Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Guest Book => Topic started by: daveshorts on 10/05/2006 12:54:56
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Hi
We are looking into changing the software which runs this forum to make it more compatible with a redesign of the main site over the next month or so. So we were wondering if any of you had any requests. This is features in the software rather than changes in the structure of the forum.
For example it may make discussions make more sense if the comments were threaded - were in a tree structure rather than a list.
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It would be nice if when people posted large images into threads, it didn't mean the text for the whole of that thread then assumed the same window-width. Having to scroll sideways to read each line is pretty offputting..
Dunno if that'd be possible..
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Perhaps a Private Message system ?
A 'Who's Logged in ?' section..
A chat section perhaps ?
A better 'User Control Panel' rather than just the profile...where one can manage the account easier etc
The ability to have avatars ?
A philisophy forum ?...
A shpell chequer ?...(eye don't kneed eet ov corss !!)
A coffee dispenser for my late nights !
A sedative dispenser for my late nights !
A snack dispenser for my late nights !
A Blow-Up-Doll dipenser for my late nights !
A cigarette dispenser for my late nights !
Men are the same as women, just inside out !
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it would be nice if i can mark some posts as 'unread' even after i have read them, so that i remember to reply later if i wanted to say something and didnt have the time.
thanks, should we be excited about the new software? [:D]
Laith
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Who's online at any given time and a private message system please. :)
Michael
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quote:
Originally posted by rosy
It would be nice if when people posted large images into threads, it didn't mean the text for the whole of that thread then assumed the same window-width. Having to scroll sideways to read each line is pretty offputting..
Dunno if that'd be possible..
Without thinking about this very much (maybe with some thought, I could think of a more imaginative solution).
The obvious way of doing this it to make the width of the table layout (i.e. of the displayed screen) a fixed width. The problem is that not everyone has the same sized screen, so it becomes difficult to determine what should be the right width for the table.
Probably a better answer would be to give the images a fixed width, so they cannot overflow a given size (possibly with an option to click to enlarge). Clearly, there are various problems with this also, since the images are not under the control of the TNS server. This does not prevent the HTML from defining a size into which the browser should paint the image, but you would want to retain the aspect ratio of the image (and don't want to magnify small images either), and so just giving a fixed size bot would be problematic.
You could pass all images through the TNS server (where the TNS server would load the image itself, find out the size of the image, and adjust the size intelligently), but this would add to the bandwidth usage on an already overburdened server (as well as adding to disk and cpu usage).
Another option is to hand control back to the poster, so that you can give size parameters on the IMG tag, so if a poster knows that an image is going to be big, (s)he can add appropriate scaling to reduce the size of the image without breaking the aspect ratio.
Alternatively, whenever an image tag is posted, the TNS server can load the image once, to ascertain its size, determine its own scaling factor, and then assume the image will never change, and so will hold the same image size (but will not cache the image itself). If the image does happen to change, and the aspect ration of the new image differs from the previous one, or the size of the new image changes markedly from the previous one, either the poster should edit his/her post, thus causing a recalculation of the image box by the TNS server, or we will get rather distorted images.
George
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quote:
Originally posted by ukmicky
Who's online at any given time and a private message system please. :)
Michael
On a web based system (unlike a p2p system) there is no such concept as being on line.
You can know who is logged on, but someone can remain logged on for several days, even while their machine is switched off, because there is no permanent connection, so there is no notion of a loss of connection.
You can know who has recently posted, or even when someone has recently read a web page (i.e. downloaded a web page to their machine), but they could spend half an hour reading the page they have downloaded, and you don't know if they are sitting there reading, or switched off the machine and gone to bed.
We already have stats about most recent visitors (although we do not have any stats about when a person who is not a recent visitor was last seen).
Talking about the stats – they show life time average posting. People's posting habits change over time, for all sorts of reasons. It would make more sense to have recent averages, as well as or instead of life time averages (very minor point – just seems silly).
George
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quote:
Originally posted by daveshorts
For example it may make discussions make more sense if the comments were threaded - were in a tree structure rather than a list.
Threading makes sense only if you expect topics to meander a lot.
There are only a handful of topics that ever get to the size where this even becomes possible, but threading would probably encourage more topics to go the same way. Not sure that this would necessarily make the site more usable for me – I'd rather keep the topics short.
Maybe we could have more flexibility about allowing posters to promote an comment to a new topic (i.e. when a topic does begin to meander, and maybe might even attract responses from people who were not interested in the original topic, and certainly would not want to burrow deep into a many threaded topic, might become interested in the comment if it was promoted to a new topic).
Improves, and more complex, search facilities (and ones that did not time out) might help locate relevant topics faster (but if we start having deeply threaded topics, then locating the topic will only be the start of the matter).
Clearly, people posting to some of the long running topics (e.g. the zeta topic) might have a different view regarding threading; but I personally would rather discourage other topics following the same pattern.
George
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Ok we will see what we can do about some of the requests ;)
You are probably right about threaded forums, I just want it to stop people being able to avoid answering questions by talking about something else ;) It would definitely be good if the moderators could extract bits of a thread as a new topic though.
When we change over the image size thing should be quite easy as there is a max-width and max-height property in CSS.
The stats stuff is probably going to depend on what comes with the new forum we decide on, I am afraid it probably isn't going to be top of an adgenda...
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quote:
Originally posted by daveshorts
When we change over the image size thing should be quite easy as there is a max-width and max-height property in CSS.
The problem with simply making a blanket change to the CSS is that it will not take into account the aspect ration of the original image, so you if you have a very wide image, you could be squeezing the width while the height remains in tact, creating an image with a very different aspect ratio than was correct for that image.
George
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SEARCH OPTION
I also belong to Startrek.com and they have a nifty "Search Engine" which searches through topics.
I used it to continue a previously started thread about favorite Star Trek: Enterprise episodes.
I thought it was nice to continue a topic that had already been started.
"When Given A Choice Between Two Paths, Take The Third Path." (Talaxian Saying)
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I think the level at which someone increases their status i.e advanced membership should be increased.
DAVE
I also think it would be good if members like you, chris, soul surfer etc had a little title next to their names showing their expertise in their particular field like science advisor, medical advisor etc that way anyone using this forum as a resource to aid their studies would know what replies to their questions can be trusted to be accurate.
Michael
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As a prerequisite condition for membership all members must display a photo topless from the waist up.
yes..I think that is a sensible request.
Men are the same as women, just inside out !
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The only problems i can see with that is the profile pages would be the most popular part of the forum , and we wouldnt probably have any female members .but if we could find a way around them problems then yep i'm with you their 100 percent.
Michael
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offer a 100 quid for the best photo,payable at year end [8D]
http://www.armybarmy.org
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i feel the members should be notified of the new site in due time
lets keep trying the untried since the birth of science innovations have been like toy but their impacts have rocked the world
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quote:
Originally posted by ukmicky
I also think it would be good if members like you, chris, soul surfer etc had a little title next to their names showing their expertise in their particular field like science advisor, medical advisor etc that way anyone using this forum as a resource to aid their studies would know what replies to their questions can be trusted to be accurate.
Nice idea, but who will judge who is expert on what – will the persons self assessment upon their expertise match other people's assessment on their expertise.
George
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I think it may be worth haveing a naked scientists logo attached to people who appear on the show regularly, possibly the bio is where to put ideas accurate or otherwise about one's competences.