Published on 12, July, 2020
Dear Community,
We were pleased to see so many comments about the community on the recent thread about the Leader Board. We are always wanting to learn more about how we can develop the community and so have locked the previous thread so that all comments and suggestions about general improvements to the community can now be placed here on this thread.
Please comment here on any ideas, improvements or feedback you have about the Online Community.
Please note that although we take on board all your ideas, we may not be able to implement all of them.
As always, please be kind and respectful when commenting to each other.
Thanks,
NAS Moderators
...And sometimes when a Reply IS typed... it does NOT save it to that Thread. We may spend very many minutes in typing a Reply --- only to have it disappear. Not everyone can "workaround" this.
...Again I ask of NAS... IS this the kind of "Forum" that you really want??
...With regards to that previous Post advertising "Tunza Games", Please check the "Activity" of this "User" so far... for it reads like a SPAMMER to me.
NAS RULE No.5: Please do not post the same message to more than one forum or thread. Duplicate postings may be removed, and may lead to your account being flagged for abuse of the forum.NAS RULE No.7: Recommendations are welcome. If you’ve found a service, book, helpline, or product helpful, feel free to share. If you are using an affiliate link, please advise of this in your post or comment. We do not allow users to register an account with us primarily to advertise, or sell, products and services.
...This is a Thread which did just that, and then posted links across four other Threads (including one of mine!), but I do NOT click the Posted "Link":(community.autism.org.uk/.../11676/tunza-games)
...That this person is able SPAM even upon this Thread - supposedly NAS' own Thread?! - illustrates something either about NAS, or the fact that this Thread is so long that even NAS themselves cannot be bothered to check it all of the time...
...In the time it takes some of us to scroll all the way down here, NAS could start at least Five NEW Threads...
This Post is long, and still trying to be "polite" about it. NAS, you are swift to respond to "children" yet tardy in far too many other areas. I speak from only 4 Months experience. Were I not as reserved, I would seriously consider "spamming" this Thread myself if I thought it would get you to start a new one to alleviate the troubles presented by the length of this one...
I meant what I said in my previous Post, so please read that again (if it has not disappeared). And for once... I do *not* apologise for this here Post being so "long". Good Day to you all (at NAS).
Holly - Mod said:
...This is direct to a "NAS Moderator"... for I know that WebPM is busy with other difficult matters concerning the entire Forum, and so is doing an excellent job already. Thank You to WebPM...
...But - to "NAS Moderators": this is YOUR Thread. And you can easily solve the currently big trouble of... STARTING A NEW THREAD like this!
NAS, You are by now risking a lot of people leaving, and/or not joining in at all, the way that this Thread currently is.
I ask you... is that really what you want?
Greetings from me again, NAS...
I know that I keep Posting the same things here, but that is because I truly mean them. Please add the "To Bottom" and "Back To Top" Functions, and please do something about replies disappearing. I think that you have said that you are working upon solving this last problem, yet I insist again as I am becoming irritated at replying to someone, only to much much later find a previous post which did not show up from many Hours before, which then makes me look like an ass.
Spotty Tortoise said:Does my nemesis Photoshop qualify as hideous bloated software?
Yes. (Yet I would say "Hideously Bloated", and not "Hideous", for it is good software.)
It accepted to assign the same calling name MDC, so it wasn't all that blocking.
I recently had to change my email-address. That wasn't really foreseen by the system. The system made me a new default name NASxxx.
That feels like a bit of a bug. The email-address shouldn't be part of the key, just an attribute.
How do you know it's the internet?
Are your figures in Mbps? How did you get them, and what is your current line speed?
WebPM said:We're therefore at present still focused on the issue of identifying the latest messages in a complex thread, and we are working on that one actively.
NNTP newsreaders used to do this quite well on text-mode terminals with a split window view. Thread in the top half, one line per post. Current post being read in the bottom half.
The existing forum web UI is painful on a phone screen, but I guess since it's all touchscreenthese days, you have to stick a button somewhere, unless you can support gestures (e.g swipe right for next unread contribution that has been subscribed to...)?
Whatever the hardware and software issues, there is another element at play in making some of us second class citizens. The ******* internet. Currently we have .78 download speed and .28 upoad. I need a punchbag to alleviate the frustration of it feeling like an old dial-up connection.
Does my nemesis Photoshop qualify as hideous bloated software? It recently took three whole days to install on my new laptop.
DongFeng5 said:And lo, their share prices rose, and they saw that it was Good...
And lo, as the data traffic jams got greaterer and greaterer; the data processing speeds got worserer and worserer, and server coolers got hotterer and hotterer 'and' lesserer and lesserer ~ this proved not to be good.
