@Alejandro Jakubi 

thanks a lot Alejandro, great links (which I didn't know), I'm starting to read the blog, excellent stuff.

Unfortunately El Pais does not seem to organize its videos in intuitively named directories the way most of us probably would, so it's a little hard to find their videos. Here is a link to the latest video as of 20 May 2011.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/enorme/numero/acaba/52/elpepusoc/20110517elpepusoc_2/Tes

Did you know these videos Alejandro? (algunas un poco aburridas)

oh this is very useful thanks!

oh this is very useful thanks!

exciting stuff Rob, thanks for the report!

@Alejandro Jakubi 

thanks for this feedback Alejandro, I understand your views, I agree too, I don't feel quite so strongly about it than you perhaps --- I don't mind it if others find up- and down-voting useful, but what I do mind is not being able to find my way around. As you point out, very annoying that the "comments" are not listed. And very annoying that the order of the posts keeps being modified.

I have proceeded to vote you down, I hope this helps.

It would be very "borgiano" if you could hit the negative thousands...

;-)

Patrick.

@pagan 

thanks for the clarification pagan, it just goes to show that upvoting works in mysterious ways! maybe it meant that many mapleprimes users had had the same question as the OP. Anyhow, thanks for this precision.

I didn't realize that the intension of the answer v. comments was so that answers could be ordered according to the number of votes. I can see now what the intended purpose was. So now it makes logical sense, but I don't think it's worked as intended.

I think (others may certainly disagree) that it is useful to read the posts in the original order. The thinking process is just as useful sometimes. Actually I was beginning to suspect something funny was happening with the ordering of the posts, as I had occasionally noticed a complete absence of logic in the ordering. I see where it's coming from now. I personally don't like it.

One way to see what happens with a system like that is to visit yahoo questions (or is it yahoo answers?) which usually has the most ridiculous answer with the greatest number of votes, e.g. "Where's Bin Laden?" Answer: "I'm right here" bing, voted best answer by the OP. Yeah, right.

I agree with Christopher that it would be best to leave the order of the posts unchanged.

A simple compromise would be to have the original order unchanged by the number of votes, while the post with the greatest number of votes would be singled out somehow, e.g. highlighted in light yellow or framed in red colour or copied at the top of the page or something. I wouldn't care much for that kind of system myself, but some may like it that the "best" post is easy to find. It would be a compromise between leaving the order of the posts as the conversation produced them versus using the votes for something useful other than ego-related stuff.

Have you noticed how it's become harder and harder to vote for Robert, as he tends to post as comments? Have you noticed that Alejandro was reborn without any points? I think this is saying something about the current voting system -- must be improved. I don't claim I have the answer, but since there's going to be a revamp of mapleprimes, wouldn't this be a good time to come forward with suggestions on how best to manage the voting and the comments v. answer stuff?

@bthur 

Good. (It was mentioned some time ago that ThumbsDown were on their way out, but then they stayed)

Here, I think, an example of the problems with disabling thumbs on comments. This recent question (or is it a post, can't be bothered to check):

http://www.mapleprimes.com/posts/119616-Cry-For-Help-What-About-Plot-Sizing?submit=119672#comment119672

has 5 thumbs up. But if you think, it doesn't make any sense: most if not all of the thumbs up, surely, were intended for Preben's answer, but Preben's answer is a comment and cannot therefore be upthumbed. (my own comment was added at a time when there were 5 upvotes for the OP). I submit this comment v. answer business is not helpful.

Preben's method will probably work for you, I'm certainly going to keep it in mind for my own purposes.

Perhaps my way will help for some of your issues. I'm adding some extra options I often use, just in case you find some useful (you can make your own colors, modify the thickness of the lines, the font size, the font type, etc.). I so far proceed thus:

restart;
axesfonts:=axesfont=[TIMES,9]:
labelfonts:=labelfont=[TIMES,ROMAN,10]:
Red:=COLOR(RGB,0.9,0.1,0):
p := plot(x^2, x=-1..1, linestyle=3, thickness=3, numpoints=10000, colour=Red):

plotsetup(ps,plotoutput=`FigureName.ps`,plotoptions=`color,portrait,noborder,axiswidth=400pt,axisheight=300pt`):
plots:-display({p},view=[-1..1,0..1],axesfonts,labelfonts,labels=[``,``]);
plotsetup(default):

I've said this two or three times elsewhere, but since we're on a related topic I'll repeat myself: if we're going to be up-thumbing at all, I don't find it useful to have un-up-thumbable "comments" since comments often are up-thumb-worthy.

a plausible explanation to the thumbs down is a mis-thumbing incident, it happened to me once as the position of the window moved across the screen while my thumb was being pushed down

(I think I was able to correct that by immediately clicking the thumbs up button, thereby cancelling the thumbs down, but this may have been on the matlab forum so don't quote me on that... anyone would like to test?)

agreed, thumbs down to thumbs down and thumbs up to thumbing down thumbs down, etc..

The term "elementary" is indeed used by Holmes to mean "simple and obvious" ;-)

A third major reference is the oft-quoted but non-canonical phrase: "Elementary, my dear Watson." This phrase is never actually uttered by Holmes in any of the sixty Holmes stories written by Conan Doyle. In the stories, Holmes often remarks that his logical conclusions are "elementary", in that he considers them to be simple and obvious. He also, on occasion, refers to Dr. Watson as "my dear Watson". The two fragments, however, never appear together. One of the closest examples to this phrase appears in "The Adventure of the Crooked Man", when Holmes explains a deduction:

The first known use of this phrase was in the 1915 novel, Psmith Journalist, by P. G. Wodehouse. It also appears at the very end of the 1929 film, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, the first Sherlock Holmes sound film. William Gillette, who played Holmes on stage and radio, had previously used the similar phrase, Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow. The phrase might owe its household familiarity to its use in Edith Meiser's scripts for The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio series, broadcast from 1939 to 1947.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes

@Alejandro Jakubi 

Oh I didn't know about Oracles, I'll follow up on the link, thanks a lot Alejandro.