New Front Page guidelines

[(unknown)]

Hello all!

We've changed the configuration of the front page and sections for a number of reasons. Now, all stories are posted directly to their section, and the moderators decide which ones make the front page. Reasons include increased message traffic, large jump in number of members (at 4200 now), increased volume of off-topic posts and SPAM, and an RDF syndication feed that is about to go up, so that other sites can syndicate our front page. We want the front page to show absolutely only the best and most relevant postings, since this feed could be picked up numerous renewable energy sites, and hopefully Google News in the future! It will also result in much fewer posts deleted for being off-topic.

If you want the board to show you ALL postings whenever you log in -- just the way it was in the past -- go to your Display Preferences and change "Start Page" to 'Everything'. Or, after you pull up the front page, use the 'everything' button at the top.

If you have any questions or comments, let us know.

ADMIN

[Old F]

Boy it seems that it was only yesterday.  That I found the Other Power site with a grand total of  20 posts on it.

Man it has come a long way.

    Many thanks for a great site.

Old F

[Ben Jammin]

Mister ADMIN;

I would just hate to see this fine site lose the good focus it has now. It would be a shame for it to degrade to a lot of stupid links and bad information. Often the price of fame is a degradation of that which made a thing so good. Lets not allow that to transpire here.

Ben

[bob g]

i thank all of you that administrate this site, good job, great site.

been around for a while now off and on, and i have seen everything from perp motion to heaven knows

i trust you will do the same job in the future

bob g

[ghurd]

"Recent Activity" button under 'Menu' brings up recent activity, regardless of how old the original post is.

[TomW]

Sir;

I cordially invite you to create such a board.

Then you can have users with 2 whole weeks of membership giving you advice on how to run a board thats been doing just fine.

You are welcome.

T

[ghurd]

I think user editing a post will screw up the works. Bigtime.

Some of the best information comes from a mistake or typo.

The mistake leads to 20 great replies.

If the post IS edited...

do the replies get deleted?

do the replies get edited?  Who edits? What if Admin doesn't understand the concept?

do the replies authors need to edit the replies? What if the author is dead?

do the replies to the replies....

Floating a 2 month old story to the top everytime 2 guys trade information.

That is going to be in my way while looking for new ideas.

I can't even find a record of your reply related to October 6 or any other reply or post by you that is not in this thread, and suspect there was an error in posting.

I did find a reply to my July 4 post,

And another dated October 23, 2005 to a Novermber 4, 2004 post,

so it does work.

G-

[TomW]

G-;

I tend to agree with you right down the line.

The whole point of "preview" is to eliminate typos but obviously very few use it.

I do not see any value in a user being able to "unsay" something after its said.

Most of the supposed problems are due to users who don't know how to use the board or take the time to find out how things work around here.

At any rate it seems like anyone with a supposedly better idea should at least use the board a couple months before calling for changes.

Simply jacking up your display preferences for stories per page will extend the number of posts showing in "recent activity" but you would need to think and read to find that out and that would be unfair to expect users to actually put some effort into learning the interface.

/end rant

Cheers.

TomW

[rajesh]

very good idea to make front page valuable reading.

rajesh