dw_suggestions | "bump entry" (to refresh it on reading list)

Entry tags:

"bump entry" (to refresh it on reading list)

Title:
"bump entry" (to refresh it on reading list)

Area:
Reading page

Summary:
There should be some (optional, non-default) way for an entry author to "bump" an entry after they post it, so it appears on reading lists again as though it had just been posted.

Description:
Sometimes, you post something and then edit it later to fix a typo or clarify a sentence or two, or respond to a bunch of comments all in bulk, which is obviously something that people don't need to re-read unless they come back to view and engage with the entry and its discussion regularly. But sometimes -- the situation you were writing about develops further; you write another section of the draft story you were posting; the company you were ranting about contacts you, fixes the problem, and promises you a million dollars and a pony in recompense -- you want to update everyone who reads you on the situation. Usually what I do in a case like that (and I'm not the only one) is post a new entry with a link to the previous entry, saying "hey, go back and read my edits to $entry!" or "this is an update on the situation first described in $entry".

Sometimes, too, some *really* interesting comment discussion develops deep in the comments to a post and goes on for a week or so, and people are saying lots of really smart and interesting things buried in the comment threads, so you post again and say "hey, we're still discussing $foo in the comments to $entry and the discussion's really awesome; if you're interested go take a look".

I'm thinking it might be nice to have some optional, non-default way to bump an entry: edit it in such a fashion that it appears on reading pages as though it's completely new, even though it's only been edited. It could appear differently somehow (different icon? different CSS class so that people could suppress display of bumped entries in their styles if they wanted to?), and it would be standard practice for the entry poster to indicate why they'd bumped the entry.

To prevent malicious spammage, or someone from bumping an entry every hour so it always stays on top of the friends page, we could build in some rate-limiting: can't bump an entry more than once a day, can't bump more than one entry in every 24 hours, can't bump an individual entry more than X times, etc.

Advantages:

* centralizes discussion and prevents people from having to follow twenty different links to get the whole story on an incident
* lets people update a situation or incident as it's going on and still notify people who are only reading them via reading list, not direct journal visit
* can work to prevent the "once and done" nature of posts/comments, where old and valuable threads die off as they fall off people's reading pages
* prevents situations where a link to a specific post on an incident/situation/issue gets passed around via linkspam and visitors aren't aware of any further development and followup (which was posted as new entries so they'd appear on reading pages)
* reduces the number of "I'm just updating you all on $foo that happened over at $link" type posts

Disadvantages:

* could get tiresome seeing the same entries over and over again
* could discourage people from writing new entries/producing new content and instead leave them just updating the old
* attention-seeking people could bump boring entries over and over again
* if you didn't care about it the first time, you probably won't care about it the fifth, either
* if people feel like they don't get enough comments on an entry/essay/story/etc they might keep bumping it until they do

(I think that a lot of the disadvantages could be overcome by imposing sensible rate-limiting defaults, and the rest could be handled via social pressure -- people will stop reading people who abuse the bump feature, and a lot of the abuse of the bump feature could just as easily be reproduced with new entries.)

Poll #942 "bump entry" (to refresh it on reading list)

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 61

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This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
11 (18.0%)

Should be implemented with changes.
11 (18.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
35 (57.4%)

(I have no opinion)
3 (4.9%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (1.6%)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thinking about this some more, it could work nicely for communities, too: maintainers could bump the community rules post once a month instead of just reposting them.

Of course, if that were the case, either community posts posted by maintainers would have to exempt from the 'bump limit', or some other 'limit' would need to be put into place.

There's something intimidating about disagreeing with a site owner's suggestion. ;)

Personally, I would find it very annoying to have to ignore or find a way to hide something I didn't ask to see in the first place. The CSS option just puts another burden on people designing styles, and expecting everybody to conform to a "standard practice" that isn't explicitly and enforceably required seems unlikely.

I might be persuaded if this were presented in some other way, without messing around with the Reading page. Perhaps a "Bumps" module, since everyone has the option to simply not include that module in their layout? Perhaps make it something you have to specifically opt in to receive in your account settings? (I.e., default behavior is Bumps: off, but there's a tickybox you can check to allow people to bump posts on your Reading page.)

