Starship Asterisk*

by **owlice** » Mon Mar 15, 2010 2:25 am

Thank you, rstevenson and geckzilla; much appreciated!

by **geckzilla** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 11:41 pm

It's enabled now. It's one of those settings that has to be enabled on each individual forum. I guess I missed this one.

by **rstevenson** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 6:16 pm

I imagined it too, but rarely used it.

Rob

by **owlice** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 3:45 pm

I like Quick Reply, but don't see it anymore. (It did exist here, didn't it? Or did I imagine that?)

by **Chris Peterson** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:34 am

mark swain wrote:When somebody makes a comment that is total rubbish. And off topic, Can it be deleted? It spoils the thread and encourages others to take it further. Until the topic is just a blur. And the debate is over.

Certainly, if somebody says something sufficiently out of place for a moderator to remove it, I'd be happy to have my own response removed as well (assuming it was just a brief post about a silly comment; if I actually say something more substantive I'd prefer my comment be left in place, or moved, as seems appropriate <g>).

by **makc** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 7:20 pm

When somebody makes a comment that is total rubbish. And off topic, Can it be deleted?

for those who do not know, mark has a record of modifying/deleting his own comments, leaving the thread looking weird to whoever had no chance to read it in time... which is why we now have time limit for post editing.

by **The Code** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 5:36 pm

Can I make a suggestion?

When somebody makes a comment that is total rubbish. And off topic, Can it be deleted? It spoils the thread and encourages others to take it further. Until the topic is just a blur. And the debate is over.

Last posts Here: http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 8&start=75

Harry. Show me your Proof. Chris. We all know its nonsense. Orca. Don,t take the bait. I want to learn about the dark flow NOTHING ELSE.

Sorry Guys.

Mark

by **makc** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 10:16 pm

RJN wrote:One motivation for this has been a small "reverse Digg effect". This effect is that when APOD appears on the front page of Digg, the total number of page views to APOD go down. Not up. Down.

Maybe it's "reverse APOD" effect, i.e. visitors that already seen particular APOD do not rate same thing on digg and so it doesn't make it to their front page.

RJN wrote:We have fielded complaints that the second image makes the page, at times, slow to load.

Nothing that a small javascript couldn't solve (i.e., 1st let the page load, then insert digg frame in the background).

by **Chris Peterson** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 8:49 pm

RJN wrote:So Jerry and I are (again) considered taking all of the "sharing" links off of APOD.

My own view is that Facebook, Digg, and all those other social networking sites are just a passing fad. They are so low on real content (and frankly, intelligent discourse), so loaded with fluff... well, just a kind of toy, I think. It isn't apparent to me that they bring much value to APOD. Nor do I think they cause much or any harm, but I agree that with something like this, simple is good. I like that all the links on an APOD are to elements related to that APOD.

by **bystander** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 6:05 pm

RJN wrote:Another motivation is that APOD thrives on simplicity, and there has been significant negative feedback that a Digg link (etc.) on APOD makes it more cluttered and adds a dreaded second image. We have fielded complaints that the second image makes the page, at times, slow to load.

I don't think a second image is the problem, it's probably downloading the actual script. As Digg is an actual social bookmarking site, and AddThis and ShareThis are not, they might be a little faster. The real advantage is that the latter two allow you to connect with all the sites, and the former only connects to its site. Before you make a decision, here is some information you might want to consider.

by **RJN** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 4:44 pm

bystander wrote:For some time now you have featured a digg link at the bottom of each APOD page. Yesterday you tried facebook. Why not provide the ability to share through all of the social bookmarking links. Many blogs and news services have a share link that allows you to pick the social bookmarking link you wish to use. For an example, see APOD's sister site HEAPOW.

Good question. That link is a reasonable possibility. If there was a version that had only a text link that would be even better.

I was playing around over the past two days experimenting on how the sharing links affect APOD page views, APOD's position on Digg, APOD's effect on Facebook shares, etc. This is a very textured terrain, and it is unclear what is best for APOD. Counter intuitively, it seems that placing a clear Digg or Facebook link on APOD has only a small effect on everything.

One motivation for this has been a small "reverse Digg effect". This effect is that when APOD appears on the front page of Digg, the total number of page views to APOD go down. Not up. Down. Strange? -- you betcha! This has happened enough so that I am now relatively sure that it is not a statistical fluke. I am not sure why this occurs. Factors include that APOD has appeared on the front page of Digg for about half the days of the past year.

