ANNOUNCEMENT: The 2005 Bifurcation
- Dale
- The Landlord
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ANNOUNCEMENT: The 2005 Bifurcation
As of January 21, 2005, in response to a poll of our members, this board has split the largest forum into two. This has been hotly debated and we hope the new arrangement will work out.
I consulted with Rich Lafferty and asked him to make the change. What Rich has done for us it to create a new forum, called The Chiff and Fipple Poststructural Pub. This is for OT (Off-topic) threads and posts. To populate the new forum, Rich moved all threads started in the last year which were labeled "OT." Non-OT posts remain in the The Chiff & Fipple Whistle Forum, a renamed version of the original whistle forum.
Now, this division isn't perfect, but it should have brought about a pretty decent split of on-topic and off-topic posts.
Similarly, there will not be a perfect separation of whistle posts and off-topic posts as we go forward. None of us needs to get our respective knickers in a twist over that. This is no big deal. Please don't be unkind to people for posting in the wrong forum. At the end of time, all will be sorted.
Let me also remind you of a really useful and often unnoticed feature of the board. When you sign in and see the list of forums, just above the forum table and to the right is an link that reads "View Posts Since Last Visit." This is a really handy way to see posts on ALL forums that have been made since, well, your last visit.
Thanks!
Dale
I consulted with Rich Lafferty and asked him to make the change. What Rich has done for us it to create a new forum, called The Chiff and Fipple Poststructural Pub. This is for OT (Off-topic) threads and posts. To populate the new forum, Rich moved all threads started in the last year which were labeled "OT." Non-OT posts remain in the The Chiff & Fipple Whistle Forum, a renamed version of the original whistle forum.
Now, this division isn't perfect, but it should have brought about a pretty decent split of on-topic and off-topic posts.
Similarly, there will not be a perfect separation of whistle posts and off-topic posts as we go forward. None of us needs to get our respective knickers in a twist over that. This is no big deal. Please don't be unkind to people for posting in the wrong forum. At the end of time, all will be sorted.
Let me also remind you of a really useful and often unnoticed feature of the board. When you sign in and see the list of forums, just above the forum table and to the right is an link that reads "View Posts Since Last Visit." This is a really handy way to see posts on ALL forums that have been made since, well, your last visit.
Thanks!
Dale
Last edited by Dale on Sun Apr 24, 2005 6:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
- chas
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I dunno if Rich made some applet or something, but however he did it, many thanks for the effort put in to bifurcating the forums. Also many thanks to Dale for allowing, geez, even encouraging me to use bifurcate in a conversational manner. I don't know that I'd used it since I was studying chaos theory.
Charlie
Whorfin Woods
"Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs -- as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water." -- Prof Ali Miserez.
Whorfin Woods
"Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs -- as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water." -- Prof Ali Miserez.
- FJohnSharp
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- Tell us something.: I used to be a regular then I took up the bassoon. Bassoons don't have a lot of chiff. Not really, I have always been a drummer, and my C&F years were when I was a little tired of the drums. Now I'm back playing drums. I mist the C&F years, though.
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I have to say, that even though I was against the split, I like it already. I think that if I had dial up I'd like it less. But I like it.
Of course, this means I was wrong in the first place, which stings. But I'll get over it.
Of course, this means I was wrong in the first place, which stings. But I'll get over it.
"Meon an phobail a thogail trid an chultur"
(The people’s spirit is raised through culture)
Suburban Symphony
(The people’s spirit is raised through culture)
Suburban Symphony
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- Loren
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- Tell us something.: You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free - Location: Loren has left the building.
- Dale
- The Landlord
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Not that impressive really. Let me describe the process.The Weekenders wrote:Pretty impressive how quickly you guys did it. Lower radio button below messages on the new Forum doesn't function for me though fwiw.
Just remember, I was against it!!!
After deciding to execute the bifurcation, I selected a team of four interns and we flew to Ottawa on DaleForce One to meet with Rich and his team in a undisclosed location. It took three hours for my team and Rich's team to go through the decontamination process (the flash-exfoliation was particularly weird) and enter the clean room.
