I would suggest a way to have bigger pictures in news articles. Ie, have the thumbnails, in the normal article, but have some 'click to enlarge' or something. That way, renders and informative images are way, way easiert to see, and the visual element can help images; you could have text like 'as can be seen in the image to the left, damage to the interstage of this F9 was a bit heavier then expected; sources tell us it might be replaced'Or- actually showing something that is talked about, ie the connection point for the SLS booster being given a new paintjob.Tldr; bigger images in the news section.
Good start guys! First one, about the images, is something I can play with and I'll start a thread as I could also use some people versed with Wordpress. The "click for bigger image" was a pain on several fronts (spend more time with images than words) and photos being "link stolen" which other sites suffer from (wordpress direct link to use the image and not the article...blah blah), but thinking we could use the opportunity to update the article look and go with bigger images. Captions always seemed like a problem to insert, but we'll look into this on the thread I'll set up.Keep them coming, good ideas will get their own threads.
Is it time for a name change perhaps?
I'm spending more and more time on the site via phone and pad, less via desktop browser. I've used tapatalk for past few years and now am back to trying the mobile-friendly browser interface from my phone.One open issue is there's no good way to read articles / news stories on a phone. Finding some mobile-friendly presentation really should be some sort of objective for 2017, I think.I'm enamored by the flipit style interface WAPO and flipit app have adopted, but am certainly open to others.Thanks
2. Add abbrevation dictionary. If a user sees an abbrevation he can click on it and get an explanation. For example, "SSME" is mentioned in an article. He/she is not sure what that means, so he/she can click on the "SSME" and "Space Shuttle Main Engine" pops out. Or something similar.
A feature to convert times into local time for the readers location. Heavens above it can't be difficult - Heavens Above does it. We're not all Florida or Hawthorn centric.
A reminder this is for suggestions. They will be discussed by other members if we take them forwards into their own threads, but for now this is just the suggestions (so hold your additional thoughts on other people's ideas until that point to keep this as a list of suggestions).
A Youtube channel where we could upload full launch webcasts and other NASA/space related events. P.S. Edited in response to Chris' post below.
Yeah, I do love the idea of NSF TV or somesuch. That'll be a thread for us to work within.
Quote from: Eer on 08/08/2016 02:34 pmI'm spending more and more time on the site via phone and pad, less via desktop browser. I've used tapatalk for past few years and now am back to trying the mobile-friendly browser interface from my phone.One open issue is there's no good way to read articles / news stories on a phone. Finding some mobile-friendly presentation really should be some sort of objective for 2017, I think.I'm enamored by the flipit style interface WAPO and flipit app have adopted, but am certainly open to others.ThanksAnswering some of these in reverse order, but I am reading them all. Tapatalk sucks (in the style of Rainman's Dustin Hoffman talking about Kmart)....just my personal opinion and because some people like it, that's why we have it. I'm overruled I use google chrome on my phone for NSF....but mainly desktop. If there's alternatives, we can check into that. This will be a thread in this section too. (Will be standalone threads for major items of investigation).
Look, we have a team of people who have proven track records of flying hardware in space. We would like to build and design a cubesat that takes 8k pics of the moon. Would you be willing to invest?
NSF Threads for JCSAT-16 : Discussion / Updates / L2 Coverage / Party / ASDSNSF Articles for JCSAT-16 : Booster prep / Static Fire/Pre-Launch
Discussion Thread:https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40373.0Party Thread:https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40089.msg1520968#msg1520968ASDS Threads:https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?board=66.0
This may be one of the 90 unworkable suggestions, but how about a top level button that dynamically builds pages listing all recent posts in all update threads. The idea is that you would see what looks like a regular forum thread, but it would contain posts from many different update threads, sorted by time. It would be a quick overview of "what's new" across the forums without having to click through to each section.
Quote from: Poole Amateur on 08/08/2016 02:06 pmIs it time for a name change perhaps?I can rule that out right away. It's like "maybe you should change your 12 year old daughter's name" to my mind. I get the point, but one has to stick with the name. Maybe we should create more splinter sites?
