donnz's Journal: Flushed with success...

This entry, will of necessity, be rather long winded...

Perceptive and intelligent moderators have recently awarded me with a "Score 5; Interesting" and a "Score 4; Interesting" on comments made to /. over the last two months (the latter *was* a 5 but see an earlier entry on that issue). Given the challenges of time zone changes and the cultural divide that seperates New Zealand from our ANZUS allies I find this extremely gratifying. (I should say here that I also have a smattering of "Score 2; Funny"'s. On the whole, these were in fact VFF (very fucking funny (note, the use of nested brackets - LOL)) but bow to the superior wit of our allies.)

Flushed with this recent success, and in the spirit of Alan Cox and the OSS movement in general I propose to make my more successful comments available for reuse in the /. forum. All I ask is that if the "re-user" plans to modify the comments and make those mods public then these are feed back to the "project" (I'll think up a snappy code name later).

"The project" is based on three observations:
1. I have, in the past, saved myself considerable effort by cut and pasting my lowly moderated comments into very new story threads and had them highly moderated as a results.

2. I've noticeed other /. members doing the same thing.

3. A poll of "sensible /.ters" (tm) showed that they all have their filters set to browse comments rated 4 or 5.

The trick is to find recurring topics and appropriate comments.

"The project" will catorise highly rated comments by subject for other /. readers to re-use. This will be a community project and I will accept proven (i.e. rated 4 or 5) submissions from other /. readers to the project *provided* they are the orginal authors. (Remember, /. members own their comments and it would be a crime to publish a book or something made up of those comments without those owners' permission - wouldn't it Taco?).

My technical skills are in very little demand these days and so like the Little Drummer Boy, I've been worrying for a long time "what can I give" back to the community. At last I have the answer and I look forward to providing this open service back to the community at large.