Juy Loc: Delaware

I read yours, I still agree and see where Bill is coming from. Just my opinion and we all know about those. Cheers

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

More about perception than opinion because nothing has actually changed in a decade except the user names

srt101fan

My typing is way too slow to keep up with yours!!

Juy Loc: Delaware

Got me there.

Hip Coyote

About the same time I pay my dues for Bogleheads...never.

Right now there are about 100 or so signed on the UHH. There are over 1800 signed on to Bogleheads. I get it a money site has a broader appeal, but clearly the appeal of UHH is pretty small. For instance, I know of no one in my camera club who views it...this from people who are very well regarded published photogs. A few told me they simply cannot take the rancor that comes along with visiting this site. If the site can't attract those kids of users, it will remain what it is.

You spend enough time on UHH to be a content moderator. You have a high degree of tech technical expertise and could recognize when something is going off the rails. Rather than wasting your time responding to (and sometimes generating) snark, make better use of time to moderate the site. If I owned the site, I'd give you and a few others, authority to freeze subjects, moderate content, etc. I would bet that clicks would increase as would satisfaction with the site.

Edit- With moderation, old threads could be frozen avoiding zombie threads. Takes a few clicks.

You have some very long posts that would actually qualify as wikis. Those should be available in specific section for people to retrieve as needed. All it takes is a bit of imagination about what could be vs. what is.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I'd have to be paid in green to do more than my informal 'policing' of the things that interest me. As Linda noted, the subsections can (are) moderated a bit closer than the ADMIN-run main sections. I've only ever 'talked' to ADMIN via PM. The discussions are not very interactive, so one is left to 'sense' what ADMIN thinks rather than 'hear' directly. There seems to be a desire to maintain everything, in a total count sense. So, deleting old topics, users, posts is a last-case corrective action, based on my 'sense' of how ADMIN desires to operate the site. Freezing old topics seems to be outside their desired operating mode for their site.

Hip Coyote

Agreed. My interactions were the same. Its his circus. So, I now, with some exceptions, I spend maybe 10 minutes a day looking at the site and move on.

srt101fan

For me, zombie posts are not a big deal. Snarky and rude behavior does bother me. But there is other UHH behavior I find equally bothersome.

That includes overuse of thumbs and smileys as the only content of a post....

It includes people jumping into a thread with their comments while totally ignoring anything that's been said before....

And the folks that keep posting solutions to puzzles or inputs to surveys long after the OP closed the topic....

It's people insisting on saying things when they don't have anything to say....

And then there are the topic derailers....

It's folks that can't do a simple review of their posts to correct gross errors and improve the readability of their comments....

And the people who insist the world needs to know what they don't care about....

And more....

And yes, I've been guilty....😟

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I keep it open in the background while I work on other computer tasks, especially morning news watching / listening. An occasional refresh lets me monitor the updates / sections I care about.

The things I like to share as new threads tend to take a surprisingly long amount of (free)time to collect, edit, proof-read and finally post as 'new'. That differs greatly from a recent trend of simple cut-n-paste discussions I've noted. We all have other things to do that limit the 'thoughtful' posts people seem to be craving of late. To paraphrase Linda, if you want to see a change, 'be the change' and lead by example.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

One has to overlook these annoying every-one-does-it foibles ... there's no way to stop it. Even gentle reminders of where to post pictures rarely generates changed behavior(s). If you let these 'features' make you made, you'll just walk away like so many others.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I have suggested user pages to CHG_CANON but he has not yet picked up on it (as far as I can tell). User pages can hold up to something like 15,000 characters and are written just like a normal post. The advantage is that they can be edited at any time to correct or add or subtract information or update something in response to OS changes. You're not limited to a 1 hour edit window. You can edit them years later. They differ from a post in that other users can't add comments. When you write a user page, it is unlikely that anyone will see it until you release the URL by advertising it in a post. Anyone can see it if they go to your profile and look at the list of user pages, but that happens only rarely. User pages are not like wikis in that others can't edit them.

There are basically 3 ways to present constant information. (1) a normal post, which will collect comments (but could eventually become an old {zombie?} thread; (2) a PDF can be downloaded. The PDF will be stored in with UHH downloads so it will have a URL that could be referred to elsewhere; (3) the user page is similar, but editable. I have used all these methods and I believe the user page is the most flexible.

I believe a UHH user can have up to 100 user pages (I don't recall where I saw that number). They're easy to generate. How to create a user page

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Maybe next time I have such a topic I'll consider. The 'problem' is getting views / distribution. Some may note I try to post my topics into the Photo Gallery before 9am, as that seems to be the cut-off for getting enough views & comments to get a place on tomorrow's Daily Digest selection. I fear a user-page won't 'appear' anywhere to the majority of the site's users.

Schoee Loc: Europe

Thanks for that. I will keep an eye out for those.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

User pages don't appear anywhere except in the user's profile.

They make a handy resource storage area, and because each page has a url, you can link to each individually when referencing in a new public topic.

As DirtFarmer mentioned, two benefits are: you can update them as needed, and viewers can't comment in them.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Your user page won't appear in any section as a stand-alone thread. But you can use the URL to place it into any post in any thread. After you do that, it is available to anyone who reads that thread.

As an example, your post about Recommended resizing parameters for digital images, if created as a user page, could be added easily to any post in pretty much the same way you do it now. The only difference is that the new post would refer to a user page instead of an old (zombie?) post and the information could be kept up to date if there are any changes required at any time.

For example one part of the referenced post shows file sizes as a function of image quality.


When I was studying multiple compressions on jpgs I generated a comparison of file sizes as a function of image quality for different software. (the initial file was a tif). There was a fairly large difference for a given image depending on which software was used. ImageMagick did best below quality of 90, and FastStone was a factor of 3 higher in file size. Something like that could be referenced in an edit (I suspect that particular example is not all that important but illustrates the possibility).

So next time you have a tutorial or just something you post a lot, give a user page a try.