|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 23, 2012 15:33:08 GMT 9.5
This BNC Discussion forum is new, and as such, its structure is still being established. Right now, its in a state of temporary flux, with new categories and boards likely to be created, modified, shifted etc.
Do you have suggestions about categories, boards, or descriptions that you think needs creating, editing, rearranging, etc.? If so, post your ideas below.
Now is the time to get your thoughts integrated, before things start to get locked down!
|
|
|
Post by Craig Schumacher on Apr 23, 2012 18:13:04 GMT 9.5
How about a section on natgas? It's a topic which comes up often enough when discussing renewables.
|
|
|
Post by eclipse on Apr 23, 2012 21:45:37 GMT 9.5
Hi Barry, great to see forums being considered. However, just a few questions on proforums? 1. How did you choose this forum? I'm just wondering if you have some geeky friends who can save and download and migrate you to another forum if, for some reason, this forum doesn't meet your needs one day? 2. My concern is that it appears to be hosted by a company. They can change their policies or suddenly start charging money or something. 3. If you ever moved to a self-hosted website and migrated both your blog and forum over to your own self-hosted site, you'd really want to know that this is an option. 4. For example, there are wordpress forums that (from memory) allow you to integrate stuff. 5. Like being able to post a Wordpress Blog post and have it create a link to a forum thread of that name. Somehow. Never done it myself, but it's a thing out there! Or you can easily keep the BLOG and the FORUM databases separate, and just link from one to the other manually. It's probably easier to NOT integrate. You could just do what many powerful website communities do, and that is post their articles on Wordpress with all the wonderful Wordpress search and category features, and then create a manual link to the appropriate forum thread to discuss a blog post. Example: You create a new wordpress blog post. "Australian Parliament backs IFR bill!" You create the forum thread of the same name, and link one to the other manually. On Wordpress: "To discuss this article please see this forum thread HERE". On Forum: "To understand this conversation, please read this article HERE". (You get the drift). 6. Most webhosts have 1 click installation of wordpress blogs and lots of different forum software, with phpbb3 and SMF being really big, powerful forums (Free) with a whole world of geeky support. 7. It's great that you're thinking of forums as you can eventually have a whole TEAM of moderators and much more powerful and flexible discussions. Pages also load faster. You can do away with the 'Open threads'. Conversations might even end up a bit more targeted. 8. But if you're doing this on your own and this is the easiest way to run a BNC discussion forum for now, just find out if they let you download this forum and translate it into other software later on, if your needs change. (There will probably be a smallish fee to do this). If it can translate into SMF or phpbb3, then all these conversations should be safe. They are the gateways into a whole world of other forums! As long as you can get access to the forum database and it transfers well, then if you make some geekier friends later on then maybe they'll volunteer to migrate you to SELF-HOSTING down the track. If BNC grows that big. Regards to all the work you're putting in. It's a lot of work hey?
|
|
|
Post by John Morgan on Apr 23, 2012 22:41:02 GMT 9.5
It will be interesting to see how this works out. Could be very useful. On the other hand I see a possibility to dilute the commentary at the blog, which is one of the great strengths of bnc as an online community. I don't know how you manage that. For now, let a thousand flowers bloom (if you dare www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/226950.html). Here are some category suggestions: Engage - I would like to think we are doing more than just talking to ourselves. Some area for discussion on how to turn our aims into reality through outreach, like Ben Heard is trying to do, seems important. Australian Politics (with a climate change and energy focus) - Locally topical. I think its important to have somewhere to talk about what achievements/shenanigans our servants are delivering to us. Geoengineering Discussion regarding the blog - e.g. suggestions for posts, community management, metadiscussion etc. Split "Solar and Wind"into two categories. Commerical nuclear energy today - spelling. 'Natural' gas (methane) - don't see the need for quotes - it is indeed as natural as milk and honey, fratricide, arsenic and cyanide. cheers, john
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 23, 2012 23:05:43 GMT 9.5
Thanks for the suggestions so far, very helpful.
EN: The forum host was chosen carefully, after assessing self-hosted and remotely hosted options. As you point out, there are pros and cons to both approaches! I went for the remotely hosted blog for a number of reasons, including cost, ease of use, security, bandwidth, reliability, etc. For that I was willing to forego some of the freedoms associated with phpbb3 etc. Ultimately, it's a real trade off and there is no right answer.
