text:
Why I've found that online communities on media sites always seem doomed to fail
by Martin Belam, February 2, 2015
I've spent a long time over the years working at media companies and specifically around the software and design that supports commenting and forums. Having watched the Guardian close the "You Tell Us" thread last week, I thought I might jot down some thoughts I have about the experience.
I want to say up front, I love the interactivity of the web. And I think it is a mistake that news companies currently seem to be out-sourcing a lot of the commenting on their articles out to Twitter and Facebook, rather than run it themselves. A lot of people think comments on news sites are toxic, but I'd argue that's often because they are poorly run, and the company doesn't really know why it has them. I certainly get annoyed at journalists who are sniffy towards "below the line" commenters, a snobbish attitude that I think belongs back when it was much harder for readers to question your pieces.
At the moment we don't have comments on the Mirror site where I work, and I must confess it is a slight relief not to be immediately called a twat every time I press publish, but equally I find sites without comments don't feel as alive. You know an article has had an impact when it has generated hundreds of comments.
But it is forums and communities that I wanted to focus on, with respect to "You Tell Us". It strikes me as the latest in a long line of similar online communities I've been involved in, and I wanted to try and draw out a commonality that they all have. And it may not make welcome reading for those who have devoted such a long time to participating in them.
There are five communities over the years that I wanted to particularly look at – the BBC's old Doctor Who message boards, the BBC Points Of View board, the BBC's Archers messageboards, and the Guardian's Talkboards and "You Tell Us" thread. They are all places that I've enjoyed dipping into and contributing too, sometimes as just a chit-chatty contributor, and sometimes in a more official capacity.
And this is what I think binds them together.
1. The behaviour of the regular users becomes self-limiting for the community as a whole
What I've seen again and again is that a hardcore knot of the community become hyperactive on the board, and this begins to inhibit new users from posting. A classic example, from the Points Of View boards, would be that someone would post saying they think Bruno was being a bit harsh on Strictly with his judging. A regular would immediately reply along the lines of "yes we've done this topic to death, there's a thread from the last series here." It's not a welcome. It's an intimidating conversation killer.
If you ever start saying that to the community, they immediately accuse you of lying, and say that no they welcome people with open arms. It doesn't matter that you can see the metrics on new registrations and new posters. It doesn't matter that you've done user-testing sessions where you've shown people the boards and they've told you that they'd quite like to post but they wouldn't because it feels unfriendly. The community can't see it.
2. The community believes they are representative of the primary audience
After a while communities like this become pretty fixed in their size, with a shared bunch of in-jokes and references. But a key thing seems to happen. They seem to begin to think and act like they are the key primary audience of the media company. Of course we are, they say, who uses your website more than us? We're here every day, hanging out, and commenting on your programmes or discussing your articles.
It's really hard to convey to them what an edge case they are – only a minority of users ever comment, and only a fraction of those will post more than a few comments during the lifetime of their active account. The activity of commenters and forum posters is a classic Zipf curve. I once calculated that "At least 20% of the comments left on the Guardian website each month come from only 2,600 user accounts" at a time when the audience of the website as a whole was in the order of 70 million.
3. The community consequently over-estimates their worth to the organisation
This again I have seen happen over and over. When the BBC closed the Archers messageboard, there was one contributor who was invited on the radio and insisted that corporations would kill to have the dedicated kind of user feedback on their product that the Archers messageboard was giving them about their programme. It isn't true. If self-selecting forums were a key way of getting user insight, every corporation in the world would be falling over themselves to run messageboards.
Likewise, on the Guardian, at the time of #Nestgate [see here and here to understand what #Nestgate was] and again with the closure of "You Tell Us", posters insist that it is going to cost the organisation revenue. With an audience now approaching 100 million online, there is literally no way that the incremental page views of a group of a couple of thousand people posting in the same threads every day is going to negatively affect the bottom line. Closing all comments might, but closing individual bits of community while making comments easier to get into for casual posters won't.
And the business knows this, because it can see all the figures.
4. Change becomes a source of conflict with the organisation
I was Head of UX when there were several unpopular changes to the Guardian commenting system, and I was a Product Manager at the BBC when we migrated Points Of View from the howerd2 system to the DNA system. These were deeply difficult projects, not for the technical complexity, but for managing the messaging to the users. "You've destroyed this community", "You don't listen to us", "You don't know what you are doing" were the kind of comments I would get swamped with.
The community can't see that they aren't the only users of a system, or the only potential audience, or seem to remember that they've just spent two years telling you how shit the current system is before suddenly falling head-over-heels in love with it the second you announce it is going to change.
And in two years time it all happens again, as the same voices that swore blind they would never post again because of your changes are leading a charge against whatever tech changes come next.
That isn't to say that development and design work was flawless. For example, I'm personally the idiot who signed off a design banner on the BBC website that was basically a big advert for Sky TV.
But, and this is important, commenting and forums are never as "mission critical" for the organisation as the community involved believe them to be. They are never a big ticket project.
And I'll never forget that I once moved POV from being threaded to flat, and the Guardian once moved comments from being flat to threaded, and the arguments against the changes I saw were exactly the same each time – "this makes it harder to follow conversations." It can't possibly be objectively true.
5. The community lashes out at the people in the organisation who care most about it
Closing the Guardian Talkboards was without doubt the worst weekend of my career to date. At some point in the future, I'll maybe write a long post about it. It wasn't done in a way that anybody in the frontline at the Guardian would have chosen, and generated a lot of bad blood. I was pleased to note the other day that one of the "life rafts" that users scrambled to – Not The Talk – is still going.
But it also illustrated another point about dealing with this kind of community.
It is usually the staff who care most about that community that end up bearing the brunt of the abuse from it.
It's hideously ironic. You can spend hours debating internally what you should or shouldn't do with a user community and the software you provide for them. But at the end of the day in all these situations there's usually only a couple of people at a media company who are prepared, or whose job it is, to front up with names and faces and enter the debate.
I've seen it over and over again, and usually been the chump prepared to front up and enter the discussion. It's demoralising – as you watch a community you've enjoyed being a part of you turn on you and refuse to countenance any argument that their individual community isn't entirely the same as "the big picture" for a community platform across a big media site.
I love internet communities so much
The thing is, it makes it a bittersweet experience working on internet communities. I love the interactivity of the web. I love the way it has opened up the media to more voices. And I love laughing and joking and wasting time online talking pish with a familiar bunch of users. Pre-Twitter, forums were my main tool of procrastination, as well as being something I felt should be taken seriously as a customer service channel by media organisations. But it feels like they are incompatible with being hosted by a major media site.
Anyway, that's my tuppence. Have yours below…
Closing Mustardland – the end of the Archers messageboard
Keri February 2, 2015 at 2:01 pm ·
slackerninja February 2, 2015 at 3:03 pm ·
Epic read.
Wonder if the future allows for a scenario that sees media sites integrating social platforms in a way that brings about a sense of community in a seamless fashion. Or would "unofficial" forum boards be the only point of contact…stuff worth pondering about.
Adam Tinworth February 2, 2015 at 3:55 pm ·
Nice post, Martin. It tallies very closely with my own experience.
As an addition to point 3, in many cases I've seen communities launched by smaller publishers become drains on their hosts – costing way more to host and manage than they bring in revenue.
Cinquecento February 2, 2015 at 4:58 pm ·
Not the Talk is just a mirror site (probably not the right technical term) now. The feeling was that it worked well as a lifeboat, but it looked too much like Guardian Talk and we'd like our *own* style. We're on JustTheTalk.com now, still Lost, still wondering what people did last night and still obsessing about politics, football and film.
Thom February 2, 2015 at 5:01 pm ·
I think the community knows, deep down, how irrelevant it is to the larger organisation. Certainly on the Guardian boards there was always a note of worry in any discussion about the future – they don't need us, we're a backwater, it's only a matter of time – but the bullish arrogance of any online group gets the upper hand when dealing with outsiders – we're the best thing on this lousy site, they don't know what they've got here – so, ultimately, that's how they come across.
It's that and the fear, too. You make friends on a community like that and if it gets switched off – say, on a Friday afternoon just as you're leaving work, with no notice – you're suddenly a million miles from people you talk to every day. So yeah, the fight comes out and I'm sorry for anyone who has to deal with users under those circumstances. When FU died I was in actual tears and spent much of the next two weeks chasing down former users and pulling them on to our liferaft (fubar.nfshost.com, if you're interested in seeing a tight-knit community fending off wolves). If anyone lashed out, arrogantly decrying the seemingly high-handed nature of our dismissal, well… It's part solipsism, part shivering self-awareness.
Montana Wildhack February 2, 2015 at 5:24 pm ·
Here's the bit that I don't understand, in regards to your point #2:
If, as you say, the BTL comments/commenters are such a negligible share of a site's overall traffic — why spend so much time, effort and (presumably) money overhauling the comments system/platform at all? Why not just leave in place the platform that the regular users are accustomed to? It doesn't make sense to me (or most other BTL commenters) for someone to say, on the one hand, that Site X has invested a lot of time, research & effort in overhauling the commenting platform to bring users a better commenting experience but, on the other hand, be utterly dismissive of criticisms by saying, "BTL commenters are such an insignifican part of our audience that pissing them off is no big deal."
And the response that most of the complainers on the Guardian's site — which boils down to "you just don't like it because you don't like change" is patronising and wrong. When the Beta was announced, I switched over to it because I was hoping it would be an improvement. I switched back after a couple of weeks of trying to get used to it because it was an ugly, unnavigable mess. It still is and I'm afraid they've lost me. I've gone from using the Guardian as my almost exclusive source of news, on a daily basis, to only ever landing there when someone else links to it.
