If you have HBO, I recently enjoyed Coastal Elites, itās a series of monologues by different actors trying to buildi a narrative about life the Covid/Trump era for ācoastal elitesā.
I missed all the news today but went to all my favorite farm stands. It was glorious. It wasnāt until we were back in range of an NPR station that I even remembered last nights debate even happened.
I recommend having a news free day once in a while, itās so good for your brain. And you might even find pink applesā¦
You guys were busy on here, this is so great, love it!
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I grew up in upstate central New York in Apple country. I now live in Florida. Iāve never seen a pink apple. It looks yummy 
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Apple country sounds like a magical place to grow up. I donāt know these apple farmers are up to in order to produce this color but these pink apples are amazing. I wonder if there are pink bananas 
as well?
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Yes there are. Iāve had a few when we were living in Singapore. Lots of different and exotic fruits to be had there. We had a rambutan tree growing outside our bedroom window. The windows there had steel bars across but no glass - just too hot for an enclosed space. The civet cats would gather just outside the window and fight over the fruit all night.
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/life/food_wine/2016/04/08/i-ate-this-civet-cat-coffee/wild-civet.jpg)
They never bothered to venture inside thank goodness.
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I loved that series, but I might just be in love with Kristen Bellā¦
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I never knew how great Ted Danson is, he and Bell were amazing together. I think that might be the last TV show I ever really sat down and watched.
I havenāt yet seen The Umbrella Academy, itās been on my to-do list though. I know itās X-Men adjacent, and thatās slightly outside what I typically enjoy. Have you ever seen Misfits? Iām not sure anyone besides me has ever seen Misfits? Itās a British show kind of like The X-Men if instead of students at Xavierās school the kids were delinquents doing community service.
I really liked the first season, maybe two, and then I lost interest but if you like the premise you might really enjoy it if you can find it. 
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Hereās a question for the group: A few topics have become top heavy with hundreds of replies (i.e. š¤® Coronavirus (Community Thread), š³ 2020 General Election - Trump vs Biden, and More Questionable Behavior from Trump, T Admin, DOJ, and R's vs Dems, Press, Justice), making them nearly impossible to engage with.
Iām wondering if maybe we should consider turning these threads into categories (or tags) and breaking out the posts into separate topics that can more easily be discussed? i.e. instead of this post being one of 145 other posts it could be itās own topic, which could then be responded/reacted to.
Or is the preference a single topic for a subject area and just dump everything into one giant collection?
Iām mostly curious about how to create on-ramps for new users to more easily participate in this forum. Iāve heard over the years that itās difficult to know where to start. The other issue is that there are limits to how big these threads can get (as we learned with The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump).
Anyway, open questionā¦ let me know what you think?
i see your point, and from your āease of use/accessā it makes some sense to have tags on certain subjects, but I am a believer in the bucket ie largish topic method, because just thinking ahead, it would seem that my whole āsubject areaā part of my screen under Latest would be filled w/ lots and lots of threads, and it would seem too cumbersome to see where is a particular topic, rather than dumping it into a more all purpose bucket. But that is how I think, and also foresee how easily I can maneuver through a TON of subjects. Keeping conversations and relevant commentary sounds like a good idea though.
And the under the VOTE, Voter Fraud, Voter issue, I saw the bucket as āGet out the VOTE Info and Obstaclesā area - information and Obstaclesā¦but it is general election news too, so there is need for crossover. Both @anon95374541 and I posted the same Philly inquirer article which would fit into Election news AND voter news. I think Voter Issues are going to be itās own category, given that is how T wants to win.
Am just tossing out some reactions to your query. I am not a linear-type org person, so it is a stretch to imagine a newer type of layout. But thanks @matt for asking the forum give you input.
Right and I think thatās what Iām trying to understand. A very large all-purpose thread is sort ofā¦ pointless? Like, how do you navigate it, reply, comment, have a discussion, etc. if itās all jumbled together? I look at Reddit communities and see both types, but usually the megathreads are time bound or specific to an event of some kind.
One of the cool parts about this forum is that itās easy to cross-link/reference topics and posts, which makes it very ānot linear.ā
Maybe what we need is some combination of a few categories, some mega-threads for those categories (like the Impeachment topic) that serve as a table of contents of sorts (maybe as a wiki?), and more individual topics that are easier to have a conversation about? Not everything should be a topic but not everything you should be a post within in one topic, ya know?
