Beach Hut Deli/Talk

This page is for discussing the contents of Beach Hut Deli.

I just added a note encouraging people to edit the entry directly, rather than leaving comments. I know some people value the weight of many comments in reading up on a place, so I thought that including a note of how many viewpoints have been integrated might be good, along with the suggestion of editing the entry itself rather than adding a comment. Thoughts? Is this worth doing for other pages where the comments get integrated? —TomGarberson

Without having any understanding about how the new software will work, or what individual wikis will be able to do with the software, it is hard to figure out where to start steering the current process. If we knew anything concrete about the options that would be available to Davis Wiki with either local wiki, or some other wiki software it would be possible to start deciding how to use the new software and then slowly preparing people for it by trying to educate and inform them in advance.—JasonAller

Maybe it's just me, but I much prefer the old way with the comments. I feel it allows individuals a much better perspective on the establishment. Looking at the page now vs then, you see a lot of details missing... Wes-P

• Please give examples of what you think is now missing. —JasonAller
  

• Ahh.. I didn't start this page, firstly, but who cares. It lacks the voice of the consumer- a.k.a. public opinion- and yes, it does matter to a lot of people. The integration that took place seems to have added some of the positives, none of the negatives, and is severely lacking the detail of the individual comments and questions that once were. I thinbk it is a bad way to edit a page, although it was worth the attempt. The only choices are to integrate all the comments into the text of the page or to leave them as they are, archiving some for space and cleanliness reasons. It would not be feasible to actually integrate ALL the comments into the article and there are very few pages this would be feasible. — Wes-P
  

• I think one of the things that is missing is the voice of the individual, warts and all, with its individual tone, grammar, style, etc. All of those things affect how I judge a comment (how much weight I give it), and looking at them collectively gives me my own impression of the whole. I love the comment integration and appreciate the time and work that went into it, but I don't think the individual comments should be deleted — why can't they be archived? —CovertProfessor
  

• How's this? —tg
  

• Works for me — thanks. —cp
  

• Same here. Although my ideal would be people putting their voices into the entry themselves. -jw
  

• Recommendations don't make much sense without an indication who recommends them. I think the older comment system works better, and that this format will become a problem when there is disagreement about a business. —DonShor
  

"older comment system" — the commenting is actually the newer idea. What Tom is advocating is a return to the way things used to be here. It takes more skill from editors, but it generally gives a better result. And yes, there can be more edit wars this way. There are benefits and drawbacks to most editing approaches. —WilliamLewis


• It's not *quite* a return to the older system, because the result of back and forth editing of the entry by different editors would likely be different from one or several editors' summaries of other edits. To go back to the older system, we'd have to get rid of the comment bars entirely, which I know that some of you advocate. —CovertProfessor
  

• As a side point, as Don points out below, the other option is to quietly and efficiently remove the comments from the page without incorporating their views. -jw
  

• Not sure what you're getting at here, JW... unless you're just trying to get all of the options out on the table? If so, yet another option (one that I flirt with sometimes) is to remove only the "contentless" comments — you know, "this place rocks!" "this place sux!" comments. —cp
  

• No, I mean that the current method just removes everything, good or bad, over time. -jw
  

• Ah, I see. Yes, there is a link to the archive, but the information contained in the comment is no longer on the main page. Yes, that happens too often. —cp
  

Here's an example from another page (Mishka's) about one problem with incorporating rather than commenting: "They used to offer real whipped cream, but now use stuff from the can. Bring back the real whipped cream! And it still costs extra for whipped cream, even though it's fake now." Is that still true? Who knows? It was posted months ago. But there it remains, as an edit, whereas if it were a comment it would disappear with the archiving. —Don

The same applies to the phone number. -jw