Stargazer Posted October 17, 2013 Posted October 17, 2013 I just joined today. It is going to be difficult to make visually pleasing posts with references. Paragraphs get jammed together. Not many characters allowed will make me need to adapt. Is that what you all mean when you say you don't like the interface? The interface is too "busy", and the messages are crammed in there. By too "busy" I mean that the user interface itself gets in the way of the conversation. I contrast it to the UI here in this forum. Here, the intelligence (or lack of it, depending) flowing back and forth between posters is clearly more important than the frames around them. The current WT is the opposite. I am completely unsure if I am even able to see all the conversations going on at any given moment. Here, I can come up a level or two and see an overview of everything, and then go back down into the forum and in fact find EVERYTHING that is currently going on. I don't know if I can do it on the WT.
3DOP Posted October 17, 2013 Posted October 17, 2013 The interface is too "busy", and the messages are crammed in there. By too "busy" I mean that the user interface itself gets in the way of the conversation. I contrast it to the UI here in this forum. Here, the intelligence (or lack of it, depending) flowing back and forth between posters is clearly more important than the frames around them. The current WT is the opposite. I am completely unsure if I am even able to see all the conversations going on at any given moment. Here, I can come up a level or two and see an overview of everything, and then go back down into the forum and in fact find EVERYTHING that is currently going on. I don't know if I can do it on the WT. Yes, I see what you are saying. Writing a post in the tiny box is kind of difficult too. The design seems more adapted for conversational posting rather than any point by point analysis of discussion.
EllenMaksoud Posted October 17, 2013 Posted October 17, 2013 See theworldtable.orghttp://theworldtable.orgLast night, I had a surprising conversation with a rather highly placed LDS man, and he asked me to write my "story", saying that other Mormons need to hear what I have to say. I am really afraid to do this because certain people will make assumptions about my life that are cruel, and untrue. To me, such a disclosure would likely end my life as a Mormon, no matter how obedient and devout my real life is. I have the same fear, Irrational or not, in joining "theworldtable.org" . On one side, it would be wonderful to know and be known by others. On the other side, there will be those who will condemn and say really um un-mormon things, and worst of all what to do?
Stargazer Posted October 18, 2013 Posted October 18, 2013 Last night, I had a surprising conversation with a rather highly placed LDS man, and he asked me to write my "story", saying that other Mormons need to hear what I have to say. I am really afraid to do this because certain people will make assumptions about my life that are cruel, and untrue. To me, such a disclosure would likely end my life as a Mormon, no matter how obedient and devout my real life is. I have the same fear, Irrational or not, in joining "theworldtable.org" . On one side, it would be wonderful to know and be known by others. On the other side, there will be those who will condemn and say really um un-mormon things, and worst of all what to do? Actually, it would be a good idea to write your "story" up anyway. Whether or not it leads to publication in some form. In fact, keeping ahold of it and tweaking it and improving on it. Writing the story will help you focus on it, and you may even learn new things about yourself and your situation that you hadn't known before. I'd do it, if I were you, just for myself if no one else.
jkwilliams Posted October 18, 2013 Posted October 18, 2013 (edited) And what is up with rating a religion? The LDS church has an 89 rating? What is up with that? Every anti-Mormon in the world will flock to rate it down. And with so many Mormons signing on to WT, it's just 89? OMG. I just rated Wade with 100% on one post, and this bumped him from 73 to 74. On another topic I rated him again at 100%, and this time he got bumped to 76. This suggests to my mind that some folks are dumping on Wade. He's such a sterling guy that I can't imagine why. But seriously, what safeguards does the system have to prevent organized attacks against people? How many raters have rated Wade? Do we have to organize defensive rating campaigns to keep haters from dumping on people unjustly? I am not happy. The point is that you're supposed to rate posts, not personalities. Thus, the 89 for the church, as I understand it, is the average rating of posts made by self-declared members of the church, including me (which explains the artificially high rating ). It isn't a rating of "how much do I like the LDS church?). Thus, Wade's rating, my rating, and Mark's rating all reflect the average rating of our posts. This "ratings war" Wade speaks of is exactly the kind of thing that the system was intended to avoid, though obviously it must not be working with some people. I rated one of Mark's posts low for fairness because I thought it was an unfair description of LDS belief, but I don't see a "vendetta" against Wade, nor do I see Mark as an angry "hater." Even if I did, it's wrong (and clearly against the spirit of that place) to deliberately raise or lower someone's rating because you don't like them or their point of view, regardless what they post. Rate the posts, not the personalities. Edited October 18, 2013 by jkwilliams
stemelbow Posted October 18, 2013 Posted October 18, 2013 ON the World Table I've been rating people - about 5 times - in good faith. I've been going by the notion that I'm rating the quality of the posts based on the five categories offered. I figure I should give it a good try for a while before I get too upset and critical over it. I'm not sure it'll work the best, but I can be a team player. I think Wade and Mark have been rated low for the same reason. I don't' think they realize why their ratings are lower. They both come off as obtuse posters in my view--although to Wade's credit as I read many of his comments in the conversations yesterday I think he's been more willing to listen and respond accordingly. I don't think I've responded to anything Wade has said and thus haven't rated him. I've given Mark low ratings a time or two mostly because his comments don't seem to be very high on the 5 criteria scale, as I see it. No personal offense is intended. Just playing by the rules. He's making comments on topics that I wish to comment on. And it just so happens when reading along I would like to say something in response. Mostly though, I respond with a no rating. I've given a couple of 100s too. I honestly think the ratings here work well enough. They aren't all that noticeable so I don't use that as some identifier for quality posters, but when people have something very interesting to say I tend to look at the person a little closer and often notice the ratings. Intriguing to me are the posters who don't have a lot of posts, but do get a lot of points. Low volume, high quality. Perhaps the World Table will in time demonstrate that their ratings system will work. In the meantime it's not all that helpful.
3DOP Posted December 17, 2013 Posted December 17, 2013 (edited) So I hadn't looked in at the World Table for perhaps a month. It appears that maybe others have lost interest in it too. The latest post is now from December 14 which would be last Saturday. I think it was a good idea but there were a lot of technical problems. The subject matter was seldom interesting to me. But more than that, it was just too hard for me to follow. A lot of the subject matter here is uninteresting to me too. That isn't a criticism at all. That is a problem that this board has overcome. I am not LDS. So of course I don't care about specifics regarding what you wear or what time you have your meetings or whether the children should be taught to say "I know this church is true". But the forums are set up in such a way that one can easily pinpoint and follow those conversations which do have interest to those not immersed in LDS culture. So has anybody else heard anything to lead us to expect this experiment (The World Table) to be continuing? Edited December 17, 2013 by 3DOP
Scott Lloyd Posted December 17, 2013 Posted December 17, 2013 So I hadn't looked in at the World Table for perhaps a month. It appears that maybe others have lost interest in it too. The latest post is now from December 14 which would be last Saturday. I think it was a good idea but there were a lot of technical problems. The subject matter was seldom interesting to me. But more than that, it was just too hard for me to follow. A lot of the subject matter here is uninteresting to me too. That isn't a criticism at all. That is a problem that this board has overcome. I am not LDS. So of course I don't care about specifics regarding what you wear or what time you have your meetings or whether the children should be taught to say "I know this church is true". But the forums are set up in such a way that one can easily pinpoint and follow those conversations which do have interest to those not immersed in LDS culture. So has anybody else heard anything to lead us to expect this experiment (The World Table) to be continuing?I found it slow, klunky, hard to navigate. I quickly lost interest
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