This kinda goes along with what Galactic Penguin SST was talking about above in https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40878.msg1568004#msg1568004It would be kinda nice to have some sort of data structure to contain the launch logs (whether it be database, xml, csv, whatever) where the people maintaining launch logs of various areas (US, SpaceX, Europe, Russia, China, etc) could all update a common set of data. Then you could have a launch schedule feature on the site where it could automatically show an up to date list of upcoming launches, and people could filter it by country/launch provider if they wanted to.
This one might be a bridge too far but...What about NSF arranging events off forum? NASA and contractors have done social network gatherings and open houses in the past and NSF has a lot of members within NASA and the various companies. Maybe every now and then a meetup could be organized to tour some sort of site, or for an expert in some field to maybe talk about a project or do a little Q&A.
Quote from: Chris Bergin on 08/08/2016 03:25 pmQuote from: Poole Amateur on 08/08/2016 02:06 pmIs it time for a name change perhaps?I can rule that out right away. It's like "maybe you should change your 12 year old daughter's name" to my mind. I get the point, but one has to stick with the name. Maybe we should create more splinter sites? Instead of splintering, how about subnetting? Like "spacex.nasaspaceflight.com", "spaceshuttle.nasaspaceflight.com" and the every-valuable "L2.nasaspaceflight.com". Each could be a copy of the current forum software -- this also solves capacity depending on how the subnet sights are hosted.I am also on board with the "new of space" website and would be willing to help with that (I've made webcrawlers and harvesters before).
Two things; apologies if they've already been suggested. First, I'll also throw out a suggestion that may well be completely unfeasible. Any chance of getting an equation editor built into the forum a-la-LaTeX? The sup/superscript buttons can only take us so far. Secondly, when a thread gets large page numbers are listed like "1 2 3 ... 100". Clicking those three dots always seems to expand the smaller end of that number line. Which is great if I want to jump to page 6, but somewhat less than great if I want to read page 96; the latter of which occurs more often when I'm trying to catch up on recent posts. Can we get a few trailing numbers for the last few pages of a thread? (Or even better, something like "1 2 ... 50 ... 99 100" )Appreciate all of the work that's gone into the site!
Things like the first one might be like the acronym expander. We had that, but it put a lot of load on the database (but that might be solved by now, so we have this thread and Mark can pick out things that are viable). I remember "likes" was a problem, but that has since been solved (per load).
I had this idea of nested discussion thread, where you could post an update, a discussion comment, or a party comment in the same thread. Those who wanted to just view updates could select just the "update" option. This would allow easy discussion of updates and would avoid having updates in the discussion thread and vice versa. Mods could easily mark comments as "discussion" or "party" if they were incorrectly tagged originally. It'd also prevent a proliferation of threads.Anyway, just an idea.
I have a very simple request: could the orange "NEW" button at the end of thread titles (that links to <url>#new) be a little bit bigger? It's awfully hard to hit on higher-DPI touch screens.ta!
Chris an important implementation would be an SSL certificate for the forum (subdomain would be cheaper than all domain and subdomains). Google values SSL on their rank and it is a good idea for security reasons also. Don't know what version of Wordpress we are using (hope it's updated) but there are a lot of awesome off the shelf themes that with some proper customization could really step up the news site both in terms of functionality and design, and all of them are now responsive so they can adapt to mobile devices.
Quote from: Joaosg on 09/02/2016 01:58 pmChris an important implementation would be an SSL certificate for the forum (subdomain would be cheaper than all domain and subdomains). Google values SSL on their rank and it is a good idea for security reasons also. Don't know what version of Wordpress we are using (hope it's updated) but there are a lot of awesome off the shelf themes that with some proper customization could really step up the news site both in terms of functionality and design, and all of them are now responsive so they can adapt to mobile devices. Very interested in the Wordpress stuff. My thinking is to mirror what we use right now and play with themes etc. Rather than work in the current CMS in case I mess up current articles Per the cert, I thought we had sorted all of that out?Talking about this? (The s in the URL)?
