News Station Undergoing Changes

[EchelonHunt]

The News Station is undergoing changes.

Comments on news articles are proving to be tedious in the Recent Posts/Recent Threads section, bogging down the actual discussion on other threads.

Thus, I created the Discussion category, to allow members to discuss their thoughts on the articles in the discussion threads rather than the actual article themselves.

The articles being posted, in its entirety in the post, as if the member is making a post themselves, this creates confusion. I intend to clean this up.

The articles being posted with just a link and a comment from a member, this doesn't motivate a person to click on the link. I intend to clean this up.

The ability to post on News Station categories (aside from Discussion) has been disabled while I clean things up.

What I intend to do is:

Have a picture from the article in the forum post, have the first paragraph of the article, all of this will be placed inside a quote. In some cases, if I feel the article is crucially important (such as a NB's personal experience), I will do the whole article. Then there will be a link, saying "Click to read the full article."

This will make things tidier and more presentable in my eyes. Not to dismay Aisla, who has done an exceptional job of collecting the articles. Kudos to them, I commend their effort, I just want to tidy things up and eliminate any confusion.

[Trinity]

Aisla has done a monumental job with this.

Many thanks, Aisla, for birthing this section and the following it has generated, and the awareness it brings.

[Shan]

Apr 9, 2016 22:51:14 GMT 8 Trinity said:

Aisla has done a monumental job with this.

Many thanks, Aisla, for birthing this section and the following it has generated, and the awareness it brings.

I second that! Moreover, I enjoy commenting on the news articles as generally the conversation they generate are the only thing in the forum really worth coming here for. 

[EchelonHunt]

There's no reason why the conversation can't be continued in the Discussion threads. I'm sorry you feel that the conversation on news threads are the only thing worth visiting the forum for, that's very sad.

[Shan]

Apr 9, 2016 23:05:23 GMT 8 EchelonHunt said:

There's no reason why the conversation can't be continued in the Discussion threads. I'm sorry you feel that the conversation on news threads are the only thing worth visiting the forum for, that's very sad.

Well, I'm just venting a bit. Don't take my reaction too seriously because you know I care for everyone here, just being an old pain-in-the ass hon. Older people have a difficult time adjusting to any changes, so hopefully you will forgive me.

[EchelonHunt]

It's all good, Auntie Shan!

[Ativan Prescribed]

I'd like to see more discussion of news articles and how they affect us as NB's in the discussion section.
Make discussion threads and bring the link there to start the conversations.
That way it's much easier to scan through the news and find the articles you wish to discuss.
Or just open a thread in discussion about what's been in the news and get the conversations going again.

[Trinity]

Apr 9, 2016 23:42:01 GMT 8 Shan said:

Apr 9, 2016 23:05:23 GMT 8 EchelonHunt said:

There's no reason why the conversation can't be continued in the Discussion threads. I'm sorry you feel that the conversation on news threads are the only thing worth visiting the forum for, that's very sad.

Well, I'm just venting a bit. Don't take my reaction too seriously because you know I care for everyone here, just being an old pain-in-the ass hon. Older people have a difficult time adjusting to any changes, so hopefully you will forgive me.

Thank you for that Shan.  I was upset on that one we work hard in the support section.

Big heart.. Big...

Lol..hug.

[Shan]

I've got no idea how to properly link topics from the news forum to my discussion page comments. Anyone smart enough to let me in on the secret please PM me...Thanks!

[Ayla]

Innovation and change can be good so this change is certainly worth trying.

I am looking forward to Jacey's new news format and trust that we continue to have a great discussion of news, and continue to have the benefit that has flowed from the awareness and sense of connection that this has generated and has become a feature of this site.

Perhaps Turnip can kick this off as the link between topic and discussion will be important. If this doesn't seem to be working we could always add related links and posts to the OP which would ensure that the threads are rich and well curated/edited. Taking all discussion from the OP to a new thread may be problematic.

Safe travels

Aisla

[Kira]

Personally, I think most people will read an article, consider responding and then think, where does my response fit, can in be bothered to work it out, oh forget it. That will probably be what I do. Sorry, I don't mean to be Debbie downer but why add unnecessary levels of abstraction?

[EchelonHunt]

I don't understand why the process of having news article comments in a new discussion thread such a difficult concept to grasp?

Even for those who aren't tech savvy, this should be simple enough to grasp. It is like a "What Are You Doing Now?" thread but discussion on news. (e.g. awareness, legislation, bathroom bill)

It is intended to make the discussion all in one thread, for easy access so members can read through the discussion in one go instead of having to look at multiple comments spread over multiple articles.

If people want to read a news article, since there is a brand new template being set-up for future news article (Aisla has received it, I'm excited for them to be using it), they will only be given a snippet of the news article, they will have click on the link to the article to read the rest, if they wish to.

People will have a choice of posting in the discussion threads or if they wish to, posting a comment on the actual news article link itself but I do hope people will use the discussion threads, because it's all new, it's all scary but I hope, over time, it gains traction like the "What Are You Doing Now" thread has gotten where it's just on-going discussion that changes naturally over time.