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General discussion

FORUM Annoucement: Forum bug fixes and added features- to deploy 6/08

Jun 7, 2004 7:26AM PDT

Hi folks,

Sometime tomorrow morning 6/08, we will be deploying some changes to the CNET community forums--some will be enhancements and some will be bug fixes. So please be aware of these changes and please report any bugs or weirdness to THIS thread. thank you! -Lee

Here is the list of things that are going to be deployed in the forums:

Forum Bug fixes

1. Duplicate posts have been resolved by adding a confirmation page after submitting a post. It is one extra step for users, but this will ensure that duplicate posts will not occur.

2. Text limitation in replies: Limitations have been removed in replies, no more "Part 1, part2..." for posting large amount of text

3. Active X script running in forum templates has been removed

4. Forum Discussion list will now include additional columns of info:

Title/Author, Thread creation date, Last Post to thread date and time, and number of posts in the thread

5. Alt tags have been added to buttons -- We might have missed a few alt tags here and there, but the important ones are covered.

6. Reply to post page, will show entire content of post that you are replying to, rather than it being cut off.

7. HTML template has been cleaned up in hopes to improve forum speeds.


User functionality enhancements:

1. Increased tree thread views to show 250 rather than 50 messages So rather than having user page through the tree of messages, 250 messages will appear on the tree for ease of following long discussions. Anything after 250 posts will initiate the paging of the tree.

2. The red "NEW" indicator for new message to disappear after 12 hrs rather than a lengthy 24hrs

3. User thread subscriptions: User will now be able to subscribe to threads and get notification on activities in those particular threads. Please check out the revised Forum FAQ page to reflect thread subscriptions: http://reviews.cnet.com/4002-7600_7-5083783.html Once you have subscribed to a thread, if there is any activity in the thread(s) that you subscribed to, a summarized email of your subscriptions will be sent to you. Emails will be sent every 4 hours. If there are no activities in your subscriptions, you will not be notified.

4. Forum Search added to all forum pages

5. Next and previous message button has been moved to a more prominent and fixed location rather than bouncing around depending on the length of the message.

6. Added a "Back to main Forums page" link and "Jump page" at the bottom of collapsed forum pages

Other Stuff:

1. CNET Editors/Employees will receive a red ball "C" icon.

2. Co-Branding of the CNET help.com with CNET Reviews
Going forward --to invite more members and participation in our forums, we have co-branded our forums to have the look and feel of CNET Reviews. Once these forum changes have been deployed you will now be able to view the forums with the CNET Help.com look or the CNET Reviews look. All content is shared, but just the header and footer template will be different.

Here is an example, but it will only work after the forum changes have been deployed to live:

CNET Help.com Windows XP forum:
http://reviews.cnet.com/5204-6142-0.html?forumID=5

CNET Reviews Windows XP forum:
http://reviews.cnet.com/5204-6142-0.html?forumID=5&tag=cnr

3. Subject line display will be limited to 50 characters.

4. Register user can now only send Offensive message alerts now. Only registered/logged in users will have the ability to notify us of offensive messages.

5. Discussion threads can be locked by our moderators. If we see that a discussion is going no where, but south, moderators will be able to lock them down. Locked down thread will be indicated with a pad lock icon.

Things that will unfortunately remain the same:

1. 7 layer deep thread...we tried but the wrapping of subject lines made the thread almost impossible to follow, so it was ultimately decided not to increase it

2. No thread jumping links...we implemented it at first, but because the forum pages are dynamic and any new posted message to any discussion will bump the thread to the top of the forums--it made the previous and next thread button appear then disappear which made it a pretty confusing experience. So we had decided for the sake of not confusing users, this piece was pulled at the last minute.

3. Remaining logged in. This is actually a larger issue and will require additional resources to look into to fix, so given the resources I received this time, I was unable to get this resolved.

Discussion is locked

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Re:I'm taking notes...
Jun 8, 2004 7:19AM PDT

Patient with you?

Good grief, Lee! Fixes have been happening all day, just about as soon as complaints are made!