Philip Chandler February 2, 2015 at 7:52 pm ·
Not the Talk, linked to in your post, has been rebranded as Just the Talk in an effort to move on from the Guardian and encourage others without having to explain why it was called notthetalk.com. The intention is to switch off notthetalk in future.
All are welcome to join us at http://www.justthetalk.com
Mina February 2, 2015 at 9:31 pm ·
I still can't do threaded converstations. And now they're on facebook! It's impossible to follow a conversation.
I spotted comments on a *controversial dog trainers website* recently. Such filth! Although I could do better… but that's all attached to this person's name now. Horrible. If you can't do it properly, better not to do it at all.
I couldn't even cope with changes when I was staff…
Shazzbot February 2, 2015 at 9:32 pm ·
Hi Martin – you make a good point about out-sourcing of comments to social media. The race for 'shares' seems to assume that there's nothing negative said, only positive; but either way, it's beyond the ability of the organisation to exert some sort of control over the comments as opposed to their own moderation in-house.
Not very nice (in your linked article about the 2,600 users business) to link directly to 4 people's Guardian accounts. You didn't need to name them to make your point.
The rest of your piece regarding communities is focused on the economics of it. The point that is missed is, well, the *community* – the good feeling toward the organisation engendered by disparate people coming together to post on topics relating to that organisation. I've heard it said that the Talkboards you closed caused at least one marriage. You Tell Us made friends of people all over the globe and spawned several in-person get-togethers. It made all contributors like the Guardian more for providing a comfortable berth for discussion.
But that kind of good-will toward an organisation can't be measured monetarily, so it's with a heavy heart that I have to admit that YTU or its like will never come back to the Guardian.
Mark Pack February 2, 2015 at 11:41 pm ·
Thanks for that excellent post, which also mirrors my own experience (though I wouldn't have written it nearly as well!).
One issue which arrises from #1 is that it makes it even harder to try to tackle any issues with certain groups being under-represented in the community, especially when it's men dominating the existing community and can't see how their behaviour may be offputting to women.
(There may well be examples the other way round, but with most of my experience being around communities linked to electoral politics, that's been the common pattern I've seen.)
Athousandwhatyoumacallits February 2, 2015 at 11:46 pm ·
No we didn't !!! Half of us like the GUT style, and the other half like the JTT mobile style… and then the other half vanished off somewhere different entirely ! Talkboard users eh ?
Chris Duncan February 3, 2015 at 7:55 am ·
Echo the point about the teams bearing the brunt… Had to provide security protection at events for the Times Crossword Club community manager at one point, when we changed that set up…
OneOfOne February 3, 2015 at 8:18 am ·
I'm sorry you got all that grief around the closure of the GU Talk. It was a bit gutting for the users, some of us had to do some actual work that Monday, can you imagine the trauma? No hard feelings from me, then or now. Shit happens.
Thanks for all your efforts, and for a very interesting post.
Bitethehand February 3, 2015 at 9:12 am ·
Nice article Martin although with the limitation of tweets I can't agree that Twitter is now your "main tool of procrastination". I was once accused, incorrectly that I'd spent 36 hours non-stop posting on You Tell Us / What Do You Want to Talk About.
You're right about the abuse handed out to staff – both journalists and moderators and of course the same posters make the most appalling threats to fellow posters.
And not only does "the clique", as they're called on YTU, inhibit new posters from joining, they actively conspire together to get unwanted posters banned and to gang up against writers they don't like.
The only other point I'll make concerns the conflict between editorial control and moderation. If as the Guardian's Natalie Hanman wrote in Sept 2010, "I want to emphasise that Cif is, crucially, about the articles and the comments. Together they make up the complete picture of what we publish", how can independent moderators decide which comments get published and which get deleted?
Edwin Moore February 3, 2015 at 9:12 am ·
Fascinating thanks Martin. I have been one of the YTU regulars for a few years now – Leopold1904 – and I am finding it very difficult to post now anywhere on Cif with the Beta change, so rather than flounce out I am techied out until I replace my old mac mini.
Re the message boards – i only discovered them a week or so before they closed but there was a real community on there – I think there was at least one marriage!
YTU has been a useful distraction for me but not bovvered. The Cif Overlords and we posters never really understood each other as was eyepopplngly obvious when Bella popped on the last thread to say well you have your 'twitter handles' to keep in touch (Cif Underground and Cif Untrusted are our refugee camps).
It;s just social media gab. Apparently Salmond was crafting his victory speech on the morning of the referendum because his social media people told him he had won and won well. But in the real world. . .
Thanks to you and to Matt, largely thankless work. Someone rightly said having a teenager was like feeding a crocodile while burning £20 notes, which is what building cybergab scaffolding must be like.
Bangers February 3, 2015 at 9:14 am ·
Really interesting, thank you. I was around at the time of the Guardian unlimited shut down and can remember all too well some of the personal comments directed at the site administrators.
This article describes really well the dynamics of GuT as it had become then (the "closed shop" feel), and also the dynamic of NottheTalk as it is now.
Just out of interest, how much are you allowed to tell your posters when you choose to shut down a site? For instance, what you've written here about figures (which you can see and posters can't), would that have helped if you'd mentioned it at the time, or would you have anticipated another maelstrom of self justifications which would have made it just not worth your while?
Spencer (Tybo) February 3, 2015 at 9:17 am ·
Good article as usual, Martin. I would agree with most of it (or most of the bits that I know anything about, which is the user end of the experience) though I think the threading/nesting paradox may be less inexplicable than you suggest.
That is, it seems to me that it worked fine on less busy threads on the Guardian but was catastrophic for conversation on really popular ones. There seems to me to be a sort of criticial mass after which it just generates incoherence. So it can work or not work according to the level of traffic.
As for the clique element of places like YTU, this is of course true. I can remember feeling a bit intimidated myself before first posting there (and I was already a regular poster on other parts of CIF)
I don't know what can be done about that. However it does seem to me that there is something incredibly brutal about suddenly closing down a forum in which people have socialised for five years, ten years or even more (with about a day's warning in the the case of YTU)
It is hard to think of a non-digital equivalent – the best I can do is to think of a local pub – except the Guardian (or whoever) built the pub and invited people in and waited until it had become an integral part of their life, and a real community had developed, and then one day the members of that community turn up to find it has been bulldozed overnight.
In real life that sort of behavior would cause outrage and fury and, it seems to me, that it is not surprising that it causes outrage and fury when it happens to online communities.
In fact, I think it is a bit astonishing that the media company would think that this is a reasonable way to behave.
Bawbag February 3, 2015 at 11:45 am ·
It was a shame to see GUT go.
Bitethehand February 3, 2015 at 11:50 am ·
"At least 20% of the comments left on the Guardian website each month come from only 2,600 user accounts"
Actually it's even more dire than you portray, given that some posters have several accounts in a month, (something you don't mention) not necessarily at the same time but as one is closed down, another is opened. I once managed 7 in less than a fortnight but that was nothing to one poster who could manage as many on a single Friday night.
Add to this the fact that at least one of the Guardian's more prolific posters had her entire posting history deleted – "This Guardian Censorship of the Comment is Free historical record in almost beyond belief." – http://abv8.me/4c4, made the historical record of many CiF articles somewhat obscure.
When some aspiring PhD student decides to research the impact of CiF, he or she's going to find some rather large gaps to deal with.
Spencer (Tybo) February 3, 2015 at 12:34 pm ·
Something I would like to say a bit more about this is:
"Change becomes a source of conflict with the organisation"
This is obviously true. But it seems to me that from the development point of view this is generally expressed as "people don't like change," or even "there are some luddites who don't like change."
But if you express this as "people find change in websites hard to cope with" it looks different.
Age is important here. Younger people are more likely to find it easier to adapt to new looks, new systems, new applications, even new social media coming along.
So for publications aimed at teenagers this may be a different issue. But to take the Guardian, I came to comment is free some years after belatedly getting online because I have been a Guardian reader since 1973, and I know that many other commentators are older than me and have been reading the paper even longer.
For us it really might be seriously difficult to cope with changes that seem relatively trivial to hip young web developers.
By saying that people are "resistant" or that they "don't like" change the onus is put on them, as if it is their fault. But if you accept that changes an actually make it difficult for people to continue to take part in something that has become an important part of their lives then it looks different.
To continue the pub analogy above, it is as if the old local, one day is stripped out and turned into a disco/sports pub with strobe lights and the real beer replaced with flaming sambucas, and the old regulars are told to "stop moaning" (actual twitter quote from a young Guardian (sic) journo).
This is a huge subject because it covers so much more than comment sites for media organisations.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shopping-and-consumer-news/11380790/Elderly-excluded-from-car-parks-that-only-allow-payment-by-mobile-phone.html
A couple of years ago I did a course on dementia studies at Stirling University and did a module on design and technology with regard to dementia. Good design can really improve the lives of people with dementia as can certain technologies.
However, it is abundantly clear that most tech is designed without a thought to how hard people with the onset of dementia, people who are older and no longer find learning new stuff easy, really anyone who is not part of the digital bubble, are going to find to access it.
Now, you might protest that cutting edge web designers can't really worry about people with dementia who are mostly unlikely to use the products anyway. But that is just the extreme of a continuum of people who struggle to learn to use these forums and websites, and find change deeply problematic.
And as the link to the Telegraph article shows, it is increasingly not just about whether you want to comment on a Guardian article but is about whether you can deal with the authorities, pay your parking fee, do your banking. Easyjet no longer have an option to check in at a check in desk. You have to check in online.
So I think, at the very least, people should start talking about users who find change difficult to cope with rather than people who don't "like" change, as if it were simply some sort of blinkered conservatism on their part.
EastFinchleyite February 3, 2015 at 12:47 pm ·
For me there are two distinct issues here.
