Site feedback?

[body-of-an-american]

soz

[Fionn MacCool]

Any chance we could get a quick reply function here? You can install it really easily with phpBB (takes < 5 mins) and I can't see any disadvantages of it.

[this should really have gone in the Site Feedback thread i guess, but i thoguht it may get overlooked ]

[DzM]

Any chance we could get a quick reply function here? You can install it really easily with phpBB (takes < 5 mins) and I can't see any disadvantages of it.

I don't see any real value to this. It breaks the page layout, it saves the effort of one (yes, one) ibutton click, etc. It would also interfere with at least one of the spam counter-measures we use.

So - Am I misunderstanding how totally cool this would actually be? Convince me.

[Fionn MacCool]

Well I'd argue that it doesn't break the layout since it's just a small box below the last post at the end of the page.

Why not save the effort of one button click? It also saves one page load, thus saving bandwidth.

As for the anti-spam measures, you'd have to explain that one a bit more as I wasn't aware what you meant.

[DzM]

Well I'd argue that it doesn't break the layout since it's just a small box below the last post at the end of the page.

Yeah, where there's already enough nonsensical crap. Why shove more down there? What is the benefit to 90% of our fellow posters?

Why not save the effort of one button click? It also saves one page load, thus saving bandwidth.

Well, frankly I don't consider plonking on a single button to get to a reply page to be all that onerous. Something that would actually help people would be a reised BBCode input system. Many people have trouble understanding any kind of markup language, and forcing them to understand something as broken as BBCode just to get bold or italic (or, god forbid, a link) is a much bigger usability problem than "Bonk on the button labled 'Reply' to reply."

And the bandwidth argument is weak. Weak weak weak. The HTML is compressed in transit, the presentation graphics are all (mostly) locally cached, etc. A much better argument would be "less server load by reducing total number of requests, etc etc." but even that would be pretty weak. A fine counter-argument to the bandwidth stance is "think of all the wasted bandwidth due to the extra HTML form elements downloaded on each and every request."

As for the anti-spam measures, you'd have to explain that one a bit more as I wasn't aware what you meant.

There are around four things that Medusa does right now to preent spam from poluting our lovely page views. One of those countermeasures is that each Post form is uniquely signed, and the server will reject any Post that lacks this signature (or contains an inalid signature). The code that does this would have to be modified to also uniquely sign eery view of the threads in order to proide the correct unique signature for the Quick Reply form. This would 1) Make Work For Me to modify the code, and 2) Make Life Harder For Medusa by forcing her to calculate these signatures many thousands of times more often than she has to today.

Finally, I resist installing too much third party code on Medusa because eery changed (or new) line puts at risk my ability to stay up-to-date on bug fixes to phpBB, makes it harder to manage the overall code-base that drives Medusa by forcing me to track the updates and revisions to all this third party code, makes things (potentially) less secure by running code that has not been extensively audited, etc. So unless there's a clear benefit to the change I tend to shy away from it.

This isn't a "no" though. I'm still willing to be convinced.

[Fionn MacCool]

QuickReply isn't that massive an addition though, it's only a few lines to insert a form into the page, basically having the essence of the posting.php form in the viewforum.php, simply inserting the information into the database from a different page. There's no 'new' code or SQL modifications to be made, and you can always back-up the .php page first.

QuickReply encourages people to post more. If they read a thread then they may want to say something, but can't be bothered to post it... usually something trivial like 'i agree' but hey, why not make life easier for us?

QR is installed and running on virtually all big message boards [seemingly] without trouble. I'm not going to be heart-broken if you don't install this, but why not make a threadwhere people can vote for/against or something?

Oh and just one other idea, while I'm at it ! It's a bit annoying that the image at the top which says 'Forums' links to the actual homepage rather than the forum list, as expected. Maybe you could split it so that the left part which says 'the Pogues' links to the homepage and the rest links to the forum list. Just an idea.

[philipchevron]

aren't they clever?

[Fionn MacCool]

:shock: aren't they clever?

Listen kid, once you manage to be a part of a world famous band, possibly the best band in the worldeverinalltime, then you can direct sarcastic remarks at me.

