I’m still trying a few things here Big Bad Bob.
I’ve got one more attempt up my sleeve before I throw the towel in and ask His papship to do it on his side…
You can right-click a link and open it in a new tab or window if you’re using a PC. I keep forgetting to do that though. Then, as I’m used to links opening in a new tab, I close the linked page after I’ve read it, rather than just going back to Papsweb.
I do realise that this isn’t really connected with the news thread though.
tl;dr Optimus trousers now consumes Saints-related tweets and Instagram shares.
Sotonians, just an update regarding Ot. Whilst he’s still a rabid Thatcherite, Optimus trousers has been tamed a little. He now spews his news in collapsed form with an optional button to expand the article. This should make it easier to scan articles you want to read and to ignore those you don’t. I did have a report that some browsers aren’t collapsing the article. If yours isn’t, then please let me know the details of system/browser/version/etc. and I’ll investigate.
Optimus trousers has also signed up to Twitter and will post any popular #saintsfc tweets he comes across. Popular here is defined by Twitter, and probably has something to do with the number of favourites or retweets. The benefit of only grabbing popular tweets is that we won’t drown in rubbish, but the downside is that by definition only old tweets become popular so this isn’t the bleeding zeitgeist from Twitter.
Finally, optimus trousers has installed Instagram on his OnePlus Two mobile telephone, and is scanning SouthamptonFC’s Instagram feed and posting any new photos that he finds. In an effort to bring himself up to date, he may well spend a day or two posting old images, but then he promises that he’ll bring himself uptodate.
Optimus trousers has also mentioned that he’s going to look at the club’s SnapChat and Vine feeds too. I’ll keep you posted on his progress.
Bletch, sterling work on the collapsible messages. However I’m still in favour of fewer sources. I’m finding I nowdon’t collapse any of them as I don’t know where to start, and more and more I’m just avoiding the thread. Are you able to look at stats for this site, and individual threads? Is it worth doing a bit of behaviour analytics?
Lou, you say you don’t bother collapsing - not sure if we’re at crossed purposes on not, but the thread should show collapsed by default and allow you to expand if you want. Here’s my view of the way that thread opens at the moment…
Does yours look like that, of do you see all of the article text by default?
Regarding the sources, I asked members to down-vote sources that are of little value, but I didn’t see much of that going on. Jboy did helpfully up-vote just about everything last night, but I think this was more alcohol than approbation. To remove sources I will need His papship to make a change so that I can see the article source code, but I think he’s knee-deep in muck and bullets at the moment.
I’ll make a proposal for sources that I plan to remove (or more likely propose sources to keep) and take it from there. The problem is that most of the juicy transfer speculation (potential bollocks with the odd nugget) will come from a left-field, and not a mainstream ‘source’. So by removing these edge-sources we’re remove our ability to start conversations. For example, I bet that Spider’s move to Man U will be broken on one of their fanzine/blogs first (Twitter aside).
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.
Sorry, yes, I meant the opposite of collapse…ie expand! You need to work a little harder on your psychic powers, Bletch 
The problem with downvoting, is there are so many articles, I don’t get a chance to go through them all. So for example, this morning, since I last looked at the thread, there are another 5 pages worth. if you need us to focus on this and put the time in, more than happy to do it, but I’m just not sure at the moment how much of an empty exercise it is and what the outcome will be.
But I completely agree with you on the left field blogs - I don’t want to lose that. I’m sure we can whittle it down through to a smaller group with a mix of expertise. Personally I’d rather not have any Man U blogs, but miss out on potential breaking news, than the other way round, but others may disagree. Maybe providing a list of all the sources is a more time efficient way of doing it, rather than voting on every article.
Hope I’m not sounding negative - I don’t mean to, because I really value having this thread on here, and want to help make it work.
Lou.
Lou, you don’t need to sign your name at the end of your posts as it tells us at the top of the post who you are.
thanks
fatso.
Hi Fatso,
I often choose to do things I don’t necessarily need to do, just because I want to. I’m like that - wild.
Hugs and kisses,
Lou.
1 Like
Bletch, FWIW, here is my feedback on the Automatic Saints News Thread:
I imagine many people feel that this is a very worthwhile addition to the site; it’s certainly a very clever one, I reckon. Personally, however, I’m only interested when a player actually signs or departs and have practically zero interest in any speculation leading up to these events; therefore, it has limited appeal to me.
Thanks for the feedback, Halo.
An update…
Optimus trousers now looks for Vines, Instagrams, Tweets and web-news relating to Saints.
