Behinds the scenes, the redesign is in full progress. We have seen a number of different mockups (I AM VERY EXCITED!!), I am authoring a new privacy and commenting policy, and there is just a ton of changes and fixes in the works. One of the things we have done is completely get rid of tags (sorry Adam), and we are currently streamlining the 500 or so categories, 450 appear to have been used under 50 times. I just wanted to let you all know that we are still working on this, and at some point in the future we will have a call for volunteers to try to break the new site as testers.
That is all. I’m sure I have forgotten 40 things I was supposed to say and Watergirl is going to send me a dozen emails but you know what it is beautiful outside and I will just lie to her and tell her I left my phone inside and did not see them.
Ohio Mom
Godspeed.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Gawd, I hope she remembers to put them in ALL CAPS.
WaterGirl
I guess I will just have to start sending my emails to John in ALL CAPS. Maybe he will read them then. :-)
edit: Bill, you posted your comment as I was typing mine. Great minds and all that.
SFAW
Does that mean we will no longer be allowed to abuse trolls verbally? Will serial-nym/nom-changers get their figurative peepees whacked? (Smedley D and Bella Q excluded, of course) Will “also, too” be forbidden?
Will people only be allowed to post intelligent, well-thought-out comments? [OK, that’s a bridge too far.]
Will we FINALLY be allowed to sing loudly the praises of the junior Senator from Vermont, without being subjected to abuse?
And … what about … Naomi?
schrodingers_cat
Bragging about lying, very T like. Next stop, lolitics!
OzarkHillbilly
If you want somebody to irreparably break it, I’m the man.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Was that a general comment, or about something in particular? Not complaining, just seeking a pointer.
Gin & Tonic
Is “authoring” like “writing” but fancier?
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW:
Lord, I hope so.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW:
Of course not.
Are you nuts? I see you walked that back a bit.
Hell no.
//
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: Yes.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t think smashing your monitor with a 24-ounce framer, or even a nine-pound hammer, is what Cole is talking about. But if he is, I’m sure you’ll be the first person contacted
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
OK, good. I was worried for a moment there.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW:
What you scream at your monitor is between you and your computer and none of our business.
Gin & Tonic
@?BillinGlendaleCA: One of the finest prose stylists of American English, Red Smith, once wrote “you author it and I’ll reader it.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW: I think our hillbilly friend is much more resourceful than you give him credit for.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: I can fuck up a wet dream if it is on the web, no 24 oz framing hammer necessary. Just ask my wife.
chris
This is great news! Tired of looking at my phone to see the posted pictures.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ll attempt to be more accurate in my writing in the future. “Verbally” was the worng word to use, of course.
But at least I didn’t split my infinitives. I would hate to really do that.
schrodingers_cat
@SFAW:
I was just pulling Birdman’s leg.
@Gin & Tonic: It is to writing what curating is to collecting.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
She’s already told me. Countless times. She’s a saint, I tells ya, putting up with the likes of you.
Sorta like Mrs. SFAW (putting up with me, not you, wise guy).
schrodingers_cat
@SFAW: I thought you were a cranky old lady, not a guy.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
OK. I’m guessing “Birdman” is Cole? (Due to his recent string of Wild Kingdom posts?)
Gad, I hate that word, now that it’s being applied to everything from t-shirts to belly-button lint to jug wines.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not. Not about the “cranky” and “old” parts, of course.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Splitting things is what I inevitably do, logs, marriages, infinitives…
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW:
You sure about that?
Baud
If Cole’s excited, I’m scared. But I trust WaterGirl.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Umm … well …
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
My new fingers-on-blackboard word, which I had to hear from the mouth of the person presiding over a faculty meeting about 1000 times, is “mentee.”
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
So you’re not just a pretty face.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I just looked at my Harriet Tubman $20, it says “In Watergirl We Trust”.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Actually, my face is split too, but I didn’t do that, some butcher with a scalpel did.
(actually, he did a pretty good job of it, the only sign of the surgery is that the frown lines on that side of my face are about 75 degrees off from the ones on the other side of my face)
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Is mentee a smaller mento?
schrodingers_cat
@SFAW: You and me both. I have had it with fashion bloggers curating their wardrobe. For fuck’s sake you are not some royalty you have a closet with J Crew clothes which are not irreplaceable treasures,
Pat Mc
Have you considered an ad-free ‘subscription’ option for say $50 per year? I’d bite…
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
I hear ya. Some of the “ads” on WBUR (NPR station in Boston, but I expect you already knew that) talk about various foods or something-or-other being “curated.” I am not as quick to turn it off as I am when I hear the Traitor-in-Chief’s voice, but it’s close.
ETA: To me, “curating” is something applied to museums, fine art, etc. Not this pedestrian crap being passed of as haute culture.
joel hanes
tags
I, for one, shall miss them.
But carry on.
Villago Delenda Est
So, new commenting policy. Is this going to be like Wonkette’s “no commenting commenting” policy?
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Good one!
