"Best of Xweb" (box) discussion thread

JimD

JimD

Waiting for Godot...
Moderator
Probably a year ago, Karl and I shelved the "Best of Xweb" (box) project due to real life issues. I decided to dust it off this weekend.

The Best Of Xweb content is based on specific TAG-ging of threads with established keywords. It is basically a series of links tied to specific TAG searches. At this time, only JimD or Karl will be able to add new categories to the Best of Xweb content thread. However, thread owners can add the specific TAGS shown in the box listing to make their new or existing posts appear in the desired category.

For example: If you created a great post on a targa top mod, you could use the Tags button in the upper left of the screen to add the tags "box exterior" and "box targa top". These two tags will cause your thread to appear in the overall exterior search results and the more specific targa top search results.

I am sure I have some errors already, so let me know if you run into a problem.

Let's see if this project has any value. I am sure there will be growing pains. If it doesn't work out, the box can always be deleted.
 
JimD said:
I decided to dust it off this weekend.
Click to expand...
Ye Gods, Jim!!
It all looks a bit "high-tech" for us "Southern Hemisphere" yokels!
I'll have to have an afternoon nap to get my oldie brain back into gear, and then give it some more attention. :rolleyes:

cheers, Ian Lawson - NZ
 
Jim, thank you for picking this back up. And to you and Karl for the prior development work. I really like this idea. Sort of like a relaxed version of "Wiki" I suppose.
Couple of questions/suggestions:
1) Where will the "Best of Xweb" be located? Perhaps in a separate forum like the "Wiki", or 'stickied' at the beginning of each forum? However that might get a little vague between the 'Discussion' and 'Workshop' sections.
2) Just to clarify, any thread can be tagged with a "box" tag and be included? Or will there be some sort of filtering process to assure appropriateness of the thread's content?
3) Is it possible for threads to be 'edited' when being tagged for this, to remove any unrelated off-topic talk? It would be nice to be able to clean things up so there aren't a lot of extremely long threads with only a handful of useful info.
Hope these made sense. Thanks again.
 
Sort of like a relaxed version of "Wiki" I suppose.

Yes it is like a relaxed, quickly updated version of the WIKI with very little load on the user. This was in fact created as a result of the threads with links that exist on the VWvortex. The software for this forum allows a simpler easier to maintain version of this sort of format.

Couple of questions/suggestions:

1) Where will the "Best of Xweb" be located? Perhaps in a separate forum like the "Wiki", or 'stickied' at the beginning of each forum? However that might get a little vague between the 'Discussion' and 'Workshop' sections.

At the moment it lives at the top of the Workshop forum.

2) Just to clarify, any thread can be tagged with a "box" tag and be included?

Technically, yes.

Or will there be some sort of filtering process to assure appropriateness of the thread's content?

Preferably there will be a filtering process. I have a list of threads I have saved aside and for example added a thread yesterday (the 124 heater core). My intention would be to edit the threads with the BOX tags if needed. The intent is to ensure that it is easy to get to valuable how to info as it is created and before someone gets to making a WIKI entry.

I would hope that people would send me an IM of threads they feel should be on the list, I would review, add the BOX tag with an appropriate secondary descriptor.

Along with that would be suggestions of additional BOX headings for the search system.

3) Is it possible for threads to be 'edited' when being tagged for this, to remove any unrelated off-topic talk? It would be nice to be able to clean things up so there aren't a lot of extremely long threads with only a handful of useful info.

As it is now, it is the whole thread, with all the wheat and the chaff. Sometimes the chaff is the means that led to the wheat so... If I were to get really motivated I might be able to make a summation PDF and append a post at the end. For some of the threads that are affected by Phukinbucket, I did make PDFs of the thread that have the pics, I will go through and add a post to those threads to add the PDF with pics. While I was doing the PDF creating activity we had a minor fire at our house and my wife fell breaking 9 ribs which got in the way of doing more around this.

It might be possible to make a new thread with copies of the original posts only. The intent of this was to reduce the barrier to finding good information as only a limited number of threads actually get summed up into a clean how to and then added to the WIKI. The WIKI is more about cleaned up how to and reference information where this is intended to be fast and easy curation to make many of the great how tos that are not all cleaned up, accessible.

This is not in any way intended to supplant the WIKI which is an amazing storehouse of info.

It would be nice if users who created something BOX worthy were to consider making a WIKI entry in the appropriate area with a cleaned up version of the how to.

Hope these made sense.

Yes they did. Hopefully my responses did as well.
 
Last edited:
ianlawson said:
Ye Gods, Jim!!
It all looks a bit "high-tech" for us "Southern Hemisphere" yokels!
I'll have to have an afternoon nap to get my oldie brain back into gear, and then give it some more attention. :rolleyes:

cheers, Ian Lawson - NZ
Click to expand...

You can handle it Ian! I believe in you! :)
 
Dr.Jeff said:
Jim, thank you for picking this back up. And to you and Karl for the prior development work. I really like this idea. Sort of like a relaxed version of "Wiki" I suppose.
Couple of questions/suggestions:
1) Where will the "Best of Xweb" be located? Perhaps in a separate forum like the "Wiki", or 'stickied' at the beginning of each forum? However that might get a little vague between the 'Discussion' and 'Workshop' sections.
2) Just to clarify, any thread can be tagged with a "box" tag and be included? Or will there be some sort of filtering process to assure appropriateness of the thread's content?
3) Is it possible for threads to be 'edited' when being tagged for this, to remove any unrelated off-topic talk? It would be nice to be able to clean things up so there aren't a lot of extremely long threads with only a handful of useful info.
Hope these made sense. Thanks again.
Click to expand...
Hi dr. Jeff,

Karl pretty much covered your questions. I will just add a few comments:
  • We should probably add a link and reminder regarding the Wiki at the top of the box.
  • Any thread can be box tagged, but only mods, Karl and thread starters can add tags. Hopefully that cuts down on jokesters boxing threads for fun.
  • We will not be editing threads. The cross talk and chatter is Xweb. Many times it draws out more info. Not always obviously :D
  • There will be one sticky for the box and it made sense to me for it to exist in the WF.
Thanks for taking an interest Dr Jeff. We will see how it works out going forward. It is a work in progress.
 
