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Suggestion for organizing our archives
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Suggestion for organizing our archives |
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Subject: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Marion Date: 18 Jul 01 - 02:10 AM Hello all. I've been thinking a lot about the amount of information and wisdom that has been accumulated at the Mudcat Cafe. When I think about doing research here, often the aspect of digging up old questions and answers outweighs the aspect of new questions. So how could the archived threads be made more user-friendly? I think one possibility would be to do something we might call "index threads". For example: right now I'm interested in threads about busking and about amplification. Suppose I made a thread called "Threads about busking" that contained 10 links to other threads (and little or no discussion), and another thread called "Threads about amplification" that just contained 12 links to relevant threads. Then in the "Permathread Index and Site Map" (second teal frosted thread) I would just post links to the two index threads that are my pet projects. Alice has two threads already, about the Meaning of Folk and the Singing Voice, that would fit into what I'm imagining. Then anybody who was willing could start an index thread or three about their favourite topics - grouping together the song challenges, or discussions of specific Child ballads, or threads about string brands, or whatever. And there would be nothing stopping other people from adding links to other threads that were overlooked or to relevant articles elsewhere on the net. An index thread as I propose it would be different from a Permathread in that it wouldn't be moderated, and that you wouldn't need to clear it with Max or Joe in order to start one - thus sparing our esteemed management the bother of having to authorize/train a bunch of people to start/moderate them. It has been proposed that we put links to favourite threads in the Permathread Index and Site Map permathread, but I have reservations about this; I think that could get long and random. My intuition is that it would be better for me to post one thing "Threads about Busking" in that Permathread than 10 threads about busking. Also, many people are already doing this to some extent, and making lists of links to other threads in the middle of discussions. This is great when it happens, but I have a feeling that it could be done more thoroughly and usefully if we had a deliberate system of making and listing index threads. What do you think? Marion |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: MudGuard Date: 18 Jul 01 - 03:34 AM Have a look at this: Mudcat Sitemap and put your suggested threads there. |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: MMario Date: 18 Jul 01 - 09:04 AM Marion - yes - it makes sense that you would make a post having links to all pertinant threads and then just post THAT link in the site map. |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: UB Ed Date: 18 Jul 01 - 10:22 AM Absolutely. I would suggest indexes for recording, guitars, amplification (pickups) and geographic news. |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Jim Dixon Date: 18 Jul 01 - 12:49 PM Ordinarily, when someone volunteers to do something, it's easy to say, "Go for it!" but I don't want to encourage you to do something that will turn out to be a thankless job, will bore you, frustrate you, and make you burn out after a while. I'm seriously afraid of that happening. I'd rather see you do something more satisfying, which will sustain your interest over a long period. Right now, the method you have suggested implies some self-discipline on the part of Mudcatters. "Suppose I made a thread called 'Threads about busking' that contained 10 links to other threads (and little or no discussion)" - it's the "little or no discussion" part that makes me skeptical. How are you going to get people to refrain from discussing anything? I once started a thread called Frequently misspelled/confused names, which I hoped would involve "little or no discussion" but look what happened to it! 55 messages and only about 6 of them contain useful information! (OK, part of that is my own fault. For one thing, I posted some wrong information that had to be corrected later. I also replied to some messages I should have ignored.) I proposed deleting a lot of these messages, but Joe Offer (whom I revere) was against it. His opinion is that you should delete irrelevant messages only if you claim PermaThread status and warn people IN THE VERY FIRST MESSAGE that you're going to do that. And deleting messages is the only way to impose any discipline on Mudcatters. They will ignore, ridicule, or dispute just about anything you suggest that they do, or refrain from doing. Maybe someday I WILL start a PermaThread on the topic of spelling, and copy the useful information into it, but I'm not ready to take on that project yet. |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Max Date: 18 Jul 01 - 12:58 PM Pene and I came up with a way to display more PermaThreads without wasting