Ok I confess, for reading the forum I mainly use tapatalk on my mobile. Why? Because it's the easiest way to see which of the myriad of threads I follow across the site have new posts since I last read them. It's also very quick to jump into the relevant point in those threads. It also helpfully lists new threads in the subforums I subscribe to and I can easily add/remove subscriptions. I used to use email notifications but my inbox just clogged up with 100s of messages, with no clear overview and it was a pain to constantly switch between email and browser. So in my ideal NSF 2017 there would be a way to do this within the site itself. There's no question that reading the web version is nicer. The issue for me is finding the content I want to read.
Going to set up a L2 reception area as the payment merchant is now a lot easier and welcoming to any form of online payment (rather than the old days where it really wanted you to join paypal). Will do a payment tutorial and a new overview landing page
I really enjoyed the Aerobee-19 article. There is so much spaceflight history to choose from, perhaps we can make this a regular ongoing feature on NSF?
Yeah, I'm thinking of a plan of "section leaders", where they - people with a big interest in the subject - can edit the opening post and link key posts, provide one stop summaries linking to the point in the thread where something was updated, etc.
I skimmed this thread and didn't see this mentioned, so sorry if it already was.Multi-quote ability. Instead of seeing multiple posts in a row from the same person because they are quoting and replying to different previous posts, the multi-quote function allows you to select multiple posts at once and then it includes them all as separate quotes in one reply. Would help clean up the long discussion threads. A perfect example of when this is useful is right here in the 2nd AMOS-6 discussion thread. https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41252.msg1587924#msg1587924jongoff has 8 reply posts in a row, plus a 9th pointing out the other 8. That could have been just one post if the multi-quote function existed.
Quote from: Chris Bergin on 09/21/2016 10:39 pmYeah, I'm thinking of a plan of "section leaders", where they - people with a big interest in the subject - can edit the opening post and link key posts, provide one stop summaries linking to the point in the thread where something was updated, etc.I'm very much favor what Kaputnik suggested. I would like to suggest that if a member likes a particular topic, then they could hit a new button on the bottom of the page along side the Reply, Notify, etc with one that's labeled "Favorite Topic". Then at the top of the Forums page toolbar, an addition button, alongside "Unread Topics", labeled "Favorite Topics" would only populate the threads that user is interested in (thus the user manages what they would like to view and read. Of course, NSF would have the update the user database to make that happen, but your doing this so far with the "Notify" option already. The original "Unread Topics" could be renamed "All Unread Topics".I too spend way to much time looking just for the topics I'm interested. I would rather have a means to manage what I'm interested.Thanks, and as always, this is such a great site, no matter what become of it.Tony De La Rosa
Jim also does that sometimes. It's not the fault of the site. It's the fault of an overly chatty member And the multiquote is available, but Jon simply didn't use it.I'll merge some posts. And done, it's now four posts. And to be fair, had he done all that in one post, people would be complaining about such a long post with lots of quotes, so the balance is now right.
Multiquote exists now, you just have to add one post at a time and remember that you have to leave the cursor in the bottom, the quote you click gets inserted wherever the cursor is, I think. (or maybe always at the bottom)
Fine grained filtering of only certain threads to only certain posters is not something this board software has, I don't think...
Quote from: Lar on 09/24/2016 06:22 pm Fine grained filtering of only certain threads to only certain posters is not something this board software has, I don't think...Is there an 'ignore list' function? It would act along similar lines, but in reverse. My idea is that you see a 100+ page thread and can just see posts by, e.g., Jim, HMXHMX, JonGoff, and whoever else you choose and know is worth reading. But you'd need it to be something that you have to actively select and perhaps only available on threads over a certain length, and which turns off again by default.I have no idea whether the forum software could support such a thing, but, heck if we can put a man on the moon...I also like the idea of a favourite threads or topics list, as mentioned above. As much as I would like to follow every thread on the forum there simply aren't enough hours in the day. In fact I believe Jim only manages it because he has been cloned multiple times as part of a government rocket scientist breeding program.
