thanks
written by Saved , April 16, 2008 (08:21:30 AM)

OK, I finally found it. I am not sure why it took me so long. It may be that my dial up took a long time to show it. For anyone using this feature, the newest comment info, go to the home page ("front page").

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written by MustBMe , April 16, 2008 (08:49:28 AM)

I couldnt imagine using dialup with a site like this. Are you in an area where highspeed isnt available? Dialup and highspeed cost about the same so you wouldnt be saving any money by using dialup.

Site improvement...
written by tombstone81 , April 16, 2008 (02:55:54 PM)

Is it possible to select an option to be able to view ALL comments...regardless of whether or not they are "lowly rated". I could care less how other users vote about an opinion...I want to read everyone's comments regardless of how inane. As it is right now, I have to manually open up the "lowly rated" comments one at a time on my PC (which is only a minor inconvenience)...but when I'm reading on the road during business trips...I can't open them up at all on my blackberry (bigger inconvenience).

Why don't you just get rid of the entire voting process and let freedom of speech run its course? Obviously you can still have moderators taking out the over-the-top cursing or hate literature...but why should I miss seeing somebody's valuable opinion just because two or three other reader's didn't like it?

Thanks

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written by MustBMe , April 16, 2008 (03:05:42 PM)

I'm still trying to figure out why I got a minus one rating for asking a simple question about whether or not saved is unable to get highspeed where he is. But I agree, get rid of the voting, there are people here who I am sure spend most of thier time clearing cache and revoting someone down because they simply dont like the tone of the writer. There is one topic that comes up once in a while that seems to always get positive votes for the same old people, but anyone who disagrees with them gets voted to where thier comments dont show up. I thought this was an opinion forum and not a popularity contest.

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written by islandplans , April 16, 2008 (06:28:01 PM)

Tombstone I agree with your suggestion. In fact, months ago I think it was the poster April, suggested the same thing and I agreed then. It really does seem a form of censorship to 'vote down' someone's comments. This type of forum is obviously for individual opinions ,and like MustBMe says, not a popularity contest. As you say, staff can limit anything that is clearly crossing lines of hate literature, etc.

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written by alexvega , April 16, 2008 (06:31:08 PM)

Yeah that makes sense. Hold a poll that will be hi-jacked by the same people that are hi-jacking the current system. My comments always get a low rating...It is this leftwing rags way of silencing any voice but a liberal one. My posts spark a massive amount of debate and I am quite sure that I have a entire army of people whose lot in life, is to vote my posts down. In fact I have people opening my lowly rated comment just to vote it down.
It gets me misty-eyed to think I have touched so many.
One does have to wonder why this paper allows people like Matt Pearce to post letters on behalf of the BCTF every week. Does he ever respond to any of the posts from anyone...? Nope. Not one. He justs sends another letter the following week. The Tibet crowd couldn't stop sending letters. Did they ever answer any posts? Nope. The global warming/carbon-tax fans can't stop sending letters. Do they ever respond to any posts? Nope.
To add insult to injury: Unless you are cheering simpleton your post will become lowly rated, because the letter writer won't respond neither will their groupies but they will vote it down.

dial-up only at Ness Lake
written by Saved , April 27, 2008 (09:08:03 AM)

There have been rumours circulating for years about getting high speed in our rural area but the latest community association newsletter informed us that all speculation, including Telus, would not result in high-speed service anytime soon.

There is a high-speed satellite service available but the initial outlay for someone like us is about $1,000. The advertising flyer for this service (Xplorenet?) shows $299 for basic startup, but the extras add up. I think the monthly subscription, after setup costs, is about double of a landline.

I had a neighbour who tried one of the TV satellite (Express-View?) service’s high-speed Internet several years ago but it did not work very well (fast). Apparently the “high speed” was in one direction only. There must be about 200 residences in the Ness Lake area but this is till not enough population density to justify a company making money on a service.

Regarding the rating procedure of comments, I cannot rate any posts. I have tried to remedy this problem with Walter Beardwood’s help but we cannot figure it out. It is possible due to my dial up or my browser (MacIntosh’s browser is better than Microsoft’s browser for the Citizen website) .

My opinion is to nix the rating system until it can be truly democratic i.e. every user should have a vote but only one vote. There will always be ways around this for abusers, I suspect, but there should be some obstacles to abusing the voting i.e. make a user sign on with a different user name to vote again.

I am amused at times to the lowly ratings I get. Ironically, it may help my readership. I might be rationalizing with this opinion but I sometimes find myself reading the lowly rated ones first. This may not be normal for most people as I tend to be counter to the mainstream view on most issues.