Thanks guys for all of the answers. Sounds like a really great project, with a lot of work involved. Hopefully (for the sake of those doing all that work) it will develop to allow a smooth 'semi-automatic' operation as things progress.

I think the workshop forum is a good location, I imagine the vast majority of content will be (and should be) technical type stuff. Although unfortunately the distinction between 'discussion' and 'workshop' can be very blurred; has there been consideration of combining those into one forum?

Perhaps this might be more of a personal preference, but to me it would be much more effective as a resource if the threads could be cleaned up a little. Maybe not to the point of the Wiki's "how to's", but at least to drop some of the off-topic banter and 'poor humor' type crap that I have been very guilty of padding so many threads with. At the time it was fun, but when I want to get some info on a topic it becomes very annoying to wade through all the (my) stupidity to get it. I'll try and be more aware of that in the future. But for this purpose it is a deterrent.
Here is a thought. For each thread to be considered for the "best of", the original starter of the thread is asked to clean it up before it becomes included. That takes the workload off you guys and makes the person requesting its inclusion the responsible party (which might help deter a lot of non relevant threads being submitted). Also maybe each "best of" thread could have a link to the unaltered version for those that want all the padding, with only the trimmed version appearing in the "best of"? [that might be what Karl was referring to earlier]

Overall this is great. I have a long list of bookmarked threads for my personal reference. But there are so many more that I either missed, forgot to bookmark, or later wish I had. And the "search" function hasn't worked well for me. So trying to find relevant content is frustrating. This should alleviate that difficulty and provide a place to more easily find info. And I agree, many of the "best of" threads could later be improved and made Wiki material.
Thanks again for all the hard work guys.
 
Dr.Jeff said:
Thanks guys for all of the answers. Sounds like a really great project, with a lot of work involved. Hopefully (for the sake of those doing all that work) it will develop to allow a smooth 'semi-automatic' operation as things progress.

I think the workshop forum is a good location, I imagine the vast majority of content will be (and should be) technical type stuff. Although unfortunately the distinction between 'discussion' and 'workshop' can be very blurred; has there been consideration of combining those into one forum?

Perhaps this might be more of a personal preference, but to me it would be much more effective as a resource if the threads could be cleaned up a little. Maybe not to the point of the Wiki's "how to's", but at least to drop some of the off-topic banter and 'poor humor' type crap that I have been very guilty of padding so many threads with. At the time it was fun, but when I want to get some info on a topic it becomes very annoying to wade through all the (my) stupidity to get it. I'll try and be more aware of that in the future. But for this purpose it is a deterrent.
Here is a thought. For each thread to be considered for the "best of", the original starter of the thread is asked to clean it up before it becomes included. That takes the workload off you guys and makes the person requesting its inclusion the responsible party (which might help deter a lot of non relevant threads being submitted). Also maybe each "best of" thread could have a link to the unaltered version for those that want all the padding, with only the trimmed version appearing in the "best of"? [that might be what Karl was referring to earlier]

Overall this is great. I have a long list of bookmarked threads for my personal reference. But there are so many more that I either missed, forgot to bookmark, or later wish I had. And the "search" function hasn't worked well for me. So trying to find relevant content is frustrating. This should alleviate that difficulty and provide a place to more easily find info. And I agree, many of the "best of" threads could later be improved and made Wiki material.
Thanks again for all the hard work guys.
Click to expand...

Dr Jeff,

Editing: The original thread owner can only clean up his own comments. So it would be up to the original author to start a new thread and recreate the content in a clean manner. At that point, they may as well have created a Wiki entry. They could make the Wiki entry an add a link to it in their original post. The work load is minimal if we just accept the existing thread as is.

Combining DF and WF: Xweb 1.0 was comprised of discussion forum and a FS&W forum. Folks complained that it was too hard to find tech stuff, so the WF was born. Then the NFC. Then the sub-forums for non X1/9 Fiats. I don't think we are going back. The mod team recently went thru the last 50 paged or so of the DF and WF looking for mis-categorized posts and moving them to the proper forum. We try to do that on the fly, but we do miss things. Sometimes I get PMs from members asking me to move threads and I do so if I think it is appropriate.

What goes in the box: As it stands right now, only myself, Karl and the original thread author can tag a post for the box. I think it will become clear pretty quickly if someone decided to spam the box with all their own threads. It is easy to un-box things, but I really don't expect it to happen.

Padding threads with crap: I get it, I used to respond to a lot more posts with random thoughts. I don't post nearly as much anymore, but probably still too much for some people. :)
 
JimD said:
The original thread owner can only clean up his own comments.
Click to expand...
I did not realize that, thought they could edit all content in their thread. I get what you are saying, it is a lot easier to put the whole thread into the 'best of'.
Is there a way I can view any thread, edit it as I please, and save it somewhere for my personal reference - without ruining the original thread?
 
Dr.Jeff said:
I did not realize that, thought they could edit all content in their thread. I get what you are saying, it is a lot easier to put the whole thread into the 'best of'.
Is there a way I can view any thread, edit it as I please, and save it somewhere for my personal reference - without ruining the original thread?
Click to expand...

I suppose you could save the thread to your PC as a PDF and work on it.
 
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