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Where Australia's electricity comes from

This widget is updated every couple of minutes and shows why Australia is such a huge GHG emitter.

Thumbs Up

citizenschallengecitizenschallenge
edited August 2016 in Suggestions and Feedback
First of all Thumbs Up to you Sou!!!  What a cool forum!  I look forward to watching it develop.

A suggestion.  
You know on YouTube comments how they have a little Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down icon, for registering support or disagreement.  Not sure the Thumbs Down is needed since if someone strongly disagrees with a comment, might as well write a response.  

But, the Thumbs Up that might be fun to have around.  Since I know I occasionally see excellent comments, that don't really call for responses - but where it would be nice to let the writer know he/she hit the mark.
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  • citizenschallengecitizenschallenge
    And you include a one hour grace period for EDITs.
    You're an angel    =)
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  • SouSou
    I'll think about that, CC. Some people like them, some don't. A (rare) few have no opinion one way or another  :)
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  • metzomagicmetzomagic
    I like the idea of both thumbs up and thumbs down, and if a comment gets X number of thumbs downs (and, importantly, the number of thumbs downs is more than the number of thumbs ups. Because even excellent science-based comments will always get thumbs downs from the deniers!), it becomes automatically hidden and you have to explicitly un-hide it to view it. Reserve the dumpster for only the most inane, rude, or defamatory comments.

    Sou, I happen to be a very experienced web programmer and could help you implement something like this if you feel it's too difficult to do with the tools that VanillaForums provide.
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  • SouSou
    Great, MM. I've had a peek at what is available and nothing strikes me as doing what could be useful here. I'm not a great fan of thumbs / karma etc but I know it can add value if it's done well. I'll be in touch in the next few days with some ideas. If anyone knows a forum where it works well, could you post a link please.
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  • VictorVenemaVictorVenema
    The comments at Ars Technica have thumbs up and down and there it works very well. That is likely because the majority of the readers is interested in a high technical quality of the comments.

    http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/?comments=1

    Especially when there are many comments it is nice to sort them by their quality. That is possible for Ars and the NYT.

    If it works it greatly reduces the amount of work due to moderation. What may also be helpful is to be able to collapse long comments yourself.

    If we start programming: a kill list would be high on my wish list. There are some people in the climate debate where I am 100% sure that they will never ever write something that would enrich my life.

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  • BaerbelWBaerbelW
    I think that having a thumbs-up feature is a good idea as it helps to show which threads and comments are considered esp. worthwhile to read. On the other hand, thumbs-down are not all that important esp. as this forum will more likely than not be more a venue for like-minded people where down-voting isn't as relevant as it might be on some comment threads out there. Thumbs-down are also way too often used to just state "I don't like you" instead of "I don't agree with the point you are making". The latter should also be accompanied by some reasoning which isn't possible to do with a thumb. It is for this reason that e.g. the edX-forum for Denial101x only has a means to up-vote posts.
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  • metzomagicmetzomagic
    It also works well at slashdot.com, but there it's mods who are voting the eejits down. But then again, at slashdot, you are invited to be a 'mod for a day' once you've made enough meaningful/high ranked posts. I was invited to mod for a day once, and I was right chuffed to have been given the honour.
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  • citizenschallengecitizenschallenge
    "right chuffed"  
     ¿ translation ?

    (An Ami here.) 
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  • SouSou
    "right chuffed"  
     ¿ translation ?
    Usually means a mix of feeling honoured/flattered, happy and delighted.
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  • VictorVenemaVictorVenema
    metzomagic said:
    Sou, I happen to be a very experienced web programmer and could help you implement something like this if you feel it's too difficult to do with the tools that VanillaForums provide.
    Metzo, I just had an idea where we could use your magic. Joy Hassol works on climate communication and has a list of terms and words one should best avoid (positive feedback, positive trend, enhanced greenhouse) because the public will misinterpret them (and often think we mean the opposite). There are also terms that are best avoided for their emotional response (irreversible).

    Would it be possible for you to make a browser add on that detects when you use those words in a web form (writing a comment or blog post) and suggests a better term (amplifying feedback, warming trend, intensified greenhouse)? I could imagine that that would be a helpful app for many science communicators.

    Joy has a list published in EOS with often used terms, which I have tacked to the wall next to my computer, but she just told on the climate science podcast that she has a much larger list with about 150 terms.
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  • metzomagicmetzomagic
    OK... let me download the open source version of Vanilla Forums (which I presume is the one you are using, Sou?), get it running on my PC, and see if I can get something like the MarkerUpper plugin working (it uses jQuery and I have a lot of experience with that). Then I can (hopefully) customise it to pick up on phrases the user is typing in the 'Leave a Comment' text area and throw up a suggestion box with a better phrasing. This sounds non-trivial, though. Most of the programming I have done to date is server-side :-/

    This needs to be client-side because most people don't preview their comments. We need to catch them as they are being entered in the comment editing area.
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  • SouSou
    OK... let me download the open source version of Vanilla Forums (which I presume is the one you are using, Sou?), 
    Yes, it is. Any changes have to be made as a plug in or similar outside the base code - for two reasons: the base code gets over-written in updates, and it allows you to enable or disable the added feature (or amend it).
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  • VictorVenemaVictorVenema
    I was thinking of a add-on for Firefox or Chrome, so that it could be used everywhere and not just here. If you could only use it here, I would use it, but then I am not sure if it would then be worth the effort.

    If many science bloggers would use such an add-on for their blog posts, that would probably clearly improve science communication and would make the work worthwhile. Next step would be a MS word macro that does the same for science journalists and op-ed writers.
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  • metzomagicmetzomagic
    Good point, Victor. Sou had also talked about making it a browser add-on in her original comment. I agree that would make it generally useful everywhere, so I will take that suggestion on board. I've never done a browser add-on before, so this will take longer. Up to my neck at the moment, and going on 2 weeks hols soon. I will start the project in earnest around the middle of September. Should only take 2 or 3 weeks then, barring unforeseen difficulties... 
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