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Site Format
By TomW, Section Rants & Opinion Posted on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 11:05:22 AM MST
Seem to have completely lost the most important feature of the site

Seem to have completely lost the most important feature of the site. Namely the # of comments and # new for each story.
Just cuz I noticed. It started yesterday. Damned hard to keep current with that missing.
Cheers.
TomW

Site Format | 17 comments (17 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by DanB (danb@*no spam*otherpower.com) on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 11:35:54 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.otherpower.com/

test

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by DanB (danb@*no spam*otherpower.com) on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 11:37:40 AM MST
(User Info) http://www.otherpower.com/

Hi Tom -
some of these things were 'disabled' last night as they were really working things too hard. However... it would appear that 'new' comments still show up 'red' while ones that have allready been seen show up black so it might not be that bad.

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by TomW on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 11:48:12 AM MST
(User Info)

Dan;

Well I used to just search for "new," to find new stories so it definitely makes it harder here. Just how I have usually done it and it was simple and effective. My browser doesn't seem capable of searching for text color. Now it requires scrolling the entire page to visually locate new stories. A step backwards IMHO.

Cheers.

TomW

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."--Mark Twain
[ Parent ]

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by TomW on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 05:27:33 PM MST
(User Info)

Jeeze, storiers in that comment should be "comments". I'm a retard oops.

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."--Mark Twain
[ Parent ]

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by stop4stuff on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 02:04:34 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.stop4stuff.com

hi all,

i agree with Tom
the # of comments to a story is a feature... it shows how popular a story is instantly, without a visitor having look hard at each story... hard work = more effort = lost visitors.

also, with only 8 stories per page, your bandwidth usage will significantly increase as visitors hunt for a story they're interested in to find out how many comments have been added...

still a damn good forum tho,

Keep up the good work.

paul

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by wooferhound (tim((NoSpamAt))wooferhound.com) on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 09:12:35 PM MST
(User Info) http://wooferhound.com

Too see 50 stories at a time, click
'Display Preferences'
in the box on the upper-right hand side of this page

Then in the box next to...
Number of story summaries to show:
(on main page)

change that number to 50 and, you will see 50 stories on a page.

)}=- W o o f -={(

[ Parent ]

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by Wolvenar on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 04:39:32 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.anotherpower.com/gallery/albums.php

Well to drop my 2 cents

I am not sure of Toms request, I see that its a bit of a ram/cpu monger, but not sure of how the tradeoff works, since this is a pretty usefull feature.

However I see a feature that I am presuming to really be a load on things, the Hotlist..

Now I see this as, yes a neat thing, but implemented wrong.

I do not believe it shold be displayed on each page render, it would be just as usefull and much lighter on things if it were just a link to a hotlist query, so its specificaly requested instead of done each page render.

Wolv
http://www.anotherpower.com
irc.anotherpower.com

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by TomW on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 04:45:26 PM MST
(User Info)

Well, from here, I see we are sacrificing usability for a [very little] increase in speed and I think its a huge mistake. But thats just my opinion and likely not shared by others.

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."--Mark Twain
[ Parent ]

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by JW on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 06:24:26 PM MST
(User Info)

I think its fine.

My only suggestion would be more than 8 postings(stories) on the display pages. I'm getting a pretty large blank space at the bottom of every page, with all my computers even the one with a smaller monitor. I use dial-up on everything, never had a complaint, still dont, things download just fine. Noticed the 'controls' section shows on the "everything page" and not on the front page. Other than that, it seems to me the more postings visable on each page, will keep stories up on the front page or any other page longer. The only other way would be to have sories on a special 'everything 2' page that stories could be brought fom the back of the list, to the front again as when they were new?

Just thinking out loud

JW

[ Parent ]

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#16)
by antw on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 09:20:33 PM MST
(User Info)

Have you checked the "Display preferences" option of this board's settings? It is in the box with user info, your comments, your postings etc. If you have a user login then you should have this option. I have mine set to display 40 stories per page.

Cheers
Antony

[ Parent ]

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by Ungrounded Lightning Rod on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 06:11:37 PM MST
(User Info)

As long as you're hacking...

I'd love to see something like "Replies: M [N new {in red}]" showing up on the "Your Comments" link, rather than the current "Relplies: M".

That would really help out when holding an ongoing discussion thread in an older article.

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by JW on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 06:35:44 PM MST
(User Info)

Just realized something else, on the display page each story used to have a number of posts to it (10),(3) etc, thats gone now. I always yoused to check this after posting to a story, this way I could see if there has been any activity without reading thru the whole thing.

JW

[ Parent ]

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by TomW on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 07:06:53 PM MST
(User Info)

JW;

each story used to have a number of posts to it (10),(3) etc, thats gone now.

AHA! you see my point! Glad you got the idea.

Cheers.

TomW

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."--Mark Twain
[ Parent ]

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by srnoth on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 07:19:53 PM MST
(User Info)

Just my 2 cents,

I agree with Tom. The number of comments was a very useful thing when using this board. If y'all are looking for unnecessary things to reduce bandwidth, I agree that the Front Page is a big hog. In fact, it actually causes more problems, since it is the first page that comes up, if your post is not on that page (eg. if it is in controls, it disappears from the front page) then you don't get any postings. Why not just do away with it and use the 'Everything' page as the front page?

Cheers,
Stephen.

P.S. Just a thought, what about outsourcing a web-hosting company?

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by jasonweir (jason.weir@comcast.net) on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 07:53:52 PM MST
(User Info)

I don't want this to come across as negative, but as far as Bulletin Boards go, this seems to leave a lot to be desired. It seems that the Dan(s) are writingmodifying this themselves. I would think it might be easier to go with something like http://www.phpbb.com/ if they want to host it themselves or if they don't care about hosting it or a little advertising maybe move the discussion group to Yahoo Groups. I personally would use a Linux box with phpbb and mysql and be done with it. Out of the box it has most if not all of the features everybody is asking for, and many more.

Just my 2 cents but I would think that the Dan(s) would rather be building Gennys than writing code...

Jason Weir

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by JW on Thu Nov 18th, 2004 at 08:25:58 PM MST
(User Info)

naw, the everything page is useful. The idea of the front page is a good concept, its best to have a controlable welcome page, i think this is the idea behind the front page. The everything page is an olive branch to those users who could be in danger of being off topic for the welcome page. And certain topics do get off track from practical wind turbine design or other RE/AE power sources. I feel the practical should be the main theme of the front page. If users chose to explore the board more, they will always have a reference point in the front page, regarding AE/RE topics discussed there.

JW

[ Parent ]

Re: Site Format (3.00 / 0) (#17)
by elvin1949 (elvin1949@yahoo.com) on Sun Nov 21st, 2004 at 08:19:06 AM MST
(User Info)

morning ya'll
it ain't broke
don't fix it
later
elvin

[ Parent ]

Site Format | 17 comments (17 topical, 0 editorial)

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