space, so we are fascilitating such a concept. I'm still trying to work out the technology for folks to manage their own threads without the rest of the volunteer powers. I suppose anyone can create their own index, but we would judge whether they would be officialized as a permathread. Great Idea, and stay tuned for more. |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: catspaw49 Date: 18 Jul 01 - 12:59 PM Jim hits this one pretty squarely. I tried a collection of threads limited to guitar brands. The name was in the title and they are easily found. I tried to resurrect the idea on several occasions, but new threads kept starting because no one did a simple search, or at least very few. We now have about 15 threads on Seagull for gawdsake nd Martin opinions and comments and questions, which might take 3 or 4 or 5 threads, are spread out over at least 30. Much as I'd love to categorize them onto one thread with links, the next Martin question or Seagull or whatever would start yet another thread in most cases. I know which threads are the ones to link and if I'm around, I try to link those in the newly started threads, but I also think that when I do, most posters never click them (so they don't get read). Sorry Marion......Do it if you like, but I think it's an exercise in futility on some subjects. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: MMario Date: 18 Jul 01 - 01:00 PM aha! He has spoke! |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: catspaw49 Date: 18 Jul 01 - 01:06 PM Yeah, but what the hell does he know? I mean he went to Penn State and all............What is a "Nittany" lion anyway? Sounds like a lice infested, mangy kind of critter.................. |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Jon Freeman Date: 18 Jul 01 - 01:18 PM Max, do you mean each thread will have an "owner", presumably the originator, or that this "ownership" will only apply to specific threads, presumably permathreads? Jon |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Amos Date: 18 Jul 01 - 01:44 PM The other problem with this design is maintenance. If you have posted your index thread, and time goes by and new threads are created which would add value to your index list, there are only two ways to ensure it gets added. One is that an "owner" or an industrious volunteer recognizes the appropriateness of the additional material and adds it by hand to the index thread. The other way is that somewhere within the new thread, someone sees that it should be part of an index thread (because it is the kind of stuff that will want to be brought up recurringly) and inserts a delimited index keyword into the thread. For example, such a keyword might look like: ##index:busk## or ##index:guitar_models##. A spider could do the work of adding the hooks to the index thread by scanning the days add'l material overnight and looking for ##index:x## and parsing the name of th eindex topic out, and appending the new thread's URL to the index thread in the appropriate way. Such an approach would leave it open to all to decide that a given thread should be added to an index, and if no-one bothered with it it would not get so added. The only labor added once the spider was written would be occasionally having to de-index wrongly included threads which were marked by mistake or for nuisance power. Event hat could be worked-around. A |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Marion Date: 20 Jul 01 - 12:16 AM I thought about what Spaw and Jim said, and realized that individuals who want to know something are either going to look into the archives, or they aren't. If they are the sort to look to the past, they can use Supersearch as easily as I (or any volunteer indexer) can. If they are not, putting link collections into threads or the Site Map isn't going to be any help to them. I guess the thing to do is bring good old threads to the top by adding to them (for some reason I wouldn't feel comfortable just adding "refresh"). And of course I am eager to see what He has up His sleeve regarding the permathread system. Marion PS to Spaw - I've read all your guitar brand threads (I think) and I think they're a great idea. But I see what you mean about them not working in spite of being a good idea. |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Azizi Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:45 AM I woke up this mornin with my mind stayed on ...Mudcat thread indexing. I found this thread, and perhaps there has been more current ones on this subject that I haven't found. Has Joe or Max or anyone else given any more thought or made any decisions on creating index threads with the URLS [without comments]of specific Mudcat music/folk culture topics and specific Mudcat BS topics? And if so, what was/is the decision regarding indexing Mudcat archives? Were permathreads considered the answer to organizing our archives? |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Azizi Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:25 AM It just occurred to me that maybe the hyperlinks of "related threads" that is listed under the title of many music/folk culture threads is a way of at least partially indexing Mudcat