News articles from The Local are posted to TT

I have noticed several news items being posted by The Local. I was just wondering who s/he is. Why does s/he post news items and then finish off with something like:

There must be a reason why s/he cannot finish the story.
Is it part of Toytown?

so you missed the bit about Toytown becoming part of The Local?

If you were really observant you might notice a link above on the left (below where it shows your log-in) that says "The Local". Try clicking on it.

TT partnership with TheLocal.de - TT is for chat, The Local for news. Enjoy!

I was more wondering whether we'd be able to filter them from View Niew Posts, but unfortunately not, at least not yet.

Well, they're just a breath of fresh air, aren't they?! Got simply everybody talking with their rivetting topics and sassy views.



Erm...

Looking forward to seeing them here in about a fortnight.

I find it kind of funny that TT members sometimes beat the Local to the news.

I think that's inevitable; TT users can just post a link and write "Look at this OMG LOL!!", whereas The Local actually needs to research its articles, get them copyread and potentially also allow a lawyer to have a quick look at it. The Local is clearly designed to be a website that you look at on a daily or weekly basis, rather than one where you press Refresh every five minutes to get the latest breaking news.

It's also a way of adding comments to the news articles themselves; you'll notice that comments posted on TT automatically appear on The Local article page as well.

I've just noticed this, and I'm not sure I like it.

Whenever The Local enters a news item into TT (also as a initial posting or as a reply to an existing thread) and refers back to its' own news pages then all subsequent postings after the article on TT appear as "Comments" on The Local page... This could have the consequence of taking TT responses out of context from the original TT posting or Local article, in particular where The Local includes multiple articles as postings in the same thread. Subsequent thread responses only attach as comments to the latter article on The Local so may not necessarilly be related to it if they are responses to a TT posting prior to it. I've not tried it, but what happens when someone adds a "Comment" to a Local article? - does it end up in TT or could it cause thread diversion?

I think at the very least that any TTer who adds a comment to a post where there is a previous Local response and referral to their site should be made aware that his/her/its musings will also appear on a completely different site, in a different context, outside of the Toytown circle and without any back reference. Similarly The Local should advise readers that "Comments" entered after a news item do not necessarily relate directly to the article on their site and have been submitted via a different source.

Also, links and anything within quotation marks (quote using TT autoquote) doesn't appear on The Local. That truly messes up some posts.

Hummm... not good. That could completely destroy context and meaning.

Awsome!!!

why?

Oh

I noticed something odd a few days ago and decided to look into it. Seems that if someone registers with The Local, then their id is automatically carried over to a blank TT profile, but their post count remains at zero. So if they respond to an article that has been posted already to TT, then their comment will show up here, yet their profile will still show as having no posts. If the article they are commenting on hasn't been posted to TT then their post doesn't show up anywhere on TT.

And there's yet another possible bug. Take, for example, Joseph Baugher who registered yesterday in order to comment on a news story on The Local which hasn't been placed also on TT. His comment on The Local was cut short with 507 characters snipped. I was curious and wanted to see the rest of his comment. Clicking on his name on The Local took me to his TT profile which showed zero posts. Searching for his comment on TT gave an error message. I wonder if the user was informed of a limit to the number of characters displayed on The Local?

Meanwhile, KreuzbergKris has 4 posts, all in the thread Steppin' out for a smoke (by Joe Jackson). If you check his profile, you'll see there is only one post showing as his cumulative total, yet "most active in" shows 4 posts. You'll see all 4 posts if you "find member's posts". I can only assume that he posted three comments using The Local, and one directly on TT.

Then there's William Thirteen with zero cumulative posts, one post showing on TT when you search for his posts, yet he also made at least one other comment which doesn't show up on TT; he commented on the same The Local article as Joseph Baugher.

This is all starting to get a little confusing. Something isn't quite right with the synchronization between TT and The Local.

I think the relationship between users and postings on the two platforms should be MUCH clearer. I'm not sure I want my postings appearing on another website, potentially out of context with the original thread and without my knowledge. There should be some warning when a posting on one site may lead to cross-posting on another.