Re: Colouring in
Colour coding or whatever is not a stupid idea - and if done well would have good utility. However, there are lots of entry points for viewing posts and we would need to think how to do this properly.
New forum Wishlist
Post your wishlist items for the user forums (or article comments) here. 1 per post, so people can vote up/down as takes their fancy. I'll start the ball rolling with some things that have been mentioned so far...
This topic was created by BristolBachelor .
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Friday 3rd February 2012 14:03 GMT BristolBachelor
I agree about a way to hide, or skip over posts that I've already read. Especially in the new user forums, where a topic may live on for days or weeks (like this one!). I'm not totally sure about colours, but that is one way to do it. Another may be to have older posts roll-up, with a clickable unroll? (possibly tidier, although more work)
Of course one problem with this is when you go to the page, but don't actually read all the way to the bottom, and the next time you go there, it hides the things that you didn't get around to reading last time.
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Thursday 2nd February 2012 11:56 GMT I ain't Spartacus
My posts
When I click on 'my posts', I get to see a list of my posts. Obvious innit.
This shows all the upvotes, to massage my ego. However, there doesn't seem to be any way to click on the post, and go back into the forum, so I can check for replies, see if there's anything more to look at.
I actually have to click on my username, which then takes me to a list of my posts, with an extra link added, that I can click on to go to that forum. The only difference between the 2 pages seems to be that the first has a total upvote/downvote count. The second is the 'public' page, which anyone can see, if they want to follow my posts.
This also means that if I go via this route to a forum, and then press 'my posts' on the top left, it's another click on my username to get to the 'useful' list of my posts.
Am I missing something obvious here?
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Thursday 2nd February 2012 12:19 GMT Anonymous Coward
Also there is a link in 'Forums" control panel - currently called "My forums". [We will change this to "My topics"]. http://forums.theregister.co.uk/my/forums/.
This might be a more useful view for some.
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Thursday 2nd February 2012 12:24 GMT I ain't Spartacus
You're right, sorry
I had a brief look, because I thought I could remember some links, but didn't notice them.
The forum titles can be clicked on, because it does order the posts in groups. But that takes you to the beginning of the forum.
Then there's the ¬ (or is it the upside down version of this?) that takes you to the post, in it's context. I don't recall ever hovering a mouse above that to see what it was for, though I may have at some point. Please could turn that into a link, the same as it is in the 'public' version of the my posts page (the one that simply lists them in posting order).
Finally there's the # symbol, which takes you to the post.
Should have checked harder, before posting.
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Thursday 2nd February 2012 12:06 GMT I ain't Spartacus
html links
This is my final whinge (suggestion/moan/gripe/brickbat), honest...
Your new links don't show the destination, for the paranoid surfer. Obviously you're using the standard html, where people can name the link whatever they want. But I'd expect this to show the actual link on mouse-over, or when I right click. But it doesn't, I have to copy link, and paste somewhere to see where I'm being sent to.
I prefer not to click on linkies I can't read, I should imagine I'm not unique. Especially as I suffered my first ever drive-by download exploit last month, from a decent looking site that came up on a normal search. Amazingly my virus checker actually caught it - but I still wasted an hour checking the PC was genuinely clean... Oh, and worse, I really don't want to be rickrolled.
BTW, I noticed that my post have been submitting unmoderated for a week or two now. So I guess I've not been too naughty over the years. Any chance of a play with the html? Pwease, pwetty pwease?
And is there a reason you went for 'proper' html, rather than bbcode, or whatever it's called: e.g. [b]bold[/b] seems nice and easy, and you don't have to hit shift to get any of it.
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Thursday 2nd February 2012 13:24 GMT I ain't Spartacus
GettinSadda
You're quite right. The link does show up in the bottom bar of the browser. I'm using Firefox 10.
I tend not to look down there. Poor eyesight, and not being in the habit, are my reasons. I have to physically move my head to be able to read that part of the screen, so I do all the work I can at the top...