Another motivation is that APOD thrives on simplicity, and there has been significant negative feedback that a Digg link (etc.) on APOD makes it more cluttered and adds a dreaded second image. We have fielded complaints that the second image makes the page, at times, slow to load.

So Jerry and I are (again) considered taking all of the "sharing" links off of APOD. This is not set in stone, and the opinions of others do interest us. Again, a good middle ground is a text-only "sharing" link, but I don't know if that is possible.

by **makc** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 3:48 pm

geckzilla wrote:That's the problem with robots. They'll never fail the logic you provide them with but the next thing you know it's killing you for unwittingly violating your own rules.

Just need to be three laws safe.

by **bystander** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 3:03 pm

For some time now you have featured a digg link at the bottom of each APOD page. Yesterday you tried facebook. Why not provide the ability to share through all of the social bookmarking links. Many blogs and news services have a share link that allows you to pick the social bookmarking link you wish to use. For an example, see APOD's sister site HEAPOW.

by **geckzilla** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:23 am

I updated the CSS so that when a large image is posted there will be a scrollbar under it to indicate it got truncated. While it's still not as good as right-click => view image to isolate the image at least there is now some indication when an image is truncated.

by **geckzilla** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:17 pm

Yeah, that Zen Cart forum is a vBulletin board. Different software entirely. And you are correct, it is not a simple setting.

by **rstevenson** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:34 pm

I gather from that it's not just a setting in your admin console? Odd.

You can see what I mean at the Zen Cart forum. See the little up/down green arrows at the right of each heading? Click that once and it either opens or closes the forum section listing.

(But the Active topics link will do fine, now that you mention it.)

Rob

by **geckzilla** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:57 pm

The only way I know of is to use the main Active Topics link instead of the forum category link.
http://asterisk.apod.com/sea ... ive_topics

I'm not keen on editing the phpbb3 template which is what it would take to get rid of that box.

by **rstevenson** » Wed Feb 17, 2010 1:51 pm

I usually read the Active Topics, using the Discuss link at the top of any page to get back to and refresh that view of the forum. However, because I do it that way, there is now a redundant (for me) rectangle of links to the various sub-forums at the top, above the list of Active Topics. This box takes up a very large portion of the vertical space available in the browser, so I have to scroll down over and over again to see the threads. (Woe is me!)

Other forum software has a little gadget that can be put, perhaps, in the top-right corner of any such box which allows the box to collapse. And this setting can be cookied so it sticks for any particular user. I wouldn't be surprised if phpBB has such a feature. If it does, could it be turned on please?

Thanks,

Rob

by **emc** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:23 pm

Stupid me! Thanks for your patience... It's things like this that prove Mr. Ed's superior intelligence to mine. My parents should have named me Wilbur.

by **bystander** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:19 pm

Hit "Quote and copy the quote.

by **emc** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:06 pm

Thanks Bystander. That is simpler than I thought.

How do you display the post and not just the link?

by **bystander** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:51 pm

Just right click on the heading of the post in question, copy the url, and paste. For example, your post above is:

Code: Select all

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=17673#p115359

forum 28 (Starship Asterisk: Handbook), topic 17673 (How can The Asterisk be improved?), post 115359 (emc)

by **emc** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:40 pm

It might be helpful to have a "how to" available for linking another post.

by **bystander** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 8:11 pm

That section exists now. The Asterisk* is changing.

by **geckzilla** » Sun Jan 03, 2010 12:56 am

Storm_norm wrote:I think the biggest contributions in the future will be to keep this forum accessible and readable in all browsers in all languages.

Browsers, yes. It should always be accessible in all browsers which adhere to standards, since the forum is fully standards-compliant. Languages, sorry, this is an English only forum as stated by the rules. (Ok, it's not in the rules, even though I swear I remember reading it somewhere?)

Storm_norm wrote:why doesn't a thread like this have its own section of the forum to live in?
why aren't questions about features, upgrades, news about the forum, highlights, etc.. being dealt with in that same section?
this section of the forum should be reserved for APOD and astronomy questions not for "how's and why's about the forum" !!

Because that section doesn't exist... yet. And RJN was the one who started it here and this is basically his forum, so who's to say it's in the wrong place? shrug.

Starship Asterisk*

How can The Asterisk be improved?

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