After a light lunch of chili dogs, Rich walked us through the fundamentals of splitting a single forum into two. It's hard to summarize, but essentially it involved three high-res large screen monitors, each 72" wide. Rich had already initiated a routine on the ChiffBoard supercomputer to sort threads labeled OT from those not labeled OT. Then subroutines used AI processes (hey, WAY over my head) to "read" the threads and, by some kind of word- and phrase-parsing system, made additional sorts of mislabeled posts. Anway, the middle screen displayed all posts as tiny little icons. As the AI programs made the call on whether they were On or Off Topic, each little icon would change color and then migrate onto either the big OT screen (to the left of the central screen) or the ON-Topic screen to the right.
Team members were then assigned to arrange threads into the new forums, a process that re-converted the icons back into their original full-text formats.
The process took 48 hours but, due to Rich's genius, the boards were only down for a short time.
After the project was over, we exited the facility and, under the influence of relief, and of some kind of gas Rich had pumped into the ventilation system (Rich is always pulling this kind of stunt), we all poured out into the parking lot on the surface level. Thel interns flooded the parking lot and then slid around on the resulting ice. It was pretty darn cold in Ottawa. Of course, for me, the gas didn't produce the intended euphoria. It made me see that the skies over Ottawa were swarming with these giant fanged black bats with implanted electronics and red LEDs for eyes. I am now being told that, even though I had to get pretty rough with Rich, I was finally able to extract one of his shotguns from his car and start blasting away at the bats. I am now beginning to believe that these bats were hallucinations.
Anyway, the whole process wasn't that big of a deal. If we have to reverse the process and fuse the 2 forums back into one, all we'll have to do is work backwards. Rich tells me the decontamination process is shorter.
- Jerry Freeman
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I would like to repeat my request that you put links to all the different forums on each page of every forum, both at the top and bottom of the page.
The "jump to" feature doesn't really do the job. Please trust me on this, it will make the boards significantly easier/faster to navigate and make the visiting experience more friendly.
Other than that, the new arrangement is nice. I think it's an improvement.
Best wishes,
Jerry
The "jump to" feature doesn't really do the job. Please trust me on this, it will make the boards significantly easier/faster to navigate and make the visiting experience more friendly.
Other than that, the new arrangement is nice. I think it's an improvement.
Best wishes,
Jerry
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Sorry rich, i just saw your question this afternoon.. The GO button which is next to the "jump to Forum." This is on Safari so who knows... What happens is when you have read all the messages downward and get to bottom of that site page, you can pop back to index by hitting the GO. This "problem" only applies to the new Forum, but it wasn't working at the time I wrote it.. But integrity of display has always been a tiny bit of an issue. As you may know, on some days, a given page is way to wide for my screen. Other pages that day may be fine. Just weird little stuff, but I thought I'd mention it.rich wrote:I tried to figure out what you mean but no luck. What button where? (While posting or reading? What's the radio button labeled?)The Weekenders wrote:Lower radio button below messages on the new Forum doesn't function for me though fwiw.
-Rich
Editing in: just checked it, works now.
How do you prepare for the end of the world?
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Bifurcation
A hungering world aching to read of my distant relation's mother-in-law's sacroiliac will be forced to visit the new forum. Then again, "iliac" springs from the same root as "uilleann". It can go on the pipe forum! -
- toughknot
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Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: The 2005 Bifurcation
DaleWisely wrote:As of January 21, 2005, in response to a poll of our members, this board has split the largest forum into two. This has been hotly debated and we hope the new arrangement will work out.
I consulted with Rich Lafferty and asked him to make the change. What Rich has done for us it to create a new forum, called The Chiff and Fipple Poststructural Pub. This is for OT (Off-topic) threads and posts. To populate the new forum, Rich moved all threads started in the last year which were labeled "OT." Non-OT posts remain in the The Chiff & Fipple Whistle Forum, a renamed version of the original whistle forum.
Now, this division isn't perfect, but it should have brought about a pretty decent split of on-topic and off-topic posts.
Similarly, there will not be a perfect separation of whistle posts and off-topic posts as we go forward. None of us needs to get our respective knickers in a twist over that. This is no big deal. Please don't be unkind to people for posting in the wrong forum. At the end of time, all will be sorted.
Let me also remind you of a really useful and often unnoticed feature of the board. When you sign in and see the list of forums, just above the forum table and to the right is an link that reads "View Posts Since Last Visit." This is a really handy way to see posts on ALL forums that have been made since, well, your last visit.
Thanks!
Dale
Thank You. It's very nice to go to the whistle forum and read posts about Whistles!
I shall never bitter be so long as I can laugh at me.
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