The New VoiceOfArizona.com

Posted By: The Voice Staff
Posted on: Aug. 14, 2007 at 5:17 PM

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Attention Members:

Those who are eagerly waiting for an upgrade to this site will be happy to learn that the new and improved VoiceOfArizona.com is nearly complete. This is a glimpse of some of the major transformations you can expect to see in October*. As always we welcome your comments and suggestions.

COMMUNITIES

The site will be reorganized into eight communities and one "free-for-all" section allowing members to participate in more focused discussions. For example, within the Politics community, you can expect to see credible political news stories, member-generated and tagged articles and topics, 2008 election content, and much more. What are the communities?

Politics
Sports
Entertainment
Business
Living
Health
Technology
Travel
Open Forum

DISCUSSIONS

Members will be able to more easily post and apply tags (i.e., keywords) to their articles. The process of creating and utilizing opinion polls will also be simplified.

Additionally, we will implement a new feature that has been requested by many members: self-governance. Members will be able to flag articles and comments as inappropriate. Can members deliberately abuse this feature? No, there will be dynamic measures in place to prevent members from bullying each other and launching spiteful attacks on their enemies' posts.

OTHER FEATURES

Other additions you can expect to see include:

Commenting on a comment
Your ratings will be visible to other members
A customizable home page
Control of site preferences
An interactive profile

Again, feel free to post any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

The Voice of Arizona Staff

_{* This date may be adjusted}

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Comments:

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indie616

Aug. 14, 2007 at 05:33:00 PM

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How exciting! Can't wait to see the changes.

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www.MoronInCharge.com

Aug. 14, 2007 at 06:22:37 PM

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Bravo!

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AZ Moderate

Aug. 15, 2007 at 01:06:29 PM

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I will be interested to see if I am upgraded to the comment editor Version 3. I assume it will be a primary focus of the upgrade laid out in this article.

With gratitude to the VofA staff for their Herculean efforts to find the glitch, it has eluded us. I would not lament it if somehow that unknown bug in the system disappeared in the upgrade and the glitch that limits me to the "classic comment system" evaporates on its own.

Let us pray.

It appears that the ratings handed out will become visible to all. Is that a correct interpretation of the "Your ratings will be visible to other members"? While I have ruminated on that feature from time-to-time, there is an argument for the secret ballot. Ahdoughknow ...

"A customizable home page” is exciting. I do hope it is considerably easier to create and update than the "Classic System".

Limiting the categories is probably overdue, and I am sure VofA has been aware of that for quite some time. I am sorry to see History go, but I can see why the less used categories are being eliminated. My question is does our newfound ability to attach "member-generated and tagged articles and topics" allow us to essentially create our own virtual sub-category through the use of a label and search mechanism? If so, it represents a very nice improvement and a very effective replacement of the more rigid current category system.

“The process of creating and utilizing opinion polls will also be simplified.” This is an improvement that will, I am sure, solicit many more polls. Good. I suspect that one will be able to view the poll w/o actually voting?

One problem I have had with the comment system is that it does not space properly when I develop a comment in Word and then copy it over to the comment window. This happens in paragraph spacing. *** Here is an example: …
… This is the beginning of a new paragraph in Word, but as you can see that spacing was not reflected in the editor. ***

Here I stuck space at the end of the *** and beginning of this paragraph. This inconsistency then can be remedied by inserting actual spaces either in Word or in the comment editor, but that is a pain and sometimes overlooked. I had to go through the complete text in this comment editor and insert spaces for it to be cosmetically correct. For me at least, this happens on both the “classic” editor and the current editor (which I can fill but not transmit).

Once again I have to give VofA a TEN!

May the force of profitability be with you, that you may live long and prosper.

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AZ Moderate

Aug. 15, 2007 at 01:36:31 PM

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Speaking of trash comments, are we going to be able to trash comments as we currently can trash articles if they become disruptive?

I didn't see a trash category above.

The participants here at VofA, as you recall I am sure, did get together and trash the efforts of someone, left unnamed, to clutter the marquee. It was a very successful consensus effort by the serious contributors to reign in the abuse. The option works.

If the site had some variation of that ability in the comment threads, the Sumo match between Tom Carter and MoronInCharge could have been handled as effectively by participant consensus as was that incident with the trash articles.

Is that an option with the new system?

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The Antichrist

Aug. 15, 2007 at 04:20:02 PM

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The Voice Staff

Aug. 15, 2007 at 04:47:01 PM

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Thank you for the comments!

