Author Topic: Current NSF Forum Feedback Thread 2 (Read 124085 times)

techdude06 · « **Reply #220 on:** 03/28/2019 11:22 pm »

10 minutes ago:

Error 525Ray ID: 4beda21fca5f2501 • 2019-03-29 00:12:37 UTC

SSL handshake failed

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #221 on:** 03/28/2019 11:23 pm »

Thanks yeah, went away for a bit and came back and saw we had a five min downtime with a SSL handshake issue, but had already come back by the time I sat down!

Sorry about that!

AC in NC · « **Reply #222 on:** 04/02/2019 10:17 pm »

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 02/26/2019 08:04 pm

Quote from: PM3 on 02/26/2019 08:03 pm
Just want to express my gratitude to all who are involved in running this forum - Chris Bergin and all other NSF team members and authors, the mods who keep the threads tidy, and all of you who contribute to this enormous collection of knowledge. I am greatly impressed by how this forum is managed and by the content quality. Thanks!
I normally dread reading "new posts" on this thread as it's usually about a problem, so that was nice!

Chris: I'd like to echo that same sentiment and use it as a jumping off point to make a Constructive Inquiry here. There might be a better place to ask but I wasn't sure how well it would be seen so if so I apologize.

I'm about to carve up my BFH Pictorial Thread to branch off a Starship Mk1 Pictorial. Is there any way I can do that without having to reload the Attached pictures. I'm not adverse to reloading them but prefer to be wise (if possible) in consumption of system resources.

I'm sure in the big scheme of things it's a drop in the bucket, but I thought it worth asking because ....

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #223 on:** 04/03/2019 12:40 am »

Quote from: AC in NC on 04/02/2019 10:17 pm

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 02/26/2019 08:04 pm
Quote from: PM3 on 02/26/2019 08:03 pm
Just want to express my gratitude to all who are involved in running this forum - Chris Bergin and all other NSF team members and authors, the mods who keep the threads tidy, and all of you who contribute to this enormous collection of knowledge. I am greatly impressed by how this forum is managed and by the content quality. Thanks!
I normally dread reading "new posts" on this thread as it's usually about a problem, so that was nice!

Chris: I'd like to echo that same sentiment and use it as a jumping off point to make a Constructive Inquiry here. There might be a better place to ask but I wasn't sure how well it would be seen so if so I apologize.

I'm about to carve up my BFH Pictorial Thread to branch off a Starship Mk1 Pictorial. Is there any way I can do that without having to reload the Attached pictures. I'm not adverse to reloading them but prefer to be wise (if possible) in consumption of system resources.

I'm sure in the big scheme of things it's a drop in the bucket, but I thought it worth asking because ....

Yep! I'll PM you later (or in the morning as I'm already up to 18 hours on the day

) Carry on as normal for now.

JDTractorGuy · « **Reply #224 on:** 04/03/2019 11:31 pm »

I'm not sure if this has been reported before, but since its still messed up after over a year I'll post something. Also forgive me if this is the wrong place to put this...

When a new visitor visits the site and it has the accept cookies text at the bottom, the accept button has a lowercased I in it, reading "Okay, i agree", instead of "Okay, I agree". I know its a small thing but its been wrong for a long time now, and looks a little silly on such a serious site. Just wanted to let somebody know.

I attached a screenshot of the issue.

OxCartMark · « **Reply #225 on:** 04/12/2019 12:07 am »

Suggestion: On super fast moving threads with multiple posts per minute (as in Beresheet or FH launch today) its nearly inevitible that when you press the "post" button your post won't initially go through, you'll be warned that there have been other postings (which in a normal world with less rapid information flow you would look at and make adjustments or delete your post) so you have press "post" again, possibly a few times before you make it through thus delaying the message. Can this warning be suspended in high flow rate situations? Or maybe we could have a checkbox that says "by checking this box I acknowledge that I may look like a dufus because I'm posting duplicate information but I want to proceed anyway without stopping at the intervening post gateway".

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #226 on:** 04/12/2019 12:11 am »

Ah, you can turn that off. No idea why most forums have that, but yes, you can turn it off.

Profile.
Look and Layout.
Here:

vipeout · « **Reply #227 on:** 04/17/2019 09:31 am »

Hey, I'm just suggesting using some way of bot prevention on account creation. A new bot registered today just spammed the same add on all subforums (40+ posts). I've reported 5 or 6, but come on, that's boring to do on all 40+, especially due to the "20 seconds between reports" rule.

User: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=profile;u=58271
Example topic: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47972.0

I had a similar issue on my forum and adding a custom captcha solved the issue. Custom is the key part, those used often are long cracked and you have to keep updating and blocking VPN in the process. I used one that allows several types (questions to be asked, names to sort left and right by category and similar) and then typed in my own questions and words that are not from the default setting.

I'm suggesting this because this account has been clearly created recently with heavy intent on spamming ads. This is not a case when a legitimate user was hacked and starts spamming. Bots are easier to mitigate and something should be there to protected from them, I believe.

I see you have captcha and a Elon Musk SpaceX question when I post the reply here, I assume this failed or did not trigger for the bot.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #228 on:** 04/17/2019 11:21 am »

Yes, that was the worst one I've seen. All now resolved. Sadly, they aren't bots, they are real people, thus get around the protection. It happens every day, but most of you never get to see it as a mod removes what is usually one post before most people see it. Today was a case of no mods being around that hour or so and the spammer starting multiple threads.

They aren't bots as 99 percent of spammers are Indian IP addresses (as much as they claim to be from the States etc as part of their spamming technique) and they literally have people creating these spam posts. India is the capital of the world for spamming and scamming, sadly - and it is almost always the IP address of the person doing it.

So the solution will be to get more mods in for early UTC (when India wakes up, notably) and probably find a way to ban Indian IPs from signing up and make the valid Indian users (I think one in the last 200 to sign up with an Indian IP address was someone wanting to post about ISRO and wasn't a spammer) apply/validate before being allowed to post here.

--

Actually, I can stop registration from being approved during the early UTC hours, and that'll solve it at least. Will do that from now on.

eric z · « **Reply #229 on:** 04/22/2019 08:51 pm »

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.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #230 on:** 04/22/2019 08:52 pm »

No idea Eric! Others are posting long posts. After all, your post above is more than 80 characters. It's nothing in the forum admin set up.

And I see others have posted long posts in that thread you mention. Very strange, but can't be the site.

And here's proof in admin. There's no limit on post size. 0 setting means no limit.

eric z · « **Reply #231 on:** 04/22/2019 09:12 pm »

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 · « **Reply #232 on:** 04/22/2019 09:21 pm »

Quote from: eric z on 04/22/2019 08:51 pm

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 · « **Reply #233 on:** 04/30/2019 11:59 pm »

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 · « **Reply #234 on:** 05/15/2019 10:50 am »

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.

Metalskin · « **Reply #235 on:** 06/10/2019 10:50 pm »

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 · « **Reply #236 on:** 06/11/2019 06:06 pm »

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 · « **Reply #237 on:** 06/11/2019 07:09 pm »

Quote from: dglow on 06/11/2019 06:06 pm

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 · « **Reply #238 on:** 06/11/2019 07:31 pm »

Quote from: leovinus on 01/22/2017 04:41 am

Quote from: Lar on 08/09/2016 02:51 am

- 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 · « **Reply #239 on:** 06/11/2019 08:24 pm »

Quote from: leovinus on 06/11/2019 07:31 pm

Quote from: leovinus on 01/22/2017 04:41 am
Quote from: Lar on 08/09/2016 02:51 am

- 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