NSF thread for Questions not addressed elsewhere in this Section

[gongora]

I would agree "I hate my ISP" and speed test posts aren't really necessary.

[Lar]

I think what Hog was getting at was that there is a chance to diverge away into minutiae relating to things like customer service, or "why doesn't my terminal work after I dropped it" etc.   I feel that is a legitimate concern. 

That said... We've done fairly well at keeping generic Tesla discussions tamped down.   I think we'll do OK here too.... But do feel free to call us on it

(via report to mod!)

[Eagandale4114]

Any chance Starlink can get its own subsection in the SpaceX area?

[Nomadd]

 I can see Starlink. The Boring company being in the Starship section has always been a little strange.

[Lar]

Any chance Starlink can get its own subsection in the SpaceX area?

I think if Starlink had enough threads to get its own section, that NSF would be weighted too much toward Starlink. That's just my personal view. We bat these things around all the time, so who knows.

[ulm_atms]

Any chance Starlink can get its own subsection in the SpaceX area?

I can see a topic called "Satellite constellations" in the General Discussion category personally.  There is more then just Starlink out there.  You got the few ISPs(Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, Telesat), Imaging(Planet, Dove, Maxar), GPS(GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou), and others out there that could all go well under that umbrella.

Here is basically a huge list of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_constellation

[M.E.T.]

Feels like a bit of a (futile) backlash against SpaceX recently.

10 years ago SpaceX did not justify any more forum space than say Rocketlab or Virgin does now.

But the S-curve is now starting to hit its stride and this is evident in the progressive need for more and more SpaceX sub categories.

Spoiler alert - This trend is not going to slow down, it is in fact going to accelerate even more.

Starlink will be integral to a lot of what SpaceX does, and will dominate any hypothetical “Satellite constellation” category in the same way SpaceX dominates the launch vehicle forum.

There is no getting away from it, unless one tries to artificially treat all launch and satellite providers as equal, irrespective of volume, cadence, operational footprint and market size.

[ELinder]

Is it possible to constrain a search to look only within a specific thread?

Erich

[AnalogMan]

Is it possible to constrain a search to look only within a specific thread?

Erich

Yes, use the quick search box at the top of the thread you are interested in.

[ELinder]

Thanks, didn't realize that search field was the thread only search.

[leovinus]

Or the "advanced" section in search and click "in title" Or via google something like
site:nasaspaceflight.com intitle:<your thread> <terms>

[chopsticks]

^^ As the title suggests, I'm wondering if there would be a way to mitigate non-update posts in update threads. I know this has been discussed before, and it's a constant problem where members will comment in an update thread. This leads to rebukes and rebuttals (often from the same people) and friction all around. I'm posting this here since it mainly happens in the Starship threads, but maybe it would be better suited here: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?board=50.0

A few ideas have been proposed: only a handful of pre-authorized members have permission to post in these threads (Nomadd, Bocachicagal, etc.), however, can we rely on only a few people to post updates when others may see something interesting but don't have permission to post? I think it would be nice to give anybody the opportunity to share an update.

Question is: could an extra step before posting be implemented? For example, when typing up a post and someone has posted before me, I get an alert that says someone has already posted, and to check that I really want to post my message. In an update thread, could we have an alert like this that makes the poster double check whether their post is really an update?

Example: I type a message in the SN11 update thread, and when hitting post, I get a red box that asks "Is this really an update?". Or, you could have to check a box that says "Are you posting an update?" before clicking "post". From a web design perspective it doesn't seem to hard to implement, but I don't know.

What do you all think, including those in charge? Hopefully I've explained myself well enough.

[Herb Schaltegger]

Example: I type a message in the SN11 update thread, and when hitting post, I get a red box that asks "Is this really an update?". Or, you could have to check a box that says "Are you posting an update?" before clicking "post"

These are good suggestions, though it might take some back-end coding so that when a new thread is created, there is a way to designate it as an Update Thread rather than discussion thread. That could be mitigated by a forum rule that only Moderators can create formal Update threads.

[Eer]

Example: I type a message in the SN11 update thread, and when hitting post, I get a red box that asks "Is this really an update?". Or, you could have to check a box that says "Are you posting an update?" before clicking "post"

These are good suggestions, though it might take some back-end coding so that when a new thread is created, there is a way to designate it as an Update Thread rather than discussion thread. That could be mitigated by a forum rule that only Moderators can create formal Update threads.

Another variation is to (a) have update threads flagged that way on the back end, (b) permit only designated users to post to specific update threads (basically, an access control list), as well as (c) a check mark (similar to the "notify moderators" checkbox) on the non-update thread that allows a user not authorized to post to the update thread to PROPOSE the post be placed in the update thread upon review by some authorized person or moderator.

The ACL, if it doesn't already exist in the forum software, would be the biggest job to add.  But it's a common enough thing it might just need to be turned on and tested to see the performance impact it causes.  Just trying to brainstorm ideas using mostly available mechanisms.

[Mandella]

I really like the idea of an alert box asking if this is really an update or not, with a link perhaps to take you to the associated discussion thread -- although that last may be impractical.

I know that I've inadvertently posted in an update thread while replying to others posting in the update thread, and a simple reminder would have probably stopped the whole business before it got rolling.

Of course, woe be to anyone who ignores the warning and posts anyway...

[leovinus]

I really like the idea of an alert box asking if this is really an update or not, with a link perhaps to take you to the associated discussion thread -- although that last may be impractical.

I know that I've inadvertently posted in an update thread while replying to others posting in the update thread, and a simple reminder would have probably stopped the whole business before it got rolling.

Of course, woe be to anyone who ignores the warning and posts anyway...

Sensable suggestion for backend change and reminder, and discussed previously, e.g., at Re: Current NSF Forum Feedback Thread 2

[CJ]

My suggestion is to make update threads consistently look like update threads. There's currently a mix of "updates" in all caps for some threads, others only the first letter capitalized. IMHO, this adds to confusion (And thus some of the problematic posts). So, my suggestion is to have "UPDATES" in all caps for all updates-only threads.

[Asteroza]

Any chance Starlink can get its own subsection in the SpaceX area?

I can see a topic called "Satellite constellations" in the General Discussion category personally.  There is more then just Starlink out there.  You got the few ISPs(Starlink, OneWeb, Kuiper, Telesat), Imaging(Planet, Dove, Maxar), GPS(GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou), and others out there that could all go well under that umbrella.

Here is basically a huge list of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_constellation

I had lazily asked for a megaconstellation section in the past and was told it wasn't quite time yet. Perhaps with OneWeb and Starlink in active deployment, it's time to a have a either a constellation or "on-orbit" section (which would cover megaconstellations, constellations, commercial stations, maybe the occasional single sats?)

[Hog]

If it really bother you that much, Report to Mod always works.

[chopsticks]

If it really bother you that much, Report to Mod always works.

It's not a personal issue for me, but I know it bothers a lot of other users here and there is often arguing in the discussion thread afterwards, not fun! It seems like a simple warning or checkbox prior to a post in an update thread could prevent some of this friction and make a forum a happier place. That's all. I was trying think of a pragmatic solution that wouldn't require a whole pile of customization, coding, and work, and it dawned on me the other day that that extra step you have to do when posting after someone has already replied could be a simple and effective way of eliminating this issue.

I don't know how hard or easy this would be to implement in the backend, but since this sort of functionality already exists, I wondered how hard it would be to modify it a bit to always force the extra step when posting in an update thread. Someone in the know with this software and code would have to chime in with info on this.