88HK

Hi Mike,

There was a glut of photos of interior decoration, swimming pools etc. They caused two problems:

• New visitors would get the wrong impression of the content and aims for Gwulo
• Regular visitors had to scroll through pages and pages of these photos on "What's New" before they could find anything they were interested in. They'd stop checking, and worse stop posting, thinking that no-one would see their content.

I wrote to 88hk two weeks ago:

Some more thoughts on the newer buildings, and especially modern photos of those buildings - a couple of good exterior shots are all we need, as modern interior shots don't add any value to our record of the history. eg if we look at http://gwulo.com/node/26969/photos as an example, just the two exterior shots of the building are enough.

Since then I haven't seen any more of the problem photos posted. Today's "What's New" shows a couple of days material, which is about average.  So I think we've already cleared up the problem you described, but let me know if not. (88hk can't delete images, I'll need to do that. Something for when I'm back from vacation.)

What's New still shows many new pages from 88hk, "Place" pages documenting detached houses around Hong Kong. I don't have much interest in these, especially the newer buildings, and usually skip them as I work down the What's New page. But I can see several have conversations with other readers.

Regards, David

PS A tip for days when lots of pages appear that you're not interested in, use "Recent Posts (by type)" to hide them from the list. eg try these:

• What's New without Place pages
• What's New without "Page(s) from book / document" (useful when I've been adding lots of wartime diary pages)

Like Mike, and I believe others, I've lost interest in checking Gwulo.com during the last weeks. What used to be a daily pleasure with a measure of excitement as to what one might find has become a bore. One new user has singlehandedly changed the character of Gwulo.com from Old Hong Kong to New Hong Kong. Today, 15 July, there are at least 26 posts from this user, some of which relate to the 2000s. Other users' posts quickly become buried and lost to view. The sheer volume of photos of New Hong Kong will soon result in contamination of the "Random Photo" feature, which used to be so interesting. (I noticed a photo of a modern bathroom coming up today).

Up till now Gwulo has had many faithful followers, who help each other when they know what others are searching for and why. Occasionally we dip into our families' treasured photograph albums, often salvaged from the war, and post a picture that we think may be of interest to others and that will elicit comment.

David's mission statement invites people to put on photos, stories or questions about old Hong Kong. Of greatest interest are those that have relevance to the person uploading them, rather than being any old photos or newspaper articles.

I'm sure there must have been a recent misunderstanding about the nature and aims of Gwulo.com and hope that we can soon return to postings on Old Hong Kong. (Should we specify a date threshold?) Self-rationing would also be welcomed so that we can likewise return to a variety of voices and subjects on a daily basis. For people to be encouraged to post, they must be able to believe that their posts will remain visible for a few days at least.

Jill

This isn't the first time I've had messages from one user saying they don't want to see pages from another user, so I've added a new page to handle this.

If you go to the "Recent posts" page, I've added a new option "Recent posts (hide users)". It lets you hide new pages from users whose content you aren't interested in.

So Mike & Jill, if you bookmark this link:

http://gwulo.com/tracker/recent-posts-hide-user?uid=88hk

it will show you recent posts, but hide any new pages from user 88hk. 

Notes:

• It only hides pages the user has created, so the list still shows pages the user has commented on.
• You can add more than one username, eg this link shows recent pages from everyone except user "David" and user "Admin", ie the two usernames I use to post material to the website:
  http://gwulo.com/tracker/recent-posts-hide-user?uid=Admin%2C+David 

Back to vacation!

I completely agree with Jill and was rapidly losing interest in reading the posts at all. Thank you David for explaining how to avoid this blight!

Regards, Lee

It appears as though 88hk edited a substantial number of his posts and deleted most of his comments.  There are several topics that are effectively blank.  I commented on some of these topics, but at this point they are irrelevant and confusing.  David, when you get back on vacation, please delete these empty topics even if they still contain my comments.  Sorry, but this means more work for you.

I am surprised and disappointed that a disagreement between readers turned out like this.  Some weeks back I had asked 88hk about his use of pictures from real estate leasing sites and other sources.  I suggested he check with David first before posting them because I was not sure they should be used.  At the time I thought that was the best option. 

Could we have avoided this spat if other readers quietly asked him to reconsider adding 'Places' for new redevelopments and using real estate material from the current-generation of a former old house?  Or would that be encroaching too much on another reader's choice of posting topics?  Is there a happy medium for the future?   

Cannot understand the motives of 88HK for joining and contributing to this website, but thank you, David, for providing the link to remove this potentially annoying thorn from my backside.

H.

Just checking in and I can see that 88hk spent yesterday deleting all the pages and comments he has added. I'm sorry to see that. First I don't feel we've lived up to the "A friendly website for everyone that is interested in old Hong Kong to ask questions and share what you've found." Then 88hk has spent several days of time adding content, and another day of his time deleting it, which is a shame to see wasted. Finally the deletion causes holes in conversations, as Compradore notes. 

Anyway, let's look at some of the problems this episode identifies, and think how to avoid them in future.

Relevant to "old Hong Kong" or not?

We're broad on what's included under that topic, and I usually wait a while to see how new users get the hang of the site. Originally 88hk asked me if it was ok to add new buildings, and I said yes, keeping in mind we've already got other new buildings listed here. I'm happy to see timelines of Places on sites brought up to the present. It lets us look at a current building and trace its history back.

The modern photos of interiors and bathrooms were definitely not relevant. When it was clear that wasn't going to stop, I wrote to 88hk a couple of weeks ago and let him know, as explained above. He agreed, and that stopped.

I hadn't expected the volume of new content that 88hk added. If asked again I'd narrow down the criteria for new buildings to be buildings that complete a timeline of buildings dating back to pre-1997. If a building was built after that, and was the first building on the site, it's unlikely to be of interest.

Yes but what's the real motive for adding these?

For anyone heading down the conspiracy theory route, it's not worth spending time trying to work out another person's motives for posting on Gwulo. Just assume it's something they're interested in, even if you can't imagine why. (Most of us here can look in the mirror and admit that whatever odd thing it is that fascinates us - fire hydrants anyone? - it probably seems an odd obsession to friends and family.) 88hk is interested in detached buildings around Hong Kong.

If you really want to know, ask - "Just curious, why the interest in all these buildings?"

There's too much new stuff!

That's a problem I'm happy to have, as my usual problem is encouraging people to contribute.

But it's not stuff I'm interested in.

After the bathroom photos, that seems to be the main problem people are unhappy with.

Then how to balance me wanting to add more new stuff to the site, without interesting things disappearing off "What's new" too soon?

One solution could be to ration, as Jill suggests. eg "You've used up your quota of new posts for this week, please come back next week." The problem is I'd quickly exhaust the quota, eg when posting wartime diary pages.

The solution I prefer is to let you tailor what you see, to focus on what you're interested in. So there are now two versions of the "What's New" page that I hope wlll fix this in future. One let's you hide types of pages you aren't interested in, one lets you hide pages from users you aren't interested in. These should let you tune the list to find the balance of new and interesting that suits you.

I need to let another user exactly how I feel about them!

Compliments are always welcome, but if you're feeling less than complimentary the old advice to write it then sit on it for a day before posting is always good. Or send it to me by email and say "I'm thinking of posting this, what do you think."

I'm off out to admire the English rain, watch the Minions movie, then head to the village pub for chips and warm beer.

I'll close the comments on this now, and Gwulo can get back to Hong Kong's history.

Regards, David