archives. Has anyone ever made such a listing for BS threads? I'm particularly thinking of the threads on specific topics such as education, race & racism, physical health, mental health, politics by nation, and catastrophic events [such as Hurricane Katrina], and not the birthdays or other congratulatory threads or the obit threads? My comment about congratulatory or obituary threads is not meant to discount the value of those threads to this online community. It just seems to me that for the purpose of research for Mudcatters and others it would be helpful to at least have a partial listing of subjects such as a related threads listing for non-music threads. I recognize that the moderators are already hard working volunteers. If hyperlinks of related subjects have not been added to BS threads yet, and if this idea is accepted by Joe and Max, then perhaps individual Mudcat members could volunteer to make lists for the topics that they are interested in. Those volunteers could then send a starter list on the specific BS topic of their choosing to Joe for possible listing under thread titles on that subject. And those volunteers or other folks would continue to send additional thread URLs/names to Joe for possible addition to that initial listing of related threads. This is the way it works with music threads, right? I'm just thinking out loud. I'm curious what other folks think about this idea. |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Amos Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:09 AM Another method might be to have a master keyword list which essentially acted like the encyclopedia index, and a drop-down button just to the right of the Translate button allowing each post to be indexed to a key word by any reader. This means that somehow any post could gather multiple keywords. But the net effect would be that each post would get indexed if anyone took the trouble to do so. However I think the overhead would be significant and we would be better off just tagging threads. There is no reason a thread should be limited to one index topic especially the way they wander about sometimes. I like my earlier suggestion of tagged keywords that can be automatically processed. Or, we could have a dropdown box for each thread which anyone could use to add a keyword to the halo of indexing words associated with a given thread. We already have thread=centered buttons such as "Add to Tracer" and "Translate..." so its doable. The problem this leaves, though, is how to recover indexabiolity for the vast legions of past threads no-one had the button for in their day. A |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Richard Bridge Date: 19 Oct 07 - 04:49 PM Keyword searching with variable spelling involves thesaurisation. It may be easier to google! |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Joe Offer Date: 19 Oct 07 - 05:23 PM We've tried various schemes for indexing threads. We've done a number of PermaThreads to index various threads, and I once had people supply a few thread indexes which were posted in the FAQ. WYSIWYG has done a pretty good job of maintaining and updating the African American Spirituals PermaThread, but most of the other indexing PermaThreads have fallen by the wayside as time goes along. It is a lot of work to maintain and update an index, but it can be a wonderful opportunity for anyone who wants to do it. If you want to set up a PermaThread for just about any worthy folk music project, contact me and I'll be glad to help. Our most successful thread indexing effort has been our crosslink system that Jeff has set up for us. We have the Song Origins and Information list available in our dropdown QuickLinks menu, but the other master lists of crosslinks haven't been made available because we haven't heard a demand for them. If you click on any thread on a given topic, you can often find other threads on the topic by looking at the crosslinks at the top of the page. You can also view individual thread groups by using this URL and changing the last number: http://www.mudcat.org/threadgroup.cfm?threadgroupid=2 Using that, you can go through our groups one after another - but we haven't got around to building indexes for anything but the song groups. If there's an interest, I can ask Jeff if he can builde other indexes. Right now, our crosslink master groups are:
My main interest is indexing songs, and I probably spend at least an hour a day on that. As you can see, we have lots of groups in our Song Origins index. While I'm working on that index, I try to consolidate threads when that makes sense, and close or delete old dead-end song threads that just ended in directions to a DT song or directions for searching. Most of the other master thread groups are reasonably small, so I don't think there's a real need for indexing those groups (except for possibly our "Musicians / Performers / Composers" master group). -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Suggestion for organizing our archives From: Amos Date: 19 Oct 07 - 05:57 PM A site-specific Gogle interface would be just the thing, if you knew it would trawl all the past discussions. A |
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