What I will do to limit the volume of ‘news’ is to restrict the approved sources to the main broadsheets and a few other publications.
To ensure that we’re not missing out on interesting stories from left-field publications, every so often, I will post a single page summary of the stories I’ve found, but not posted. These will appear a brief summary and links to the articles
At the moment Optimus trousers is looking for ‘popular’ tweets on Twitter relating to #saintsfc which is a little reactive. So, In addition to this, I will add a number of approved accounts. I did discuss this with KRG earlier in this thread (I think), so will ask him to collate a list of the credible saints-Twitterati.
1 Like
Hi can we make Robot Trousers a bit more personal pls? When he posts a story can he say things like:
hELLo I aM rOBoT tRouSErS I hAVe fOuND tHIs StORy fOR yOU. aFFirMaTIvE
And can you make it so that sometimes, he randomly posts in other threads and he can be like LOL gOOd jOKe gUIsE or something like that or i.e. just post the Groundhog Day image.
1 Like
Well, OT did a great job today!! It’s been a little while since I checked him out, so today’s visit was a very nice surprise.
Very concise, I love the expand feature. All good! I don’t think transfer rumours are a problem as long as the links are good ones, and won’t be much of a problem at all anyway when the season gets started.
I think I will soon get into the habit of visiting OT first in future for my latest news! 
2 Likes
I’ll pass on your kind words to Optimus trousers. He’ll be thrilled that someone is listening.
In his next reboot, he will limit his posts to mainstream media, but will be summarising the non-mainstream media one every n hours.
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Actually, that’s a good idea, Bear.
I will work on adding some more human touches, but will try to stop short of turning him into a rhetorical fascist.
1 Like
I’m with Ohio (not literally, in fact a completely different continent altogether) on this, in that I really quite like the OT thread. The expand feature is definitely a great addition.
Personally, I have found it rather amusing over the past cople of days with different newspapers giving conttrasting stories; i.e. ‘Man Utd still want Morgan’ in some whilst others stating they had lost interest leaving the door open to the Arse and the other tossers from North London (conveniently ignoring the fact Morgan was ony ever going to be sold to a team competing in the CL this coming season).
All in all, good job guys!
1 Like
Gr8 tks. How about also if i.e. just occasionally, he completely makes a story up + when you click on the link you get rick-rolled or whatever. Everyone will enjoy that!
He already links to made-up stories for ~0.432% of the followed links.
He felt this percentage represented ‘the perfect balance between lolz and letdownz’.
People just don’t seem to realise, Bear.
I’ll think about Rick-rolling. * How about he instead links to a selection of Thatcher’s speeches, or perhaps to a list debunking the things that Thatcher was supposed to have said/done?
* I don’t want to give the impression that I dislike the skin and bone trousers ** from the other place, because nothing could be further from the truth.
** The phrase bone trousers made me laugh, but I’m not sure why.
Bletch, I’ve given Optimus another go and I can see now that he does produce some interesting stuff, which leads me to the conclusion that I may have been unwarrantedly dismissive with my original appraisal
OK good citizens of the U.S.S.P, I need your help…
tl ; dr - OT should now post fewer news stories from non-mainstream media, but instead will create a regular summary post of the articles he’s skipped. This should mean the amount of information will be more manageable when news stories break.
What’s changed?
Optimus trousers has been put on anti-verbosity medication, and as a result he has changed the way he shares news articles.
it should mean that the bulk of the posts he makes will now be taken from mainstream media sources.
He will no longer make instant posts from non-mainstream media. Instead, he will regularly create a single post containing a summary of all the non-mainstream articles he had ‘ignored’.
This SHOULD cut down the number of posts he makes, but will still let you see all of the saints news and decide for yourself if you to investigate further.
Bletch needs help…
I keep a list of the publications that I deem are mainstream. This list will need to be amended over time and this is where I need your help.
If you continually see articles in the summary post that you think should appear in the mainstream posts, please let me know.
The summary post will look something like this:
You should be able to see the code of the source publication in italicised CAPITALS inside parenthesis - (CLEANSHEETSALLROUND), (OLDTRAFFORDFAITHFUL), (VITALFOOTBALL), etc.
If you feel that one of these publications should be added to the list of mainstream publications, send me a PM or reply here with the source publication code and your rationale for its inclusion.
Tweets, Vines and Instagrams are not impacted.
Bletch.
1 Like
The way Trousers tells me the same fucking things over and over and over makes me think, that contrary to expectations, he is WOMAN. Poss change name to Optimus Skirt? Just suggestion.
2 Likes