I chose ProBoards because it is feature rich, stable and very well established. So it's not likely to vanish or change its policies suddenly. When I setup BraveNewClimate.com, I chose WordPress.com for similar reasons to the above, rather than going with the self-hosted blog option via WordPress.org. I've not yet regretted that decision, although I've sometimes found it limiting. Once again, we return to the matter of trade offs!
Regarding your suggestions on point 5, yes, I definitely intended to do this cross-linking. As for moving the forum at some point down the track, this is possible (and can be done, in theory, via bot-crawlers), but I think it is unlikely - I have no plans to do that for BNC, for instance.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 23, 2012 23:12:05 GMT 9.5
John M: Some great suggestions for new forum boards, and edits to existing ones. On this issue:
You're right - and this strikes to an important topic I'll cover over on BNC. Basically, I'm hoping to transition to moving all commentary from the BNC blog over to here on the Discussion Forums. So I think the dilution will be a temporary one as people shift from commenting on the blog to commenting over here. I don't expect it to happen overnight, but I hope it will happen. The forums, as many of you will have already recognised, offer so much more flexibility for the users (yes, including the much-wished-for 'edit' and 'preview' buttons!)
Also, the BNC blog will be changing character. The blog posts on BNC will become more irregular and event driven. In return, a new website is being developed, linked to BNC and others (including, integrally, with this Discussion forum), that is focused much more heavily on public education on nuclear power as a primary means of greenhouse gas mitigation. Techie stuff will stay on BNC, but the focus will shift. A natural evolution and refocusing -- given that time is limited for everyone.
Anyway, more about these goals and changes on BNC soon.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Blees on Apr 24, 2012 4:56:57 GMT 9.5
The formatting options certainly look [glow=red,2,300]feature-rich[/glow], which is great. But here's one question: Like BNC to date, this setup looks like all posts will be chronological. There's the other format where one can reply to any comment and it'll show up slightly indented and directly below that comment, with other comments to those comments indented a bit more, etc. You know the sort I mean.
I find that type of reply option to be preferable than straight chronological, since threads tend to get so long on BNC. I like to be able to see the responses to someone's comment, because sometimes they can be very provocative, but if one has to read through over a hundred comments to see who responded it often just isn't going to happen. Is there any way to incorporate hierarchical comments like that? I suspect not, but figured now's the time to ask.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Blees on Apr 24, 2012 5:26:07 GMT 9.5
Well, I guess the feature-rich idea might have a bug or two in it (as in skipping lines when used, as my green words above). Gonna have to play with that a bit to [glow=red,2,300]see[/glow] what works.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Blees on Apr 24, 2012 5:29:46 GMT 9.5
Ah, it's the Glow feature that skips the line. Another question: would it be possible to have the option to ask for another security check that the one that's thrown up there (like the Captcha system offers)? Sometimes it can be fairly unreadable (though this system seems, overall, far better than Captcha).
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 24, 2012 11:02:39 GMT 9.5
Tom, if you want to avoid the Captcha check each time, you just need to register as a user and login - then it won't come up again (except for the one-off registration). Your 3 comments above were written as a 'Guest', hence the check each time. (I see you subsequently registered, so this shouldn't happen again).
Yes, the formatting etc. is neat, and will be fun for people to play around with. You can also go back and edit your posting if you find the formatting has done something unexpected (and you can preview it before you post).
As for nesting replies, I don't think this is possible, but an advantage of a forum over the comments list of a blog is that if one can easily start a new thread/post for a new topic, rather than trying to cram lots of streams of thought into the one thread.
As moderator, I can also split-out selected posts within a thread, if possible. But the main idea should be for folks to stick to the etiquette of forums - one post thread for one idea! (something not easy to do the BNC blog)
|
|
|
Post by John Morgan on Apr 26, 2012 21:51:35 GMT 9.5
I think blog posts should get their own high-level category e.g.. at the same level as "General", possibly organized into folders by year. That way we'll always know where to go to for the commentary on the latest post, the posts won't get sprinkled through the various categories, and you won't have to figure out where some some post with a non-obvious categorization wound up.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 26, 2012 21:59:49 GMT 9.5
Yes, I think that is a good point re: blog post centralisation. I'll set that up.