Oh, I'm not utterly convinced on the wisdom of it, which is why I ran it through Suggestions instead of just logging it into the to-do list ;)

I don't want to add a user option necessarily -- I need to make the post about Why Options Are Bad -- but I like the idea of making a "bumps" module in S2 if people don't like the idea in general.

I have to +1 on the module idea, I actually like the idea of bumping posts but have horrible horrible fears of how easy it is to misuse.

What I'd sort of love is a way to get updates on edits in posts - like I can track comments, but something similar that would show up in my inbox and say "Here, update on this post" (I'd assume the update would be triggered by the poster ticking a box or something that says "update" not every immediate edit: for example, I often post and then spot typos or a bad link formation or something and fix it 5 minutes after posting) Another alternate might be a module for the sidebar that'd say something like "Posts with updates".

I'd like it even better if it it were an automatic thing for *all* posts that show up on my reading page, rather than me having to say for each post whether I wanted updates or not. Or, if not that, something I could access from the post itself, without loading a tracking page options, or something.

I would like to be able to track edits to entries, but I do not want it to be automatic for all entries on my reading page. I don't need to know every time anyone on my reading page corrects their grammar, or fixes a link, or gives me more info on that thing I scrolled past the first time around.

On the other hand, I do think that once you've subscribed, the updates should be triggered by the poster re-saving the entry, not depending on the poster to remember to toggle something. For one thing, anybody editing via a client won't be able to use the update toggle!

On the other hand, I do think that once you've subscribed, the updates should be triggered by the poster re-saving the entry, not depending on the poster to remember to toggle something. For one thing, anybody editing via a client won't be able to use the update toggle!

YES. +1

Agreed.

I think perhaps allowing to subscribe for all, or just a custom reading page group, might work?

But then even after minor edits, you (generic) still need to re-save the entry, and so you'd still end up tracking things like typo corrections.

Yes, but that would be limited to entries I have indicated some interest in, as opposed to every entry on my subscription list of about 200 journals and comms.

I imagine that people will subscribe to edits on relatively few entries, even fewer than entries where they subscribe to comments. But I also think that a lot of people would make edits, even substantial edits, without remembering to toggle the "I'm making a bunch of edits" notice.

Fairy snuff.

Tbh, I think I missed something somewhere along the line while constructing my comment that you replied to, 'cause I just didn't think about it being in relation to "only including posts that you've subscribed to edits for" and think I read it more as "refers to all subscribed posts".

Yeah, I'd like to track edits much better than this "bumping" as well.

I like this.

I personally wouldn't mind a bump for every post that gets edited, but I can see it being a subscription/setting like any other thing. We're really getting off-topic from the main suggestion, though...

Ouch, wrong word there. "...wouldn't mind a message (Inbox/email) for every post that gets edited..."

Oh, this this this! Yes. I like this better than the original suggestion by far. A way to say "I am interested in this post, tell me if it's updated, please" - so I don't see all the stuff I wasn't interested in the first umpty-zillion times. (Bonus points if I can turn it on via icon or via option while simultaneously commenting, but mostly, just this.)

While I totally understand the scenarios under which something like this would be useful, I think there's far too much room for abuse, even with rate limits.

1) People who want to follow an ongoing discussion can already track the post at their own discretion.

2) For the scenarios you mention, most people are already conditioned to repost the link, which (properly, I think) puts the choice to click on the reader. A bump option forced on readers removes that choice, which to my mind is somewhat antithetical to some of the premises DW is supposed to be about what with the watch/trust split, etc.

3) Removing someone from your reading list is currently pretty low-drama around here. Removing someone from your reading list for obnoxious attention-seeking post bumping feels like it introduces barrels of drama to a site that thus far, thankfully, is pretty low-drama. I'd hate to see something drama-inducing be introduced as a "feature".

+1 on the "needless drama" compared to tracking. And tracking would be easier if there was ticky right here in the reply box which let me "track all activity on this entry". instead of an additional click/reload after the comment is posted

Edited 2009-08-08 00:42 (UTC)

Because of the existing ways to post-date entries, and subscribe/track entries, I don't think this would be a good idea. As

phoenixsong mentioned, this pushes the option from the reader to the publisher, which rewards dramahounds and trolls disproportionately.

As much as I would like to be able to track edits to posts this is definitely a form that I wouldn't like to see implemented. There is far too much potential for it to become an annoyance in my opinion.