1. The overall Beta design with big blue and cerise banners, and soft grey fonts is unsightly. I am sure that the underpinnings of the old R2 website were cranky and needed rewriting. What goes on under the skin is not of direct concern to me, I am a customer who looks at the appearance and functionality of the product. In the 1950s Ford in the USA produced their best most sophisticated car to date. It was called the Edsel. To me, Beta is the Scott Trust's Edsel. To stretch my analogy to breaking point, I am now buying General Motors.
In the 90%:9%:1% debate, while the 1 and the 9 are small in number they are constant, high volume users. The 90 are likely occasional visitors. Do you build a business by focusing on your regular trade or do you abandon them with a view to the occasional walk in off the street trade?. Many a pub has gone bust by getting that one wrong.
2. CiF and specifically YTU. It was unfortunate that YTU was closed. I can understand why; it had become the centre of opposition to Beta and by closing it the opposition went away and life became more comfortable at King Cross. The Hamsters are not paid to be abused any more than British Leyland workers were paid to be abused in the early 70s for producing rubbish cars. I found the new system dysfunctional and stopped posting. I had been a regular since 2006 with over 3.5k posts (so I am definitely a 1% er) but I just gave up as it lost all enjoyment and, unlike the Hamsters, I was not being paid to do the job.
By changing both the appearance and functionality of the website, the Guardian has lost a lot of goodwill. The problem in the end was that we 9% and 1% ers cared more about the guardianonline than it cared about us. A divorce became inevitable once the affair with the pretty App in the mobile phone department started.
jim jepps February 3, 2015 at 12:51 pm ·
"I certainly get annoyed at journalists who are sniffy towards "below the line" commenters, a snobbish attitude that I think belongs back when it was much harder for readers to question your pieces." …
"I must confess it is a slight relief not to be immediately called a twat every time I press publish,"
The problem is that in most professions being constantly harassed, abused and put down for doing the job you're doing to the best of your ability would be regarded as a serious workplace issue. For journalists expected to engage with online communities they're sneered at for not appreciating the experience of being bullied and having their work denigrated – regardless of what's happening in their lives, if they are feeling fragile, if the topic is deeply personal they are still expected to suck it up and are seen as letting people down if they don't engage.
I think it's important to recognise that the cumulative effect of these comments (on some, not all sites) is work place bullying and those journalists who find that abuse difficult to handle need a bit more understanding than simply being regarded as snobs, in my opinion.
But still, great article.
Maeve February 3, 2015 at 12:52 pm ·
"What I've seen again and again is that a hardcore knot of the community become hyperactive on the board, and this begins to inhibit new users from posting"
This is, indeed, still the case with the Justthetalk off-shoot you mentioned. Anyone new joining will be followed around being asked who they "used to be" on GUT and anyone with slightly right of centre opinions will be mobbed or censored until they're forced off.
Karen February 3, 2015 at 1:56 pm ·
This is a great insight, thank you! I have really enjoyed watching the internet community evolve over the years; the good, the bad, the ugly. It's an endlessly fascinating study of human nature and hearing the opinion of someone who has been in the trenches is valuable. The main thing that I don't like is the utter lack of manners, if name-calling was globally banned, for instance, imagine the verbal contortions that would happen if we were not allowed to insult each other in any form of public communication? Twitter, forums, commentary. Wait. Sorry. Might be a bit hard to do for some folks. Oh dear, I think I just name called. Sorry again.
Anyway, your insight was a fun and informative read.
OneofThree February 3, 2015 at 6:31 pm ·
I'd argue that not the talk has had some of the same problems as Guardian Talk and other media forums, only on a smaller level, due to having a much more limited number of users. Again a small group think that they are at the heart of the community, behave in a manner that is off-putting to newcomers – in-jokes, trying to guess which user a "new" user was before they "came back" with a "new" name, and a generally solipsistic view of its own importance.
On the one hand it's great for those who belong to the central group or are outliers who feel close to that group, but it's unlikely to grow or develop because despite its desire to be less like Guardian Talk, it only exists because of Guardian talk and is now just another small forum on the internet that can only get smaller and not grow, no matter how hard it tries.
An example of this is that a number of former users left the site over ongoing issues which either could not or would not be resolved, partly due to intransigence, partly because this sort of thing happens in forums, but is more noticeable in smaller forums. Since then, the forum has become more insular and self-aggrandising, which again is something that can be seen in larger forums as well. The notion being that the forum is better off without those who have gone, that it is friendlier – when remaining much the same as it was before – and that those who left were the cause of all problems, many of which – surprise, surprise! – still continue. This attitude walks hand in hand with former users being talked about long after their absence, which obviously goes against the notion that the forum is better of without them, but who ever said that internet communities were logical!
In short, Not the Talk/Just the Talk carries on as a much smaller outlier of the original Guardian Talk and is about as welcoming to new contributors/users as Guardian Talk was, i.e., not very. It also lacks what Guardian Talk had, a whole pile of media, news and archives behind it to visit and look through when contributing was not welcoming. It's unlikely to fall over and "die" anytime soon, but it has a limited life span, because it has nothing unique to offer and relies on other forums for its ideas Mumsnet . The Film Unlimited outlier is probably far more realistic in what and why it is, so although smaller and possibly more insular, any new users are almost certainly welcomed and treated with less aggressiveness than they are on the larger small outlier.
Giles Colborne February 4, 2015 at 5:07 am ·
Yes. To all of that, Martin. Thank you.
Name February 4, 2015 at 7:29 am ·
Perhaps something missed from the article is the churning and ebbing and flowing of users, who at one point may be the gatekeepers and peak-capped inspectors of who is allowed to enter the community and then re-emerge on other sites, after a bust-up, throwing stones at the very community they used to so adore.
There often seems to be a desperation, a panicked, feverish need to keep posting anything, as long as you forever remain there to be seen, to be recognised. Look at me, look at me. Perhaps the Louise Mensch syndrome.
The funny thing is, The Guardian panders to this.
Once, after some fairly minor change, the editor of the time set up a discussion to let people report their reactions.
The editor immediately jumped on a prolific poster and greasily, fawningly asked: "And what do you think about the changes?"
The reaction?
"I couldn't care less. I just come here to post 500 one-liners a day".
The funny thing is, once the playground is closed and the toddlers are led away screaming and choking and hiccupping into streams of snot and saliva, they do recover.
They get over it, like the death of a beloved gerbil.
You then see them, washed up on other sites, sometimes trailing figurative lavatory-paper from their previous place of worship and adoration and vendettas and loathing.
It is good that The Guardian only sees its online community as a commodity, a keyboard army on whose backs to make money.
It is just a pity that the community does not see itself as anything like the free labour the government ships to Tesco and Homebase and Asbo, mopping floors and cleaning shelves.
The trick, the stunt to make people so desperate to provide free content that they almost need grief counselling when that facility is taken away is pretty brilliant.
As for the user experience element, people also manage to adapt their behaviour after sites go paywall or change their public face.
You just find somewhere else. The internet is quite big. There are other sites out there.
So, be brave, little soldiers. Dry your eyes and put on happy faces.
You will make it. You are brave and strong and fearless.
There is a world out there just waiting to provide a home for your drivel and bollocks.
JimPress February 4, 2015 at 9:03 am ·
It's difficult to argue against any of the points that you make here Martin.
One of the things that made the YTU thread so fascinating was the fact that a few of the regulars actually put in more hours and 'published' more words than any Guardian staff member did each week. Who could have predicted that when the Guardian first opened for comments?
The fundamental fault line there was between the 'fulltimers' (and they really were full time – 365 days a year, day and night) and those who popped in from time to time. Any frivolous or off-message comment from somebody who wasn't a permanent fixture was greeted with howls of outrage and accusations that they must be a 'far-right racist Zionist Islamophobe troll'. Meanwhile, a deaf ear was turned to some of the truly shocking (rape apologism, Jew-baiting, gypsy-baiting) outbursts from the regulars just so long as they put in the long hours of day and night chitchat.
The place was so dysfunctional – if, at times, entertaining – it's a mystery that it was tolerated by the Guardian for as long as it was. Having said that, you have to wonder at the impact of an overnight closure to the people who were racking up well over a thousand posts a month: when you spend that much time on a forum it's long since morphed from a diversion from the tedium of daily life in to life itself.
Sebastian February 4, 2015 at 9:32 am ·
Hi Martin, great insights. We're debating all of this at the moment, since our readers demand a place where they can talk to each other, additionally to comments and annotations. We don't believe in a classic forum like http://try.discourse.org, but we're also skeptical of something Reddit-like (i.e. http://demo2.telescopeapp.org), because people might be scared off. Now we're scratching our heads. What would you use if you started something like that today?
Valentine February 4, 2015 at 10:19 am ·
The numbers quoted are interesting and if I think a little about it, there's no reason to doubt them.
There are a few things I noticed about myself and websites that have/lack comments.
I tend not to trust media that has no comments. It feels as if whatever they're presenting isn't worth much, or worse, isn't trustworthy and any commenters might point out the various problems, making writers look bad.
Websites that DO have comments, usually fall into a few categories.
The well kept gardens that punishes trolls, by making their comments less relevant, but not removed. They usually have some rating system and most likely a moderator working behind the scenes.
The careless ones, that let disqus or facebook something similar to deal with everything comment related. I'm neutral about those.
And the troll nests. The websites that allow comments but do no damage control at all. Sometimes even the moderators inflame the posters in some misguided attempt of increasing page views.
Nick Reynolds February 4, 2015 at 11:21 am ·
as someone who has done it, got the t shirt and still bears the freshly opened scars that the t shirt covers, your excellent piece deserves a longer response.
But as I don't have time, I'll just say it is very difficult but it can be done. See Dan Taylor's comment here and in this thread:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/8518caee-e777-3780-ad36-606d9a1d4be7?postId=120508523&initial_page_size=20#comment_120508523
BlackberryBlossom February 4, 2015 at 5:22 pm ·
Hi – I used to post fairly frequently on the Guardian's You Tell Us thread, and I think that this misrepresents the actual nature of it, quite badly.
"The behaviour of the regular users becomes self-limiting for the community as a whole".
