FROM THE FORUMS By Will Fastie Plus member Chuck wrote to say he wasn’t sure how to make a post in our forums. The comment proved a bit alarming. We h
[See the full post at: How to participate in the forums]
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How to participate in the forums
- This topic has 83 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 1 month ago.
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By far, I would say that the largest problem in posting in the forum, is the editor box including the swap between Visual tab and Text tab; and using the edit tabs. The edit tabs that function as anticipated depend on your editing privileges.
HTML?
BBCode?
A knowledge, at least rudimentary, of HTML and BBCode is also required.
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Information for removing unwanted HTML after posting:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/how-to-use-the-forum/#post-2452984Information for edit tabs while creating a post:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/how-to-use-the-forum/#post-2452981Read:
https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/how-to-use-the-forum/On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
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For the more than two years that I have been a Plus member, I have scrolled beyond the “Talk Bubbles box” in the Newsletters and then have dithered around, trying to find the page with the “Comment in the Forums” link. The box is so obvious, but I never paid attention to it. I just thought it was a divider between Newsletter articles with a link to the same place that the “Forums” link in the header will take you, and that’s not where I wanted to go. Thanks for REALLY drawing my attention to it in this article!! And, I agree with @b, in that the link in the “Talk Bubbles box” should be more accurately “feedback about this topic”, instead of “our forums”.
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the link in the “Talk Bubbles box”
I’ll take feedback from anyone about the precise language you think will be most clear. I’m willing to change the wording for something better.
But be as clear as you can, because the change is more work than you might think. If I’m going to change it again (it’s been altered twice on my watch), I’d like it to stick for a long time. Give me the entire slug as you think it should read in the talk bubbles box and I’ll give all suggestions due consideration.
For the record, the text we inherited at the end of each article read as follows:
“Questions or comments? Feedback on this article is always welcome in the AskWoody Lounge!”
As you can see, the problem with the old one was using “article” for the link. We wanted to be sure we were pointing at the forums instead. We also made the entire box much more prominent because we felt the original was melting into the background.
I just thought it was a divider between Newsletter articles
Yes, I did want a more prominent separator between articles and I feel the talk bubbles box serves that purpose as well. But it’s not the reason for the box.
Please put How to Use the Forum link in the AskWoody sidebar to the right. It would be useful for all.
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How to Use the Forum link
I’ll take that one up with Susan.
Note that my goal is to make engagement related to the newsletter articles as easy as possible. General use of the forums is Susan’s bailiwick.
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Click here to join the conversation! This AskWoody Newsletter article is available in our forum for your questions, comments, and feedback.
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Click here would be the link to the article.
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No, the conversation is the forums, not the article.
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
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Click to join the conversation in our forums about this article! We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback.
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Better?
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Done.
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
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Done.
I’m probably late to the party here for suggestions about the “Talk bubble box.”
I’m not sure what the link would be in the suggestion of @geekdom at #2543367
But, it seems to me that presently, the link should be “this topic” and not “our forums”, i.e.,
Join the conversation! Your questions, comments, and feedback about this topic are always welcome in our forums!
Maybe, capitalizing it or bolding it (or both) to make it stand out more?
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As long as the link is always highlighted, and as long as it’s the only link in the separator box I’ll find it. It does take a bit of observation or experience with the Newsletter to realize the function of the separator and the location of the link, but once learned, this becomes second-nature.
As long as the word “forums” is in the link I’m good. In my web mail service (Yahoo) the link stands out well as blue against the yellow background. And blue as opposed to normal text in black.
I usually log in at least a couple of times a month at the forums just to keep in practice. I often post, but not always, even after logging in.
I support any changes which help more readers find the forum topics.
-- rc primak
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It does take a bit of observation or experience with the Newsletter to realize the function of the separator and the location of the link …
That’s horrible news. I made the box bigger and more colorful, added design elements, and changed the wording. Yet folks don’t see it? I’m devastated.
Which is why I want more suggestions.
the link stands out well as blue against the yellow
Yes, the link will always be blue because for every article, the forum topic link is new. Thus it will be blue the first time you see it. However, if you click through you’ll get the “visited” color, which the site uses as the rather standard purple.
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However, if you click through you’ll get the “visited” color, which the site uses the rather standard purple.
Personally, I’ve never liked the purple color used as the default for visited links because it’s just too close to the blue used for unvisited links.