I'd always thought the edit monitoring would be done through tracking rather than thread bumping. For one, it'd be something one would choose not something they'd be subjected to.

zvi makes a good point about what should trigger the tracking bug, though I'm not sure every minor edit should trigger the tracker.

I think this would get annoying FAST! The only way I'd be OK with it is if there was a user-set option never to have to see "bumped" entries on my flist.

Which then means you wouldn't see bumped/changed community guidelines... also not good IMO.

Well, if the feature was introduced under those conditions, I doubt mods would use it for those sorts of posts, knowing that many users would have turned it off. And frankly, I'd rather miss something occasionally than deal with lots of bumped posts that I'd already ignored once!

A good mod'd keep an updated link to the updated rules in both the profile, and in the latest mod. post linked to - IMO.

(P.S. @ denise: I'm getting an awful lot of "http://www.dreamwidth.org/talkpost_do.bml"s turn up when trying to comment - which I'm mentioning here in case anyone else is having the same trouble; but I also know that if I get really fed up, *and* have rebooted both my pootah and router/modem and then am still getting them an awful lot, then I need to take it to the Support Board.)

If someone edits a post and changes the date, doesn't that move it up people's reading lists? I think the method suggested is a bit too easy, tempting people to over-use it.

No, display on reading lists is controlled by the server time at which the entry was originally posted.

Not a huge fan of the suggestion, unless it was rate-limited very severely (say, combining all of

denise's ideas for rate limiting: only one bump per day (or even longer) for the whole account, plus a limit to how many times any one entry can be bumped).

I think this kind of thing would work great in communities, though I think it'd need to be a maintainer thing rather than a generic member thing (or I guess that could be set community by community). I'm unsure of it for personal journals, though of course there's always unsubscribing to those who misuse it. (It's not like someone can't spam their readers anyway...)

I mostly associate bumping stuff with really obnoxious people. I do not think that I would like to have the conversation that goes as so:

"Did not you see $foo?"
"What $foo?"
"I posted about it. Have you not read your reading list today?"
"I have read my reading list today, but I did not see $foo. Perhaps I missed it somehow?"
"It was right there. I posted about it last month."
"I remember."
"And I bumped it today."
"Oh! My style does not show me bumped posts."
"You should get a new style, then."
"No."
"Actually I think you can just turn it on in your style in the --"
"NO. No, I do not read bumps."
"But I use bumps to share things that people need to know!"
"I. Do. Not. Read. Bumps."
[insert fight]

Personally, I'd much rather have a post 'bumped' when there's a new comment on it, rather than when the post itself has been changed. It's the lack of being able to see posts with new comments that makes threads die out IME.

I know that such a move would also convince at least one friend of mine to move over from LJ, as that (and the none-split I want to read/I want to allow to read lists) are the prime reasons for his dislike of LJ. I've gotta admit, that I too get bugged by those same things.

I don't understand how subscribing to an entry's comments does not give you the functionality you/your friend want. I mean, I believe you that it does not, but I don't understand why it doesn't.

I think I understand, if the friend is used to a message board system. Unread replies (comments, in the LJ/DW world) typically have a colored icon, different background, or some sort of indicator. It's currently very difficult to see, when looking at the post, WHICH comments are new. And the notifications in your inbox/email are often lacking in context (by virtue of being too far buried in the threading).

Ackshurelay, what we're looking for is something more akin to reading Usenet with a decent newsreader, although a BB that also bumps posts to the top of the page is another worthy example.

But then one can only subscribe to a limited number of posts. Once that limit has been reached, then we have to start removing subscriptions, and so can still miss posts being newly commented on.

ETA: Besides which, I don't WANT my inbox filled with notifications, I want to see those things on the page that I'd expect to see them, which is the same page that I originally saw them on.

Edited 2009-08-06 19:13 (UTC)

*Nods*. I haven't run into this limit, in terms of having too many posts which are simultaneously active to which I wish to subscribe, once I was paid. Are you guys running into the notification limit at the paid levels or the free level?

Personally, I haven't. I've had a perm. acc. at LJ for longer than tracking's been available - and rarely use it anyway 'cause of the not wanting my inbox chocka, and I'm paid up over here, and have few friends who've migrated anyway.