I 100% agree with your concerns which is why I would not suggest this filtered view as a default or permanent setting.However, catching up on long and fast moving threads is not easy, leading many people to simply not bother and to wade in with their 'new' idea which was debunked ten pages earlier. The Amos 6 failure was a good example- by the time I was able to get to a computer, it was already at about 50 pages and growing about as fast as I could get time to catch up with it. So my own approach is to skim through the posts and only concentrate on those that look sufficiently interesting.My ideal 'filter' would work something like this:- only available on threads above a certain size (e.g. 20 pages long)- has to be actively enabled by the user each and every time they view an eligible thread- the entirety of the first page, and the most recent page, are not filtered- all posts which have generated X no. of quoted replies are not filtered- all posts from moderators are not filtered- (possibly also all 'liked' posts not filtered)?- the user can select additional posts as they choose, from other named users. Perhaps a suggestion list of memnbers known to work in the industry could be included as a default position on this.With this approach, moderators would be able to control the discussion and perhaps provide summaries along the way in the knowledge that these would be read.The idea is to improve the signal to noise ratio and to prevent threads becoming clogged up with newbies asking the same thing over and over again.Perhaps the filter could be disabled on threads that are not especially fast-moving, even very long ones, as the point of it is to allow people to catch up in a reasonable period of time. And of course users would always have the absolute option of not turning the filter on in the first place.All moot if the software does not allow it...
You mentioned aesthetics, so I think I should post this here. I created a design refresh for the front page and the articles a year and a half ago, based on the current logo. I shared it only privately with Chris back then, but it still looks nice to me, and this seems to be the opportunity to put it up for everyone. There's a frontpage and an article. Note that these are mock-ups, it would take quite a bit of coding to actually integrate this into the site and make sure everything works properly.I seem to recall working on a responsive version of the front page. I tried to do it completely with CSS, no JavaScript, and got quite far but didn't quite make it IIRC. I'll see if I can dig that up tomorrow.I've been very busy with a new job and I haven't had time for even reading the forums in months, so I can't offer any help building the new one, but if anyone wants to develop it further into something, go right ahead . Here is a zipfile with the whole thing for convenience.
Quote from: BrianNH on 08/16/2016 05:28 pmThis may be one of the 90 unworkable suggestions, but how about a top level button that dynamically builds pages listing all recent posts in all update threads. The idea is that you would see what looks like a regular forum thread, but it would contain posts from many different update threads, sorted by time. It would be a quick overview of "what's new" across the forums without having to click through to each section.You mean like the "Unread Topics" button except it is filtered for "update threads" only?
I also like the idea of a favourite threads or topics list, as mentioned above. As much as I would like to follow every thread on the forum there simply aren't enough hours in the day.
I 100% agree with your concerns which is why I would not suggest this filtered view as a default or permanent setting.However, catching up on long and fast moving threads is not easy, leading many people to simply not bother and to wade in with their 'new' idea which was debunked ten pages earlier. The Amos 6 failure was a good example- by the time I was able to get to a computer, it was already at about 50 pages and growing about as fast as I could get time to catch up with it. So my own approach is to skim through the posts and only concentrate on those that look sufficiently interesting.
I searched some but could not find exactly what I would like to request if at all possible. If what I want to do is already possible however, please let me know how.Now....I would like a way to "subscribe" to a thread and have a link called "My Topics" that could be the forum main page for each user when that user is logged in. Basically a customizable forum home page for each user that shows the subscribed threads for which they chose first and then everything else. That way you can do a quick scan of all the topics you are currently interested(subscribed) in and see real quick if there are any new post counts or who was last, etc...
That was the same request I made on a previous page and a good solution was posted above: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40878.msg1593407#msg1593407
That was the same request I made on a previous page and a good solution was posted above: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40878.msg1593407#msg1593407Sorry. I re-read it and yes that is basically it.The problem with the "solution" posted has two issue. One is, i don't want to get a notification every time someone posts something in one of the watched threads. Depending on the thread...that can end up with ALOT of notifications.
Maybe already suggested, but an upcoming launch schedule tab would be a great addition.
Say, how is the new site development coming along?
