Recent and Daily Activity screening

Is it possible to either completely remove, or have a user ability to de-select all of the "POB Lounge" posts from showing in the My Home or other Daily and Recent Activity lists?

For me I would just as not soon even see the titles of the garbage (IMHO) that these people are quibbling over.  It is kinda like leaving a pornographic magazine with the cover in view to minors.  PUT A WRAPPER ON IT.  I thought this was the "Professional" Board, these topic lines are embarrassing in my opinion!!  Hide them.   If people want to politics here, go hide in the dark room somewhere.

Sorry I sugar coated it and did not tell you how I really feel about it!

Ditto. I think that is  in the works.

I can hide it right now by changing the Lounge to a closed group accessible by members only. The problem then is that the individuals who do like to follow that content will have a more difficult time of doing so at a glance. What we're working toward is complete user customization, so that you can follow what interests you and "turn off" the rest. That's coming, but not quickly.

If the P&R is bothersome to enough of our community, I can go ahead and close it. Those who want to follow the discussions can then either "watch" the group to receive e-mail notifications when new posts are made or bookmark it to easily drop in on the group and check for new posts. 

We'll do this by popular vote, so please share your opinion here. We have three yes votes for closing it so far. Any no's?

Well, I would have to admit that I enjoy that 'schtuff' for entertainment purposes; I enjoy baiting the robo-stance folks on both sides,
But there is a practical downside to the 'schtuff'...

A year ago an aquaintance was looking for a surveyor (and I wont survey for aquantances, and also said it would not be ethical for me to reccomend for a number of reasons) so I suggested the phone book. Instead they went online, and lo, they found the old boards.

Oh my.... they were so shocked to find (and they showed my actual posts to back it up)  calls for violence, racism (although true racists will never admit that even exist), misogyny, perversity, and syuch childish partisan extremism that they didnt want to work with any surveyor. And to pre-empt any inevitible comment that my aquaintances are some kind of over-sensitive whimps, they are both in  law enforcement, and are not of  the political ilk you are suspecting. Their solution was to ask every prospective surveyor if they had heard of the POB boards, and they hired the one that had not.

Now, we are inviting in potential customers to alienate with the "Ask a Surveyor" feature....

And what is the discussion about the public's perception of our profession?

The discussion in The Lounge has actually been fairly civil so far, which is one reason I've kept it open. And politics does play a role in business, possibly more now than ever before. I have to admit I enjoy following some of the recent discussions. That said, I do want to keep a tight rein on the professionalism of this site so that it is a place "outsiders" can come for information and networking without members being embarrassed.

It's worth noting that the political posts are not in the Recent Forum Posts feed, so if you follow that you can avoid them. However, I'm willing to block them from the Recent Activity Feed also if we have a general consensus. As I noted, there are other ways to follow those posts for those who are interested. 

This just my take. I use the All Activities to monitor this board. Now it shows all the P&R posts which I care little for. I want to monitor the pictures, the blogs and the posts and not the political stuff.

That it just me though. One vote.

It needs to get crude to go away???... note taken.

It will be outa control soon

I think you should cut it all together.  It worked okay on the old site, but seems odd here.  You'll really only have to send a note to Mike Binge and Mr. Bowles, they seem to be the main citizens of the new P&R here. 

Apparently the vote is Ostriches 3 Intelligent Life Forms 1.
Are you kidding me? Look at the traffic. Stop the lies.
AJ- you are being terribly disingenuous. You have been absent for weeks decrying the lack of speed. Apparently things took a sudden turn and became a little too fast for you. So, you want things blocked. Don't you claim to be a big First Amendment guy? Which is it?

And Gavin- your story (homily) is quite interesting. But I spent last fall in your part during the dark days of the police murders. I took part in a fund raiser for the familes of the slain officers. After some interaction in which I shared my identity, the response from some of the officers I interacted with was :" I can get you a permit to carry as a temporary resident if you like". I have witnesses to this. It is unfair to portray your experience with so broad a brush.
MLB

With 3-sigma predictability ;)

It is a simple matter to bookmark any group in which you are a member.  You can browse to the group on rpls.com then create a desktop shortcut to it.  I just created shortcuts to the POB Lounge group and to the Strictly Surveying category.  I closed Internet Explorer, then clicked on the shortcuts.  I was still logged into rpls and the IE shortcuts opened the specific areas of the site I wanted to view.

No muss, no fuss.  Those who find this too difficult or too inconvenient, too bad.

Personally, my vote is to not show the POB Lounge in the recent and daily activity lists.  The closer we get to the US midterm elections the more ludicrous it will be. Remember that not all of the participants in the site are from the US.

Now, normally while I enjoy the occassional read of the PnR material because the endlessly circular arguments are often hilarious - the more serious the poster is, the more hilarious they tend to be as a generic rule - I don't want to have to look at the list of topics when I go to 'My Home'.

