Online Community - Comments, Improvements and Feedback

I was initially perplexed by the seemingly arbitrary points awarded to members. But now I'm disturbed with the forum points system. I don't actually pay any attention to it as it makes no sense to me. What purpose does it actually serve? But beyond its actual utility, there is something deeply disturbing about subjecting autistic people to an online popularity contest.  Anyone who has experience of depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, self-harm, bpd, OCD, etc. will know that being awarded points based on the basis of how popular your contributions are is far from conducive in promoting mental well-being. Quite frankly, it's something I'd expect to see on a gaming forum, but never expect to see on an Information, Advice and Guidance forum.

Cassandro said:

www.autism.org.uk/.../quote]

text

Cassandro said:

www.autism.org.uk/.../quote]

text

[/quote]

Cassandro said:

www.autism.org.uk/.../quote]

Highlighting with mouse from left to right.

Cassandro said:

www.autism.org.uk/.../quote]

Highlighting with mouse from left to right.

Cassandro said:

www.autism.org.uk/.../quote]

Highlighting with mouse from left to right.

Cassandro said:

www.autism.org.uk/.../quote]

From RTL.

Cassandro said:

www.autism.org.uk/.../quote]

From RTL

[/quote]

[/quote][/quote]

[/quote][/quote][/quote]

[/quote][/quote][/quote][/quote]

Cassandro said:

www.autism.org.uk/.../quote]

A line not indented in editor.

Cassandro said:

www.autism.org.uk/.../quote]

A line not indented in editor.

[/quote]

I've reproduced the problem in that thread. It may be related to the weirdness that happens when trying to quote two or more paragraphs at once.

WebPM said:

I suspect that the editor plug-in has produced markup so bad that the same editor is not able to open it again in order to correct it.

That sounds likely. (Edit: Note that if you use the 'Source code' tool before clicking 'Reply', it looks correct. So it may be some markup filter that's applied by the forum when the post is saved or rendered.)

WebPM said:

I can see several quote end-tags that apparently have no corresponding open tags. Did you by any chance edit the message and move things around when posting originally?

Not in a particularly unusual way. The quote may have come in the wrong part of what I was writing so I deleted it, but it seems reproducible without doing that.

I think one workaround may be to avoid dragging over the whole line and then clicking 'Quote', and instead double-clicking to highlight the line.

https://www.autism.org.uk/services/helplines/main.aspx

OK, here goes another test. Sorry for distraction to other users.

https://www.autism.org.uk/services/helplines/main.aspx

Does it require the horizontal rule? (Apparently not)

OK, steps to reproduce:

1) Post a comment including a hyperlink on its own line. Use return to automatically hyperlink.

2) The comment is posted.

3) With the mouse, click to one side of the line with the link and drag over the whole line. The word 'Quote' pops up.

4) Click 'Quote'. A new reply is started, with the quoted line at the top. Note that the text is there, but it is not hyperlinked.

5) Type some text under the quote.

6) Repeat: With the mouse, click to one side of the line with the link and drag over the whole line. The word 'Quote' pops up.

7) click 'Quote', the quoted line appears in the current editing box.

8) Type some more text.

9) Click Reply to save the reply.

10) Result: the typed text is indented as part of the quote, as is all following text. The second quote is intended twice. The string '.../quote] ' appears at the end of the links. The string '[/quöte]' (without the umlaut) appears at the end of the reply.

11) Click 'More' and 'Edit' under the post that has just been created. The editing box does not appear.

This one looks rather exceptional. It's nearer to a glitch than a bug (i.e. something's gone wrong, but it's rather a one-off, and may be too hard to track down for it to be feasible to prevent a repetition - which in any case may be very unlikely). I suspect that the editor plug-in has produced markup so bad that the same editor is not able to open it again in order to correct it. I've seen exactly that problem in Web-page editing in content management systems.

In terms of document structure, as distinct from what you're actually saying, the linked message is relatively complex compared to most posts in this forum. It looks as though something has gone wrong in that structure. I can see several quote end-tags that apparently have no corresponding open tags. Did you by any chance edit the message and move things around when posting originally?

This has occasionally happened with every editor plug-in that I've ever used. I'll see if I can find a workaround to make the code at least valid. That would allow you to edit the message to read as you intended. However, I can't promise a fix.

Here's a test to see if I can repeat it.

Cassandro said:

community.autism.org.uk/.../81392

OK, this should be back to normal text, not indented or italicised.

Edit: OK, well at least I can edit this. But the bit that was supposed to be normal text was indeed shown as part of the text. Now, after saving the edit, it's back to normal. I think this may be a new bug.

I'm hoping this is the right place for another bug report for @WebPM. The forum seems to have been working better recently, particularly as regards spam. My current issue seems rare, and doesn't quite fit into the Disappearing Threads thread. I think maybe the latest software update previously mentioned has been applied?

Anyway, this morning I commented in response to some links. The reply in question is here: https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/13241/autism-roots/81392#81392

Now the formatting seemed to break after posting, at the point where the first link is quoted. I didn't do anything particularly unusual except that all I quoted was the link, by selecting the text and then using the quote button. At each link the forum displays the text in italics and further indents as a quotation, by one level too many.

