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Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)
Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.
Random feedback on the site
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19 Jan 2015 13:32 #195475
by ubarose
Random feedback on the site was created by ubarose
I would like to keep the other threads regarding changes being made for the upgrade and redesign on-topic. If you have feedback or questions regarding other things, post them here.
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19 Jan 2015 14:09 #195481
by dysjunct
Replied by dysjunct on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
I don't think this has happened in a while, but one thing that always annoyed me was when certain people, who were not active on the site at all, would post "blogs" that were clearly just being used for self-promotion. They would rarely or never engage on the comments thread, etc.
So I'd like to see a restriction that prevents people from making blogs (or anything else on the front page) unless they have, say, 100 forum posts. Or maybe that's too many. 50? 25? At any rate, something to ensure that if someone is using the site to promote themselves, they are at least interested in the site enough to actually be part of it.
So I'd like to see a restriction that prevents people from making blogs (or anything else on the front page) unless they have, say, 100 forum posts. Or maybe that's too many. 50? 25? At any rate, something to ensure that if someone is using the site to promote themselves, they are at least interested in the site enough to actually be part of it.
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19 Jan 2015 14:19 #195483
by Black Barney
Replied by Black Barney on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
Or 1000 forum posts before they start making suggestions to the site 
/runs
/runs
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19 Jan 2015 14:23 #195484
by ubarose
Replied by ubarose on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
Also, here is what I have gleaned/concluded so far (this post will be updated as necessary):
1. The most useful way to present site content on the front page (i.e the Articles, Blogs, News and Reviews) is in simple chronological order, rather than the single most recent in each category. Most of the time, readers don't care what category something is in.
2. When people do browse by category, the ones they use most are Reviews and News. So the main menu can be significantly streamlined.
3. The Search is not intuitive and many people don't even know where it is located on the site.
4. We will be keeping the article scroller at the top of the forum
5. Site needs to be optimized for mobile. Initially there will be just one version of the site, but over time and with feedback I will tweak out alternate versions for Desktop, Tablet and Phone.
1. The most useful way to present site content on the front page (i.e the Articles, Blogs, News and Reviews) is in simple chronological order, rather than the single most recent in each category. Most of the time, readers don't care what category something is in.
2. When people do browse by category, the ones they use most are Reviews and News. So the main menu can be significantly streamlined.
3. The Search is not intuitive and many people don't even know where it is located on the site.
4. We will be keeping the article scroller at the top of the forum
5. Site needs to be optimized for mobile. Initially there will be just one version of the site, but over time and with feedback I will tweak out alternate versions for Desktop, Tablet and Phone.
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19 Jan 2015 15:28 #195494
by ubarose
Good observation. For sometime now, I've been puzzling over how to remove the barriers for member contributions without lowering the bar on quality, or inviting spam.
The upgraded site will have a curated Front Page. This means that members will be able to publish their contributions in any section, as they do now in the blog section, but their content will only appear on the inner pages of the site and won't get moved to the front page until the content is eyeballed by a member of the staff. If it is drive-by self promoting, it will be confined to the blogs section, and considering the way most of our members read the site, it won't get much exposure or cause our readers to be annoyed.
The second piece is that only approved bloggers/contributors can auto publish. This will prevent the spam we currently get in the blog section. This will work best as a white list, rather than a black list. Although it creates an initial barrier to publication (you have to wait for your first submission to be approved to be put on the approved blogger/contributor list), once you are on it, you can auto publish.
We will pilot this system and see how it works. My hope is it will lead to quality member contributions at the level they were a few years back.
Replied by ubarose on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
dysjunct wrote: I don't think this has happened in a while, but one thing that always annoyed me was when certain people, who were not active on the site at all, would post "blogs" that were clearly just being used for self-promotion. They would rarely or never engage on the comments thread, etc.
So I'd like to see a restriction that prevents people from making blogs (or anything else on the front page) unless they have, say, 100 forum posts. Or maybe that's too many. 50? 25? At any rate, something to ensure that if someone is using the site to promote themselves, they are at least interested in the site enough to actually be part of it.
Good observation. For sometime now, I've been puzzling over how to remove the barriers for member contributions without lowering the bar on quality, or inviting spam.
The upgraded site will have a curated Front Page. This means that members will be able to publish their contributions in any section, as they do now in the blog section, but their content will only appear on the inner pages of the site and won't get moved to the front page until the content is eyeballed by a member of the staff. If it is drive-by self promoting, it will be confined to the blogs section, and considering the way most of our members read the site, it won't get much exposure or cause our readers to be annoyed.
The second piece is that only approved bloggers/contributors can auto publish. This will prevent the spam we currently get in the blog section. This will work best as a white list, rather than a black list. Although it creates an initial barrier to publication (you have to wait for your first submission to be approved to be put on the approved blogger/contributor list), once you are on it, you can auto publish.
We will pilot this system and see how it works. My hope is it will lead to quality member contributions at the level they were a few years back.
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19 Jan 2015 15:57 #195496
by Black Barney
Replied by Black Barney on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
can I auto-publish yet? I promise not to abuse. I only abuse forums.
oh wait..i guess that doesn't work for front-page stuff since editorial control needs to decide what to bump. If I can bump my own column, that would be great.
oh wait..i guess that doesn't work for front-page stuff since editorial control needs to decide what to bump. If I can bump my own column, that would be great.
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19 Jan 2015 16:04 #195497
by cdennett
Replied by cdennett on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
Any chance we could get more forum posts per page? Or speed up the site? Both make browsing the site somewhat painful.