I don't think this is true. In fact, the opposite really. It was generally one of the more easy-going comment threads on Cif – I didn't often join in lengthy discussions; I mainly posted requests for articles about the impact of welfare reforms. But on the occasions when I was involved in actual debates with other readers, they were usually far more civil and engaging than on pretty much any other Cif thread. It wasn't perfect – I wasn't perfect, either. But strangely, the more unpleasant readers were also the same ones who tended to complain about 'cliques'. It seemed more a case of their egotism being affronted when their comments were less popular than they perhaps expected; rather than any actual coterie at work. Really – how could there be?
I do sympathise somewhat with this part:
"begins to inhibit new users from posting"…A regular would immediately reply along the lines of "yes we've done this topic to death, there's a thread from the last series here."
But in all honesty, I can't recall ever seeing this sentiment on You Tell Us. The closest to it was probably people requesting that other readers let the subject of the middle east lie; but this was not due to superciliousness – it was because the topic invariably brought out the worst in readers, and was a pretext used to pursue long-standing (and remarkably petty) grudges.
I think this is wrong, as well:
"they'd quite like to post but they wouldn't because it feels unfriendly. "
Well, where – anywhere – does the counterpart to this exist on the web? Moreover, if You Tell Us was, as site staff and to some extent you yourself imply, a suggestion thread being somehow misused – then what difference would it ever make whether the thread was friendly or not? I grew up ridiculously shy – and even on the internet, for long enough would be a bit hesitant. But the onus is on those of us lacking confidence to overcome this; not on random strangers to second-guess on our behalf.
"again with the closure of "You Tell Us", posters insist that it is going to cost the organisation revenue."
I don't think this one is true, either. If people said that then yes, they arguably would be incorrect – but it was more a case of people objecting to depriving readers of a genuinely open forum (presumably because it would become a hub of criticism for Beta).
I don't personally consider it a monumental loss – but certainly, enjoy the site less because it means readers can't discuss subjects on their own initiative anymore.
Paul C February 4, 2015 at 6:30 pm ·
Although I'd still dearly love to know what was going on around the BBC Boards in September 2009, in the aftermath of the Russel Brand/Jonathan Ross business, in a time of ongoing change to Radio Two. The BBC closed quite a few boards then, and also seemed to take the opportunity it offered to permanently bar anything up to twenty "awkward customers" from its digital services. At a time when morning programming on R2 was being rebuilt around one high-profile presenter, even the most moderate and well-reasoned criticism of Chris Evans was being deleted, moderated, or otherwise prevented from appearing. And there definitely a case for removing offensive or personal criticism of BBC presenters, btw. Some posters could not get the idea that to criticise a show or its production values could be done without offensive comment about the presenter or named individuals. But the BBC seemed not to realise this either and treated ALL criticism as if it were libellious or personally offensive.
At the same time that even the mildest criticism of Chris Evans as successor to Terry Wogan was – apparently – unacceptible to the BBC and was being moderated off as soon as it appeared, one strange board member was allowed to get away with the most offensive and personal jibes at outgoing presenter Sarah Kennedy. Not once, but dozens of times. This person, who called himself "Scot Clout", "Scott Nelson" or loads of variants on a theme, appeared to be able to get away with murder. People who reported his posts for offence and breach of house rules were told they were being malicious time-wasters and warned they would end up in premod themselves.
After Sarah K let the BBC in still-not-explained circumstances, people posted wondering if Chris Evans had, indirectly, been the reason for her going. This time the posters were not just moderated, they were barred and expelled. One poster barred at this time says they went several years back into his posting history to find reasons, including retro-barring posts already cleared by BBC moderators as safe to publish, It was as if some sort of Stalinist revision was going on and the boards were being manipulated to give the impression of 100% unanimous devotion to Chris Evans. within weeks of the blood-letting, the BBC Radio Two boards were closed – the very last posting ever was one in praise of Chris Evans….
MissGlenghis February 4, 2015 at 9:45 pm ·
Martin – obviously, I can't speak for the NotTheTalk community, because nobody can, really, but two points:
1. It's Just the Talk these days. Just as film moved on to make the fabulous Mostly Film website and community, we moved on to make a limpingly ironic statement on the fact that we were Over GUT.
2. Your status as 'Lead User Architect' has gone down in legend. Certainly I started following you on twitter as a result of your obviously honest efforts to stem the tide of despair (while abusing you simultaneously, natch, for which I am sorry). You're part of the legend, the history.
Please, do come and join in again. That's JusttheTalk, people.
Perhaps I should add that I don't agree with the commentator above; there are new posters to JusttheTalk, and it remains largely jovial and entertaining; I certainly find it to be, still, one of the more entertaining, albeit obscure, corners of the internet. I genuinely laugh out loud at posts from there at least once a day.
Wolf Baginski February 5, 2015 at 8:08 am ·
Just over a hundred years ago, politics was pretty intense over such things as Irish Home Rule. Political campaigning depended on public meetings, and the heckling could be close to a riot. Churchill was once smuggled away from a meeting by the Police, lest he be lynched.
Few of us can be old enough to remember the time before radio and TV started to protect the politicians from that sort of response.
Social media may be bringing about a return of heckling, and the politicians don't like it.
And a lot of the problems you describe with comment threads, such as the way a community can be hostile to newcomers, seem little different to the stories my parents told me about the factions of the W.I. and the Chapel.
They don't make a big thing of it when you're watching, though it isn't hidden. A political TV programme such as Question Time is not live, and has a selected audience. That's the world our politicians see, even as the social media start to change things.
I suspect a comment thread is not so different in content from the letters that used to be sent to a newspaper; just bigger and un-edited. And the selection of opinions in the past maybe hid some things.
And how does the snall number of commenters compare o the public mettings of the past? The Manchester Free Trade Hall had a capacity of 2500.
Lorna Prescott February 5, 2015 at 10:18 am ·
Great post, thanks for sharing. I was immediately struck by parallels with face to face engagement efforts by local government and other public services. I feel I've observed #1 occurring repeatedly in public forums run by local councils, and Mark Pack's comment above re. gender also resonates in relation to this.
It feels as though 2 and 3 also apply. There are individuals who, through their repeated take up of invitations to 'have their voice heard' or whatever the strapline of the month is, come in to fairly frequent contact with officers and feel frustrated when they don't see the changes they demand, perhaps partly because they are over-estimating the weight of their say. This is perpetuated by organisations and institutions who provide pretty paltry resources in staff time and actual funds for citizens or people who care about a service to come together and for one or more of their number to 'represent' them. It insanely difficult to represent a diversity of views, experiences, needs and ideas, yet this is glossed over by basic diagrams of structures which suggest it's all so simple.
And no doubt there are thousands of public sector service staff and their intermediaries across the land who identify with #5.
I guess what we're seeing through the online communities you have written about and the face to face interactions we have with local services are the same old power dynamics playing out over and over. I have great hope that this will change, as we learn to build systems in new ways. However we need to watch out for the behaviours you've described, they feel like a fairly default position which we've come to accept.
Sally Perry February 5, 2015 at 11:09 am ·
Great observations Martin. As someone who founded and runs a small media site (for the Isle of Wight) with a very strong commenting community (and formerly strong discussion forum) I can relate to many of the problems you've experienced on a larger scale.
Andrew February 5, 2015 at 12:32 pm ·
Great read and great inside perspective.
I would refine one of your points to be: Management doesn't usually know why they have an online community. They're just ticking a box because they've heard they need to.
And while communities are usually in alignment with the values of a company, they are often not aligned with the profit model.
F0ul February 5, 2015 at 3:13 pm ·
Very interesting article, I guess what nobody wants to acknowledge is that eyeballs are cheap online. It's all algorithms. I used to work on a 1% figure, 1% of eyeballs will comment, and 1% of those will be worth reading etc! But big numbers impress advertisers, the big bill payers!
What the last 20 years of Internet conversations has taught us is that opinions are everywhere, but hardly worth collecting. People will always want to share their crazy ideas with you, and there can be money in it – but not as an add on to the worthless but expensive opinions found in the mainstream media.
The future is the likes of Mumsnet, and Pistonheads. The internet was always about helping every niche worldwide to connect, not getting the entire world in one room for a general chat. The future looks bright.
Dom February 5, 2015 at 7:01 pm ·
The soviet style heavy censorship present on the BBC & Guardian 'communities' are terrible examples as they are never allowed to organically flourish as these organisations have too many handwringing moderators forming the narrative to their own agenda.
Robinson February 7, 2015 at 10:25 pm ·
By calling it a "community" you're buying into the BS.
The reality is that most people are just letting off steam. I know for example, that absolutely nobody who counts, who has power or has to make choice or decision, gives a single flying cluck about what I think however I express it in a comment.
Having a comment section allows me – totally powerless – to at least be given the impression I count for something, even though deep down I know it's all a complete waste of energy.
Quite often though the article itself is just plain wrong, hasn't been researched properly, is an outright lie or exaggeration or is otherwise defective (often deliberately so). You'll find a lot of your readers *really do* know a lot more about some given subject than the writer. This is particularly true when it comes to science reporting, which is often terrible.
Martin Wisse February 9, 2015 at 9:00 am ·
Of course it too can be objectively true that both the move from threaded to flat commenting systems and vice versa are bad moves: it's all about what the users are used to.
Even UI specialists completely underestimate how much such technical decisions impact people's ability to use it and because of this it also influences how the communities that spring up in them evolve.
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I've been composing and performing with this group since 1999. The band features Adam D Gold (drums), Pat Swoboda (bass), Ken Thomson (alto sax) and myself (electric guitar). We've released six records and toured extensively to festivals, concert halls and clubs across the United States and Europe. Our most recent CD entitled DANCE (2016) was recorded live during a weeklong residency at John Zorn's legendary club The Stone in New York City in November 2014. DANCE was proudly and independently released on Gut Records.


