Current NSF Forum Feedback Thread 2

[eric z]

 My wife likes Internet Explorer because they used it a lot at her work that she is now retired from. She set my computer up with IE, and a friend helped me get Mozilla, because... well that's irrelevant to here! It's gotta be a quirk of IE... For now I will stick to Mozilla for posting. Thanks!
PS, IE seems to keep me permanently signed in, where-as Mozilla makes me sign in every time I come aboard; ah, computers - how did we ever live without them?

[gongora]

I was wondering if anyone could advise me on an unusual problem I've had today. I've been trying to post a comment quite a few times on the SpaceX "Anomaly" thread, and I keep getting a red box around the thread title- and then a pop-up saying "You must enter text with 80 or fewer characters". I've been doing this in Internet Explorer, and until today that was never an issue. Just now I tried a much shorter version of my post [lucky for the readership!] in Mozilla, and it worked fine. I had asked a mod to advise but heard nothing back yet, I know they got their hands full today so I figured maybe here would net me an answer! Thanks, and remember I would easily win the computer-dumbest NSF-member award, if there was such a thing.

Maybe a piece of code is acting a little differently in IE? If I counted correctly the replies in that thread have 81 characters in the title. If you try posting again in IE and get that problem try deleting a few characters off the end of the title and see if it works. It won't affect the main title of the thread (that comes from the first post).

There is a limit on post size but it's pretty big.

[Cinder]

I've seen that bug show up when (for whatever reason) the reply attempts to add a Re: to a title already at the limit.

[Chris Bergin]

We had a two minute downtime on the forum at about 11am UTC - however, this was on purpose as Mark was rebooting the hamsters per the latest security patch and opted to do it when the site was quiet and not wait. That was a good move.

[StuffOfInterest]

Many of the topics I follow end up with an update and a discussion thread at some point.  There is always a constant struggle within the threads to keep the right information on the right thread.  There certainly isn’t a day where I’m not seeing meta-comments like “this belongs on the discussion thread” or “oops, mods, please move this over to discussion” or “saw this on the updates, commenting over here”.

I’m not sure how much control of the forum engine NSF has control of, but if it is absolute then perhaps this split personality issue could be solved with a flag on posts.  If each post had a flag for “update” and the thread has the ability for users to filter to just updates or all posts, then there wouldn’t be a need to move posts around anymore.

Perhaps Simple Machines Forum already has a plugin to do something like this or one could be written without too much trouble.

With the combined thread, if a post was flagged as an update when it shouldn’t be, all a mod would need to do is clear that flag.  If a user realizes they made a mistake, they could also clear the flag.

If someone wants to comment about an update, they wouldn’t have to copy and paste between threads anymore.  Just quote directly but don’t check the update flag (which should be off by default anyway).

The notification system for posts would need a tweak as well so that subscribes could choose to receive notification of all posts or just update posts.

I’m curious if this has been contemplated before or is even feasible, but figured that I should throw in my  0.0000023 BTC.

Thanks.

[Hobbes-22]

The advantage of the current system is that people with little time on their hands can follow the Updates thread, without having to wade through hundreds of discussion posts.

To achieve this in a single thread, there would have to be a 'show updates only' function.

[StuffOfInterest]

The advantage of the current system is that people with little time on their hands can follow the Updates thread, without having to wade through hundreds of discussion posts.

To achieve this in a single thread, there would have to be a 'show updates only' function.

That is actually what I meant by this:

If each post had a flag for “update” and the thread has the ability for users to filter to just updates or all posts

[Metalskin]

There was some recent discussions regarding ease of use for the forums, in the scenario of finding an update topic. The difficulty is that discussions push the update topics down the feed, making it harder for a user to identify the required topic (reference).

They suggested that pinning the topic wouldn't work, based on the premise that people ignore the pinned topics (very subjective, but I see their pov - most pinned items are admin related, e.g. how to do x).

This made me ponder some usability issues I've noticed on the forum. I don't wish to raise them all now, would seem much too like a bashing exercise.

However I would like to volunteer my assistance, if you would like to use it. I'm a UX Designer by trade, and would be willing to assist in targeting issues that new users find with this site.