That's the first bug. The second is that I went to edit it to try to fix this formatting. However, on clicking 'edit', I am taken to a different part of the page, find the comment, but only my user name and timestamp appear with none of the text.

Hope you can help.

E-mail confirmation, a much more in-depth rule page and a option for a dark/colour-blind theme. I am happy to help input on these ideas if needed.

Absolutely BRILLIANT DC

Happy up-coming Birthday NAS

Ellie

(Capricorn / Tiger)

and elephant, goat and big cat all rolled into one! 

Greetings, NAS! I Post this now in case I am unable to Post "Birthday Wishes" for this Thread in Two Days' time. Happy Birthday in advance, for the 23rd Of August 2017!

Your Starsigns for this Thread are:
Virgo - Logically-minded. If the recipient does not like the Standard advice, then that is their own problem, now, really.
Rooster - Pioneering yet Eccentric, like a lot of Autistic People are. Yet Disturbs or Wakes people up from sleep with a New Message or a Notification.
Grizzly Bear - Big and imposing at first, yet gentle once understood. But if Rules are broken, can completely Erase any Human with a single swipe of its Paw.

...Lastly, I cannot Post Emojiis, and so here is a little Poem to this Thread instead:

You are long, you are old, you are rarely updated,
Yet your filling a niche keeps you Up-rated;
You are essential, non-sequential, and at times confusing,
Yet your Contributors and Messages keeps you amusing;
You are run by Charity and are at times restricting,
Ever-changing, explaining, expanding, and conflicting;
Inviting Experts and Amateurs, of any Age or Race,
I wonder at times might you run out of Space;;
As Pictures, Movies, Essays, everywhere may appear,
But still to date in longer Threads replies still disapp... .. .

Cassandro said:

since I'm not logged in permanently

WebPM said:

the workaround is probably to bookmark the main Community page.

Greetings, anyone. I am not "permanently" logged in either -- I actually do not think that very many people do that...?

What WebPM suggests as a workaround is what I have always done, and so I have had no trouble this way. However, I would note that I have never seen the point of checking your OWN Notifications unless you were Logged In. If this were enabled, then Every Stranger could do it, and that is not good.

However, the last good point is hitting an Error Page (especially "PAGE NOT FOUND"). Even before I joined this Forum, I had noticed that NAS-WWW is absolutely Rife with these, which is why their WebSite is so (annoying) difficult to navigate. I, at least, have just learnt how to live with and avoid these "Dead Ends", and to try to find other routes.

That's an interesting and very obscure problem. In brief, you're signing in from a page that you're not allowed to see (because you're not yet signed in = Catch-22). The way that information is passed across to the sign-in system is causing an error. I think it can be fixed, but the workaround is probably to bookmark the main Community page. Once you're signed in, you can use the notifications icon at the top of the page to get to your notifications anyway.

Rather minor thing that affect me more than others, since I'm not logged in permanently. If I go to http://community.autism.org.uk/user/notifications but I'm not logged in then the message isn't very explicit, but is enough to know I should log in. Clicking the 'sign in' link at the top of that page however takes me to here, which gives a 404 error page.

My last email notification was 28:02:2018,

Email notifications only work if you receive them in the first place,,,,NAS did repair the upissue after telling us it must be an issue at our end,,,,when found the error was rectified and a stream of notifications did arrive, but! ,,,,,since that time none at all. I go on and on about it as I found it very useful to check emails when out and about of any new replies to threads I was interested or part of,,,,having to log on with a mobile device is pretty much pointless as user experience using an older Samsung smart phone is ridiculous,,,small and unusable,,,,,

Thank you for the link, now I feel even more stupid. 

Still not receiving email notifications, but receiving many emails from NAS containing what the latest thing they are doing to highlight autism and asking if I would like to contribute with a donation. My question is I keep being told I need to sort out my end of things but are the emails not from the same place?

Also when going to threads via “ notifications” at the top of screen there are still definitely posts missing within the new ones, I screen captured them, when I returned back to the main forum section and manually went back, there is my reply sat in between where it should have been, and no it was not taking a long time loading or difficult to find,,,it was not there at all.

Also still losing whole posts when trying to add them via reply,,,,having to copy and keep to paste just in case they vanish is a real nuisance.

I think all the recent activity in this thread is in the 11 bottom postings ('Load Previous' might help), plus my comments halfway up that I linked to at http://community.autism.org.uk/f/miscellaneous-and-chat/9444/online-community---comments-improvements-and-feedback/72276#72276.  That comment is, coincidentally or not, about finding new comments in long threads, and caretwo gave some useful answers. It's also good to know that the NAS web team is aware that this is an area for potential improvement when other things have been dealt with.

I can't work these threads, I can see that there has been activity in this thread in the last 30 mins but I can't find it and I guess I need to open all the branches but it is taking ages and ages, I have tried making it to as newest first but that doesn't even give me the last post again I am guessing that it's in a branch? Anyway how do I overcome this?