So many years ago I added a special site-override .css to my browsers that uses green for visited links to make it easy to ID which links I have/haven’t clicked on a site.
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I support any changes which help more readers find the forum topics.
I encourage any suggestions about this matter.
That’s horrible news. I made the box bigger and more colorful, added design elements, and changed the wording. Yet folks don’t see it? I’m devastated.
I have never noticed it so I just opened a newsletter to see what you were talking about. I immediately realized that I was not ‘seeing’ it because it looks like an ad banner. I realized that my mind skips anything designed to steal my focus.
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Personally, I’ve never liked the purple color used as the default
I don’t like the default blue, either. However, unless I’m building a site from scratch, I use the colors that were originally designed into the site I’m modifying. Our site uses the default blue/purple combo.
That combo is an extremely old default, and thus common.
I immediately realized that I was not ‘seeing’ it because it looks like an ad banner.
There are no ads in the Plus edition of the newsletter. Everything in the Plus edition is there for a functional reason.
In the free edition, all ads are clearly marked with the word “Advertisement.”
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In the free edition, all ads are clearly marked with the word “Advertisement.”
But, if we never read the free edition, we don’t know that. It has always stuck me as being something like an ad or merely functioning as a divider (which ads often do).
Topics are in forums, right? And the present link will take you to the topic, right? (It does say Topic in the gray banner at the top.) So, why not make “this topic” the link, instead of “our forums”. I always ignored the “Talk bubbles box” because I always thought the link would take me to the same place that the “Forums” tab (just below the AskWoody banner) would take me and I didn’t want to end up scrolling through all of the choices there to find the right Forum and the right topic. But, the link DOES take you to there — to THE TOPIC. So, “this topic” should be the link.
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I’m probably late to the party here for suggestions about the “Talk bubble box.”
Never too late! All suggestions welcome.
But, if we never read the free edition, we don’t know that.
We make a point that a benefit of Plus membership is no ads. However, we make no mention of that in the Plus newsletter itself.
Should we?
Done.
Susan’s remark relates to her addition of a “How to use the Forums” link in the “Forums” section of the right sidebar of the site.
Let us know if that’s helpful.
Click here would be the link to the article.
As a general rule, I don’t like to make links out of “click” or “click here” or “here.” I prefer that the words in the link give some hint as to where the user will be taken upon the click.
In the same vein, we’re 25 years downstream of the appearance of the Web. Imperatives such as “click here” are no longer needed — everyone knows how to navigate websites. Besides, a whole lot of folks now touch instead of clicking, and I certainly would not change such generic links into “Click or touch here.”
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Join the conversation in our forums about this article! We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback.
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Oh and talk about color controls not working…
<span style=”color: #ff0000;”>Discuss this topic <span style=”color: #333300;”>HERE</span></span>
Color controls work just fine but are not available to regular users. You are a regular user. Read here for information on edit tabs while creating a post:
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Join the conversation in our forums about this article! We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback.
Where would you put the link?
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Join the conversation in our forums about this article! We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback.
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Join the conversation in our forums about this article! We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback.
Not bad. Any thoughts on this idea?
I won’t be making this change right away because of the time it takes, so there is plenty of time for this conversation.
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So, what words comprise the link?
geekdom wrote:
Join the conversation in our forums about this article! We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback.
Not bad. Any thoughts on this idea?
“the conversation,” maybe? I’d like that.
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I’ve appreciated the separator from its inception. I also understood there was a link to the forums. To me, it was always obvious.
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I also thought the ‘bubble’ was a divider between topics (a good idea), and that the ‘forum’ link would only take me to the forum site, not to the topic. I already knew how to get to the forum, so never used it until I was told about it.
One suggestion for rewording: “Your questions, comments and feedback about this topic are always welcome. Click ‘Here’ to go to the Forum and Join the Conversation.”
‘Here’ would be the live link and a different color.
Alternately: “Your questions, comments and feedback are always welcome. Go to the Forum and ‘Join the Conversation’ about this topic.” with ‘Join the Conversation’ being the live link.
You may notice that this is duplicate post. the first time it was posted as Guest, since I had forgotten to login before creating the post. A constant problem for me at this forum. Then I login, have to refresh the page, which then loses my post and have to recreate it if I didn’t remember to copy the post text before logging in and refreshing. Would be nice if there was a warning or request to login, rather than simply continuing as ‘guest’.
