The Sink: It's not just about preservation... — OZONE Asylum, home of the Mad Scientists

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The Sink: It's not just about preservation...

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Your Text: Insert Slimies » Insert UBB Code » Close Last Tag \| All Tags UBB Help	OK, I have recently been given a pair of spectacles and a nice big fat stamp and asked to help clean up the sink. I have been quite busy this past week, and haven't actually gotten around to cleaning anything up yet, but I stopped by the sink again today to check things out and noticed that there are now more threads in there than there were when I first took a look (about a week ago). I know that the Mad Scis are working hard to get the sink under control, but it would appear that it is a losing battle (which, I imagine, is why you guys were desperate enough to call me in). I spoke with TP about this briefly, and asked him what sort of threads he preserves and what sort of threads he deletes. He gave me his views on the matter, and mentioned that, while he preserves about thirty percent of the threads he views, he doesn't delete the remaining seventy percent. This makes sense, of course, since one man's trash is another man's treasure. If TP deleted every single thread he didn't preserve, we would basically get an archive skewed to his tastes. If everyone acted this way, we would get archives skewed to the tastes of whoever acted the quickest. No one wants this, and thus the reluctance to delete threads. The fact of the matter, though, is that there are only two ways that threads leave the sink: either they get preserved and then archived (if I understand the process correctly), or they get deleted. Threads that no one touches just sit in the sink mildewing. It is my opinion (consider it an outsider opinion, as I still have very little experience dealing with the sink) that, while preserving is indeed very important and probably the primary responsibility of those wearing the latex gloves, taking out the trash is also very important. But how do we overcome the natural aversion to deleting threads? I have heard that a single member of a firing squad was, at random, given a rifle with a blank instead of a live cartridge. That way, when they all fired at the doomed person, they could each tell themselves that they had the blank and thus cope with the reality that they regularly killed defenseless people. Is this true? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's just a justification invented by someone who has never killed before and doesn't want to admit that human beings are capable of such ruthlessness. But that's not really the point. The point is that a blank would indeed allow an escape from responsibility, whether justified or not. What I would like to propose is actually a bit different from the blank idea, but it will allow us as individuals to escape the burden of responsibility for regularly killing defenseless threads, and will thus allow us to clean out the sink more efficiently. My idea is this: rather than have a single person be responsible for deleting a thread, we have a tally system. For example, instead of having a single delete action put into motion by clicking on the delete link, we have that link create a "vote" (similar to the voting in the FAQ). The current number of votes against would be displayed next to the link: "Delete (There are currently 2 votes to delete this thread)". Then, when three votes are accrued, the delete link would be replaced by a message that says "Deletion Impending". The thread would then be automatically deleted 24 hours after the third deletion vote is cast. Of course, at any point along the way (including during the "deletion impending" stage), a Mad Sci (or Mad Lib... hehe, mad lib) say, "Whoa, we don't want this to be deleted!" Then he or she could take the necessary steps to preserve the thread. I believe that this system will help solve our problem in two ways: Firstly, it will encourage people to vote for deletion because they will not have to deal with the full burden of responsibility. Say you come across a thread that you think is worthless, but there are no votes for deletion yet. You can, with a clear conscience, click on delete, knowing that two other people have to agree with you for action to be taken. Likewise, you come across a thread that you think should be deleted, and you notice that it already has two votes for deletion. You can, again with a clear conscience, click on delete, knowing that two other people already feel the way you do, and if someone really wants to preserve this thread they can still do so within the next 24 hours (we could even have a link in the sink that would display "deletion impending" threads so people can see them all at a glance). Likewise, if it becomes easier to delete threads, people may become more diligent in preserving the the threads they don't want to see deleted. If we had the "deletion impending" page, for example, we could take a quick look at the page at certain points throughout the day, make sure that nothing there is something we would like to see preserved, and then let nature (so to speak) take its course. Also, if we are browsing through the threads in the sink and we notice that a thread already has a vote or two against it, we can then immediately choose to preserve it. This system would ideally create a situation where a MS or ML would never look at a thread in the sink without taking an action. As it is now, I imagine that there are a whole bunch of threads that people look at and say, "Well, I don't want to preserve this, but maybe someone else will," and nothing ever happens. For example, there is one thread in particular that I noticed when I first looked at the sink and thought, "Gee this looks like a perfect candidate for deletion." I even mentioned this to TP, and he agreed. One week later, the thread is still there. This is, of course, as much my fault as anyone else's, but I think the greater fault lies in the current system. Under the new system, we wouldn't have to think to ourselves, "Gee, I'd like to see this deleted, but someone else might not." We could vote for deletion, essentially saying, "Hey, I think this should be deleted. If you agree with me, vote for deletion. If not, get off your butt and preserve it." The current system encourages inaction, while the new system would encourage action. There would no longer be any reason to simply pass over a thread, and I believe this would lead to faster archiving and deletion, and thus faster clearing of the sink. I do, of course, understand that this will require extra coding, possibly a significant amount of extra coding. I also know that this task will likely fall to TP, who at this very moment is probably struggling to identify some obscure plant. I believe that if we are really serious about cutting the sink down to size, though, drastic measures are called for. If we only focus on preservation and leave deletion to take care of itself, we are doomed to a sink that will continue to grow until it blots out the sun from the sky, dooming us to eternal winter. OK, maybe I got a bit carried away there, but I feel pretty strongly about this. Opinions, improvements, and other ideas are welcome. Thank you for your time, The Librarian [Edit: This system is based on the premise that most people think like I do. If I am wrong, of course, this sytem won't work. From where I'm standing, though, it's the best I can come up with.] ___________________________ Suho: [url=http://www.liminality.org]www.liminality.org[/url] \| [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/4837]Cell 270[/url] \| [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/5689]Sig Rotator[/url] \| [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/22173]the Fellowship of Sup[/url] \| "Hooray for linguistic idiots and yak milk!" [small](Edited by [internallink=2031]Suho1004[/internallink] on 07-10-2004 05:09)[/small] Loading...
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