SFAW
@Pat Mc:
What? Are you nuts? Are you telling me you DON’T look forward to clicking on links for [scans right column]:
“The Average Science Fan Only Gets 7 Right! Can You Beat That?”
“33 Hilarious Airport Signs”
“3 Ways Your Cat Asks for Help”
and “Tighten Your Skin From The Comfort Of Your Home”?
Commie.
Villago Delenda Est
@SFAW: “3 Ways Your Cat Asks for Help”
1. Meowing incessantly in your ear at 3 in the morning
2. Running around like a cheetah on hardwood floors
3. Scratching your leg to shreds
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Only way to find out is by dropping one into an appropriately-sized container of Coke.
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
I read that, and I think of a “Little Feat” (I think it was) song which starts out with the guy yelling at the croaking frog to “Shut UP!!!”
ETA: Google tells me it’s “Down on the Farm.”
Major Major Major Major
I’m down.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pat Mc: Someone mentioned this kind of thing before. I think having a two levels of commentariat is a bad idea.
bemused senior
Donation in lieu of ads seems great to me. Not the same as two levels of commentariot.
rikyrah
Thanks for keeping us updated, Cole :)
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW:
*puts on librarian hat*
Curation is an umbrella term for the creation and maintenance of anything that fits the following definition: “a collection organized for use.”
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, actually, “curate” is more like “select, organize, and look after the items in (a collection or exhibition)” with the implied usage being for a special, one-time, or limited-run event or events. “Curated,” as currently overused, is not that different from “300 of my closest Facebook friends.” Its current overuse is a bullshit attempt to impart a certain level of “class” to things that are as “classy” as Mad Dog 20/20 and Bazooka bubblegum. The next step is the use of “bespoke” for clothing available at TJ Maxx, etc.
schrodingers_cat
@SFAW: Exactly, museums have curators, just having any run-of-mill collection doesn’t make you a curator. In that case I am a curator of jewelry, clothes, books and pens. STN
zhena gogolia
Trying to decide if I’m ready to slap a Kamala sticker on my bumper (next to Hillary, Obama-Biden, and Kerry Edwards).
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
And a fine one you are!
p.a.
I don’t care what it looks like, don’t care about tags, don’t care about searchability, just fix the dogdamned interminable loading time (video ads Video Ads VIDEO ADS ?????)
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW:
This is incorrect. The definition I gave above was, as of 2012, the definition they were teaching in LIS school, which is a pretty good place to look for a definition of such a thing.
So if your t-shirts were carefully selected (for whatever context), and then organized in such a way as to make the collection easily usable (for whatever the target audience is, even if it’s yourself), congratulations, you have a curated collection of shirts. Bonus points if you do lifecycle maintenance and icebox/toss them when they’re no longer appropriate.
As long as we’re getting into terms of art, everything in a collection is a ‘document’ for LIS purposes, including, famously, gazelles.
ETA: We should be happy that anybody who acts deliberately and understands the fundamental principles of selection and purposeful organization can be a curator! Who are we to say whether the items or purpose of a collection is blue-blooded enough to use the word?
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Not to worry. The guy who isn’t even keeping his blue-colored comments in the site rebuild because he wants everyone to be on equal footing in the comments is never gonna let that happen.
The thinking going forward is to have fewer and smarter ads, and no autoplay ads — enough to pay for the blog and web hosting, which is not cheap — but not so many ads that the site is essentially unusable, as it has been for many of us. The proof will be in the pudding, but that’s the plan.
WaterGirl
If all goes as intended, I am planning to put up a post this weekend with a more detailed update and some mockups — so you can get an idea of where we’re going with the rebuild and ask any questions you might have.
We are in the design and mockup phase for just another few days; after that the actual programming starts. And once the programming begins, there’s not a lot of room for adding functionality or changing the look, the fonts, the overall design, or anything, really.
So your chance to share your thoughts in a productive way will be in the next few days, not once the site goes live.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: I hate it already.
Amir Khalid
@zhena gogolia:
The word “mentee” makes me think of a marine mammal.
TenguPhule
Oh John, you should know better then to ask this of us.
NotMax
@SFAW
So “crazy cat lady” is out and “cat curator” is in?
Ruckus
@SFAW:
If one didn’t pass off pedestrian crap as haute culture how would they have any culture at all?
Jeeezze man give them a break. Their lives are small, their worlds are not much bigger and someone paid for all that education which they don’t remember any of.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: only if the cats are organized for use.
NotMax
(*twirls mustache, rubs palms together in glee*)
:)
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s a pretty big out you’ve got there.
Like bigger than the whole outdoors big.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
BTW, a happy birthday. IIRC it is sometime this week.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
Don’t you use a TS80 running Dos 1.2?
With 90% of the functionality removed?
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Although I love (in a figurative sense) and respect my local librarians, I do not necessarily consider a “term of art” used in one (relatively) small area to be broadly applicable to the world in general. There are a fair amount of “terms of art” which mean one thing within a particular discipline, and something different in general usage.