text:
the texas hammer
Episode Grow Law Firm
32 – Jim Adler – Building a Firm on Reputation
https://media.blubrry.com/triallawyernation/p/content.blubrry.com/triallawyernation/Jim_Adler_on_Trial_Lawyer_Nation.mp3
In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with prominent Texas attorney, Jim Adler, AKA "The Texas Hammer," for a discussion on building a law practice on a solid reputation.
Running an efficient law firm that has allowed him the ability to spend quality time with his large family (4 kids and 9 grandkids) didn't happen overnight. Having started his practice doing everything by himself, learning to delegate and understanding the business and marketing side of running a firm are two areas where Adler has focused on the most to build the successful law firm he has today.
Adler recalls back in "those days," when he was starting out, thinking that it would have been ridiculous to believe he would ever make $100,000. When he started, he was struggling to support his family and manage to do everything himself. He initially started advertising in the "green sheets" and got a little business. But it was when he started using a company called "Lawyers Marketing Services," that he saw more success. He was told to "try it, you'll like it," and went into TV advertising which quickly had his phone ringing off the hook. Of course, it didn't come without its fair share of social pressures not to advertise to the public back then, due to the stigma that other attorneys attached to the tactic. Adler has also found himself bearing the brunt of parodies on TV, even being referenced on Beavis & Butthead as "Joe Adler." To which Michael points out, "you know you've made it when a national tv show is referencing you."
Now going on his 5th generation of TV viewers, The Texas Hammer has found himself up against finding the attention of younger people who don't want to pay for TV, AKA "cord cutters." These are the individuals who are watching entertainment on their Slingbox, Roku, PlayStation, Netflix, and YouTube, which makes it especially hard to reach them. People don't have "TV" anymore, so you have to find them elsewhere, which is why Adler has a saying in his firm, "if we're not changing, we're dying." It is this mindset and desire to continue to learn and adapt (more on that later in the episode), which continues to keep his name and brand so strong.
The conversation then turns to when Adler became partners with a well-known U.S. District Judge, Robert O'Connor, who wanted to get back into practice. Judge O'Connor knew that Adler was wasting his time doing divorces, bankruptcy, and real estate and this was "the age of the specialization." Taking that advice and focusing on personal injury cases has grown his firm to a staggering 30 attorneys and roughly 300 staff! Michael and Adler both agree that having so many people working for the firm is a lot of moving parts. But as Michael points out, it can be "a lot harder to run a business than to be a lawyer."
Adler goes on to describe the way his firm has created a departmentalized system to take care of clients every step of the way. His intake department has specialists that only take new client calls and are separated from an operator who accepts all calls. His case management department with case managers who are assigned to each case and are supervised by a lawyer essentially works like a mini law practice within his law firm. The packaging department with specialists in preparing settlements and gathering all the hospital records, are all just the tip of the iceberg when you look at the organization he's built.
In fact, evolution has been long and everchanging with the times. Adler recalls how all of these departments work well, but he received feedback that clients hated being passed around. Since then he has utilized his case managers to tee up the transition better and give the client a clear sense of what each step in their case is going to be. He goes on to describe their closing department, as well as their administrative departments and accounting departments, a strong litigation department, and an internet department, which ties into the firm's marketing efforts. Over time, the evolution from having one secretary and an assistant, to set up all the different departments, developed through the use of statistics and formulas. From assessing how many cases a case manager could handle, to how many calls can an intake person handle, to how many cases can a lawyer try and/or settle, all of his operations were fine-tuned through statistical analysis. Adler describes himself to be a big believer in customer service and tries to promote their "service marketing" agenda to everyone throughout the firm in order to provide "over the top service" to their clients. He points out that if a lawyer does a good job for a client, he or she will likely be referred, 7 new people. Whereas the "bad-mouthers" are likely to tell 100 people if they didn't have a good experience, regardless of the end result of their case.
Michael becomes curious about whether Adler had to figure these things out on his own or if he brought in any kind of consultants. Adler shares how he has read tons of books on business, such as The CEO Nextdoor by Elena L. Botelho and Kim R. Powell, Good to Great by Jim Collins, FOCUS by Daniel Goleman, as well as many other business publications like The Wallstreet Journal and Forbes Magazine. Thinking back to law school, Adler also recalls that they teach you how to be a good lawyer, but they don't teach you how to become a good business owner. Adler has learned a lot from talking to people who were trying to sell him something, talking to other lawyers about how they do things, and going to TTLA meetings. Michael points out his own evolution from the mentality of being "a great lawyer and people should just line up at our firm's door" to opening his mind to see other successful practices like Adler's, and how they keep clients happy and run their firm in general. He also notes that although he doesn't do TV advertising, he still spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing to his referral partners.
Both Adler and Michael reflect on the importance of treating people with respect and dignity, even down to the importance of returning a phone call. The 45 seconds you take to let someone know you received their call and you are looking into their question or concern, can have a dramatic impact on the attorney/client relationship, even if just to tell them that you are in trial and will get back to them as soon as possible. Adler also goes a step further to ask for referrals when a case concludes and to remind their clients of all the different cases they handle.
The conversation certainly would have been remiss if Michael hadn't brought up the obvious question – How did you come up with the name "The Texas Hammer?" Adler explains that it was Hayden Bramleigh, from the lawyer marketing service, who first suggested to him that he needed a trademark, similar to how every big brand has a trademark. Moreover, "The Texas Hammer" went through some evolution of its own through various focus groups and seeing how people around the country responded to the name being associated with other lawyers in different states. Admittedly, although some people might not know Adler's name, they can still associate him with "The Texas Hammer" which is still an effective marketing tactic for him. Adler also points out that it's been a long road, fighting battles with others who don't agree with legal advertising, which oddly enough, he points out, tend to be other lawyers and not the end consumer.
The conversation with Adler goes on to talk about his strategies on developing lawyers in his firm, the tests they give to new lawyers joining their firm, transparency in reporting to the firm on settlements and new cases, professional training they've developed, the resources they use for case management, getting over the fear of public speaking, and so much more. The organization that Adler has built over the years is nothing less than astounding and we are so appreciative of the time he spent with us on this episode.
BACKGROUND ON JIM ADLER
Famously known as "The Texas Hammer," injury lawyer Jim Adler has been hammering for victims for over 40 years, championing "the little guy" against big corporations and big insurance companies which would deny their legal rights.
That mission is why he launched his own law firm in 1973 with a one-man office in downtown Houston. Today, Jim Adler & Associates has offices in Houston's Uptown/Galleria area, Channelview, Dallas, and San Antonio, with two dozen attorneys and more than 250 legal support staff. They share Jim Adler's mission of helping injured Texans get the money they deserve from those who were at fault.
Family Man, Giving Back
You may know Jim Adler only from his media appearances and tough-talking TV ads. But he's more than that. He's also a family man who loves children and devotes much time and his firm's resources to children's charity causes.
In 2009, former Houston Mayor Bill White appointed Jim Adler to the Board of Directors of the Joint City/County Commission on Children, recognizing his lifelong devotion to helping children.
"I believe we all should give back to our communities," said Adler, a Dallas native who speaks fluent Spanish. "I believe in helping people and doing good works."
In fact, unlike his fierce TV image, Jim Adler is "a people person. I enjoy being around people from all walks of life. I love the joy of life – of just being alive."
He's also even more active than his busy legal work suggests.
"I love to sweat," says the avid tennis player, snow skier, jogger and golfer. "I love sports of all kinds, and I work out five or six days a week — 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of weightlifting. I'm also really big on nutrition and watching what I eat."
Boosted by this commitment to health, he has no plans to retire — even now that son Bill Adler has joined the firm as an attorney.
Son at His Side
"Having my son at my side at the firm is the best thing that's ever happened to me," Jim Adler says. "He'll ensure that all the work I've put in over the years and the family's tradition of serving underdogs will continue."
That family includes Jim Adler's wife of 38 years, their four children and their five grandchildren.
Bill Adler was raised in Houston, but Jim Adler was raised in Dallas. He went to Austin to earn his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, followed by his law degree from the UT School of Law.
He then served in the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy and was appointed a judge for the Office of Civilian Health and Medical Programs United Services (OCHAMPUS), adjudicating health and medical disputes for Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine personnel. He then launched his law practice in Houston, home of his principal office today.
Jim Adler was admitted to practice law by the Supreme Court of Texas and is licensed to practice in the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Fifth Circuit and U.S. District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, Northern and Western Districts of Texas.
He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, Houston Bar Association, Texas Bar Foundation, Dallas Trial Lawyers Association, Dallas Bar Association, American Bar Association, and American Trial Lawyers Association.
He's also a director of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Trial Lawyers Association.
As a passionate advocate for injury victims, Jim Adler has handled lawsuits involving auto accidents, trucking accidents, offshore accidents, Jones Act cases, refinery accidents, construction injuries, burn injuries, brain injuries, on-the-job accidents, slip-and-fall cases, railroad accidents, electrical accidents and many other types of personal injury.
Getting payments for victims can be a battle. But Jim Adler became a lawyer to fight those battles.
"I always had a desire to help underdogs, the little guy, against big corporations and big insurance companies, and to level the playing field for accident victims," he says.
Jim Adler's good works also include many charitable causes. He's contributed to the American Cancer Society, Armed Forces Relief Trust, Association for Community Television, Alzheimer's Disease & Related Disorders, Arthritis Foundation, American Heart Association, American Health Assistance Foundation, Special Olympics, Child Advocates of Fort Bend County, The Center for Hearing & Speech, Covenant House, Easter Seals Society and Galena Park Choir Boosters.
Still more of his causes include the Habitat for Humanity, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Federation of Greater Houston, Guild for the Blind, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, March of Dimes, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Multiple Sclerosis Society, Primera Rosa De Saron, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Texas Bar Foundation, Texas Children's Hospital, US Olympic Committee, University of Texas Law School Foundation and UTMB Burn Care Research.
"I wish there were more hours in the day," says Jim Adler. "I always want to do more."
"Basically I believe in doing good works. Seeing families whose child was injured by an 18-wheeler or a defective drug puts me in a fighting mode. My good works then are about helping them recover financially. Those good works are my life's mission."
Thus, after decades of fighting for justice, Jim Adler is still on the case, helping those who need it the most. As thousands of injured Texans have learned when he fought for their legal rights, there's only one "Texas Hammer."
© 2020 Trial Lawyer Nation. All Rights Reserved.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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            if (source.callbacks) {
                var callbackTypes = Object.keys(source.callbacks);
                for (var i = 0; i < callbackTypes.length; ++i) {
                    var callbackType: FullCalendarCallbackType = parseInt(callbackTypes[i]);
                    if (callbackType === FullCalendarCallbackType.eventAfterAllRender) {
                        // This callback doesn't make sense for individual events.
                        continue;
                    }
                    this.addCallback(callbackType, this._createFilteredCallback(source.callbacks[callbackTypes[i]],(event) => event["eventType"] === source.source.id));
                }
            }
        });