[dglow]

Dream behavior:

• Unified thread for update/discussion topics
• Filter control at top of page: show 'Updates Only' or 'All Discussion'
• Replies are marked 'Discussion' by *default*
• 'Update' posts require active choice by user and subsequent confirmation
• Notification email triggered by Update posts only

QED

[Metalskin]

Dream behavior:

• Unified thread for update/discussion topics
• Filter control at top of page: show 'Updates Only' or 'All Discussion'
• Replies are marked 'Discussion' by *default*
• 'Update' posts require active choice by user and subsequent confirmation
• Notification email triggered by Update posts only

QED

I would suggest that we start with framing the problem and understanding the scenarios for users first. Starting with solutions without properly defining the scenarios can lead to solutions that don't completely address the pain points for the users.

That said, I do like the idea of a thread approach, but it would be great if you could clarify what you mean. Do you have any examples of threads in other solutions (e.g. social media, other discussion style sites, etc). Also, am I correct in presuming that this would only apply to how a Topic is viewed, not how a list of topics is viewed?

Cheers.

[leovinus]

- The search needs vast improvement. Has a custom Google search been considered?

Search is key indeed.

[snip]

My improvement request: search. Try locating the thread about VASIMR. Not a random hit but the main thread. When you search for it, you'll find content hits but not the thread i.e. if we could prioritize search hits in thread titles then that would help IMHO.

Bonus points for  the NLP software to find a hit when you type VASIMIR or other incorrectly typed versions

[intelati]

- The search needs vast improvement. Has a custom Google search been considered?

Search is key indeed.

[snip]

My improvement request: search. Try locating the thread about VASIMR. Not a random hit but the main thread. When you search for it, you'll find content hits but not the thread i.e. if we could prioritize search hits in thread titles then that would help IMHO.

Bonus points for  the NLP software to find a hit when you type VASIMIR or other incorrectly typed versions

Search is hard... I tend to use Google for most searches like that. VASIMR site:forum.nasaspaceflight.com

Edit: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=34788.0

[gtae07]

Question... what's the logic behind the "like" button being available vs. when it's not?  Obviously one cannot "like" one's own posts, but beyond that I can't discern what the qualifying criteria are.  Sometimes I see it, sometimes I don't.    For a while I thought it was like Slashdot's mod system but that doesn't seem to be the case either.

[Chris Bergin]

Liking a post shows appreciation to the person's post and also vastly reduces the noise of "Thanks!" replies. It's been a great addition and it'll stay.

[jerwah]

Liking a post shows appreciation to the person's post and also vastly reduces the noise of "Thanks!" replies. It's been a great addition and it'll stay.

Are likes intentionally disabled inside tapatalk? I can like posts on other forums from the app. Not a huge issue, just would be nice if it's an easy change.

[Chris Bergin]

Liking a post shows appreciation to the person's post and also vastly reduces the noise of "Thanks!" replies. It's been a great addition and it'll stay.

Are likes intentionally disabled inside tapatalk? I can like posts on other forums from the app. Not a huge issue, just would be nice if it's an easy change.

I don't know as tapatalk isn't anything to do with NSF, so it'll be that external app's decision.

[gtae07]

Liking a post shows appreciation to the person's post and also vastly reduces the noise of "Thanks!" replies. It's been a great addition and it'll stay.

Hmm... on further analysis, it appears to be a function of my adblocker.  Whitelisting NSF seems to fix the issue. 
(I use Firefox and UBlock on computers and my Android devices, but Safari on my work iOS ones).

I like having the like button to; I just couldn't figure out why I saw it sometimes and not other times till I realized it had a connection to which device (and therefore browser/plugin) I was using.

[clongton]

My improvement request: search. Try locating the thread about VASIMR. Not a random hit but the main thread.

Select the Search tab
Select "Advanced Search"
Enter "VASIMIR" in the "Search for" box
Select "Search in topic subjects only"
Select "Search"

[Ben Hawes]

Liking a post shows appreciation to the person's post and also vastly reduces the noise of "Thanks!" replies. It's been a great addition and it'll stay.

Hmm... on further analysis, it appears to be a function of my adblocker.  Whitelisting NSF seems to fix the issue. 
(I use Firefox and UBlock on computers and my Android devices, but Safari on my work iOS ones).

I like having the like button to; I just couldn't figure out why I saw it sometimes and not other times till I realized it had a connection to which device (and therefore browser/plugin) I was using.

I hope you're a L2 member, rather than someone using this site and using adblocker.

[alang]

Please delete if inappropriate but I couldn't find an obvious place to put this.
Is there a case for a "search on topic title" feature?
This might save the unnecessary creation of new threads.
For example I wanted to find a thread on the subject of acceptable spaceflight risk within democratic government programs but searching produced a lot of confusing results. Maybe this says something about my poor use of search but maybe it doesn't.