I don't participate in the 'other' site for some of the various reasons that have been given here.  I prefer a more 'professional' exchange.

No 'ostrich' here. I just want the choice not to look at them. 

With 3-sigma predictability ;) ???
Please!! What did you think was going to happen?  What is comical is to watch the great defenders of the First Amendment openly lobby for censorship. And then proclaim "What hypocrisy? I don't see any hypocrisy".
MLB

Well, for me personally, the jury is still WAY out on whether I will be a regular lurker/poster here at the new RPLS.   I keep coming back to see  how it's going, and I feel I'm giving Kristi all the time she needs to get things the way she wants.   IF the goal of this new board as I keep hearing is to whittle it to a 'serious, professional' face to the world of surveying, I think she might just be right in cutting the P&R out.  Given the cumbersome structure, a real back and forth discussion seems difficult if not impossible. 
I would love to see what the stats are for the Lounge, both overall and without  MLB's  and Bowles' posts..  my gut reaction is that the percentages with those two are inflating the totals. 

If the "Lounge" were to close, and I frequent over there often to get my blood boiling, wouldn't some of the discussion spew over to the main section of RPLS.com and turn into a free for all. Would be much harder for Kristi and the other moderators to control...just my 0.02 cents worth.....

Come on AJ- I don't work in a vacuum. We all know controversial personalities draw the audience. How many historic rebar seminars and war stories simply get recycled into sheer boredom? P&R is topical. It is always fresh and beckons to the agile mind who has the ability to articulate a position. Campfire tunes have their place as well, but professionals are permitted to offer opinions. Even when they are not experts.

Having actually been the "public face" of a large Land Development Organization I feel uniquely qualified to speak to matters of the public perception of Land Surveyors. This tale of the public being "scared off" because of P&R on this site is anecdotal and limited at best. And I don't rule out fabricated for leverage.

I was the designated spokesperson for answering angry letters about Surveyors and Surveying for a large metropolitan public agency. You are not about to fool me with these hollow undocumented thinly veiled threats. I submit these are personal opinions that are unsupported by any meaningful documentation.

How many of you have ever had to actually deal with someone who has written one of these complaining missives? (You don't have to hold up your hand, Kristi.) I've actually done it dozens of times. NOT EVEN ONE TIME have I not been able to resolve the issue. And believe it or not, in every case peaceably.

"We have nothing to fear, but fear itself"... Franklin D. Roosevelt
MLB

Too much fun! I can't call for any reasoned restraint (not censorship) ; we'd miss all the fun!

Pardon me Mr. Binge, in my opinion you are out of control on this.

I just asked a simple question, how to isolate myself from even seeing what is going on in the "P&R" lounge.  I have no control over simply going to www.rpls.com, the recent activity shows all of the titles of those posts.  Michael, if you honestly believe all of that crap about our President, Musilums and whatever else you people talk about reflects well on our profession, then my opinion of you went way down.

My point, remove it from the daily activity on a primary www.rpls.com login, or better yet remove the "P&R" all together.  I can live with option 1, but if it stays the way it is (just showing the tiltes of the threads, and having to weed through them all) I will be out of here.  With no regrets.   And I think others will too.  And POB will be left with a P&R chat board with a bunch of un-used potential, that reflects poorly on the "geospatial community".

Let me make my position crystal clear. If you want to block whatever you want, I'm for giving you the tools to do it. Your loss in my opinion. Information is currency. The more you know, the better off you are. This is about choice. I am foursquare FOR choice. I am diametrically opposed to censorship.

Michael, if you honestly believe all of that crap about our President, Musilums and whatever else you people talk about reflects well on our profession, then my opinion of you went way down.

So be it. I happen to disagree. Surveyors do not operate in a vacuum removed from the issues of the day. One of the menu choices is "Forums" indicating this is not a "one trick pony" site. Now unlike a commercial  software site that promotes and sells products for an industry, this is user participation site. It is different (thank God) from "Corporatist" sites like ESRI, Topcon, Trimble etc. It allows one to be himself as well as a Surveyor.

Why would you want to give that up? This is supposed to be a community. Many here routinely castigate regulations imposed by communities we work in. Why impose them on ourselves. Liberate yourself from the pomposity. It is foolish to believe an army of potential clients is boycotting the Survey Profession because of posted P&R opinions.

If you don't like them, don't read them. But do not engage in faux high minded hypocritical nonsense. The old site ran ten plus years with a high P&R volume. The survey business is still intact despite the sour efforts of a few cranky curmudgeons. Not a scintilla of evidence outside the mind of the beholder exists that P&R has damaged this site.

Count the damned posts. Even a complete idiot ought to be able to analyze that simple rubric. But perhaps I am too optimistic.
MLB

I vote to remove the P&R posts from view. I think closing the "lounge" to a group of those who frequent it would be appropriate. The discussions are not polite nor are they professional. I do not see why a breeding ground for hate needs to continue to exist in a community of geospatial professionals. No need to get bitter about it. My opinion is my right. I do not need to visit the "lounge" nor do I need to see the titles of the posts. Thank you for allowing me to express my opinion.

