Suggestion box:: no whinging and whining please

Why don't we send trolls out through the emergency chute with a case of beer?

Thanks for my laugh of the day, Fidel! Actually, not my first. It's been a good day.

The text "editor" is horrible. There's no list long enough for the number of basic, basic useability flaws in it. I can try to communicate these to the tech folk (actually, I have done), but there's not a lot of money to spend on upgrading the upgrade.

I like all of bagkitty's suggestions. Have often been frustrated to follow a link and have to return by the long, long route. Also, i lose text when i make an error in pasting, which happens a lot, as i'm a klutz. 

For the single long line problem: after pasting in a quote, go to Preview Comment to fix the formatting, then continue writing.  

Making little tweaks to the editor might SEEM like a little thing.  But, every little thing ends up taking more resources than one might expect.  So, all the code is probably stored in a repository, and they probably have a staging server set up somehwere to test changes.  The staging server may or may not be identical to the live server--there may still be some development happening there in certain stages.  So, any changes must be made to the stage, then tested, probably in a series of browsers, then the change could be made to the production server.  But, there shouldn't really be one off changes made to the production server here and there.  Making small changes every week is much harder to keep track of then making a chunk of changes every month or two.  So, it may be weeks after testing the change on the staging server before to gets put live, which requires documenting the steps to make the change as well as the steps to properly test them.

In addition, it there are likely resource issues as well.  Probably rabble is low on funds to pay for the work, and probably the web shop is low on time to volunteer.  Now, perhaps there may be other people who have the knowledge to make the changes, who also have the time to volunteer, but that opens up all kinds of other stuff.  Can a new person be trusted to make the changes and not screw things up?  Does the new person have the expertise to fix seemingly unrelated issues if the small change introduces other, bigger problems?  How many people can have access to the admin password before it gets out of hand?  If the new person will not be using the admin account to make changes, are they going to have to continually ask for various new permissions to be added to their account, and is this going to take up time for other IT admin people who already have enough to do?

And then perhaps what is really the bigger issue: Rabble.ca is more interested in putting resources into rabble than babble.  So the "small, easy fixes" that babblers want to see probably take a back seat to the "small, easy fixes" that rabblers are asking for.

So Rabble can send the dev team a list of changes that they'd like to see--but then, the dev team needs to look at all of those changes, estimate how long each one might take in isolation, and then try to figure out which changes are related.  So, Rabble may want change A and B prioritizied, but, it may be the case that change D, a less urgent change and more time consuming change, automatically fixes change A, and change D will be necessary in the long run.  So, does it make sense putting a chunk of time/money into a throwaway fix for change A?  Or, change B might be due to an incomplete feature set in a module, and a new release might be right around the corner, or...it might not.  Is it worth spending the resources on building the code out when it's kinda likely that the code to do that could be released in the next few months?

I'm saying all this to explain that the changes that we are most likely to get are not necessarily those changes that you suspect might be just a settings click away--but they are the changes that integrate easily into the development process.

The change I'd most like to see is that I'd like to see the Active Topics page show a link that says "3 new posts" with a link to the first new post in the thread (new for the logged in user, new content since the last time they looked at the thread).  It's super easy to do in Drupal, and since that page is a view it's fairly easy to make the change.  But, I don't have access to anything, and I know that any requests for changes get pased from the modes, to editorial, to the dev team, who then evaluate, and so I'm not that hopeful.

I think having a FAQ page stickied somewhere is a great idea, and it's a change that babblers could work togehter to build.  Speaking as a site builder, if users from a site built a good FAQ or "Getting Started" page, I'd be sticking this up in a heartbeat.  So bag kitty, I'd say if you are so motivated, start writing it up in a thread and get people to add to it.

Holy moly! My predictions are true - there is a quarterly rabble reaction thread marathon!

To voice an underlying sentiment that comes out in a number of threads: maybe we should have as many outings as the number of blowouts! And maybe people could show up to them instead of "()@R()*#@()$)(@#*$()@#*)@#$)#(*$@)(*$)(@#-ing" in front of the computer!

its not babble without whinge and whine, michelle(i can see u), maysie(so smart, not like michelle's not smart too.) I.CAN'T.WIN.

Where's AlQ, Fidel, NDPP, radiorahim and others?

I need you guys.

K, so im never around on weekends, spoiled this year.

doh, work harder everyday. im so stunned. so all the wood is being chopped.

May I request that either (a) the "Remember me" option on the log-in screen be actually made to work the way it was intended if you click it or (b) the "Remember me" option on the log-in screen be removed?

Because, honestly, "Remember me" suggests that either you won't get forcibly logged out every however-often-it-is-I-end-up-getting-forcibly-logged-out even though your browser is typically up for days at a time or your username and password are automatically filled in for you without any need to start typing things in.

This has happened to me with at least three separate versions of Firefox.

On the "smiles" page, could we have a "rolling eyes" smilie and also a "sarcasm" icon? 

Good.

Until you do, people can always link to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IU1bzZheWk

Catchfire wrote:

More smilies. Got it. I'll see what I can do! You can always link to images on smilie catalogue websites.

Yes, but that would take all the fun out of  slagging babble for suppressing our range of expression through its ongoing clampdown on smileys.

*wink*

Gotcha. Well said.

Oh... here it is:

Also... post #32 by Anonymouse on the Nycole Turmel thread appears to have busted the thread's formatting (every post after #32 appears to be physically nested inside #32) because of several unclosed quote tags.  I've seen what I suspect to be unclosed quote tags bust thread formatting before (but never anywhere this badly).

So, in other words, my suggestion / request: would it be possible for a fix to this problem to be made?

In the first place, I don't think anyone supporting fracking is going to be taken seriously, and is probably going to get shut down by force of argument.

Nuclear power, not quite so clear, though living in the place where all that shit is mined I expect I agree with you 99% in that I think nuclear energy is not a sustainable source of grid power. But where do you draw the line? No more medical isotopes? 

Bottom line, I get your sentiment, and agree with it. But practically I wouldn't say a hard rule serves any purpose. It is kind of like those municipal resolutions here in Canada banning stoning people to death.

Again, I hear you. 

And as I said I do not support nuclear power as a source of grid power in any form. Believe me, it is a real issue here.

I guess my only fear about replacing discussion and instruction with a set of proscriptions is that I don't see it as saving repetition, but a learning opportunity lost, and something that will replace free communication with suspicion. 

Given that we are all learning, and the whole purpose of what we are doing here is discussion, I think the extra effort is well worth it.

Ya, Drunk uncle won't fight it no more.

Global boring.

Reagan. hehehe

Sorry college boy.

That's what we get for enfotainment!!!

A French sub-heading with two fora: 1) Français 2) For those learning French

The second one would be to help progressives work on their French and discuss issues of interest to progressives. Or maybe just one forum. Thoughts? I just feel like English tends to dominate discussions a bit...

If babble really wanted more francophones to participate though, it would probably have to have a section with all of the features, welcome page, etc translated. Pricey?