        this.refreshEvents();
        return this._calendarSources;
    }

    public getViewQuery(): Calendar_Contracts.IEventQuery {
        var view = this._element.fullCalendar("getView");

        return {
            startDate: Utils_Date.shiftToUTC(new Date(view.start.valueOf())),
            endDate: Utils_Date.shiftToUTC(new Date(view.end.valueOf()))
        };
    }

    public next() : void {
        this._element.fullCalendar("next");
    }

    public prev() : void {
        this._element.fullCalendar("prev");
    }

    public showToday() : void {
        this._element.fullCalendar("today");
    }

    public getFormattedDate(format: string) : string{
        var currentDate : any = this._element.fullCalendar("getDate");
        return currentDate.format(format);
    }

    public renderEvent(event: Calendar_Contracts.CalendarEvent, eventType: string) {
        var end = Utils_Date.addDays(new Date(event.endDate.valueOf()), 1);
        var calEvent: any  = {
            id: event.eventId,
            title: event.title,
            allDay: true,
            start: event.startDate,
            end: end,
            eventType: eventType,
            editable: eventType === "freeForm",
            category: event.category
        };

        if(eventType === 'daysOff'){
            calEvent.member = event.member;
            calEvent.title = event.member.displayName + " Day Off";
        }

        var color = Calendar_ColorUtils.generateColor((<string>event.category || "uncategorized").toLowerCase());
        calEvent.backgroundColor = color;
        calEvent.borderColor = color;

        this._element.fullCalendar("renderEvent", calEvent, false );
    }

     public updateEvent(event: FullCalendar.EventObject) {
        var color = Calendar_ColorUtils.generateColor(((<any>event).category || "uncategorized").toLowerCase());
        event.backgroundColor = color;
        event.borderColor = color;

        this._element.fullCalendar("updateEvent", event);
    }

     public setOption(key: string, value: any) {
        this._element.fullCalendar("option", key, value);
    }

    public refreshEvents(eventSource?: FullCalendar.EventSource) {
        if (!eventSource) {
            $('.sprint-label').remove();
            this._element.fullCalendar("refetchEvents");
        }
        else {
            this._element.fullCalendar("removeEventSource", eventSource);
            this._element.fullCalendar("addEventSource", eventSource);
        }
    }

    public removeEvent(id: string) {
        if(id){
            this._element.fullCalendar("removeEvents", id );
        }
    }
    private _viewRender(view: FullCalendar.View, element: JQuery) {
        view["renderId"] = Math.random();
    }

    private _createFilteredCallback(original: (event: FullCalendar.EventObject, element: JQuery, view: FullCalendar.View) => any, filter: (event: FullCalendar.EventObject) => boolean): Function {
        return (event: FullCalendar.EventObject, element: JQuery, view: FullCalendar.View) => {
            if (filter(event)) {
                return original(event, element, view);
            }
        };
    }

    private _createEventSource(source: Calendar_Contracts.IEventSource, options: FullCalendar.EventSourceOptions): CalendarEventSource {
        var state: CalendarEventSourceState = {};

        var getEventsMethod = (start: moment.Moment, end: moment.Moment, timezone: string|boolean, callback: (events: FullCalendar.EventSource) => void) => {

            if (!state.dirty && state.cachedEvents) {
                callback(state.cachedEvents);
                return;
            }
            var getEventsPromise = <Q.Promise<Calendar_Contracts.CalendarEvent[]>> source.getEvents();
            Q.timeout(getEventsPromise, 5000, "Could not load event source " + source.name + ". Request timed out.")
                .then(
                (results) => {
                    var calendarEvents = results.map((value, index) => {
                        var end = value.endDate ? Utils_Date.addDays(new Date(value.endDate.valueOf()), 1) : value.startDate;
                        var event: any = {
                            id: value.eventId || Calendar_Utils_Guid.newGuid(),
                            title: value.title,
                            allDay: true,
                            start: value.startDate,
                            end: end,
                            eventType: source.id,
                            rendering: options.rendering || '',
                            category: value.category,
                            member: value.member,
                            editable: source.id === "freeForm",
                        };

                        if ($.isFunction(source.addEvents)) {
                            var color = Calendar_ColorUtils.generateColor((<string>event.category || "uncategorized").toLowerCase());
                            event.backgroundColor = color;
                            event.borderColor = color;
                        }