Thanks for "marked as read" (these old eyes can see them just fine) , and NO "meesage has been deleted".

Cheers!

Angeline

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Re: I'm taking notes... Preview!
Jun 8, 2004 1:36PM PDT

Hi, Lee.

Any chance the preview could also truncate the header at 50 characters? I thought I was okay because it wasn't truncated in preview, but the "NT" result made zero sense!
Fifty really isn't very many...
-- Dave K.

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Re: I'm taking notes...
Jun 11, 2004 1:51AM PDT

Thank you Lee! You and all the people have done a remarkable job with recent improvements. I can now navigate... no problem and today I note the addition of the Next/Previous button at the bottom of the page. Way to go!!! Great job!!!

Thanks again,

Happy

Glenn

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And a kudo (Mod feature only)
Jun 8, 2004 1:41PM PDT

Thanks VERY much for the deletion fail-safe and thread-lock!
-- Dave K.

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One thing...
Jun 8, 2004 3:11PM PDT

While it looks pretty good now, I have one thing that I would like to get done. It may have been said before in this thread, but I haven't had the time to read all the posts yet.

When posting an NT post, is it possible to make that NT appearing automatically and without having to add any characters in the message field? It's not a big deal, but would be an improvement IMO.

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''Page cannot be displayed''
Jun 9, 2004 2:38AM PDT

In the last hour (12:00p.m., 06/09/04 Texas) I've been getting several of those. Doesn't matter if moving between forums or reading/posting thread.

Bill Gaston

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It's really. . .
Jun 9, 2004 2:41AM PDT

We're sorry, but the page you requested could not be found.

Just got two more.

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I got a couple of those too yesterday...
Jun 9, 2004 2:44AM PDT

I'll get someone to look into this.

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Re: I got a couple yesterday too - still happening :-(NT)
Jun 10, 2004 1:20PM PDT

.

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Are these quick or do they carry on a long time
Jun 10, 2004 8:39PM PDT

The ones that I have experience are quick. Once I get the page not found, I refresh the browser and it is back.

Please let me know what your experiences are.

thanks

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Re: Are these quick -- no, long
Jun 11, 2004 2:09PM PDT

Hi, Lee.

No, nothing happens for an abnormally long time (maybe 30-40 secs) and then the "page not found" ahows up. It's usually happened when clicking on a message in a thread (usually in the thread list at the bottom), but has happened at least once each with picking from the "forum level" thread list, ysing a "next message" button, and once even posting a message ("back" still recovered it, thank God, as it was a long one).

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

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Today has been especially bad...
Jun 16, 2004 3:18AM PDT

I'm having the engineer look into this problem.
Going to create another thread about this for people to log time and place when the "Page not found" occurs.

thanks.
-Lee

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Templates switch at random for me
Jun 16, 2004 5:15AM PDT

I always use the CNet template, but sometimes when I click on a thread I get switched to the Reviews template with ads. Using Opera 7.50 with Mandrake.

DE

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My two cents-
Jun 9, 2004 5:04AM PDT

Hi Lee,

These changes are great! I just wanted to say thank you for keeping things moving forward. I like the fact that hitting the "next" link will now cause the post to be marked as read, where previously you had to actually click the message link. I also like having 250 posts per page, that makes long threads so much easier to navigate. In fact, I like all the changes, including the mod feature set.

If I could see some more changes, my list would include removing the "Add New Discussion" button from within the threads, if a color change will have to do, try to find one that makes it appear as a "greyed out" option. I'd also like to see HTML make a comeback. Making a post NT automagically would be a timesaver, I think they accomplished this before by having the software add an NT to the subject line if there was nothing in the message body.

The one issue I see right now has to do with message marking. When the Review template is used, the unread messages are bolded and a different color, but in the Help template, unread messages are not bolded, but just differ by color, which is difficult to distinguish in a long thread. Can the unreads be bolded in the Help template too?

Thanks!
--Cindi
Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email the mods

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(NT) I'll see if we can bold the unread in the help.com forums too
Jun 9, 2004 4:31PM PDT

.