Dunno if the one mate on LJ who I know would love posts being bumped has hit the limit or not (we haven't discussed it for a few years now), but I do know he's only got a basic acc. and so would hit the limit long before me, if he does use it. He may not use it for the same reasons I don't - i.e. not wanting to cram his inbox with notifications, as well as the potentially lower limit.

I haven't hit the limit yet on DW, but on LJ, I hit my paid-level limit early and often (partly because I'm bad about removing subscriptions I don't need anymore).

Catching up on back posts... I do a *lot* of tracking - hit it on a perm account at LJ, but it took me about a year and a half, I think, after tracking was introduced. (I follow a lot of discussions in communities which can get fairly lengthy, for example, and those add up.)

I had to spend a week or two cleaning them out in down time, which was complicated by the fact the page took forever to load (because of that many subscriptions) and because I was getting periodic script errors.

I have a lot of topics (like those community discussions) where I want to follow the discussion in the day or five after it gets posted, and people are regularly adding new comments - but after that, I don't care. (If I go back and read it again, I'll probably do it through the community tags, search, etc. not via my subscriptions page.)

On the other hand, that cleaning out process (and the couple of times I've winnowed since) was sort of cool, because it gave me a chance to bookmark threads for future reference in Delicious because I had a good idea of the entire discussion and whether it was unique enough to be worth saving. (I do a lot of religious community conversations, so there's a lot of 'variation 3294 on basic idea W' stuff, and a lot fewer 'new stuff I haven't seen before and can't find in 325 other places')

I suspect I'm an extreme outlier on several parts of this usage, though.

Did you see the "view last X entries with active comments" suggestion? Perhaps being able to apply that to your reading would solve your problem?

I did, somewhere along the line, but (unless it's in this thread, and if so I'll find it in a bit) I'm not sure where it was I saw it, and don't have a lot of time atm to go hunting for it.

Pah, just done a quick scan (including the main suggestions page) and didn't find it. Anyone got a link?

Edited 2009-08-06 19:26 (UTC)

http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/26167.html

It's talking about communities, but if something like that could be applied to the reading page, too, that would be awesome. In fact, I think I will comment about that there.

Aaah yes, I must've seen it 'cause I voted "as is". :)

Ta dear.

I like the idea of it having a different look, especially if it were a different css class.

Edited after reading the rest of the comments to date to say: What I really want is some way to track changed posts at my discretion, so an implementation of that would be preferable to an implementation of "bumping," as far as I'm concerned.

Edited 2009-08-06 00:50 (UTC)

I'm not as against this as some people seem to be. When an entry has become important and kicked off discussions, and you go back and add an ETA that you want everyone to see, not just people going back to read comments, it would be good to have a neat way of saying, as you say, "hey, go back and read my edits to $entry!"

Similarly, I like the idea of using it once a month for community rules, particularly if it's clearly labelled as a bump.

If implemented, I'd suggest the post automatically cut-tagging itself, at least partially? (Or requiring some amount of text to be cut-tagged, if technically possible?) Basically, if it's not taking up a lot of screen real-estate on my reading list, I think it's a fine-to-useful thing. Great way to tell if there's breaking news.

I'd time-limit it to once every 28-50 hours or so. (Yes, that's deliberately more than "day" lengths.)

Alternatively, with no or few time limits, I'd let moderators of communities do it. If mods abuse their modpowers, it's probably not a very well-trafficked community anyway.

EDIT: If it were a thing people could opt out of seeing, perhaps allow opting into teeny notifications such as "Foo has bumped [link and post title]"?

...oooooo, I need to go make a suggestion. Self-sticky entries on your reading list so they show up at the top. Follow a conversation for a while, or put up something you mean to respond to...

Edited 2009-08-06 13:14 (UTC)

On the one hand, I could see how this would be very useful for updating certain kinds of posts (and possibly totally change the way people do fiction WIPs as well as news updates), and I would be interested in possibly doing it to some of my posts sometimes.

On the other hand, I can see how it could become utterly spamtastic and annoying and something I wouldn't want to see every time someone did it.

So possibly the track-edits route is better? Although the idea of something author-controlled is intriguing, it would be necessary to allow readers to have a great deal of control as well.

If implemented, I'd like it to be controlled by a reading filter option, ie do/don't show me bumps when I'm using this filter for my reading page. (Or maybe a similar mechanism. There may be downsides to associating it with reading filters.) Other than that, I like the idea.

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