A non-voteable, user-updateable node?

I have a note, last hour of cb, which I update every 5 minutes via a bot running on perlmonk.org. As a note, it has two features which are irrelevant and distracting: links to parent and root, and vote buttons. I'd like to get the type of the node changed to something that doesn't have those features. My first thought was to make it a sitefaqlet, but the problem with that (and with many other node types one might think of for something like this) is that each update to the node would create an entry in the edit history table. For a node that gets updated as often as this one does, that would clearly be a Very Bad Thing. So I went looking for node types which satisfy these two requirements:

Supports direct updates by owner (vs. janitorial type edits)
Does not support voting

A handful of node types pass this filter. Most of those have other problems/restrictions which could make them unsuitable. In the end, the one that seems most likely is scratchpad.

Therefore, I'm submitting a request to the gods to change the nodetype of last hour of cb from note to scratchpad.

Q. Why not just make a new node, rather than changing the type of the existing one?

A. There are already too many links to this node, by ID. These would break.

Btw... I think it would also be nice to give ownership of this node to a site maintenance group, such as SiteDocClan or pmdev, but this is not strictly necessary, as long as no one but me expects to be able to update it.

Thoughts?

Update: Of course, this is the sort of functionality which should (at least by some points of view) be hosted directly on PerlMonks, rather than depending on an off-site bot. And actually, there are two off-site dependencies here: my bot on perlmonk.org gets its data from demerphq's bot on flux8.com. If either one goes down (and apparently, perlmonk.org goes down with some frequency) then this page is b0rked. So, the natural node type should really be superdoc, probably, or something akin to that. But creating such a beast is a bit beyond my skills atm.

Update2: (2009-08-06) This has been done. The node in question was converted to type document, and ownership of it was given to SiteDocClan.

Between the mind which plans and the hands which build, there must be a mediator... and this mediator must be the heart.

Comment on A non-voteable, user-updateable node?

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Re: A non-voteable, user-updateable node? by ww (Archbishop) on Mar 11, 2009 at 22:28 UTC
I'm still struggling to sort out the distinctions among note, scratchpad and superdoc -- among other things. (Though I was inducted to pmdev quite a long time ago, I've been able to contribute very little there, not entirely because of focusing on SiteDocClan matters ... and on actually learning enough about Perl to actually be a useful devil.} Can you help us there? So -- :-{) -- even a coherent, concise and comprehensive response runs the risk of becoming part of another doc. OTOH, perhaps the light will dawn tonite (it's now sundown, localtime) as I burn some more lamps in search of illumination. tye has recognized -- with highly complimentary comments in another thread ( Process for Site Improvement ) -- that your extraordinary (yep, another compliment) efforts as a dev are above and beyond what we see from members of the hoi poli (like /me). Perhaps others are likewise befuddled.	[reply]
Re^2: A non-voteable, user-updateable node? (nodetypes) by tye (Sage) on Mar 12, 2009 at 00:38 UTC
Only gods may modify superdocs (usually by applying patches) and that is because a superdoc can run arbitrary Perl code. Whoever "owns" the superdoc determines who can view it (and thus cause the page to be rendered, running any Perl code embedded in it). A note is a generic "reply" node. It is mostly a document plus a pointer to the node that it is in reply to and a pointer to the root node of its thread. How a note is displayed incorporates that extra information in the heading (plus you can vote a note up/down). A scratchpad is two chnks of text (public and private) with some special association with the owner. Converting last hour of cb to a scratchpad would require SQL work and might produce interesting results for things like `[pad://janitors]` (or whoever was declared the owner), neither of which seems like a show-stopper. Perhaps last hour of cb should just become a document (a basic node type that we have not recently created examples of but that many other node types are based off of). Note that a document would not be found by super search (at this time), which is probably a big draw-back to that otherwise simple proposal. So, of those, scratchpad seems the least problematic (other than the initial conversion work -- but it may be that the public part of a scratchpad is actually housed in the document table and so conversion isn't even a problem). (stream of consciousness)++; minor parts left as exercises for pmdevils intentionally - tye	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: A non-voteable, user-updateable node? (nodetypes) by jdporter (Paladin) on Aug 05, 2009 at 20:34 UTC
it may be that the public part of a scratchpad is actually housed in the document table and so conversion isn't even a problem). That is precisely the situation; so converting a note to a scratchpad would be trivial. However, it does seem like making last hour of cb a document, rather than a scratchpad, makes some sense. I don't see any features of scratchpad which would bring any benefit in this case. And converting a note to a document is dead trivial: simply change its type from 11 to 3. (Yeah, we'd orphan a row in the note table, but that's probably not worth worrying about one time.) Between the mind which plans and the hands which build, there must be a mediator... and this mediator must be the heart.	[reply]
Re^4: A non-voteable, user-updateable node? (nodetypes) by tye (Sage) on Aug 06, 2009 at 02:28 UTC
Re^5: A non-voteable, user-updateable node? (nodetypes) by jdporter (Paladin) on Aug 06, 2009 at 02:49 UTC
Some notes below your chosen depth have not been shown here
Re: A non-voteable, user-updateable node? by jdporter (Paladin) on Mar 11, 2009 at 11:33 UTC
So.... Not a single member of the Cabal has any thoughts whatsoever on this proposal? Not to mention that none of the gods have seen fit to change the node's type as requested. Without comment. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one around here who gives a flip about improving the Monastery. It's not a good feeling. Update: Don't get me wrong. It's not that I think the ideas in this thread are important. It doesn't matter much to me whether it happens or not. I'm really commenting here on the apparently asymptotical interest in PerlMonks. Between the mind which plans and the hands which build, there must be a mediator... and this mediator must be the heart.	[reply]
Re^2: A non-voteable, user-updateable node? by Lawliet (Curate) on Mar 11, 2009 at 19:27 UTC
I give a flip above improving the Monastery too, I just have no power to do so. :) And you didn't even know bears could type.	[reply]


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