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"New story" template

How easy it is (and whether it makes sence) to pre-fill the body of the newly created story with a template mentioned by Ehud?
That will make it easier to present stories in the same format.
I mean the text of the template can literally contain recommendations - like, describe the main point here, quote here, but no more than 200 words, provide links here, list authors here, etc. and HTML formatting, too.

By Andris Birkmanis at 2006-05-26 09:32 | Site Discussion | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 5276 reads

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I thought about it,

I thought about it, actually.

I think the easiest way is to use a client-side system. I use ActiveWords to prefill my story template. Firefox has a plugin that allows prefilling text areas (there are also other plugins with similar functionality, I think).

The structure I use is pretty simple:

A "(via x") line if I got the link ona nother blog that I want to attribute.

A title+authors line (small text), the title being the link to the paper.

A blockquote, usually containing the abstract or part of it.


A then my comments.

By Ehud Lamm at Fri, 2006-05-26 09:44 | login or register to post comments

Consistency

If we expect consistency across all editors (as opposed across all posts of one editor) I think the centralized solution cannot be topped.

By Andris Birkmanis at Fri, 2006-05-26 10:09 | login or register to post comments

Consistency is

Consistency is overrated...

But even if that's what we strive for, the number of active editors isn't that big, and I don't think a centralized solution is worth the trouble. It's pretty easy to stick to the smae tepmplate without any techincal assistance.

By Ehud Lamm at Fri, 2006-05-26 10:19 | login or register to post comments

Procrastination

Many site discussion threads of late, including this one, are in my opinion attempting to provide solutions for problems that don't yet exist. Since a (hopefully temporary) decrease in the quality of discussion on LtU is far from a life-or-death situation it seems to me that many issues can be left until there is a clear problem (or in actuality, dealt with with the natural, unguided evolution of the community's norms).

One factor, that might contribute to this is the evolution of LtU. (I'm sorry Ehud, but once you let your baby out into the world it gained a life of it's own; you could not kill LtU even if you wanted to now.)It may be interesting and perhaps even useful to start a site discussion thread on where LtU seems to be going and where people (and particularly Ehud) think LtU should be going.

Ultimately, LtU has a very high quality community. Most explicit and implicit issues have been and are resolved through an Adam Smith-like hand of community pressures. As long as the quality of the community is high, freedom and decentralized solutions will probably be the best approach to take. I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Ehud on managing to bring forth such a community.

(Obviously this is not very particular to this thread and is not really a "reply" let alone a counter to Ehud's reply; it agrees and generalizes/amplifies what he says, or that is how I view it.)

By Derek Elkins at Sat, 2006-05-27 15:05 | login or register to post comments