semi private progress thread

[edelweis]

This has been discussed before but I'm not sure a conclusion was reached.

 

I'd like to have a thread in which I can record my study activity (Chinese and non-Chinese).

And I'd like to be able to read it even when I'm not logged in, so private blog entries are not suitable.

But since it won't be of interest to most people, there is no need for updates to appear on the front page.

 

I've been thinking about creating a yearly thread with 52 empty posts, one per week, which I would edit later to record my studies.

This way the thread appears only once on the front page (unless someone else comments in it, of course, in which case there would be a discussion in the thread after my 52 initial posts).

Would this be ok?

(it is even possible to create 52 posts at once? )

[laurenth]

8 minutes ago, edelweis said:

so private blog entries are not suitable

 

Isn't there a blog section on the forum? Couldn't it be used to that effect?

 

Btw, I might be interested in creating such a log myself.

[edelweis]

Won't blog updates appear on the front page? they did in the older version...

And they also move the blog up in the blog section:

https://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/blogs/

This attracts attention, unnecessary for my purposes.

 

The other issue with blog entries is presentation of the full text.

For instance see here:

https://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/blogs/blog/73-中文挑战/

The posts are listed but you have to click in order to to read the full text of each entry.

 

An ordinary thread would be more compact - all posts, un-shortened, on a single page... (well, up to the max number of posts per page).

[roddy]

So you want a weekly update topic, but that only gets bumped to the top of the lists when someone else comments, not when you post a weekly update? 

 

You could do 52 posts - would be preferable to coordinate with me, as I can turn off auto-merge so you can get it done without waiting the five minutes or whatever it is (if you make two posts very quickly in the same topic, the forum merges them automatically). That would also flood the activity streams with 52 'edelweis posted' messages, so what I'd do is move it out of sight for a day or two before shifting it back to where you could work on it. 

 

Alternatively, edit it all into one big first post. That would get unwieldy, but no more than 52 empty posts would be at the start. You could perhaps edit stuff out into monthly archives you attach as a text file? 

 

From my point of view - just make new posts and bump it. Learn to love the attention - you're worth it ;-)

[edelweis]

@roddy thanks for the feedback.

I tried the "all in 1 post" approach last year, I found it rather cumbersome and there's the danger of losing everything if something goes wrong. I'm not a fan of attachments, I like having all the info on one page.

On the other hand, the 52 posts look difficult to create and perhaps overkill.

 

I think I will try an intermediate method, i.e. periodically create 3 to 7 empty posts which will constitute a sprint* of 3 to 7 weeks (depending on work deadlines, vacation periods etc). This way I'll avoid flooding the forum, and the weekly posts for each sprint will still be grouped together with minimum hassle (I hope) I'll just need to wait a bit during the empty post creation. Comments and discussion will still be possible between each set of weekly logs...

 

*yes, I've been reading about Scrum