SHORT VERSION
LONG VERSIONWe have made a change to the way the commenting system works on Inward Quest. It now works similarly to the way that the commenting system on the original Inward Quest site worked. That site ran for more than 2 years and, while there was a considerable amount of valuable information exchanged, it rarely suffered from general chat/discussions which were not focused on the original question or answer. EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS HAVE CHANGED The change we have now implemented is this:
This change was brought into operation on Inward Quest on Tuesday, April 9. We've been monitoring the effects of the change on the site closely and we are satisfied with the effect it is having so far. In addition, we have 2+ years of evidence, based upon our experiences with operating the first Inward Quest site, that this is an effective approach that doesn't interfere with on-topic freedom of expression. A WARNING We are aware that some users may attempt to circumvent the revised comment notification system and create artificial two-way chat conversations on Inward Quest through posting to each other's non-relevant questions/answers, in order to generate email notifications to each other. We will take the view that anyone who posts random comments around the site for this purpose rather than using the Chatbox (or Facebook page) is intent on disrupting the normal operations of the site rather than genuinely contributing to it. Accounts involved in this activity will be suspended without warning. The moderators have been more lenient up to now with longer-term users of the site. This will no longer be the case. We have long provided the "Live Chat" box, in the right column of every question page, for unrestricted two-way user interactions, anonymous if necessary, without needing to clutter any existing question/answer. NO FURTHER CHANGES The original Inward Quest site did not register comments as a change to a question thread, so comments did not cause the question to appear back at the top of the active questions list. At this time, we are not implementing this further change on this second Inward Quest site. This means it will still be straightforward to find questions that have had recent comment activity just by looking at what has changed in the active questions list. No changes have been made to any other form of email notification e.g. questions/answers being posted, new users joining, daily activity digests etc. No further changes are planned on Inward Quest at this time to deal with 'chatter'. THANK YOU Thank you all for your viewpoints and suggestions. They have been instrumental in helping us decide how to approach this matter. We acknowledge the strength of feeling against imposing blanket restrictions on the comments themselves, and so we have deliberately sought out strategies that have avoided doing so. All that we have really done is bring the comment notification system of this second Inward Quest site (to which we were forced to move in Dec/Jan 2012) more in line with the way the original Inward Quest site operated (from Oct 2009). Simon
showing 3 of 6
show 3 more comments
|
The question has been closed for the following reason "No longer relevant" by Barry Allen 20 Jun '13, 09:40
If you are seeing this message then the Inward Quest system has noticed that your web browser is behaving in an unusual way and is now blocking your active participation in this site for security reasons. As a result, among other things, you may find that you are unable to answer any questions or leave any comments. Unusual browser behavior is often caused by add-ons (ad-blocking, privacy etc) that interfere with the operation of our website. If you have installed these kinds of add-ons, we suggest you disable them for this website
When we edit older questions and answers (I read a lot of them), they appear back at the top. I would like to edit some of them but I don't because of this function. I also see other users editing their old questions and answers again and again. What about changing that function? Maybe only editings with a written reason should appear back, not those where we just correct a word or so.
If they are genuine edits then I don't see a problem. It is part of the natural flow and recycling of questions that happens on the site. There is generally no such thing as an old question on Inward Quest since most of the information is fairly timeless. We are aware of those users who try to manipulate the questions list through editing their questions/answers. We haven't taken action up to now but if it becomes a nuisance to others, we will.
@everyone : I won't be answering any further questions or comments on the main Inward Quest site to avoid interrupting the flow of the site. Please use the support site, IQ Meta, for further questions relating to the site operations: http://meta.inwardquest.com/ . If you cannot log in or have forgotten your password, you can reset it here: http://meta.inwardquest.com/account/tempsignin/
This seems a pretty fair solution. About the editing, I agree with releaser99 I have a lot of old questions that I would like to fix because my writing has improved since I first started. I don't really care if they end back at the top. I just care about their clarity.
agrees with Wade. I have a better spell checker now too ;)
I don't think that anyone is trying to manipulate. Sometimes, like others, I just want to edit one word in a sentence (because of my poor English skills). Or I just want to insert line breaks in some of my answers or in answers of others. This makes the text more readable. And maybe others also shy away from editing because of the function. So maybe by removing the "let-edited-question-always-appear-at-the-top-function" it could improve the quality of this site.