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What do you not like about SFN?


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I get the sense that people's least favorite thing about SFN is the trolls and crackpots.

 

 

I've recently been struggling somewhat with attempts to politicize science and appeals to ridicule and ignorance and strawmen as opposed to clear focus on the facts, but that's an issue with an individual more than the site.

 

 

Any specific area about which you're asking?

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I think that it would be a lot easier to check up on new posts if the less regularly used forums were merged. I know there's a "new posts" option, but I feel a lot mroe comfortable checking each forum seperately to be sure I've not missed anything. Maybe its just me being mildy obsessive.

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I've noticed this on other fora too, so this one is not unique in this regard, but...

 

I'm spoiled by google.

The search feature on the site could use improvement.

 

I think there's something to do with the logic. Instead of ordering search results by relevance, it orders them by "most recent post." This is a challenge when searching on multiple keywords, since this is one of the few times that recency of the post is not as important.

 

Let's say I search "random walk clock synchronized" (which I've done recently because of our friend Fred56 who is now trolling on other fora, and giving definitions with citations to "scienceforums.net."). If a post today had the word "clock" in it, then that would appear at a higher slot than a post back in August with the combination of words "random walk clock."

 

I'm not sure if there is a vb hack to improve this, but it's worth exploring for sure. Most of us have become rather accustomed to the search logic of sites like google. :)

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That bothers me quite a bit too. I know it's mostly because of how vB's search was designed in the first place, but there must be some plugin to improve it...

 

I'll see if I can find something.

 

edit: it turns out that you can click Advanced Search and change "Sort By" to "Relevancy" in the lower left. Not sure how well that works; I'm guessing "not very," but you never know. MySQL fulltext search might have a few tricks up its sleeve.

 

I'm currently looking at an alternative search system which promises to be faster and more relevant.

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Let's say I search "random walk clock synchronized" (which I've done recently because of our friend Fred56 who is now trolling on other fora, and giving definitions with citations to "scienceforums.net."). If a post today had the word "clock" in it, then that would appear at a higher slot than a post back in August with the combination of words "random walk clock."

 

LOL! If you are curious, this is what he has been saying about you:

 

F***ssake. Just read the 'aftermath' of my brain explosion at SFN

There's this total science f***wit who said all he or any of his science-buddy ****ups have to do is find an example of entropy that 'doesn't change'' date=' get the **** outta here.

 

The reason I spose I got the boot from that little dress-up dollies, is this prick. I posted something about stored light pulses, and got into a stoush with him and "everyone". About [b']Entropy[/b] being change (or a measure of change). These f***heads all appear to think that's wrong. How about you?

 

From another science forum I saw. Explicit language has been censored. Looks like you specifically really pissed him off :D.

 

Luckily for us, he claims that he will never return.

 

 

 

EDIT: never-mind. Looks like he just got killed again. To be a loser that big has to take some talent.

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What's your least favorite bit of SFN?

 

Stupid and/or annoying people. :D They seem to be a worldwide problem, though, so there's probably not much that can be done about them.

 

EDIT: never-mind. Looks like he just got killed again. To be a loser that big has to take some talent.

 

He certainly got more responses to his trolling than did atomikpsycho, and wasn't nearly as amusing, so in that sense we're the losers.

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He certainly got more responses to his trolling than did atomikpsycho, and wasn't nearly as amusing, so in that sense we're the losers.

 

Really? I found Fred56 particularly amusing, especially toward the end just before he got banned. Not quite as much as ATOMIKPSYCHO, I agree with you there.

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Really? I found Fred56 particularly amusing, ...

I actually found it quite disturbing that I could (possibly 'can', but I think most of the related problems now got banned, too) barely read any thread because a significant share of posts came from people on my ignore list. Pretty nice feature, btw.

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Ok, I'll be serious now. How about a feature that allows the membership to suspend annoying users and trolls if enough of them report their posts in a very short amount of time? This way we can stop them before they get very far.

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That's a pretty good idea. Like if one user gets five reported posts within 5 or 10 minutes, they're automatically suspended until a staff member (or the entire staff group) can review the action and decide to make the ban permanent or reverse the suspension.

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Why not make it 250 posts? The opinion you seek for such a "let's get this troll the hell out of here" action is that from established membership, not noobs.

 

 

 

 

 

Another idea (new one) is to put a maximum font size on signatures.

 

 

It's really a tough question, though, because the site is really well done as is. In all seriousness, I'm not just saying that.

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