|
Post by Roger Clifton on Apr 29, 2012 11:48:16 GMT 9.5
Nope. Unless there are plans to enable "limited HTML" it looks as if I cannot contribute to BNC anymore. (I have since discovered that limited HTMl is available, using square brackets instead of angular brackets)
Well, not if I am required to support my wildest assertions with hot links to respected authorities. Since that constraint underpins the authority and readability of the BNC website, people like me really need to have the acceptability of "limited HTML" fixed.
Now, please don't leap to reassure me that a highly intelligent, well-educated, long experienced, and incredibly busy teenager like me should actually enjoy using the mouse to compose his or her text directly on the BNC webpage. That's not completely true - you see, I'm not a teenager.
I have the impression that the majority of informed and thoughtful comments on BNC are made by people who are several decades separated from their teenage years. Well, one or two. I, at least, work elsewhere, in a familiar workspace that is sympathetic to fumbly hands and blurry eyes, and then paste the result to less friendly fields.
|
|
|
Post by huon on Apr 29, 2012 13:02:34 GMT 9.5
It might be nice to have, well, an Open Forum in the Open Forum section.
|
|
|
Post by BNC Moderator on Apr 29, 2012 13:25:29 GMT 9.5
Roger - the formatting works differently and is much simpler here once you know how. I am also on a steep learning curve and went down the same path as you did.Same age group I suspect What you have to do if you want to insert anything or use bold, italic, quote etc is not use the "Quick Reply" box at the bottom of the page but click the "Reply" button in the line above that box, directly under your comment (or in a line at the top of the page). This opens a complete box which is headed with formatting buttons and emoticons. The buttons include Links, YouTube, Bold, Italics, Underline etc. Please have another go at testing and/or let me know if that helps you.
|
|
|
Post by BNC Moderator on Apr 29, 2012 14:10:31 GMT 9.5
@ Huon
Semantics have obviously misled folk here so Open Forum has been re-named Off Topic Forum which, more pertinently, describes its purpose. The Practice Thread is an example of what should be posted on the Off Topic Forum.
The whole point of the Forums is not to have long complicated open threads moving from one topic to another but to have dedicated subject boards and sub-boards which aggregate like topics. A new topic may be created within a board or sub-board as long as it fits within the board classification.
|
|
|
Post by QuarkingMad on Apr 29, 2012 14:51:51 GMT 9.5
Nope. Unless there are plans to enable "limited HTML" it looks as if I cannot contribute to BNC anymore. Well, not if I am required to support my wildest assertions with hot links to respected authorities. Since that constraint underpins the authority and readability of the BNC website, people like me really need to have the acceptability of "limited HTML" fixed. Now, please don't leap to reassure me that a highly intelligent, well-educated, long experienced, and incredibly busy teenager like me should actually enjoy using the mouse to compose his or her text directly on the BNC webpage. You see, I'm not a teenager. I have the impression that the majority of informed and thoughtful comments on BNC are made by people who are several decades separated from their teenage years. I, at least, work elsewhere, in a familiar workspace that is sympathetic to fumbly hands and blurry eyes, and then paste the result to less friendly fields. The coding used on forums is no different to HTML. The only difference is that you use the square brackets "[ ]" rather than the angular brackets "< >". For example: This sentence is no different to the following. This <b>sentence</b> <i>is</i> no <u>different</u> to the above. Also line breaks <br> are not needed as the breaks you make while typing are retained. It's easier to use square brakets as it eliminates a key press, as well as line breaks retaining while typing out paragraphs. If you're not sure of the right code to use you can click on one of the butons in the "add tags" panel to insert it. Furthermore you can highlight words and then also click on the relevant tag. Much like in Microsoft Word. HTML is in a way retained, all you need to do is sub out the angular brackets for square ones.
|
|
|
Post by BNC Moderator on Apr 29, 2012 14:55:44 GMT 9.5
Thankyou DangerAus for that information. Many of the commenters used to using BNC will be finding their way around this new format and helpful information from those used to Forums is most appreciated. I will copy your comment to BNC along with my remarks on the formatting to warn people in advance that things operate slightly differently over here.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Apr 29, 2012 15:19:18 GMT 9.5
Further to DangerAus, there is (at least) one difference.