I know in the past you had stated the limit on posts-per-page was to drive advertisement revenue. What if you made a donation level that would allow people to increase the number? (Much like TOS allows you to block adds using GG, which usually equates to $$) Don't want to add work for you, but maybe a way to drive more donation $$ here. ("Wait, why are there only 10 posts here...oh, I forgot to donate this year...")
Regarding the site speed, sometimes I'm waiting 5-10 seconds for pages to start loading. Not 100% clear if it's downloading in the background and that's when it has enough to display, but it seems like that's the HTML request waiting for its turn. I see this across different internet connections, browsers, OS's, and devices. Sometimes it can be very responsive, but usually in the slightly annoyingly slow category.
Also, in the donation realm, you could also look at Patreon to get more reliable donations, though I'm not sure if some of the people here will shout down any sort of crowd-funding (which is really what donations are). It does eat around 10%, so may not be worth it, but might smooth out your donation curve and will keep showing up even if people forget about it.
I know in the past you had stated the limit on posts-per-page was to drive advertisement revenue. What if you made a donation level that would allow people to increase the number? (Much like TOS allows you to block adds using GG, which usually equates to $$) Don't want to add work for you, but maybe a way to drive more donation $$ here. ("Wait, why are there only 10 posts here...oh, I forgot to donate this year...")
Regarding the site speed, sometimes I'm waiting 5-10 seconds for pages to start loading. Not 100% clear if it's downloading in the background and that's when it has enough to display, but it seems like that's the HTML request waiting for its turn. I see this across different internet connections, browsers, OS's, and devices. Sometimes it can be very responsive, but usually in the slightly annoyingly slow category.
Also, in the donation realm, you could also look at Patreon to get more reliable donations, though I'm not sure if some of the people here will shout down any sort of crowd-funding (which is really what donations are). It does eat around 10%, so may not be worth it, but might smooth out your donation curve and will keep showing up even if people forget about it.
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19 Jan 2015 16:58 #195498
by ubarose
More posts per page, means slower load speeds. Essentially the more stuff that loads, the longer it takes to load. Advertiser revenue isn't a consideration.
The upgraded engine is more efficient, and the new design is more streamlined, so I hope to realize faster load speeds.
However, a lot of times what you encounter is the cacheing process. There is the cache on your computer and the cache on our server. When you first come to the site, it will refresh your personal cache (all the avatars, CSS, HTML) will be stored on your computer, so you don't have to download it over and over again as you browse the site. So your first visit of the day will probably be the slowest to load, depending on how you have your browser preferences set for dumping your cache. We also have a cache on our side. If the page you are going to has an unexpired cache, it will load from there which is much faster (fewer calls to the database). But if you hit at a time when there is no active cache, you'll get a delay as all the database calls need to be done from scratch and the cache file needs to be built.
Replied by ubarose on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
cdennett wrote: Any chance we could get more forum posts per page? Or speed up the site? Both make browsing the site somewhat painful.
I know in the past you had stated the limit on posts-per-page was to drive advertisement revenue. What if you made a donation level that would allow people to increase the number? (Much like TOS allows you to block adds using GG, which usually equates to $$) Don't want to add work for you, but maybe a way to drive more donation $$ here. ("Wait, why are there only 10 posts here...oh, I forgot to donate this year...")
Regarding the site speed, sometimes I'm waiting 5-10 seconds for pages to start loading. Not 100% clear if it's downloading in the background and that's when it has enough to display, but it seems like that's the HTML request waiting for its turn. I see this across different internet connections, browsers, OS's, and devices. Sometimes it can be very responsive, but usually in the slightly annoyingly slow category.
Also, in the donation realm, you could also look at Patreon to get more reliable donations, though I'm not sure if some of the people here will shout down any sort of crowd-funding (which is really what donations are). It does eat around 10%, so may not be worth it, but might smooth out your donation curve and will keep showing up even if people forget about it.
More posts per page, means slower load speeds. Essentially the more stuff that loads, the longer it takes to load. Advertiser revenue isn't a consideration.
The upgraded engine is more efficient, and the new design is more streamlined, so I hope to realize faster load speeds.
However, a lot of times what you encounter is the cacheing process. There is the cache on your computer and the cache on our server. When you first come to the site, it will refresh your personal cache (all the avatars, CSS, HTML) will be stored on your computer, so you don't have to download it over and over again as you browse the site. So your first visit of the day will probably be the slowest to load, depending on how you have your browser preferences set for dumping your cache. We also have a cache on our side. If the page you are going to has an unexpired cache, it will load from there which is much faster (fewer calls to the database). But if you hit at a time when there is no active cache, you'll get a delay as all the database calls need to be done from scratch and the cache file needs to be built.
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19 Jan 2015 17:11 #195499
by ubarose
When the new site comes up you will not only have auto-publish, but as an Author you will have a couple of other perks that I'm still working on.
Replied by ubarose on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
Black Barney wrote: can I auto-publish yet? I promise not to abuse. I only abuse forums.
oh wait..i guess that doesn't work for front-page stuff since editorial control needs to decide what to bump. If I can bump my own column, that would be great.
When the new site comes up you will not only have auto-publish, but as an Author you will have a couple of other perks that I'm still working on.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
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19 Jan 2015 17:16 #195500
by Black Barney
Replied by Black Barney on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
i hope one is a coffee dispenser for my PC
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20 Jan 2015 09:16 #195533
by SuperflyPete
A consolation prize, in advance of that not happening:
www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153827419925596
Replied by SuperflyPete on topic Re: Random feedback on the site
Black Barney wrote: i hope one is a coffee dispenser for my PC
A consolation prize, in advance of that not happening:
www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153827419925596
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