Forums Software Upgrade

[skylee]

Re the blogs. Are they open to forums members? Could I create a blog here and then transfer everything in my existing blog there?

[roddy]

Yes and no. They're open to members, but I haven't yet really thought through how would be best to use them. The general theme should really be . . . well, the whole China / Chinese thing, I'm not sure we want to be seeing, ie, posts about trips to the dentist in Manchester. And as is the case with the forums, things would need to be mainly in English. Study journals, 'My Year in China' diaries, film and book reviews, China travelogues, I guess . . .

I wouldn't make this your only blog host, as we've only been doing it for three days.

[skylee]

I see. OK.

[roddy]

If you decide to go ahead, let me know if you hit any problems - there are whole pages of settings back there . . .

[Lu]

New posts-function seems to be on track now.

Sorry if I was grumbling too much earlier, I do appreciate all the hard work that goes into these forums.

[adrianlondon]

Is the "warning level" meter thing, which I can see under my avatar, visible to everyone?

I've been a naughty boy.

[roddy]

No (you can't see mine, can you?)

Thanks for your sacrifice.

[adrianlondon]

No (you can't see mine, can you?)

Nope, just mine.

[atitarev]

I guess, we'll have to get used to the new look and the functionality but first I have a few of questions:

Where do I find the links I often used before:

Subsciptions (topics to which I subscribed).

Social Groups (or simply Groups, I started some).

How do I reply without quoting? It automatically quotes the previous post if I click reply under the last post.

[anonymoose]

I think you need to put a logo or at least the Chinese Forums name in the big blue area at the top of the screen. It looks incomplete somehow when it is just blank there.

[roddy]

Subscriptions are here. They don't worth the same way - instead of just seeing new stuff, you see which topics have been active in a certain date range (selectable at the bottom). We're working on making this more like it used to be.

Social groups (and sorry, I completely forgot to point this out) haven't been transferred across, they just weren't getting any activity. However I can get the data (posts, user list) and pass that on if you need it.

Quick note on private messaging. Rather than individual messages going back and forth, it now works on a topic basis. When you send a message you create a topic. You can invite up to five people to that conversation, and they can join in or opt to leave. The topic starter can bring an end to the conversation by deleting the topic at their end. I suspect it's actually quite intuitive when you get used to it. , but does work differently to what we're used to.

To reply without quoting scroll down to the end of the topic and 'add reply' - or just hit reply and delete the quote. Not sure if those buttons will survive though, already seeing people quote unnecessarily, and I've done it myself by forgetting to delete the quote.

[skylee]

Sorry to mention it again. But the New Content function does not seem to work properly ...

BTW, what is the difference between a yellow icon and a blue icon on the left of the New Content page?

[roddy]

Here's what it's doing (wrongly). Topics remain in that listing as long as there are unread posts in the same sub-forum. IE, if topic 1 and topic 2 in the Beijing forum have new posts, they both appear. If you read topic 1, it will remain in the New Content list. If you then read topic 2, both will disappear. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's what it's doing at the moment. It has apparently been fixed in a beta version which has not yet been released. I am sorry. I would like to thank you for your patience and understanding.

I haven't got any blue icons at the moment to confirm, but I suspect they appear on topics you have read (but which shouldn't be there) in the new content listing?

@anonymouse - the Google search box will be going there. I do think we should have a logo, and may get a proper one done (but of what?).

I was hoping to get more stuff done Sunday and today but had to work. With a bit of luck I'll have a day or two later in the week.

[Lu]

Here's what it's doing (wrongly). Topics remain in that listing as long as there are unread posts in the same sub-forum. IE, if topic 1 and topic 2 in the Beijing forum have new posts, they both appear. If you read topic 1, it will remain in the New Content list. If you then read topic 2, both will disappear. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's what it's doing at the moment. It has apparently been fixed in a beta version which has not yet been released. I am sorry. I would like to thank you for your patience and understanding.

Thank you for the explanation. I just now noticed that it's doing something wrong (still/again), and understanding what is going wrong helps in being understanding :-)

[roddy]

Thanks Lu.

[renzhe]

FWIW, I think that the quoting has been within acceptable limits, and it's nice to see who is quoting whom. When people have to quote by hand, they usually don't bother to insert the name, and it's more difficult to follow.

IMHO, the best solution would be to have some sort of filter, like the one that doesn't let you post one-word posts, or smiley-only posts. Simply give an error message if the quote is too long.

No idea if that is possible, but it would stop the huge unnecessary quotes, and still make it easy to quote the relevant things.

[Meng Lelan]

Yes and no. They're open to members, but I haven't yet really thought through how would be best to use them. The general theme should really be . . . well, the whole China / Chinese thing, I'm not sure we want to be seeing, ie, posts about trips to the dentist in Manchester. And as is the case with the forums, things would need to be mainly in English. Study journals, 'My Year in China' diaries, film and book reviews, China travelogues, I guess . . .

skylee and I do not write in our blogs about trips to the dentist in Manchester. Read our blogs if you want proof of this. Also you used "ie" which means "specifically" so I take that to mean that only topics relating to trips to the dentist in Manchester are banned from blogs. If you had used "eg" which means "for example", I would have assumed you are using trips to the dentist in Manchester as an example of arcane writing to be avoided, and I don't think anything in my blog is ever arcane.

I do not agree that things need to be mainly in English if we are going to link up blogs to the Chinese Forums. Some blogs like yours are going to be in English, some blogs like mine are going to be in Chinese. I would agree they need to relate in some way to the Chinese forums.

[gougou]

To keep on piling on the new post function: this post showed up in my new posts list (correctly). However, when I clicked on the yellow arrow, it took me to the first post (incorrectly).

Also right now (so after reading all posts but before posting this reply) this post still shows up in the list, but doesn't have an arrow anymore.

[anonymoose]

@anonymouse - the Google search box will be going there. I do think we should have a logo, and may get a proper one done (but of what?).

I guess it's kind of hard to think of a suitable logo, but maybe you don't even need a logo, just put the name of the site somewhere to make this place more easily identifiable. If I were coming here for the first time, I would probably be turned off by the fact that it's not immediately obvious what this site is about.

[Hofmann]

I've been wondering for a while if my posts still get truncated.

邍

Dammit!