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Excellent! Good job. Thanks! -nt
Jun 9, 2004 11:00PM PDT

.

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I spoke too soon.
Jun 9, 2004 11:08PM PDT

It worked the first time I refreshed a page but not in later updates of that page or other pages. It's still using the alternate color without the bolding for unread links.

Thanks.

Dan

PS: I spoke too soon about the bolding part, not about the 'Good Job' part.

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Re:FORUM Annoucement: Forum bug fixes and added features- to deploy 6/08
Jun 9, 2004 2:33PM PDT

I am reminded of that famous quote by an equally famous American statesman:-
You can please all of the people some of the time
and some of the people all of the time.
But you cannot please all the people all of the time!
Keep up the good work Lee, if this were a perfect world how damn boring would it be?

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THANK YOU!!
Jun 9, 2004 4:29PM PDT

phattdaddy, you just made my night. Going to bed with a smile Happy now, awaiting tomorrow's challenge. Grin

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Screen display -- anyone?
Jun 10, 2004 2:46AM PDT

Win98FE, MSIEv5.02SP2 and nothing else that can intefere.

Look at these two links and give me a description of the possible reason why when viewing/answering in a NEW window they are different -- the difference happens quite often and the one will hang around for a while and then be replaced by the other:

"Forum screen #1"

"Forum screen #2"

Bill Gaston

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FWIW also,
Jun 10, 2004 3:03AM PDT

my "message" yesterday concerning "Page cannot be displayed", the same screen also appears on occasions (twice today 06/10/04) in these two contrasts.

Bill Gaston

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Lee, found the crazy reason
Jun 15, 2004 11:42PM PDT
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Re: Lee, found the crazy reason
Jun 16, 2004 3:16AM PDT

THe co-brand is based on a session. So if you go to the Reviews branded forums, you will have a Reviews branded session for 30 mins.

That why sometimes the Reviews co-brand sticks even if you read a help.com branded thread.

-Lee

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NT - Makes sense, if . . But not done so.
Jun 16, 2004 9:47PM PDT

..

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ATTENTION: New deployment of changes shortly
Jun 10, 2004 8:37PM PDT

Okay folks this morning 6/11 we will be deploying some additions and fixes.

And they are as follows:

1. Post Confirmation page for post:

a. ?Return to Discussion? link will return you to the post you just submitted, rather than taking you to the start of the discussion.

b. Text change: ?Your comment has been submitted? changed to ?Thank you, your post has been submitted?

2. Previous and Next Message buttons have been added below the message post for easier navigation.

3. 50 character limitation has been increased to 60 characters in subject line and that's it. You will NOT be able to type beyond that. What you type is what you get in the subject line, so no more confusion as to what gets displayed.

4. Unread post will be BOLD rather than just a normal.

and (drum roll please) Grin


5. No message body post will now display a (NT)-meaning NO TEXT) in the beginning of the subject line.

If you see any bugs as a result of this deployment please let me know and post in this sub thread.

Well folks, resources have been tapped, I hope you guys are happy with these fixes and enhancements. Our engineer did a incredible job and I would like to give him a big high-five and big thank you!

I love it when resources are around!

Thanks everyone for your feedback!

-Lee

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Bravo! Applause! Kudos! Rousing cheers!
Jun 10, 2004 11:29PM PDT

A very sincere Thank You!

Give a collective pat on the back to the engineers, as well.

Fixes were in place almost as fast as complaints were made.

We know how much time and effort you have put into the project, which testifies to your caring about the community.

Hope you can relax over the weekend, and have some fun!

Cheers!

Angeline

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(NT) (NT) Re: Bravo! Applause! Kudos! Rousing cheers! -- Amen!
Jun 10, 2004 11:57PM PDT
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Just tried the NT fix and it didn't work
Jun 10, 2004 11:41PM PDT

Maybe I tried too soon and the fix hasn't been implemented yet?

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(NT) (NT) Re: NT fix didn't work - Works here!
Jun 10, 2004 11:59PM PDT
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(NT) (NT) Changes have been deployed!
Jun 10, 2004 11:50PM PDT