Fortunately with the forums, it's easy to move topics from one board to another - another advantage, from a moderator's point of view!
|
|
|
Post by John Morgan on Apr 26, 2012 22:13:13 GMT 9.5
Another point on layout - the first view of these discussion boards when you arrive at the website is the Nuclear Power section, with a bunch of thread title with the usual nuclear scare words. I think this may be off-putting to your target audience, i.e.:
"Environmentalists who disregard or oppose nuclear energy, and instead believe that renewables are sufficient (or that continuing to rely on fossil fuels is a rational energy policy)."
I would order the topics something like:
Blog Posts Climate Change Energy Science, Engineering and New Technology
I think that the focus of this blog and discussion is climate change, despite the obvious interest in nuclear technologies. It makes sense that that should be the focus when first viewing the loaded page.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 26, 2012 22:17:34 GMT 9.5
Good point, although I'd probably put the energy categories before the "Energy Science, Engineering and New Technology" category, since this is going to be a technical forum and will likely scare people off as their first entry point into energy discussions! So maybe nuclear comes as the first entry after climate?
|
|
AA
Quark
Posts: 2
|
Post by AA on Apr 27, 2012 0:28:26 GMT 9.5
Like BNC to date, this setup looks like all posts will be chronological. There's the other format where one can reply to any comment and it'll show up slightly indented and directly below that comment, with other comments to those comments indented a bit more, etc. You know the sort I mean. I find that type of reply option to be preferable than straight chronological, since threads tend to get so long on BNC. I like to be able to see the responses to someone's comment, because sometimes they can be very provocative, but if one has to read through over a hundred comments to see who responded it often just isn't going to happen. Is there any way to incorporate hierarchical comments like that? I suspect not, but figured now's the time to ask. Use the "quote" tool, so people can see exactly what you're responding to. Of course, as Barry points out, one of the advantages of the forum is that side discussions can be spun off into their own threads.
|
|
|
Post by John Morgan on Apr 27, 2012 8:56:44 GMT 9.5
Just saw the thread rearrangement - much better, I think!
|
|
|
Post by QuarkingMad on Apr 27, 2012 16:12:42 GMT 9.5
The layout is fine as it is.
Maybe the addition of a few specific forum posting rules that the BNC blog didn't have.
1) Threadromancy, or Necromancy. The posting onto threads that have long been dead. For example dredging up a thread from months ago with no real additional information added to it in the new post. I've seen exceptions to this rule where new information that is relevant added into the old thread.
2) Double posting, especially for members. There is an edit button on each post, unlike on the BNC blog, which should be used.
3) Flaming. Deliberately stoking someone up to get an angry response with subtle language.
4) Micro-modding. Acting like the moderator when a member is not a moderator. There are levels of leniency on this on different forums. Some allow people to point out rules, others only like the mods to refresh members on rules.
These are the main rules that you'll find on many forums. Also there is a 'report to mod' link at the bottom of each post that would be very handy to use. Better than flaming the thread and micro-modding.
|
|
|
Post by huonpine on Apr 27, 2012 16:38:22 GMT 9.5
Perhaps I'm a little paranoid, but I wish one could choose whether or not to receive direct e-mail from other readers. Without that option, I will choose not to register. huonpine, aka Huon
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 27, 2012 16:44:00 GMT 9.5
Huon, there are two options for this in the modify profile:
Hide Email: If you wish to hide your email address from non-staff members here, select "Yes."
Mass Emails: If you do not wish to receive mass emails from this forum, please opt out.
DangerAus, thanks for the suggestions, these will be helpful when I update the commenting/posting rules (was planning on doing that this weekend)
|
|
|
Post by huonpine on Apr 27, 2012 17:24:40 GMT 9.5
Barry, Thanks for the tips on preserving a bit of anonymity; I may well register at a later date. As for now, it's wonderful that you allow guests to reply so freely, as you did on BNC. Very welcoming.
|
|
|
Post by Roger Clifton on Apr 27, 2012 20:43:11 GMT 9.5
The developing new structure looks great.