I think it should be more obvious. But I'm an unusual user, so others will have to judge whether they would notice the link turn up down there. Perhaps the kind of people who check links before clicking on them, already do, and no-one else cares, so this isn't worth doing?
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Thursday 2nd February 2012 21:28 GMT ADJB
Blofeld's cat
Now that's a good idea for a new icon to denote <insert persons / company name> attempts at world domination.
Sinclair Spectrum icon - I've been in the industry for 3 weeks now and we did it this way when I was a yoof.
Jordon icon - For Bulgarian airbag stories
Unicorn icon - For conservation / global warming etc stories
Mushroom icon - For "I call bullshit" comments
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Thursday 2nd February 2012 21:48 GMT zb
Logging in
Why do I have to log in separately to each domain? As far as I am concerned I am visiting El Reg and do not care if it is www.reghardware.com http://www.channelregister.co.uk or whatever.
My other gripe is that every time I give the thumbs up to a post (after I have logged in again for the umpteenth time) I am dumped into a stupid page telling me how happy/unhappy you are that I liked/did not like the comment. I must then scroll to the bottom to click the "back to where I was " button. Why can it not just accept up/down vote and not take me from the page I am reading? Plenty of other sites do that.
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Saturday 4th February 2012 20:21 GMT BristolBachelor
Yeah, I know. That's why I created a "user" topic about the French hadoop law one. I'm an engineer; it's my job to find solutions :)
Do you think that maybe he is under some terrible license from the
mafiamusic/film industry that means he has to submit his articles without comments so that no-one is allowed to talk about them? :p -
Monday 6th February 2012 18:37 GMT The BigYin
@MJI
LOL! I didn't know you'd posted that otherwise I'd've just added a "Me too".
I think a footer explaining why Andrew does not allow comments is at least required. Although he's so pro Big Meeja that's he's probably afraid of the kicking he would get.
Dear CIA robot and Canadian police: I mean "kicking" in the figurative sense, I am not about to pop down to El Reg Towers, drag Andrew into the street and lay the boot it.
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Tuesday 7th February 2012 11:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Kick the ball - not the player
As some commentards are incapable of commenting on Andrew’s stories without resorting to vicious personal attacks, we will turn the switch off while we are bedding in our new moderation policy. Andrew writes about contentious issues – and he is an often provocative writer. But that does not give commentards carte blanche to insult him or - as happened a few times - to threaten him.
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Tuesday 7th February 2012 16:12 GMT I ain't Spartacus
kicking Andrew O
Some people really take this internets thing too seriously. Still, I suppose if people are willing to be insulting in a way they wouldn't dare to face-to-face, maybe it's not a huge step to issuing threats of violence.
I hope that sort of thing isn't common. I was a forum moderator on an international game with a million users. Don't think I ever saw any threats. Rudeness, spam, 2 girls 1 cup, Rick-bloody-Astley, and one link to child-porn yes, but no actual threats. Even at 2am on a Saturday.
Could I therefore make another feature request?
A button which sends 50,000 volts through a miscreant's keyboard. This wasn't available when I was a Mod, but surely HTML5 now includes it? All the Reg staff would get one I guess, and maybe us commentards could have access to one if enough people press the button. Perhaps you could have 3 buttons:
upvote
downvote
upvolt
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Thursday 9th February 2012 02:42 GMT jake
@Drewc
I don't like it. Back in the day (mid 1980s), I hacked the underlying code for NET's IDNX to add a command ... "fire".
The entire command string was "set fire <node> <card number>". This raised voltage on an otherwise unused trace on the backplane, which in turn set off a blasting cap[1].
I called TheBoss into my lab to tell him that I had discovered something that didn't look right ... He came down and I typed in "set fire node 3 card 1". This produced the nice ::crack:: and puff of smoke. The Boss looked startled, and quickly typed in "set fire node 1 card 5", which produced the same satisfying crack & smoke. Followed by node 4 card 2, same result.