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Weāve tried that in beginning and then we ended up with a lot of stubs with like one comment and then the article would disappear into the void. The long threads came about as breaking news was happening as a place to put them. I read them as timelines.
I agree that we need to have an on ramp but perhaps we simply need to update the formatting for establishing topics and break them up by month if theyāre long running issues, like immigration. Thatās what I did with impeachment.
I had a āfeederā thread and then I divided content up by quarter or month depending on how much content was created.
The structure of the forum software that we use is very different than social media. The forum doesnāt serve up content that may interest visitors the way social media does, and if youāre new, it shows everything is unread and everything is the latest. Some canāt find the daily discussions that happen across multiple threads. Iām not entirely certain how we can change that but we can do a better job of teaching people how to use an old school online forum. Itās more like a library than anything else we should organize it like a library too.
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Instead of Organizing around themes, what if we have subjects or sections like a newspaper?
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Yes, to that. I like your direction.
It has been a maze of news inputs, and developing news areas which fall into specific categories, so yes, individual threads would be good.
Your newsletter recaps helps to isolate days and the heaps of ācrazyā news cycles, and keeping developing news events or stories within confined areas sounds good on the community feed.
Youāre the super maestro -good thinking. 
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Thatās interesting. If thatās how the group sees this, then we should find ways of providing the equivalent of a card catalog for way-finding.
I personally donāt see a lot of ādiscussionā happening in most of these big threads ā mostly itās link dumping with pull quotes. Thatās cool and has archival value, and maybe thatās what this should be, idk.
I do think we need to evolve this a bit. It could be more active use of the wiki post feature (i.e. update one post multiple times vs publish multiple individual posts). I think thatās what worked about the Impeachment thread in the end.
Right. I donāt think Iām trying to conflate the two ā simply bringing up Reddit as an example of a forum-like experience that has both individual threads as well as mega-threads. That last point about the default state being āunread and latestā is, I believe, something that can be changed.
Definitely an idea and Iām certain we could nuance the shit out of that for a while 
I would like to see whatever we evolve into maintain flexibility and openness instead of some super rigid structure.
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Itās hard to comment when sometimes the news stories are like really awful. I call it news gloom. I think it was easier for people to share what they were reading like a book club, rather than talk about how it makes them feel. Trump news is very upsetting.
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Good point! Like, what is there left to sayā¦?
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And also the news sometimes comes very fast with lots of details. I think sharing those details helps people understand what to absorb besides rage. Thereās is just such much news these days.
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It makes me wonder then what we can do to better make sense of all the incredible curatorial work being done in this forum. If itās less ādiscourseā and more āarchival,ā how might that change the framing of how we approach this?
For instance, this site https://presterity.org/ (now defunct) was trying to make these sorts of timelines + lists of news that were cross-referenced (look for the inline āsee alsoā)
Examples:
I donāt know if they ever really ānailedā the format but I find it interesting nonetheless. It feels arbitrarily specific and rigid, but the cross-referencing and consistent structure to be a pretty good direction to consider. Maybe why I keep coming back to the Impeachment wiki
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Slick formatting. I wish we could do something like that. I agree that itās too rigid for this group, with various levels of tech savvyness. The quality of content shared of this forum is very high level but I learned from the impeachment thread that it was easier for the forum to create the content than it was for me to continuously organize it on the fly.
If we create an standard for topics, like, make the first two posts wiki, then you can create build a web through linking topics. When one thread becomes too long, just edit it into a reasonable timeframe and start a new one that links back to the previous thread.
I made an example
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the news sometimes comes very fast with lots of details.
If itās less ādiscourseā and more āarchival,ā how might that change the framing of how we approach this?
First off I would like to say how I really enjoy the interaction and the feast of information on WTF and thank you both and all the other contributors and commenters here for your tireless work. My 2 cents, for what its worth, is that another similar site which mainly concentrates on NZ politics, but is one of our most visited political blogs is The Standard.
There we have each day an Open Mike, where commentators can raise almost any issue that is giving them an itch within reason, and it is moderated. Best to take a look to see how it works. But over the years the format hasnāt changed much except Lynn, the developer of the site, has added a few more features over the years.
Other topics such as a Leaders Debate, a proposed Policy issue or current news are also designated spaces where a particular issue can be vigorously discussed.
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