The option to format text can make message illegible to people with fuzzy eyes like myself. That need not be a problem though, if we use the zoom facility in the browser. It is good, too, to be able read new comments arriving by e-mail, but I do need the option to be able to see them in plain text to remove the formatting. The e-mails in the previous system were not easy to read at a glance, because the newline characters were suppressed by the HTML, damaging the punctuation intended by its author.
|
|
|
Post by Anon on Apr 28, 2012 3:53:18 GMT 9.5
I would suggest fora on some of the other things which need to be dealt with once electricity is out of the way, say: - Transportation
- Electric vehicles
- Marine Nuclear Propulsion
- Aviation
- Synthetic fuels
- Industry
- Agriculture
and probably some others.
|
|
|
Post by davidm on Apr 28, 2012 14:32:48 GMT 9.5
I don't know where you vote on this orange graphite and white coloring but if its here I vote no. It's definitely hard on my eyes.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 28, 2012 18:08:21 GMT 9.5
Bear with me, I'll be playing around with the skin for the next day or two, but for now I've mostly restored white background and black text on the forum.
|
|
|
Post by davidm on Apr 28, 2012 19:38:39 GMT 9.5
The black text on a white background is much better. One thing I would suggest is a section devoted to trying things out, a practice site. The quote function has particularly caused problems for me in two ways. It defaults to size=1 tiny letters and throws in a lot of textual garbage, particularly where apostrophes are used. I'm going to test the matter right here to see if that problem continues to hold. The garbage part has sometimes been a delayed effect.
Now I'll double up inserting the size=2 font function between the quotes which should be the default size.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 28, 2012 19:48:46 GMT 9.5
davidm, feel free to set up a new topic in the Open Forum that is specifically for people to muck about with the formatting (give it a suitable title) - I agree that some of this is trial and error. At some point I (or someone else - volunteers?) should write up some notes to help new users with this.
|
|
|
Post by douglaswise on Apr 28, 2012 20:00:20 GMT 9.5
Barry,
Having registered as a member with difficulty (initial space in user name between first and last names), I have just attempted my first post which was summarily rejected, apparently because I failed to login and was assumed to be a guest. I was informed that my comment was unacceptable because I was posting as a guest and using a member's name. Having wasted a not insignificant part of my morning, I'm somewhat hacked off. I suppose I'll just have to put it all down to experience. However, I note you're online and was wondering whether my comments were in any way retrievable (though I doubt it).
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 28, 2012 21:05:23 GMT 9.5
Sorry Douglas, I know it's horrible when this happens. Unfortunately I can't recover your post, it has disappeared into cyberspace (If you had hit the back button, you probably could have recovered it).
I know it doesn't help much now, but with long comments I typically type them in Notepad++ or Word or similar, and then paste them in - then they can never be lost to the ether due to a problem like this or some other failure like a temporary internet drop out.
|
|
|
Post by davidm on Apr 29, 2012 3:48:02 GMT 9.5
Three thoughts. 1. Using the Sustainability Issues section as an example, there is a discontinuity between the 3 Sub-Boards below and the unlabeled threads beneath that which can be confusing. Why not create a 4th Sub-Board and label it something like 'Other sustainable issues' to create a level playing field. I also don't see the need for the 2 stickies which seem out of place and are handled elsewhere.
2. I'm getting the impression that some posters prefer the traditional open forums over the new discussion forum for probably a variety of good reasons. Is there any reason you couldn't continue to run them in tandem to give posters a choice as long as there is this divided preference? Balkanizing a forum, for example, just doesn't sit well with some folks.
3. When I click the last post I should go to the last post. Instead I am going to the first post.
|
|
|
Post by Janne M. Korhonen on Apr 29, 2012 4:16:11 GMT 9.5
My initial impression is that the profusion of categories and subcategories will fragment the discussion too much, and actually make it more difficult to find interesting content - especially for newcomers. About 30 categories, each requiring a click or two, make for difficult reading.
I would suggest pruning the categories and being wary about adding new ones, especially before there is much content in them. The categories should evolve naturally from the topics that are discussed in the forum; I'd say it's easier for all concerned to start with very few categories and add new categories only if and when the number of threads warrants it.
|
|