As promised, we will address any questions raised and hopefully clarify the points in our original post.

Regarding AZ Moderates questions:

First, will your comment-publishing problem disappear after the upgrade? It is possible, but, as you mentioned, we have presently been unable to discover the cause. If the problem persists after the upgrade, please let us know. Concerning the comment editor’s compatibility with external editing applications, the spacing and formatting restrictions are necessary to maintain the site’s appearance and structure.

However, we understand that members prefer using word processors, such as Word, when composing their articles and comments because these programs are familiar to them and they catch spelling and grammatical errors. For that reason, we recommend that you paste your Word-created content into plain-text editors, such as Notepad, and then copy and paste from the plain-text editor into the website’s comment editor. (Note: Notepad can be found on Windows computers by navigating to: Start >> Programs >> Accessories >> Notepad.)

Second, will the ratings you attach to other members’ articles become visual? Yes. It was determined that such a system would help deter certain members from maliciously attacking the contributions of others. As some of you may already know, the existing rating system deals with such abuses by subduing the impact of negative ratings by “repeat offenders.” These measures combined with the new “self-governance” feature (i.e., “37/42 members think this post is inappropriate/does not add to the discussion”) should lead to a more honest and open forum.

Third, we will differentiate “communities” and categories. The communities will not necessarily replace the existing article categories; rather they will act as sub-sites that deliver community-relevant content, including article categories and tags. It is true that the existing list of article categories will be abridged based on popularity and practicality. The categories that do not relate to the main communities will remain available in the “Open Forum” section, which will act as the site’s article index. So, to address your particular concern, the “History” category is safe.

Finally, you asked if members will be able to create their “own virtual sub-category through the use of a label and search mechanism.” The answer is yes. The simplified category structure and “tagging” system will operate hand-in-hand when necessary, but the member-submitted will be primarily organized by tags. This addition will greatly simplify the tasks of browsing through and searching for articles, comments, polls, etc.

Thank you for your support,

The Voice of Arizona Staff

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www.MoronInCharge.com

Aug. 15, 2007 at 05:23:11 PM

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Typical Windows-centric response VofA. Sure, just paste into Notepad and everything will be fine . . . unless you're a Mac user! So simple even a caveman can do it! C'mon, just give us some basic font size, font style and font color functionality that can be applied to paragraphs, sentences, and individual words. We promise not to abuse it. The current drop down menu of Block Style/Paragraph/Div/Heading 1-6 is unpredictable and flakey.

Oh, and make the search function really work, with boolean logic too. If I search on the words bet, elk, and dinner, or any combination of the three, I should be able to find all occurrences in all article headers and contents. How am I to make Republicans eat their words if I am not able to search for the exact words they used last year before they flip-flopped?

Oh, one last thing. Anyway you can make images drag and drop?

And one more last thing. Thanks.

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Phaedrus

Aug. 15, 2007 at 09:06:33 PM

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Oh Gawd, now Doc Moron has really ticked me off. Mac Users? They still sell those? I had hoped that Macs went to the same place that Trans Ams and transistor radios went, to the planet Transylvania, where everything sux.

Why are so many lefties into those stupid little pink, silver or blue computers?

Are you a former print shop employee, or graphic designer? Those are the only 2 excuses for keeping those miserable little cutsey beasts alive. Everyone should be forced to use a PC, without any operating system.

DOS Rules!

As for changes to the site, fine, change is good. For instance changing your underwear is really good. Changing wives can also be good, if the present wife is trouble.

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indie616

Aug. 15, 2007 at 09:20:10 PM

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I think I will await the results of all the hard work that the VofAZ owners have put into upgrading the site before I make suggestions.

Based on past performance, I have great expectations!

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The Voice Staff

Aug. 16, 2007 at 11:43:07 AM

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MoronInCharge,

Thank you for promoting peaceful styling rather than abusive styling. We appreciate your resolution. Yes, the new comment editor will feature the standard formatting options, including font size (to an extent) and color. We have talked about removing the “block style” drop-down list for some time and that will most likely be the case.

You may rest assured that we are revamping the site’s search engine, which has caused many members much frustration for a long time. We received a lot of suggestions in general for improving the website and they will be reflected in the upgrades. Perhaps we will also see about accommodating Mac users.

We wish you luck with the wife swap, Phaedrus. And thank you for your support, indie616.

The Voice of Arizona Staff

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