Then he turned & grinned at me and said "jake, you BASTARD! ... he always was a quick study. Best boss I ever had :-)
Needless to say, I had the full compliment of cards on all 8 nodes on my test network wired. No, we were airgapped, and the code didn't make it out into the wild ;-)
Anyway, my point is that if you have physical access to the hardware, and to the OS's source, you can make this kind of thing happen. Don't even joke about it.
[1] I had a license for them, clearing stumps is easier with HE ;-)
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Wednesday 8th February 2012 14:02 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Electrocuting the Commentards vs. Kicking the Authors
@The BigYin, nah, the kick wasn't aimed at you... I guess it turns out I don't oppose violence against the person, as long as it's me doing it. Is that bad? Oh dear. It is? Time to get a new moral compass, I seem to have broken this one...
However, my plan does involve giving Andrew O (and others) a nice zap button. So then the comments sections can be a lot more interesting. Welcome to Orlowski's Cattle-Prod Roulette!
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@Drewc
>>>I like it!
Which do you like? Kicking Andrew Orlowski or electrocuting your readership? Either is worrying. One suggests some disturbingly unpleasant HR policies at ElReg Towers and the other is clearly a concern, as one of your loyal commentards. Please don't... KZERT!!!...
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Friday 10th February 2012 10:22 GMT BristolBachelor
Reg. Standard Units converter
Drew, any chance you can put this on the website map? Even the reg search didn't find it, and I had to follow a string of articles after using the Google satan search :(
For those who didn't know, it's here: The Reg online standards converter
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Friday 10th February 2012 11:30 GMT I ain't Spartacus
While you're at it
Didn't you come up with a dictionary of British/English slang - with which El Reg likes to confuse our colonial cousins?
If so, you could link that, the Reg units, forum rules, and anything else that looks definitive/interesting/useful/silly in some sort of FAQ/About Register.
Oh, also on this subject, please keep using the work 'bonk' for paying by NFC. I call all tablets fondle-slabs and I'm still sad that you banned the use of lappy, by popular demand of the commentards. What do they think this is? A democracy?
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Monday 27th February 2012 14:09 GMT TeeCee
Re: A couple years ago ...
I think my greatest achievement in this area was while having a ciggy outside the office on a bright, sunny day with one of my yank colleagues.
Over the way was a maintenance bloke lifting the gratings off the drainage channels and working along with a drainage-channel-shaped trowel, placing the detritus into a bucket.
"What's going on over there?"
"I think he's scraping out the fag butts."
<GOLDFISH IMPERSONATION>
"I'm terribly sorry, I'll translate that into American English for you. He's removing the cigarette ends....."
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Monday 13th February 2012 18:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
http://search.theregister.co.uk/?q=standards+converter -not sure what search terms you were using. if you toggle from "date" to "relevance and date" the story promoting this shifts it to the top result.
However, it is admittedly possible to search for a story and admittedly impossible to search for something that is not a story under our current set-up. I might get around to republishing this.
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Thursday 1st March 2012 12:06 GMT TeeCee
Topic display order.
Any chance of sorting for the topic/thread/forum/whatever lists?
I can see that Cafe Vulture / Reg Matters reports as having its most recent post by Drew on the 29th, but finding which topic that's in once in the list of topics is already getting tricky now we have so many topics and I can see it becoming unworkable in short order.
A "sort topic list by most recent posting" function would be handy. Ideally preserving stickies (or whatever the highlighted ones are) at the top.
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Friday 2nd March 2012 12:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
How not to do threads
New look, bit of getting used to. I must say the fancy new arrow instead of a grey sidebar is a bit of an eye searer. I know how to do threads, thank you, and I expect a full three. The grey bar only provides for one level, as does this, but this design takes a lot more brain power to parse.
Please come up with a better design and in the meantime revert to a side bar, even if it's a thinner one to match the new look.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