Quote from: Bubbinski on 01/08/2017 06:06 pmSay, how is the new site development coming along? Very well. Mark's been busy at work and has sent me screenshots of the dev site, but via text and I'm not sure how to post that. Buzzwords are "Clean" and "Professional". He's also got one of his guys to do a new logo which looks amazingly professional. Going to fill and work the same as the current place, so no one is going to be "I'm lost" - but it'll look better (and function better).
- The search needs vast improvement. Has a custom Google search been considered?
I don't like change. Let's keep everything the same.
I post most of the Historic videos on this site (as well as others), and I usually point them to YouTube.
Quote from: catdlr on 11/18/2017 11:31 pmI post most of the Historic videos on this site (as well as others), and I usually point them to YouTube. There are quite a few older videos in L2 that were not posted by you and are in .wmv format.edit: A lot of stuff in the public side NSF Video Collection thread are also in .wmv
catdir,Thank you for welcome. I didn't meant to insult the fine work that other members have done on the site. I like a lot of the historical stuff and some of those videos were uploaded to the site several years ago. I made the change from MS to Apple and it takes some work to make WMV videos play. I certainly would be willing to pitch in help to transcode them.
Updated the logo on NSF's Wikipedia page!
Is there enough L2 membership to go to month by month bases instead of every 2?
A plugin providing a "Quote in Discussion Thread" button for posts in an update thread that automagically starts a new post in the discussion thread with the quote prefilled.
Quote from: DanseMacabre on 01/04/2019 03:06 pmA plugin providing a "Quote in Discussion Thread" button for posts in an update thread that automagically starts a new post in the discussion thread with the quote prefilled.I 100% echo this sentiment. It was something I proposed a while back. I think if the naming convention was consistent - such as "[Subject X] Discussion" and "[Subject X] Updates and Photos" then finding the corresponding discussion thread to put the quote into programatically would be quite doable. Putting proper metadata tags into threads could also serve the same purpose without having to put constraints on thread names.
Yeah, I literally can't think how it could be done unless someone manually enters the code into the script each time for the discussion thread on each update thread and even then such a thread may not exist, only for the usual amount of people to ignore that option as much as they do with the update only threads at present.The sort of people who'd use it are more than capable of getting their head around "Quote" "Copy" "post with rely in the discussion thread". Those who aren't sure as heck won't use the script tab to copy their post - as listed, while some poor soul has to script each update thread to allow it.Non-starter. Just need to drum it into people's heads that "Quote" "Copy" "Post" in the discussion thread isn't hard.
Well don't waste too much time on it, as there's a 101 much more valuable things you could look into if you're entering this thread now with "I've been looking into plugins and SMF integration" as opposed to a thing for lazy people who can't read "update" in the thread title (and as such won't read "click here to post in discussion") And I can pretty much say right now Mark isn't going to add any plugins unless absolutely needed and pass the sniff test due to the horrendous battle we had making "likes" SMF mod actually work due to its original crap programming. That was, of course, actually something we needed.Also, we don't know how long SMF has in its lifecycle. Eventually we'll probably move to a near mirror, but better software, forum like XenForo. Of course, commonality is key. No one likes major changes.But sure, go for it, just pre-warning that I've given my opinion on it.
Quote from: Tomness on 01/04/2019 06:00 pmIs there enough L2 membership to go to month by month bases instead of every 2?Bottom line is it's still less than 99.9 percent of the people who will use this site today being L2 members, but that's natural as most people think sites like this are free and cost nothing to run "I'll never pay for using the internet, it's free" types - running around with their paid-for ad blocker. Per the other part, I always get worried about changing the L2 sub format, as I don't want to let anyone down who's already subscribed. It's why we don't do "Black Friday" and such, because if someone signed up and then a week later it was cheaper, that's a kick in the teeth for someone who's supporting the site.Now one month at 9.99 wouldn't impact that, but I don't want to annoy the members who signed up at the lowest sub, two months. If there was a large demand for it, I'd consider it, but that's the first time anyone's asked me in years, so I'm not so sure.
