Gentle Readers
Based on some of the comments, I'm thinking that some of you have just joined our readership. Welcome.
We do have a few rules and one of them is to please stay on the topic of the thread. This is mostly so that the tags/labels for the threads are accurate. If a thread gets hijacked by another topic, it then confuses/irritates people who are looking for that topic when they read the comments.
There are a couple of ways to get new info/topics out there.
Just as fair warning, I will go thru and eliminate comments that are off-topic. It's okay if it's a related subject but not if you go off on another tangent. This is for the sake of all the readers especially those who are searching for threads on certain topics.
We do have a few rules and one of them is to please stay on the topic of the thread. This is mostly so that the tags/labels for the threads are accurate. If a thread gets hijacked by another topic, it then confuses/irritates people who are looking for that topic when they read the comments.
There are a couple of ways to get new info/topics out there.
- One is to write to me and ask for a topic thread.
- Two is to suggest a topic thread in a comment (but not to start one in the middle of another topic).
- Three, is to wait for Open Thread Friday. Also, if it's breaking news, put it in but only if it's breaking news.
Just as fair warning, I will go thru and eliminate comments that are off-topic. It's okay if it's a related subject but not if you go off on another tangent. This is for the sake of all the readers especially those who are searching for threads on certain topics.
Comments
First: "couple" = 2 not 3
Second: When you go through and "eliminate comments that are off-topic.", please eliminate "unsigned anonymous comments" as well, of which there are many.
Thank you.
Melissa, just a thought, but is there a way to format the blog so that the Open Thread for the week is always visible on the top of the page (maybe stick a link at the top of the side bar?). When a lot is happening, it's difficult to page down to it (sometimes I have to open last month's list of posts from the sidebar) and you know no one will see it any way. Another thought is to format your posts so we only see the title and the first paragraph and have to click "read more" to see the whole post. That way more titles will fit on the page for us to scan through.
I have no idea if you can do this in blogspot. Maybe some web design guru out there will volunteer to tweak your format a bit?!
While I'm making suggestions, could you add all the background documents from the 'scandal' to the side bar? They may be wiped clean from the SPS and ST web sites and we might need them later.
(I know Dorothy has suggested reading the blog as an RSS feed, that could solve some of these issues, but I haven't been able to figure out how to do that. Maybe we need a tutorial section somewhere where any of us could post directions for things like that and for making live links and bolds and italics (Techymom had a really short clear description some time last year.))
Thank you for all your work!
I've been wondering also when the district's website might take down those links (they no longer are on the main home page, and I only see them on the School Board's page).
Especially since this is still an ongoing investigation it would be a real service to the community to have all the links in one place.
We really appreciate all your hard work to keep up on this blog!
As for the RSS feed. I use googlereader and it is quite nice. I strongly suggest that everyone do this. Get a google account and open google reader.
Now, on this blog's main page, in the top link sidebar on the right, see Subscribe to and then two buttons. Click on the button and it gives you the option of which RSS service to use. Click ADD to GOOGLE and then you get a choice of adding it to your gogle home page or the Reader. Select Reader. Do this for both Blog FEED and ALL Comments.
I say use Reader because it is easy to navigate and easy to search. Maybe the other option is as well.
I really dislike the idea of deleting comments simply because they are off topic. I understand why one would do that, but I just think it detracts from the overall flow of information. And sometimes it is hard to tell if something is completely off topic or related and that puts the blog administrator in a place to be subjective which can lead to unnecessary hard feelings.
I understand the desire to have everything tagged, but search has gotten better and one can search comments as well as posts, so imperfect tagging is not really that big a problem.
Especially if you use the RSS feed for ALL Comments, one can search comments specifically, which I have found very useful.
sss.westbrook@gmail.com
Instead of deleting them, is there an easy way to move these off-topic entries to the most recent Open Thread section?
That way hopefully posters will get "trained" to follow the topic, but their actual information is not lost.
Thanks!
See definition 4 under http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/couple
an indefinite small number: FEW
Helen Schinske
Activities include I, Star's politically attuned reggae (Cheap Yeezy Shoes Sale) and thus persons (Michael Kors Outlet) rock n roll; A harmonic heart and heart related to Jonathan Santos; Balanced rock and roll, Cardiovascular yet hiphop right provided by great market commanders; As well as