ETA: At some level, it’s not too dissimilar from the argument that PhDs shouldn’t be called “Doctor,” only MDs, even though PhDs came many years before MDs (in terms of being “doctors.”
NotMax
@Ruckus
On the wish list for the next hardware upgrade.
:)
SFAW
@Ruckus:
If it weren’t for low class, I wouldn’t have any class at all.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: I’m not the one who sets the standards for what is and is not considered curation!
To quibble, I actually think a collection of cats that is organized for use would be difficult to manage, it would be like… herding cats.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
That’s a better answer than the one I was expecting.
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
The definition you provided listed no requirement that the collection be managed, merely collected.
SFAW
@NotMax:
What are you using now, a Heathkit?
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: it is considered applicable to any non-LIS collection, and we would prefer it to be used that way in common parlance, because the democratization of information management is considered a cornerstone of the entire library/museum/gallery/wildlife preserve/etc. philosophy. It’s a good thing if people take a mindful approach to managing their collections, whatever they may be made of! And, given that it’s now common parlance (the yardstick by which definition is measured), we have succeeded.
@NotMax: thanks! ‘Twas yesterday.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ve been told this can be done. I’m a wee bit skeptical.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
Are you my dad?
NotMax
Will we be able to say things such as penis roulette without having to jump through hoops?
:)
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW: organization of a collection is an ongoing process. One must make sure one’s records are up to date. And if the collection is ever used one must make sure things are re-filed correctly. If nobody ever uses something one must reconsider its place in the collection.
ETA if the collection is made of something ambulatory then it should be self-evident that it will require periodic re-organization in order to stay organized.
Without this ongoing process, it is no longer curated and becomes, to use another term of art, “a pile of books.”
Ruckus
@NotMax:
I seem to recall that we were told the other day that men with mustaches were not to be trusted. Now I can see why.
I’m still not shaving mine off.
Saw a man with a huge waxed handlebar stash the other day. He laughed when I took off my hat and told him that the stash and beard are just gravity acting over time.
NotMax
@Ruckus
God made very few perfect heads. The rest she put hair on.
;)
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Good that you are getting your opinion on the record right away!
SFAW
@Ruckus:
Not that I wouldn’t be proud to be your father and all that shit, but I think — if my memory is correct — you’re older than I am. If that’s the case, then I’d have to pull an “I’m My Own Grandpa” thing.
SFAW
@NotMax:
You might be able to do so, but under what circumstances would that phrase be appropriate?
Or is that a Hawaiii thing?
Sister Golden Bear
@WaterGirl: FWIW, I’m professional UX designer with 20+ years of experience. Plus, my company is going through a major accessibility redesign effort. Happy to offer my thoughts and advice in the design.
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
By the LIS, no doubt.
I’m guessing there are other terms of art, used by the practitioners of said art, which those practitioners consider applicable to the world in general — but the world in general might beg to differ.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid:Baby manatee!
NotMax
@SFAW
Every fad has to start somewhere.
:)
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW:
This conversation literally started with you complaining about how the world in general is using a term. I chimed in to say that it was also technically correct (the best kind of correct). Now you are saying that terms of art don’t count and it’s common usage that counts. Common usage which in this case almost perfectly matches the term of art. I iz confused.
ETA if you just want to complain about kids these days and their t-shirts, go ahead, I was just annoyed by the literal “well ACTUALLY” I got
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Are we really going to get into a pissing contest over this?
I complained about its overuse, and likely misuse, by the general public. At which point you told me that the LIS term of art makes it all A-OK for the general public, because (I guess) the LIS determines how that particular word is used, or should be used, by the general public.
I think it’s lovely that LIS has its own set of terms of art. When I was doing engineering work, we also had our own terms of art; some of those terms were used by the general public, but not in the way engineers use them. Maybe I should start telling the general public that their use of those terms must be identical to how engineers use them.
I’m wondering if the LIS also has its own “term of art” re: the words “run” and “set.” Yes, I’m being an asshole. Which may also be a term of art, but not sure in which discipline.
schrodingers_cat
@SFAW: M4 once told me how the original Sanskrit meaning of karma is irrelevant because of the prevalent wrong usage in the western English speaking world.
Its the librarian’s burden he can’t help it.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
That was you?
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW:
Since you seem to think popular usage of a word can also be incorrect (putting you at odds with most lexicographers), I thought you might want to know what the umbrella discipline that trains many kinds of curators thinks. They ought to know about the correct usage of the term.
Speaking of lexicographers,
Gravenstone
@Villago Delenda Est:
Let’s get real here.
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Gotta tell you, at least one reader loves this argument and hopes it goes on for a couple more days.
That might be the same reader who was party to a 3- or 4-day argument on Slashdot back in the day about the usage and history of *one Cyrillic letter.*
debbie
@SFAW:
How about curated listicles?
lee
Sweet! I can’t wait for the threaded comments that allow upvoting!!
/s