Wed 19 Dec 2007
OrangePolitics 3.0: Already a Rocky Start?
Posted by WillR under Carrboro , ChapelHill , CitizenWill , Community , OrangeCounty , Ruminations[10] Comments
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Will, I think the issue is that if one is not logged in, the counter doesn’t catch it. Raby posted this yesterday:
That’s good to know Fred. It would be sad if there was some kind of edit – even a “catchall” edit purging all comments from a thread. There was a fair share of silliness and worse on OP over the last 4 years – I was hoping that the OP editors weren’t dropping that selectively without at least acknowledging those omissions.
Do you plan to weigh in with you suggestions for OP 3.0 Fred?
Had not planned to – already committed this evening.
Don’t feel bad Will. According to the posted stats, John Kramer has posted more than me, Duncan Murrell, or Fred which we all know isn’t true. There has to be a problem with the data collection process.
Other names that appear more than 42 times:
Matt Compton
ToddtheBlog
Melanie See
Cam Hill
Mark Kleinschmidt
“There has to be a problem with the data collection process.” – sums it up fairly well.
Why, though, post the results if they’re so obviously in error? It’s not a matter of feelings, it’s a matter of semi-accuracy.
If OP is to stand as a record of particular “multi-logues” that some of the local policy wonks, elected officials, staff and media has had over the last 4 years there needs to be some trust maintained. I have and will continue to assume our words – good or bad – are preserved as we wrote them. I did assume, and would like to continue to assume, that the context those words were written within is also preserved. I’d also like to think that the participation of any contributor will not be diminished by the “upgrade” to 3.0.
As an aside, I used some very basic tools and about 20 minutes of script writing/running to tease out my stats based on OP’s outputted HTML. If I had access to the underlying DB, as Ruby does, I could generate a similar breakdown of all other posters with just a small bit of effort (the basics have been discussed throughout the WordPress forums).
Isn’t it possible (probable in my opinion) that Ruby just trusted the tools and didn’t notice the disparity? I don’t see what purpose it would serve to intentionally mislead. Hopefully though she will read your concerns and go back and ensure that all old posts are being brought forward in the new design.
Seems Squeeze the Pulp has removed all of their old content from the web. Something Orange Politics is NOT doing.
Sorry to re-hash this old thread but for the record, I’ve never said those stats were accurate for any comments pre-2008 on OP. In fact, there is a disclaimer to that effect on the stats page (http://www.orangepolitics.org/hof). The numbers reflect the best I could get from a free Drupal module. I don’t know why I would manipulate the data, and moreover I don’t know how.
Secondly, I’d be more than happy so share the SQL database with anyone who would like to do a publicly-available analysis of the content. I have yet to hear any offers to do this, but am always open. It would make a great summer project for a student or something.
Thirdly, now that we have almost 6 months under our belt, I do think that OP has become a platform for a wider range of voices, which was the goal of moving from WordPress to Drupal. I hope you agree, Will.