                        if (options.rendering === "background" && value.category) {
                            var color = Calendar_ColorUtils.generateBackgroundColor((<string>event.category || "uncategorized").toLowerCase());
                            event.backgroundColor = color;
                            event.borderColor = color;
                        }

                        return event;
                    });

                    state.dirty = false;
                    state.cachedEvents = calendarEvents;
                    callback(calendarEvents);

                },(reason) => {
                    console.error(Utils_String.format("Error getting event data.\nEvent source: {0}\nReason: {1}", source.name, reason));
                    callback([]);
                });
        };

        var calendarEventSource: CalendarEventSource = <any>getEventsMethod;
        calendarEventSource.eventSource = source;
        calendarEventSource.state = state;

        return calendarEventSource;
    }

    public addCallback(callbackType: FullCalendarCallbackType, callback: Function) {
        if (!this._callbacks[callbackType]) {
            this._callbacks[callbackType] = [];
        }
        this._callbacks[callbackType].push(callback);
    }

    private _getComposedCallback(callbackType: FullCalendarCallbackType) {
        var args = arguments;
        return (event: FullCalendar.EventObject, element: JQuery, view: FullCalendar.View): JQuery | boolean => {
            var fns = this._callbacks[callbackType];
            if (!fns) {
                return undefined;
            }
            var broken = false;
            var updatedElement = element;
            for (var i = 0; i < fns.length; ++i) {
                var fn = fns[i];

                var result = fn(event, updatedElement, view);
                if (callbackType === FullCalendarCallbackType.eventRender && result === false) {
                    broken = true;
                    break;
                }
                if (callbackType === FullCalendarCallbackType.eventRender && result instanceof jQuery) {
                    updatedElement = result;
                }
            }
            if (broken) {
                return false;
            }
            return updatedElement;
        };
    }

    /**
     * Adds a one-off event directly to the calendar. Consider adding directly to an event
     * source rather than calling this method.
     * @param FullCalendar.EventObject[] Array of events to add.
     */
    public addEvents(events: FullCalendar.EventObject[]) {
        events.forEach((event) => {
            this._element.fullCalendar("renderEvent", event, true);
        });
    }

    /**
     * Remove events from the calendar
     * @param Array of event IDs to remove, or a filter function, accepting an event, returing true if it is to be removed, false if it is to be kept. Leave null to remove all events.
     * @return EventObject[] - events that were removed.
     */
    public removeEvents(filter: any[]|((event: FullCalendar.EventObject) => boolean)): FullCalendar.EventObject[] {
        var clientEvents = this._element.fullCalendar("clientEvents", filter);
        this._element.fullCalendar("removeEvents", filter);
        return clientEvents;
    }

    /**
     * Gets the current date of the calendar
     @ return Date
     */
    public getDate(): Date {
        return (<moment.Moment><any>this._element.fullCalendar("getDate")).toDate();
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


administration additional brings the entire top administration pondering jointly in a single package deal.
The sequence fuses key principles with utilized actions to aid managers learn and increase how they paintings in perform.
Management additional is a thrilling, new method of administration improvement. The books give you the foundation for self-paced studying at point 4/5. The versatile studying constitution permits busy contributors to check at their very own comfort, minimising time clear of the task.
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Each e-book is split into topics of excellent size for providing in a coaching consultation. each one subject has quite a number actions for delegates to accomplish, placing the educational into context and pertaining to it to their very own state of affairs and enterprise.
The books' full of life type will stimulate additional curiosity within the topics lined. publications for extra analyzing and useful internet references supply a lead-in to additional learn.
Management additional relies at the NVQ framework to ease the construction of degree, submit Graduate degree or NVQ programmes for managers. it's permitted with all top awarding bodies.
Meet the calls for of a aggressive world wide aggressive financial system. detect the relevance of those sixteen international HRD traits in your organization:* process and coaching * wishes overview and research* functionality development * company universities* education and supply * Shared tasks* Systematic overview * Measuring the go back on funding (ROI) * education expenditures * revenue facilities* Budgeting * studying pursuits* administration partnerships * know-how* worldwide education courses * Outsourcing Jack Phillips spotted anything whereas consulting for corporations around the world.
Here's the sorrowful fact: such a lot companies have a self-defeating method of human assets. we all know this—and the opposite HR matters they face—because of our proprietary survey of approximately 450 businesses, averaging seventy eight staff. companies with fewer than two hundred staff usually don't require—or can't afford—an HR specialist.
Prepared for the longer term or caught long ago? Millennials were condemned as lazy, entitled, disloyal, and disrespectful and wanting consistent hand-holding. yet Crystal Kadakia—a Millennial herself in addition to an organizational improvement advisor and two-time TEDx speaker—shows that not just are those damaging stereotypes lifeless mistaken, yet every one conceals a good place of work perform that forward-looking businesses needs to undertake in the event that they are to suffer.


text:
The Quilemba Solar Power Station is a planned  solar power plant in Angola. The power station is in the development stage, by a consortium comprising Total Eren, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies, the French oil  conglomerate, in collaboration with  Greentech-Angola Environment Technology and Sonangol, the Angolan energy parastatal.

Location
The power station is located in the city of Lubango, the capital of Angola's Huila Province, in southwest Angola, approximately , by road, south of Luanda, the country's capital.

Overview
The power station is designed to have generation capacity of 35 megawatts. Its output is intended to be sold directly to the Empresa Rede Nacional de Transporte de Electricidade (RNT), the national electricity transportation utility company, for integration into the national grid, under a long-term power purchase agreement. On 30 November 2020, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed by the developers of this power station and the government of Angola for the design, financing, construction and operation of Quilemba Solar Power Station, with generation capacity of 35 megawatts.

The Angolan government is in the process of expanding national electricity generation from the current (2021) 5.01 GW to 9.9 GW by 2025, of which 800 MW is sourced from renewable sources.

Developers
The table below illustrates the corporate entities who own a stake in the special purpose vehicle (SPV) company "Quilemba Solar Company":

As of April 2021, discussions are ongoing, seeking the participation of Sonangol, the national oil company of Angola, in the development consortium. In October 2021, Sonangol agreed to take a 30 percent shareholding in Quilemba Solar Company, the SPV company.

Benefits
The energy generated by this power station is expected to reduce the country's electricity deficit and to increase the proportion of the Angolan population who are connected to grid electricity.

See also

 List of power stations in Angola
 Caraculo Solar Power Station

References

External links
 Overview of Electricity Energy Sector In Angola As of December 2018.
 Sonangol, Total-Eren and Greentech Partner for Solar Project "Quilemba" As of 15 October 2021.

Solar power stations in Angola
Buildings and structures in Huíla Province
Renewable energy power stations in Angola

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: Stopwatch glitches I made a stopwatch application recently and it had a few glitches.
If I hit the stop button twice in a row, the entire app would crash.
If I hit the start button twice in a row, the timer would run twice as fast and the stop button would stop working.
How do I fix this problem?
Here is the code in my .h file:
    IBOutlet UILabel *time;
    IBOutlet UILabel *time1;
    IBOutlet UILabel *time2;

    NSTimer *myTicker;
    NSTimer *myTicker2;
    NSTimer *myTicker3;
}

- (IBAction)start;
- (IBAction)stop;
- (IBAction)reset;

- (void)showActivity;
- (void)showActivity1;
- (void)showActivity2;

@end

and here is my code in the .m file:
- (IBAction)start {
    myTicker = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:1 target:self selector:@selector(showActivity) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];

    myTicker2 = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:.1 target:self selector:@selector(showActivity1) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];

    myTicker3 = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:60 target:self selector:@selector(showActivity2) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
}

- (IBAction)stop {
    [myTicker invalidate];
    [myTicker2 invalidate];
    [myTicker3 invalidate];
}

- (IBAction)reset {
    time.text = @"00";
    time1.text = @"00";
    time2.text = @"00";
}

- (void)showActivity {
    int currentTime = [time.text intValue];
    int newTime = currentTime + 1;
    if (newTime == 60) {
        newTime = 0;
    }
    time.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", newTime];
}

- (void)showActivity1 {
    int currentTime1 = [time1.text intValue];
    int newTime1 = currentTime1 + 1;
    if (newTime1 == 10) {
        newTime1 = 0;
    }
    time1.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", newTime1];
}

- (void)showActivity2 {
    int currentTime2 = [time2.text intValue];
    int newTime2 = currentTime2 + 1;
    time2.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", newTime2];
}

A: Set the stop button's userInterActionEnabled property to NO and the start button's to YES when the -stop method is fired.  Then switch and set the stop button's userInterActionEnabled to YES and the start button's to NO when -start is fired.

A: You should create a private BOOL variable "isRunning", which is checked when clicked on Stop or Start like:
- (IBAction)stop {
    if(!isRunning) return;

    [myTicker invalidate];
    [myTicker2 invalidate];
    [myTicker3 invalidate];

    self.isRunning = NO;
}

etc. Also ignoring user interactions is general a good idea (like CodaFi suggested), but only fights the symptoms ;-) You really should do both checks.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


In Indian-administered Kashmir, wildlife experts have recently sighted Pir Panjal markhor in 35 herds, raising hopes that the animal was not as close to extinction in the area as previously thought. In other projects Wikimedia Commons. Selective breeding of goats generally focuses on improving production of fiber , meat, dairy products or goatskin. The markhor is mainly found in the sparsely wooded mountainous regions in northern and western Pakistan. The Society for Torghar Environmental Protection is a nonprofit organization that administers such a conservation project in the Baluchistan Province.