On BNC, to quote text you use <blockquote>blah</blockquote>
On the new forums, you just use quote (in square brackets), i.e. no block required
|
|
|
Post by huon on Apr 29, 2012 16:27:20 GMT 9.5
BNC Moderator (Reply #36),
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment. I have high hopes for this new site! But I think you are making a mistake if you don't have an open forum here. I'll give you three quick reasons.
The open forum is so much fun, both to post a comment on and to read. Forcing people to comment in narrow channels may be efficient, but you risk losing a lot of the vitality of BNC.
An open forum can complement the focused discussions. The forum can act as a catalyst and incubator. When ideas generate a certain level of interest, they can then move to a specialized thread.
For a sense of community, you need a common forum, where everyone can congregate and touch base once in a while.
I may be completely wrong, but that's my two cents worth anyway.
|
|
|
Post by Roger Clifton on Apr 29, 2012 21:17:37 GMT 9.5
Thank you, DangerAus and Moderator - I test out your guidance that the less-than and greater-than symbols in HTML can be replaced by square brackets... The following text should be visible as four characters, in italics: textHey, that works, and "preview" works too! The following text should be visible as four characters, in bold: text Getting better all the time... Most importantly, can we insert hot-linked text? The following text should show only three characters visible, but hotlinked: www... and again - Table of Nuclidesand now link to a comment: Tom
|
|
|
Post by Josef O on May 1, 2012 7:47:14 GMT 9.5
Barry, great job, as usual!
When I was looking through the existing forum structure, I was wondering where to put questions / comments on the "public discourse" or education on energy policy questions. I think one of the themes of BNC - at least implicitly - is how to have an informed dialogue on energy policy and energy options. There are some interesting examples out there on how to communicate and discuss complex, critical issues that should also be of interest to the BNC crowd - and maybe that would warrant its own section. If you think it is beyond the scope of the site, that's fine.
Point in case: I myself am currently thinking about a format to engage students in an informed and critical dialogue on the various risks of our energy alternatives (including the risk of sitting in the dark). I would like to hear if other academics have done something similar and if yes, with what results.
|
|
|
Post by anonposter on May 1, 2012 8:34:38 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
Post by BNC Moderator on May 1, 2012 9:50:04 GMT 9.5
@josef O If you want to discuss and promote nuclear power go to the NuclearAdovacy sub-board (as suggested by Anon). However, if you want to discuss the pros and cons of a variety of energy sources you can start a topic under the main board Energy Systems. Your topic should appear under the sub-boards in that category. If you like it is similar to an Open Thread but just on Energy Systems
|
|
|
Post by Roger Clifton on May 6, 2012 12:07:18 GMT 9.5
Does anyone know of a way to "follow" a thread on e-mail ? Previously, I found it very convenient to be able to eavesdrop on an ongoing conversation as it happens, without interrupting my work and studies elsewhere. Of course, the BNC Forum is very much worthy of direct study however I often can't find time to browse.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on May 6, 2012 20:53:27 GMT 9.5
Roger, I provided some information HERE (and in a comment above that) on the RSS fields and the ability to follow threads. You basically just need to set up a Bookmarks list in your profile, and then you can follow this.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on May 6, 2012 20:55:30 GMT 9.5
Also, if you have an iPhone or iPad, you can get the ProBoards app - I've found this an incredibly useful way to view the forums, as the new posts/threads are automatically highlighted, making it as easy or easier to read than email delivery of them.
|
|
|
Post by Janne M. Korhonen on Jun 5, 2012 18:58:50 GMT 9.5
Barry and Mod,
While I'm not actually an user interface designer, I've been involved in usability design for some years. The comments on the blog and the fact that discussion has not easily moved to the forum suggest that the forum structure is indeed too messy. I would suggest again reducing the number of subforums to a bare minimum; in particular, sub-subforums should be eliminated altogether unless there is a very very very good reason to have them (which I don't see at the moment). With the relatively few posts now being generated daily, this forum would work with just one or two big discussion areas with individual threads (with suitable topics) playing the part of subforums.