It belongs in the dark closet or somewhere else Binge.  Period. 

I have no intention of censorship, but if you want a P&R forum, go somewhere else.

How can I have this site open at a government work place with such terrible stuff on the front page.  How can I invite a professional to visit and share when there is such demeaning, racial and other stuff running rampant on the recent activity to greet them.   It is so UN-PROFESSIONAL.  I am not going to wait for your agurment about it.   Binge you are trying to make this discussion a P&R rant.  Get over it.  Step back and look at what you are saying.  You are way out of line.

I am out of here for a while.  This is a disgrace.

POB, figure out what this site is to be about.  Get in control Kristi.   It is either about Geospatial professionalism or politics and religon opinion freedom of speech.  Once you get it figured out, I might come back. 

Having had the privilege to have personally met a vast number of posters, possibly as many as any one !

I have to say it genuinely cuts me up when I see two fellows I know ending up going for the jugular over differing religious and  or political views.

Often these fellows have not had the opportunity to meet one another and for some reason passion dictates the finger.....Yet if they met in a watering hole communication would not be so vitriolic as there would be a realization that their fellow surveyor is indeed an extremely decent fellow.

Personally I do not read PR and have always thought the daily action page clutters the site and believe it should be the member's right to have the option to turn  it on or off.

I hope that the ongoing development budget allows for the introduction of some personalization tools for site presentation.

RADU

In my ongoing efforts to get to the truth I have just reviewed the verbiage in the 373 available post titles under "Recent Activity" Then I reread this thread and examined the charges leveled. I am unable to find a single objectionable word in ANY of those post titles. We won't discuss content, because the complaint is directed at the titles.

Several of the titles are ver batim postings from news sites. Some of the titles are politically charged. But that hardly makes them inappropriate. It is current news! That would seem to make them fodder for "water fountain" banter.

I could not find a single title for any of these posts I would deem embarrassing. However, I am open to a discussion which includes an element of specificity. Where are all of those embarrassing titles, and why do you find them embarrassing?
MLB

Good to hear some reasoned discourse on this (becuase rhetoric is oft self defeating).

Is it so hard to believe that people can take genuine offesnse to the stuff on here and that it might contribute to an already unfair image of our profession that an accusation of fabrication might be made? Now I do find that offensive.I guess if we got a bunch of folks offended to write thier tales in a new category called "Offended" it would still be dismissed. Actually I see many offended posts whenever I do visit the site, Yes, I can only offer my aquaintences tale of non-surveyors who found the site offensive, but for some even a notarized statement would still be dismissed; even a thousand of those. Kinda like an alleged letter from a national Guard Commander or an alleged foreign birth certificate... two polarized examples  (I am going to add a premptive extra sigma to my earlier assessment for the likely response to that). No evidence is needed fror a true believer and no amount oif evidence can sway them away from such beliefs. Who are the ostriches?

Several of the most vitriolic posters are folks I respect greatly for their surveying and other knowlege they share. it is often only about 3% of their Pointless&Rhetorical, sexism, or other isms that I genuinely feel cast a dim light on olur profession.
Is it wrong to appeal for some self restraint, or to suggest as others have that maybe taking it to a seperate P&R board altogether be a good idea?

I needed to make a decison today about this board and magazine so I jumped in where in never usually go to test the water. No offense to those who took the bait. That was not cool on my part. Water was a bit murkier than I imagined. Let cool heads prevail. Bye.

Gavin- the charge leveled here is about what is contained in the titles of posts. So perhaps we can make a comparison to pornography. I'll skip the part about not exposing it to children. The title reveals something about the content of the post. Just like Penthouse and Hustler reveal something about the content. Just as you do not have to pick that Hustler up from the shelf and open it, you do not need to click on a post that doesn't interest you. No one is holding a gun to your head making you read it. You have all the control you need in your mouse.

I had the old RPLS.com site page displayed in my former office for years. Rarely did anyone ever ask me a question about it. Certainly no one was ever embarrassed. No one who has ever been around me when I am on the site has ever suggested the site was "un-professional". Now mores may vary from community to community, but mine is quite Conservative. Obviously because people posting here complain, others disagree. But in no uncertain terms I question the motivation behind much of it. I would not even have responded to this thread except for the fact I was personally named. I find the "it's not professional" complaints at the very least shallow. In EVERY CASE it follows political affiliation. I have based that on histories of the posters involved. That is why I find it so egregiously disingenuous. The "Block Poster" "hide posts" group in my view have a not so hidden agenda. And I doubt it's professionalism.

Larry Flynt still publishes Hustler from his wheel chair. He won that right in court. His principle adversary, Mr. Keating sits in a Federal Penitentiary for fraud and embezzlemnent. Sometimes you need to look a little closer to see who the good guys and the bad guys really are.
MLB