New A2K annoyances

Thanks for coming back to kvetch, Ogi. It's much better than leaveing.

Why would you not put the name of the last poster on each thread?

We probably will, but there was a pretty fundamental decision we needed to make. The old site did simple sql joins, but that isn't something that can scale. So we need to decide whether to do that with an ajax call (something like when you hover over the link) or to denormalize the data on the topics table or even start running separate queries per table.

Those are the kinds of things that we'll improve on as we go, but we are setting a pretty high standard for the code and won't do it badly.

Why is there no forum jump button?

Because there are unlimited tags, and a drop down can only hold so many before it stops working.

make it more organized, i cant stay on longer than 5 minutes without getting achy eyes and a big headache.

Thanks for the answers. What do you mean by unlimited tags?. Is that just another name for forum or topic? I know there are a lot of forums on this board, but there is a limit to them. Is there a simple and quick way, meaning one click, to get from here to trivia and word games, where I spend almost all my time? I noticed on the home page is a box with all? the forums. Can't that not be on every page; it fits nicely on that page.
I see My Tags but I haven't figured out how to use it yet. Orderly Sentences is in it though I didn't put it there. How do I add to My Tags/Topics? Thanks.

Forums were like boxes, and we could only have so many of them and your thread could only be in one.

Tags are like labels, and you can create one as soon as you make it. Want an area with topics about "remote control cars"? Then start some topics and tag it that way. Tags aren't hierarchical but there are no practical limits to how many we can have and you can have multiple tags on your topic.

We have a lot of work to do on the tag navigation, for example we only display the top X tags on the home page, so look for more ways to dig deeper around the tags in the future.

I was comfortable with forums (fora?) only thinking as far as that I'd like a whole bunch more. But I love the new possibilities - re ways to leap about with related subjects, it's really very freeing.

Since this is the annoyance thread, I'll work up something, but not yet, except to say Search will end up being very important when you work it out.

Ah! A good explanation about tags, Craven!

But...if it's a changing (and possibly growing) list, isn't that an even stronger reason why the list should be alphabetized? We need a better way to find a specific subject quickly.

Sorting by alphabet will eliminate the community's power to control this culture. For example, if we sort by alphabet the first post I tag with "ass" will be at the top of the list.

Sorting by popularity is what ensures that the marginal abuse we'll see isn't forced in everyone's face.

What we do need, are the tools I alluded to. Searching for tags, browsing them more deeply, and such. We need them to be used to figure out the algorithms to make the features though. We'll be actively tweaking the algorithms to minimize the effect of the abuse we are certain to see.

Basically, we just make the ability for any member to make any forum. You sure you want them ordered alphabetically? Awful lot of aardvark spam....

I stole it from Google, they've been trying to help explain it to email folder addicts for their Gmail application for years.

It's mo betta, but represents a fundamental psychological difference. Tags will feel less ordered, mainly because they are less restrictive.

With great freedom comes great trepidation...

From hbg to hbb; I can live with that! LOL

I am having difficulty reading the "replies" for individual posts. light grey on white is difficult for me to read. I have used firefox <view>zoom> to enlarge the type but it is still difficult to read.

It really shouldn't be grey on white. What browser are you using?

You're gonna allow spam in the tags?!? Whoa...

Yes. I still want them ordered alphabetically. It would be a lot easier to skim over "aardvark" and "ass" to find "architecture" than it is to have to skim the entire list.

It's grey on white for me, too:



Firefox/2.0.0.16

I think he is talking about the result when you click on the link saying the number of replies to a post. If you click on it, it toggles a one-line preview of the reply that you can click on to read the whole response. The problem is that one-line preview is in a very light grey font color that is nearly impossible to read due to the low contrast with the background.

It'd be a lot easier to search for them once the list is longer than can fit on a page.

Put it this way, it's going to get easier, but isn't going to get alphabetical.

There you go... a picture worth a thousand words. Thanks OE