Recently there seem to have been a number of nodes posted that contained much code (good!) and were very interesting (good!) and got front-paged (of course!) and because of their length made it kind of hard to skim over the Monastery Gates to see what was going on in Poetry and Obfu (oops). The same problem (more or less) arises in some of the other sections, too, generally when somebody (frequently AM) submits a node with lots of code and no <READMORE> tag.

This suggests an obvious solution: if a node is over a certain length (not necessarily very long) and contains no <readmore>, the Preview page could contain a note saying "By the way, this is fairly long, you should add this tag" or some other somewhat more lucid explanation of the uses of the tag.

For extra points, one could require the tag before submission was accepted (not so good, I think) or simply automatically insert one in what seems to be an appropriate place on submission if there isn't one already.

This might, of course, get annoying for the more experienced monks (especially if the size limit was less than they thought it should be), so perhaps that aspect should be limited to Anonymonk postings. But I think a "this is long, consider a <readmore>" reminder wouldn't impose too much of a burden on the author, and might actually be considered helpful by some somewhat prolix types. :-)

What say my fellow monks?


If God had meant us to fly, he would *never* have give us the railroads.
    --Michael Flanders

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Auto-READMORE feature?
by footpad (Abbot) on Jun 21, 2001 at 20:58 UTC

    The warning seems easy enough to implement, but I wonder how many people would actually see it--unless it was presented in an annoying fashion (which could itself be problematic).

    I'm not certain it would be easy to devise a workable way to automatically add <READMORE> tags. Sure, you could do it after the first couple of paragraphs, but you might not have a set of paragraphs in a row. Also, there are stylistic differences in posting. For example, I'm pretty careful to close my <P> tags (and I notice that you appear to be pretty careful in your use as well), but not every one does this. For example, a certain monk initially posted his (assumption) nodes initially posted using a fixed type style (e.g. <PRE>, <TT>, and so on). A simple count of paragraphs would not be sufficient for his nodes.

    Put another way, the easiest nodes to automatically parse for appropriate <READMORE> tags are probably not the ones that need them.

    So I vote for considering the warning, but not the automatic inclusion (unless we can determine a set of simple rules that will catch most of the problems).

    In the mean time, you can always /msg the CB (or a janitor) if you see a node that might benefit from a well-placed <READMORE> tag.

    --f

[reply]
Re: Auto-READMORE feature?
by holygrail (Scribe) on Jun 22, 2001 at 18:11 UTC
    I agree, but I think it should be impossible to break somewhere in pieces that are between <CODE> tags. --HolyGrail
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Re: Auto-READMORE feature?
by VSarkiss (Monsignor) on Jun 21, 2001 at 20:28 UTC
    Personally, I like the idea. Maybe adding some flexibility could address the points you mention.

    For example, limit auto-readmore only to items in theCraft, Code, and Cool uses for Perl sections.

    In Seekers of Perl Wisdom, change it by level: required at lower levels and for Anonymous Monk, reminder only for higher levels (maybe none for saints).

    For mostly-text areas like this one and Meditations, don't use it at all.

    I really don't know how much work it would be to add this level of flexibility. Is it doable at all?

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Re: Auto-READMORE feature?
by PetaMem (Priest) on Jun 22, 2001 at 00:14 UTC
    I would not print out a warning, but insert the readmore tag directly. Yeah - I know someone voted -1 for this. But thatīs still my opinion. You canīt do it automatically (at a semantically well-suited position), and if long posts disturb, then...
[reply]
Re: Auto-READMORE feature?
by mischief (Hermit) on Jun 23, 2001 at 21:53 UTC
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[d/l]

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