Quote from: Chris Bergin on 01/04/2019 06:06 pmQuote from: Tomness on 01/04/2019 06:00 pmIs there enough L2 membership to go to month by month bases instead of every 2?Bottom line is it's still less than 99.9 percent of the people who will use this site today being L2 members, but that's natural as most people think sites like this are free and cost nothing to run "I'll never pay for using the internet, it's free" types - running around with their paid-for ad blocker. Per the other part, I always get worried about changing the L2 sub format, as I don't want to let anyone down who's already subscribed. It's why we don't do "Black Friday" and such, because if someone signed up and then a week later it was cheaper, that's a kick in the teeth for someone who's supporting the site.Now one month at 9.99 wouldn't impact that, but I don't want to annoy the members who signed up at the lowest sub, two months. If there was a large demand for it, I'd consider it, but that's the first time anyone's asked me in years, so I'm not so sure.I think we want to encourage more L2 subscriptions, right? ... so this is a crazy idea... what if you offered a one time only one month subscription that was discounted? Idea being to get people "hooked" so they would re-up at the normal rate? Might be a headache to see who had or hadn't already used the trial offer though.
Quote from: Lar on 01/08/2019 03:38 pmQuote from: Chris Bergin on 01/04/2019 06:06 pmQuote from: Tomness on 01/04/2019 06:00 pmIs there enough L2 membership to go to month by month bases instead of every 2?Bottom line is it's still less than 99.9 percent of the people who will use this site today being L2 members, but that's natural as most people think sites like this are free and cost nothing to run "I'll never pay for using the internet, it's free" types - running around with their paid-for ad blocker. Per the other part, I always get worried about changing the L2 sub format, as I don't want to let anyone down who's already subscribed. It's why we don't do "Black Friday" and such, because if someone signed up and then a week later it was cheaper, that's a kick in the teeth for someone who's supporting the site.Now one month at 9.99 wouldn't impact that, but I don't want to annoy the members who signed up at the lowest sub, two months. If there was a large demand for it, I'd consider it, but that's the first time anyone's asked me in years, so I'm not so sure.I think we want to encourage more L2 subscriptions, right? ... so this is a crazy idea... what if you offered a one time only one month subscription that was discounted? Idea being to get people "hooked" so they would re-up at the normal rate? Might be a headache to see who had or hadn't already used the trial offer though. That could be a problem. There are rude people, like me in the past, who would use that month to continuously download everything they could find, which is well over ten megabytes in L2, then quit.
I don't have problem for make a offer for months...The true, is when you see the annual membership, ...you say well is a "lot money now"in only one pay (off course not, but normally like you say the people want all free) but if you can make membership for every month and they discount to your account in paypal...like for example, the Planetary Society have...For example 8$ each month...it's not to much...and it's almost the same the annual fee
Ok I have suggestion for quite some time now jeje...Why when you reply to a thread, automatically send you off this thread?In other forum, you make a repond to one comentary, and you still are in the thread, and you can continue read and respond other comentary...It's possible fixed that?
I know you've just refreshed the site recently, so perhaps this is a bad time to comment... but have you ever considered using Discourse https://www.discourse.org/ to host the forums? It has a lot of features that I think would make navigating NSF easier. It is open-source, so you can host your own server and they host a marketplace where people offer to do setup and maintenance of servers for a fee if you prefer not to.
There's been a number of suggestions about alternatives to SMF. I know XenForo is one as that has a good port from SMF. However, SMF is deep into beta testing of its major update, which would be ideal as it would not remove the key element of familiarity, which is so important. Radical changes to the functionality of a forum people are used to can kill a forum, so the current focus is to use the upgraded SMF 2.1 when it's in stable release.
...no errors at all...
Quote from: Space Pete on 03/12/2019 10:42 am...no errors at all...Not quite true; it 'inverts' the colours of Twitter inclusions (on Chrome; haven't tried FF). Other than that, concur.
Not with me. I'm using Chrome and I turn on and off the app and no change to the picture. I played with the app setting, must have picked the right combo. I love it, do a lot of dark time reading. Not going back to default.
Here are the settings I use for this site.