Hey William, it’s not particularly easy, I mean it means deleting the existing set and redoing them and building a UI that lets you insert at the right point... I guess I think that sounds like quite a lot of effort for something maybe a little niche?

That said, I am awed at your attention to detail there!

Thank you... I completely agree about the first. TBH I think it’s kind of cute, but also a sort of shit solution and I know of a better one. I suspect I will replace it at some point in a way that doesn’t get on yours or my tits.

To your second point Yeah, I’m actually the same, and kind of compulsively drag text around. The problem is I did try what you’re suggesting and everything I came up looked disgusting, because it’s essentially a repeating button, whichever way you look at it, which makes it look less like a nice piece of text and more like a spreadsheet. So I totally sympathise with your point, and I’d like to do it, I just need the great idea that makes it work!

This is a low priority comment, but I would love an option to have poll results appear as they do on ILX (vertical list in descending order by number of votes) without any graphics.

That’s fine, I have it on the list. The graphics are also useless on mobile, so I’ll probably just make them disappear by default on mobile too.

Okay, I removed the graphics on phone widths. The option will take a bit longer as it’s more work, but I’ll get to it.

I just need the great idea that makes it work!

Compress the menu into a single line including poster name, timestamp, and abbreviated action buttons, and have it always visible beneath each post? I’m thinking it could look something vaguely like this:

Okay, there is an option now for removing poll results charts, if you want that. Again, it might require some fixing if stuff shows up.

Who Voted For What

Can there be an anonymity option when answering a poll? What if I’m ashamed of my love for On the Beach and don’t want the shame attached to my username? I think we’d get more poll participants (I’m thinking more of ILE-type polls about personal info)

Hey William, it’s not particularly easy, I mean it means deleting the existing set and redoing them and building a UI that lets you insert at the right point... I guess I think that sounds like quite a lot of effort for something maybe a little niche?

No worries. I suspected that would be tougher to do, and I agree it’s a little niche. If the pollstarter wants alphabetical that badly, they’ll do the work. (as I will)

BUT, please see here:

I Love Music

Elvis, William, I can possibly help with this stuff. I’m not really that familiar with your polls—not in close quarters, but what I did was 100% influenced by how (at least what I casually see of them) you ran them.

The 50 limit takes ten seconds to change, so if you need more, just say the word. Other stuff is likely a bunch more work, but as I say, the work to date was totally influenced by your work, so just let me know. Not everything is easy/practical, but we can definitely have a chat about that to arrive at something that might work better for you.

Keith

rank the neil young albums

Hi Keith, thanks for all your hard work. I wanted to share my thoughts on reacts, though I may just be repeating things you have already heard by now.

I joined ILX in 2019, and this was one of my first posts:

As someone who just showed up here a few days ago, here are my possibly inaccurate impressions:

1. This place doesn’t seem cliquish or unwelcoming, though clearly the regulars know each other well.

2. I like the absence of likes or upvotes, it really lowers the sense of pressure around posting/checking back.

3. I probably wouldn’t come here to talk about literature that much, though I read a lot. It seems like the chances of getting an interesting conversation going around music are much higher.

― Lily Dale, Thursday, August 8, 2019 12:08 PM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

So to me, the absence of reacts has always been a defining feature of ILX; it’s part of what drew me to the site and kept me here. When I tell people about ILX, I usually say something like “There’s this old-school message board I post on that I like because it hasn’t really changed since 2001; it doesn’t even have likes or upvotes, so it’s kind of a vestige of the internet as it used to be, before everything got horrible.”

But I hadn’t really sat down and thought out why reacts make such a difference to me, and I think it’s mainly the sense that on social media you are constantly being ranked, graded, evaluated, given multiple ways to compare yourself to other people and to earlier versions of yourself, and that this omnipresent environment of self-comparison is seeping into our lives in toxic ways. ILX is one of the few places left where you can just post something and let other people respond to it if they want to, but you don’t have a constantly updating metric of exactly how many people liked it or didn’t.

On a personal level, I also find that upvotes, likes, etc. mean that I can never just write a post and walk away; I end up tethered to my computer refreshing the page, looking for those little hits of validation like a rat hitting the cocaine lever (which is very different from just checking the conversation to see how it’s going), and that compulsion feels so unhealthy that at a certain point I just have to disconnect from the site entirely. And I don’t want that to happen with ILX.

That said, I also really appreciate all the things you actually did put into the site—I don’t mean to imply that it’s just about the notes you don’t play.

Good post, thank you for your feedback!

I mean I would like it or love it or whatever, but it seems inappropriate!