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If you are logged out, you will see this edit screen:
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Do you have some sort of no cookie added in your browser? I can’t replicate this. When I’m logged in, and if the browser is open, I don’t get logged out. Is there some passage of time involved perhaps?
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
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There is auto-subscribe to the User creating the original post (topic).
But there is a link at the top of every thread to “Subscribe/Unsubscribe.”
And there is a check box below each reply you make that also subscribes you to the thread.
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I don’t see much in the way of preferences here.
We keep very little in the way of information about users. Think that should change?
From what I’m reading here (and elsewhere in the forum), many aren’t posting in the forum because they don’t know how, don’t feel comfortable doing so, or are frustrated by the posting process.
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From what I’m reading here (and elsewhere in the forum), many aren’t posting in the forum because they don’t know how, don’t feel comfortable doing so, or are frustrated by the posting process
Count me as one of these. Finding this topic to make this post after logging in was not intuitive, even after spending a good bit of time trying to figure out how to navigate the forum.
BTW, I do not support the proposal of turning on “Notify me of follow-up replies…” by default. It is valuable when posting for help but not when posting an experience or opinion in a topic for which you don’t have anything more to contribute or don’t have an interest in beyond contributing your two cents.
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So I want to focus on this. what about that link on the side would make it easier to find where to post?
As a aside I believe I reviewed the “auto check” in the past and given that I’m a person who HATES auto sign ups and really wants a person to make the choice to sign up I decided against it. As PK has pointed out, if you forget, just go to the top of the thread and subscribe.
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
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what about that link on the side would make it easier to find where to post?
Yes, that link (“Comment in the Forums”) is always what I look for to make my first post in the forum after reading a Newletter piece or after reading a Blog post. Because I’ve been notified in e-mail that that forum has come to exist, that’s generally how I get into that particular Newletter forum or that particular blog forum. Then, I make a point of subscribing so that I will receive in my e-mail a link to any posts that follow, which I click on in my e-mail to get back into that forum and then I go from there.
So, links in my e-mail are the starting point when it comes to the Newsletter and Blog posts, after which I look for the “Comment in the Forums” link as illustrated in your screenshot. If you removed that “Comment in the Forums” link at the place where you show it in your screenshot, I’d be really discombobulated. If you repeated it on the side, that would be OK, but please don’t remove it from where it is now.
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Blog posts and news articles on other sites have comment links at the bottom, not at the top.
Most commonly when the entire post is displayed.
The blog on this site (the home page) displays only a blurb for newsletter articles, which are very short. However, when viewing a full article in the newsletter, whether the reading on-site or in the email, the bottom of an article is exactly where we place the “comment” link in the Talk Bubbles box.
We’re unlikely to move the comment links for posts in the blogs elsewhere. Those links have been in place for quite some time, well before Susan took the reins. And we just made a programmatic change to the way they are handled.
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We’re unlikely to move the comment links for posts in the blogs elsewhere.
From the Home tab (just below the 2nd orange “divider”), was it mistakenly omitted here?
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was it mistakenly omitted here?
Nope, that was deliberate. Compliments on your eagle eye.
This was the change to which I alluded. Prior to this week, it was not possible to prevent a post to the blog from having a forum topic. This was due to the original site designers not seeing any reason for not including the link (probably reasonable at the time) combined with an error in the WordPress plugin that is used to automate forum topic creation.
In the years before Susan’s reign, the “From the forums” (FTF) feature was included in the newsletter but not presented in the blog. A characteristic of FTF is that it usually discusses other forum topics and provides links to those. Observe the “The forums, and networking” FTF post, which does exactly that.
Simply stated, we don’t want a topic associated with the FTF post – we want readers to get direct links to the forum posts under discussion. And now with this change, we can include FTF in the blog, which we felt was useful.
The developer of the plugin corrected its problems (for which Susan made a generous donation) and I modified the site’s code to behave in this new manner.
So if you don’t see the link, it means there is no forum topic associated with the post.
The use of our “new” feature will be rare.
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FORUMLINK
Yes, sorry, that was my fault. I corrected it on Monday, although I couldn’t change it in the emails.
If you removed that “Comment in the Forums” link at the place where you show it in your screenshot, I’d be really discombobulated.
It won’t be removed.
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all the story forum links seem to be broken
Actually, just two of them. They were fixed last Monday for the online newsletter but there was nothing I could do about the email.
I suspect this has something to do with this topic.
No, it had to do with me. I made an error when preparing the final copy of the newsletter.
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