*storms off in a teenage huff*

[DzM]

QuickReply isn't that massive an addition though, it's only a few lines to insert a form into the page, basically having the essence of the posting.php form in the viewforum.php, simply inserting the information into the database from a different page. There's no 'new' code or SQL modifications to be made, and you can always back-up the .php page first.

I understand perfectly well what it does.

QuickReply encourages people to post more. If they read a thread then they may want to say something, but can't be bothered to post it... usually something trivial like 'i agree' but hey, why not make life easier for us?

"I Agree" and "Me Too" posts are generally considered to not add a great deal of value to a conversation (nothing wrong with them really - they just don't move a conversation forward). Do we really need to make it easier for people to dash off a quick comment, or should we continue to force people to spend a little effort on gathering their thoughts?

My goal for Medusa's fora is not necessarily to have hundreds of messages a day. My goal is to have interesting conversations. Making it easy for people to quickly dash off a "LOL!!!" or a " " seems largely like it will simply increase the noise to signal ratio. Am I in the minority here (and yes, I recognize the irony in this question)?

QR is installed and running on virtually all big message boards [seemingly] without trouble. I'm not going to be heart-broken if you don't install this, but why not make a threadwhere people can vote for/against or something?

Well ... to a certain extent that's what this thread is. A chance for people to publicly say "Can $FOO be done."

Ultimately Medusa is not managed by consensus. It's managed by the time and effort I'm able to dedicate to it. To have a thread where people can vote on adding $FOO implies that I'm bound to their decisions, and I am certainly not. I believe we're better off not giving people the mistaken impression that I will abide by their consensus decisions.

Oh and just one other idea, while I'm at it ! It's a bit annoying that the image at the top which says 'Forums' links to the actual homepage rather than the forum list, as expected. Maybe you could split it so that the left part which says 'the Pogues' links to the homepage and the rest links to the forum list. Just an idea.

Yeah, that annoys me too. It exists in this form (I think - been a while since I set it up) to maintain functional consistency with the rest of the site. To break it up would break that functional consistency, or would force me to update the other 300+ flat HTML files that make up Medusa (yes, I should be using a template based content management system. Someday I'll get around to that conversion. For now I'm intimidated by the need to modify so many files and undo years worth of cruft and HTML formatting in them.)

I'll see if I can find an easy way to fix it that does not break the functional consistency with the rest of the site.


And Philip - No, we just like the sound of our keyboards going "klack-klack-click-klack".

[MacRua]

QuickReply encourages people to post more.

MORE?!
God save us from more "I agree" posts...
DzM, please! Don't do it!! I have a nice collection of sweet wrappers. It could be yours! Just do not do it!!!

[firehazard]

QuickReply encourages people to post more.

MORE?!
God save us from more "I agree" posts...

I agree! Oops...

[Fionn MacCool]

sorry, bad example I suppose. I was too lazy to think of a full post.

I understand perfectly well what it does.

The explanation was actually for the benefit of anyone else reading this.

Ultimately Medusa is not managed by consensus. It's managed by the time and effort I'm able to dedicate to it.

Fair enough, in that case I'll end my point here.

[kmurray105]

There are several very long threads on here which are mainly a series of 1 line suggestions of songs, books, albums or what have you. I've often thought to go to those lists for new ideas; but unfortunately the lists have gotten so long they are rather unwieldy. It would be great if topics such as those we displayed in some different format more like a table with the artist/author, song/book, poster, and a short comment. That way, one could more easily scan the list rather than going page by page. The layout of the forum is great for discussion but not as easy for something like that.

I realize it might be extremely difficult to port the data over to a new format for those few sections. Perhaps those sections could be started over in a new format. Or maybe even that is too much effort, and for that matter maybe everyone else thinks this is a stupid idea. it is but a humble suggestion.

[DzM]

It's a fine idea kmurray105. But it's not something I'll implement. Just don't have the time.

However - If somebody else wants to tackle tabulating the data I'll be happy to get your the raw data. Once tabulated I'll be happy to flow it into a format consistent with our Medusa and make it available.

[MissWalshy]

I'd really appreciate it if mods didn't interfere with posts when it's not necessary.

Changing titles etc is a piss take as the post/thread doesn't belong to the mod.

Merging is good but surely everyhthing could be in the "threads for things that doesn't need threads" who says what needs and what doesnt?

Is this a public fora or a DzM/Mod fora?