Pinning Cecil's Columns

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1

Continuing the discussion from Straight Dope 1/27/2023: Could artificial intelligence replace journalists?:

Would it be easier for you guys to just have a dedicated topic titled “Read Cecil’s Latest Column Here!” and just edit the post every week? Instead of pinning and unpinning two threads every week, just edit and paste the new link at the top of a list.

Something like this:

Read Cecil’s Latest Column Here!

Straight Dope 1/20/2023: Have baby boomers wrecked the planet?

Straight Dope 1/13/2023: Is longtermism the world’s most dangerous belief system?

And then an edit for this week’s column (drag-select the topic name, copy, paste):

Read Cecil’s Latest Column Here!

Straight Dope 1/27/2023: Could artificial intelligence replace journalists?

Straight Dope 1/20/2023: Have baby boomers wrecked the planet?

Straight Dope 1/13/2023: Is longtermism the world’s most dangerous belief system?

Bam! Done.

As a side benefit you also collect a list of all the new columns in one place.

~Max

2

The unpinning is automatic and pinning normally takes 5 seconds so no issue.

When we pin, we can choose global or basically local forum and for how long. So this is all very simple.

3

I see. Nevermind then!

~Max

4

If it personally annoys you, tap on the pin icon and it will become unpinned for your viewing. You can also make any thread pinned for your viewing.

5

How does this work? In threads that were not originally pinned there’s no pin icon to pin it. I can’t see any other way.

6

Okay, 'nother gripe here. I read the latest column yesterday and dutifully unpinned it as per last week’s thread on a similar subject. This afternoon, there it is pinned again. Glitch in the matrix? or are you guys (staff) gleefully repinning the columns weekly? Surely pin it once posted and unpin it in two weeks or whatever should take care of things.

-DF

7

There were a couple of glitches when one of us used the wrong method to pin a column; perhaps that’s what you saw?

It’s not hard, though, it’s just something we’re not used to doing yet, so occasional mistakes are no great surprise.

And of course having the column itself there is more likely to get click-throughs than a pinned thread that itself has links to the columns.

8

I had to change the pin type from forum to global as I screwed up to start with.

I’m sure that was the problem.

Sorry.