It's worse than that.
There is a major hardware manufacturer which needed the software to go slower, so that they could sell people faster hardware. So a major software supplier produced ever more bloated operating systems, on the promise of "more features", which in turn persuaded folk to upgrade their hardware. The pair of them call it "the hardware-software spiral".
And lo, their share prices rose, and they saw that it was Good...
Um...Glad Tidings to both WebPM and to DeepThought, and I only write this to say how much I appreciate the lucidity expressed within this digression from the two of you and that I very much would join in... yet I am uncertain of doing so HERE since it is not strictly related to the "Main Topic" of this Thread...?
(...And this Thread is *very* long already...) Thank You anyway.
It was always like that In the early days of computing, with very limited computing resources to run the programs, there was a lot of skill in building very efficient code. To some extent, that's not so important now.
However, the other issue is that developers, in a commercial market, are competing with each other to offer the best features, and this pushes software to do more and more. So, as quickly as the hardware people come up with faster machines, the software people are incentivised to slow them down again!
Also for reference I get the same behaviour at home (300mbps Virgin), work (50/50 symmetric fibre) and on mobile (over both 3G and 4G in different locations) across laptop, desktop, tablet and mobile so it's not a connection or device issue.
I think the issue it seems is that the latest 64 bit digital software packages ~ are operating faster in terms of their running speeds or times, but becoming more incompatible with the analogue hardware which operates more slowly.
I think a good analogy perhaps might be for those who drive ~ it is like doing away with the amber light from red and green traffic lights, and then using speed humps to slow cars, vans and lorries down instead.
Perhaps?
To WebPM alone...
For what it is worth, I *do* express a Thank You Very Much! You are lucid and honest, and... as you should know... Please always be careful and considerate. Good Fortune to your good self from myself...
(I still do not Post hugs or kisses, though... well, we are all different in our own manners, as you know! I just reeeeeally mean what I say, and Thus I do not say much, you see...) ありがとございます,"ウェブプム"さん!
Hi WebPM
One of the behaviours with the load next/previous that I find a bit frustrating (apart from that it exists in the first place) is that it seems to take a while to load. The rest of the site is really fast, when you first click into a thread it loads really fast, however when scrolling to the bottom, or clock on the load next it often seems to hang for a while. I also experience similar issues on login (it can take 30 seconds or more sometimes to load once you click login), I also notice this behaviour intermittently with posting, most of the time it will be fast, but probably 1-5 it will hang for 30 seconds or more and probably 1-10 it won't do anything and requires copying the comment, refreshing the page, pasting it in and trying again. Is there perhaps an optimisation issue somewhere as this doesn't seem to happen on a pattern (it's just as likley to occur at 3 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon or 7 in the evening.
Since I've been mentioned by name, I thought I'd better comment
We are listening, i.e. reading this thread and similar ones. I'm sorry that we're not able to respond all the time. There are lots of ideas, and we're not really able to take them all up with our available resources, so an important part is trying to understand which ones the largest number of you support. We're therefore at present still focused on the issue of identifying the latest messages in a complex thread, and we are working on that one actively.
I should note, however, that we are using commercial software. So, we want to limit the degree to which we customise it, as this can have consequences for keeping it running in future versions. Therefore, for some issues (for example the Load Next/Previous behaviour), I have gone back to the developers' own forum, to discuss with other user sites the way the system works - the aim being to get improvements in the package itself.
We'll look at the Hints and Tips points, as that's just a matter of creating the relevant page(s). The aim of putting them with the threads was to have them accessible and visible when the issue arises. For example, as I write, there's a reminder of how to mention someone. However, drawing them together as well wouldn't do any harm - especially because mobile users won't see them until the bottom of the page whereas, on desktop, they are right alongside the box as I type.
So, all ideas are valued, and I'm sorry we aren't able to take them all up immediately.
Regards
Disambiguating Cynosure said:Please install the functions (Buttons): To Bottom Back To Top
Hi DC, it's not a total solution, but if your on a PC or Laptop you can get to the top and bottom of a page by pressing the HOME key for top and END key for the bottom. It doesn't quite work on this site as whilst END will take you to the bottom of the page, more often than not the page then decides it needs to load more as it didn't load everything in the first place (Mods, please fix this, even on a mobile connection the page when fully loaded still only uses a tiny amount of data, it also does this on a full PC browser, not just mobile, which is daft), so you might have to press it more than once, but it will get you to the bottom.
Good points and well done for coming back DC, time for my bed. ()