said that he's not allowed to publish.

A desision has to be made on a case by case basis as to whether the entry should be edited or moved, so an automated move would not work.

Ok, i admit they are very different levels of paranoia, i was just making a point, but i can't quite remember what that point was. I'll get back to you on that.

Tango

Dear Silverfish and All,

I think we're all agreed that suggestion number two wouldn't be so useful

As for number 1... the reason I suggested that it should take the form of last posting was because:

This isn't something that Researchers could opt out of, which would mean that there would be no messing about with 'what if a Researcher had opted out. Switch over to the last posting option.

This is the measure which Scouts use and if a Researcher is lurking on site, but not responding to suggestions in Peer Review, then the entry should still be taken out if they're not prepared to come in and at least say 'I'm not going to make any changes'.

As for suggestion three... I can see that it would be handy, but if you're going to check a Researcher's personal space anyway, couldn't this be covered by suggestion one on it's own?

Just wondering whether we should be creating two new features where one would do, bearing in mind resources and all.

Anna

Anna, I see your point about 1) using the last posting date, so we don't have to bother with a seperate policy on people opting out, and if they are lurking for 2 months, it suggests they're not going to get involved sufficiently for it to be worth having their entry in up for review.

I agree on 2), as I've said it would be pretty much useless.

I disagree on 3) though. I'll illustrate this, by considering the last page of peer review. In probably all cases in the current listing, I don't recognise the author, so if only 1) was implemented, I would have to check each one to see if the author was absentee, only to find out that only 4 of those around 20 entries are actually by absentee authors. That's a check I've just done, and haven't doubled checked them.

That would be 16 fruitless checks, out of 20. Each one would take very long, but if you did this for each of the review forum, for each page, the time would probably soon add up. That could be considered a success rate of around 4/20*100 = 20%.

Whereas, if you had a list, assuming it was working correctly, you could go through the list. Then you would pick one entry from it, and double check the author is really absentee (that they haven't posted something since you opened the list, for example). Then, you should have a success rate of around 100%. The only failures should be if the author posts after you last refreshed the list, which should be rare if it happens at all. So each check should really to make sure that an author is absentee, rather than find out if they are absentee, which is what would apply with just suggestion 1).

The success rate would be even worse in the first case if someone had already been reaping, and there are relatively few entries left with absentee authors. Whereas in the case of the list, this probablem doesn't really apply. So, you wouldn't have to wait until there was a backlog to clear to be able to find entries to move, but the rate of removal of absentee author entries in each review fora should be the same regardless of actual (or relative) numbers of these entries out there.

Okay - I accept it would be labour saving I'll ask for it to be put on the list.



Anna

Great, thanks Anna