Our roses are supplied as potted garden roses. They are not cut flowers but living rose plants and are suitable for planting either in pots or beds and borders in your garden making a perfect lasting gift. Supplied all year round (subject to availability) and May not be in a flowering state depending on the time of order and May be trimmed back and ready for planting in the autumn/winter months. New growth will develop from spring and the flowering period should be from late spring and throughout summer depending on the variety selected. The roses will thrive in most well drained soils, on an open sunny site. Before planting water thoroughly or stand container in water for an hour before planting. Dig a hole twice the size of the pot, mix compost and fertiliser with the soil from the hole, remove pot, place plant in the hole so that the top of the root ball is level with the surrounding soil, back fill and firm down to prevent air pockets. Water well after planting and for the first growing season. Aftercare - roses benefit from a mulch of Organic material, around the base of the plant after planting. This keeps in moisture, prevents weeds and adds nutrients to the soil. Dead heading remove spent flowers after flowering, this will encourage repeat flowering. Prune lightly in autumn to prevent wind rock over winter. In spring prune down to good, strong, outward facing buds to produce an open wine glass shaped frame, to allow lots of light and air movement into and around the plant. Feed in spring after pruning and again in midsummer, with a general rose fertiliser.
Special Sister - 4lt Potted Hybrid Tea Garden Rose Bush - The Ideal Sister Gift, Stunning Large Lilac Blooms, Carmine Edging, Fawn Centres. Highly Disease Resistant - Exclusive!


It's here and I couldn't be more excited!
If you're a LinkedIn user then you've probably been waiting for LinkedIn to launch live video. Maybe you're excited like me, or maybe you're not so sure about live video on LinkedIn, either way you need to know what's happening. Social media platforms will always change over time, as a business owner you need to be aware of the changes and adapt if you want to stay relevant.
In this post, I'll give you a run down of what I've seen so far and who I've seen beta testing live video on LinkedIn. Be sure to follow me on LinkedIn HERE as I will continue to update the LinkedIn Live Streamers list at the end of this post and the latest news for LinkedIn Live for you.
The first LinkedIn Live that I was able to see and participate in live was with Cathy Hackl, a true rock star in augmented reality & virtual reality, Top LinkedIn Voice, and highly sought after technology speaker. Cathy is quickly becoming one of my favorite people on LinkedIn. For her second live stream on LinkedIn Cathy played a game called AI Against Humanity, you can watch it HERE. This was a super fun, engaging, and education live stream and it's my opinion that these types of live streams will do exceedingly well on LinkedIn, just as Cathy's did.
I was watching and participating on mobile (I'll share my desktop experience in a minute) and the overall functionality for a viewer on mobile, was in my opinion top notch! First, commenting was simple and straight forward, replying to other users comments was the smoothest interface I've seen on a live stream while it was live, and the share feature was sadly not working. As you can see in my blurry screen shot below ;P there's a place to comment, there's a share arrow, and a thumbs up for liking.
If you tap on another commenters comment, it will give you an option to "reply" which tags them in your comment...very smooth. I think this functionality speaks to LinkedIn's culture of networking. Most comment threads on other live stream and social media platforms are one way, commenter to poster and then poster replying to commenter. LinkedIn is one of the few places where you actually see people consistently commenting and replying to each other and not just the poster...It's one of my favorite things about LinkedIn!
The share function wasn't working on mobile. When clicked, it would open a window like it was generating a post to share. I could write in text above the post, just as I usually can, but the post button was hidden in the header and not clickable. As a matter of fact, the X to discard the post was also in the header and not clickable. To get back to The live stream, I had to close the LinkedIn app and then go back in to access the live stream again, see the screen shot below.
You can see on the left the X through the time, and though the right side is more difficult to make out, that's the word "POST" over the top of the battery life. Several other commenters also mentioned this glitch, so it wasn't just me ;) The thumbs up feature works exactly as you'd expect, you tap it and the thumbs up float across the screen.
The non-notifications may just be part of the beta testing, could be how the interface works (more on that in a minute) or, it could be an intentional part of how Live Video will work on LinkedIn long term. There were hundreds of viewers, comments, and likes on the live streams I've seen...can you image all those notifications on LinkedIn? I've seen some concerned posts and comments about LinkedIn turning into Facebook, I understand why, but I don't think there's a need to worry.
Many social media platforms have similar functions like a feed, comments, likes, replies, messaging, and yes, live video, yet each platform is used differently. It's used differently because the core users are attracted to the platform for it's unique purpose. LinkedIn Live won't turn into Facebook because that's not what LinkedIn's core users want. More importantly, it's not what LinkedIn wants. Which is why I'm thinking the notifications are non-existent on LinkedIn Live, because the purpose of LinkedIn Live is the live interaction, not the replay. Yes, the point of any "live" video is live interaction, but that's not how it's used across social media. Live replay is very popular on Facebook and you talk to replay viewer #Replay :) Maybe LinkedIn wants to encourage live viewership and interaction...no notifications could be part of that...maybe, we'll just have to see.
The notification issue could also be related to the LinkedIn Live interface. According to Chris Strub, a live streaming nonprofit specialist, and all around fabulous guy, you can't go live directly into LinkedIn. In other words, you NEED a 3rd party streaming tool like Switcher, which is what Chris uses. How does Chris know this? Yup! Chris is one of the LinkedIn Live beta testers here in the US.
I was able to catch Chris's first LinkedIn Live (you can see it here) while on desktop! On desktop I was able to share the live while it was live by clicking the three dots as shown below and then clicking copy link and then creating a post on LinkedIn. I didn't see a specific share button on desktop, but I'll keep my eyes on it.
As any long time LinkedIn user knows, LinkedIn LOVES a slow roll...out. It's impossible to say exactly when live video will come out of beta. What I can tell you is that the initial test was by invitation only and as stated below, there will be an application process to get access after the test.
What will this application process look like, will there be requirements, how long will the approval process take, and the answers to so many other questions are only known by LinkedIn at this point.
You cannot stream into LinkedIn from LinkedIn, you need a 3rd party app/service like Switcher.
You can share LinkedIn Live Videos while they're live from desktop by copying the link and posting it on your feed.
When can you get access to LinkedIn Live? Not sure, but you will have to APPLY for access when the beta test is complete.
As I said above, LinkedIn Live access was by INVITATION ONLY and only LinkedIn knows exactly why it selected it's beta testers. Of the 6 people and 1 company I'm aware of (listed below), I can tell you that they are each a fabulous human being, extremely talented, and real. If you're thinking of using LinkedIn Live when it rolls out to the rest of us...follow and watch people below to see the variety of styles that they are successfully using to stream live on LinkedIn for inspiration.
Akosua Boadi-Agyemang - An international student, LinkedIn Live beta tester and Campus Editor, Akosua is an education advocate and creator of the #theBOLDjourney. Akosua is fun, down to earth and brilliant, you can see her first LinkedIn Live HERE.
Allison Stern -Entrepreneur, online video expert, and co-founder of Tubular Labs, Allison is all about video :) you can find out more about Allison and what she's up to by watch her live-stream HERE.
Chris Huie -A Phoenix area community building technology education advocate. Chris collaborates with communities in the Phoenix area to make it a better place through technology education <3 You can see the replay of Chris's live-stream HERE.
There you have it, that's who I know and what I know about LinkedIn Live right now. Did I miss something, a feature or function of LinkedIn Live that you've seen? Comment below and let me know.


Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - Rochester Public Utilities has responded to a request for help from utilities in the expected path of Hurricane Irma. RPU spokesman Tony Benson says a crew of lineworkers is scheduled to leave Rochester Saturday morning to assist in the response to the massive storm that's bearing down on Florida.
The RPU crew, which will caravan to Florida with 15 other municipal utility line crews from other Minnesota communities and crews from Wisconsin, will be traveling in a bucket truck with a 55-foot boom and a digger derrick used for setting utility poles.
Benson says the RPU crew could be in Florida, or other areas hit by Irma, for up to three weeks depending on the severity of the damage to the power grid.


Press the play button to see a short talk by Bill Gates where he discusses the incredible lifesaving power of vaccines. In particular, he highlights the case of polio, which is 99 percent eradicated and within reach of being the second disease to ever be completely eliminated from the world.
The video below shows how an "Iron Lung" kept people alive after becoming ill with polio.


Project of apartment for a young family in Provence style with Art-deco elements. This is the smallest apartment we designed for 17 years of our work. Area of the apartment is 42 sq. m. Its plan was like a railroad car with 2 windows in its ends. We managed to ergonomically allocate kitchen – guest room – loggia, bedroom, walk-in wardrobe and WC in a such small area.
High spirit, comfort and balance of various directions – that is the secret of crating such interior. Gentle colour palette and natural materials became reference points in embodying the project.