With fewer subforums, following the discussions would be much easier and would in all likelihood increase the odds that people will actually contribute and comment to forum instead of in the blog posts. The best forums, in my experience, evolve over time: subforums are added only when there is sufficient content to warrant one. Even then, less is often more.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Jun 7, 2012 0:15:02 GMT 9.5
Janne, you (and others) are correct. Logically (in my mind, and that of the BNC Moderator), it made sense to give people a classification structure. But in practice, such an approach is NOT user friendly. So, I've totally revamped the Boards. There are now only 4 options - BNC Blog Posts, Energy, Climate Change, and Forum Help. Basically, if you want to find something specific, just put it in the search box (the search engine on Proboards is excellent). No more fine-grained hierarchical classification. Just nice and simple. As for the BNC blog, I'll now close comments on all the new (Post BNC Forum) blog posts, and not open them for most blog posts. The only place to comment on BNC blog posts henceforth with be at the BNC Forums: bravenewclimate.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=bncblogpostsThanks everyone for the critical feedback - much appreciated.
|
|
|
Post by Janne M. Korhonen on Jun 7, 2012 1:04:26 GMT 9.5
Super! Much better now.
More boards might be a good idea in the future, but even then, I advise to keep the hierarchy very flat - even though it would make logical sense to have a hierarchical structure (say, Energy -> Wind energy) at least to a certain extent it's much more user-friendly to just have one hierarchical layer. Fewer clicks required to reach = more page views.
|
|
|
Post by anonposter on Jun 7, 2012 1:27:24 GMT 9.5
Seems to be a little bit too far in the other direction.
|
|
|
Post by speedy on Jun 7, 2012 22:48:08 GMT 9.5
Seems to be a little bit too far in the other direction. Agreed. While the previous structure was maybe at bit too much fragmented, I find it vastly superior to this overly simplistic structure. Keeping all forums on one level is fine, but I would very much like more granularity, 10-20 forums is better than just 3 + help.
|
|
|
Post by anonposter on Jun 7, 2012 23:05:19 GMT 9.5
Just getting rid of the sub-boards and having the top level classifications probably would've been the ideal.
|
|
|
Post by davidm on Jun 8, 2012 0:58:03 GMT 9.5
Nothing is going to be totally satisfactory for everybody. I'd say this is an improvement. However I would increase it to 5 categories. Restoring the 'Other' category would be good as a basket for those threads that just don't easily fit under Climate Change and Energy.
|
|
|
Post by BNC Moderator on Jun 8, 2012 16:04:53 GMT 9.5
MODERATOR Still a work in progress guys - let us see how this goes for a while and if it proves too simple maybe we can expand the board structure a little.
|
|
|
Post by QuarkingMad on Jul 4, 2012 12:04:42 GMT 9.5
Just a quick thought. How about adding a fifth forum section and place all the TCASE series in there as separate threads to hyperlink to the BNC Blog posts. Then you can get additional comments from new members, and current ones, in the forum and it's easily accessible.
For example people can put new additional info in these threads if the Blog post has an out of date source.
Thoughts?
|
|
|
Post by anonposter on Jul 15, 2013 18:09:11 GMT 9.5
Just what is going on with multiple people posting what looks like basic stuff somewhat related to the topic but with a signature of apartments whatever link?
|
|
|
Post by grlcowan on Jul 16, 2013 7:56:13 GMT 9.5
Just what is going on with multiple people posting what looks like basic stuff somewhat related to the topic but with a signature of apartments whatever link? The basic stuff is stolen from other postings.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Jul 16, 2013 11:35:27 GMT 9.5
Thanks, I deleted the offending post - these types of subtle SPAM can get through they system and need individual attention!
I think I got rid of them all - there were 7 individual posts that had resurrected old threads. Let me know if you find any others. Very annoying.
|
|
|
Post by anonposter on Jul 16, 2013 21:25:58 GMT 9.5
Just reported another one to Mod.
|
|
|
Post by Barry Brook on Jul 17, 2013 10:55:53 GMT 9.5
Anon (anonposter)- I was mass deleting over 2000 accounts that had zero post counts after a week or more (they are virtually all SPAM accounts, based on the user/email combos and often associated weblinks), and I inadvertently deleted your account too - very sorry! (alas, your name was hard to pick out from the bogus ones...) Now, I can't restore your account directly via ProBoards admin, it seems, but apparently if you re-register with the same information (user, email) then all your posts should be automatically re-linked to that account. Once you've done that, I will then restore your post count to 524 (what it was at, when the disaster happened ) My sincere apologies for the mishap.
|
|