Problems with forum

Discuss the talk-polywell site itself, including appearance, policies, and help-wanted requests from the administrators.

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Shubedobedubopbopbedo
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:38 pm

Problems with forum

Post by Shubedobedubopbopbedo »

I would prefer to makes posts consisting of only a link. Some things like the google video don't require comment or explanation.

Also, there is no way to upload files. It would be great to have a repository of papers, images, etc. that are not dependent on links to other websites. Those sites may cease to exist at any time.

JoeStrout
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Re: Problems with forum

Post by JoeStrout »

Shubedobedubopbopbedo wrote:I would prefer to makes posts consisting of only a link. Some things like the google video don't require comment or explanation.
Those things also don't belong on this forum. We already have some great collections of links. This forum is for discussion. It's hard to imagine that anybody who finds their way here won't already know all about the Google video, and if they haven't, they should go look at a page like this one. (Eventually, we'll put stuff like that on the talk-polywell.org home page, instead of the immediate redirect to the forums that we have now.)
Shubedobedubopbopbedo wrote:Also, there is no way to upload files. It would be great to have a repository of papers, images, etc. that are not dependent on links to other websites. Those sites may cease to exist at any time.
Agreed — but that's not really discussion either, which is the primary purpose of this site. There's another site coming up soon (polywell.org) which may be more appropriate for those. If that turns out not to be the case, I'll see about adding a file repository here.

Best,
— Joe

Shubedobedubopbopbedo
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:38 pm

Post by Shubedobedubopbopbedo »

Sorry man, but discussion can be done anywhere: Sciforums, Habitablezone, Nasa Spaceflight forum. The latter even allows images to be displayed as part of the post, and no one cares if someone posts just a link.

JoeStrout
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Including images in your post

Post by JoeStrout »

Shubedobedubopbopbedo wrote:Sorry man, but discussion can be done anywhere: Sciforums, Habitablezone, Nasa Spaceflight forum. The latter even allows images to be displayed as part of the post, and no one cares if someone posts just a link.
Feedback noted, with thanks. For what it's worth, you can include images as part of the post here too. Use the "Img" button (or manually type "img" tags around the link to the image), like this:
Image

Best,
— Joe
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

Shubedobedubopbopbedo
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:38 pm

Post by Shubedobedubopbopbedo »

Yeah, but I can't upload my own images unless I have a link to another website where they are already displayed. There is another thread on this forum asking for people to submit an image to replace the phpbb banner logo at the top. How can I do that if I can't upload images?

Nasa Spaceflight forum allows uploading of files and images, and displays a thumbnail preview of images at the bottom of the message. That's a great feature!

Yahoo allows uploading files into a repository, even if they can't be displayed in a posted message. That's good too, because people don't have to search the internet for some obscure reference materials. It'd be great if people could "own" their uploaded files too, have a list of uploaded files in their profile account, so they can update/delete, them.

Discussion is often random and meanders from one subject to the next. That's why most forums only have one thread for a particular subject, like Bussard's work. If you want all discussion to migrate to Talk-Polywell.org then your forum has to be better than all the rest. People have to be able to do everything here....

Post messages, with thumbnail images (click for larger image), or attach a file as well.

Upload files that can be used as reference material for future discussion. Perhaps they could include a caption, or "subject line", with each submission so that the file could appear in an uploaded files repository as if it were a newly posted message. But it should also have a link in the message in which it is discussed so people don't have to search for it. That's the reason why an ideal setup would have a repository, so people wouldn't have to search the internet for content on other websites.

Additional categories for discussion that might be interesting:

1. Nuclear fusion for spaceflight.
2. Renewable energy via fusion.
3. Off-topic discussions.

And if someone edits a post, it should say so.

We should also be able to search the forum for content.

JoeStrout
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Post by JoeStrout »

Shubedobedubopbopbedo wrote:Yeah, but I can't upload my own images unless I have a link to another website where they are already displayed. There is another thread on this forum asking for people to submit an image to replace the phpbb banner logo at the top. How can I do that if I can't upload images?
Please send it to me (joe@strout.net) directly. (Though most graphic artists already have their own web sites where they routinely post their work; a link to such would also be fine — whatever's easier.)
Shubedobedubopbopbedo wrote:Nasa Spaceflight forum allows uploading of files and images, and displays a thumbnail preview of images at the bottom of the message. That's a great feature!
Agreed, and it's one I'd like to allow at some point, if (1) I can figure out how to make phpbb2 do it, and (2) we don't run into trouble with people abusing the privilege. (Of course we'll have to try it before we can really settle the second point.)
Shubedobedubopbopbedo wrote:Discussion is often random and meanders from one subject to the next. That's why most forums only have one thread for a particular subject, like Bussard's work.
I disagree that Bussard's work is one particular subject. There are a whole lot of subjects mixed up together on the NASA spaceflight thread, making it very difficult to follow topics of interest (unless the only one of interest to you is the design thread currently dominating). That's the major reason for having a dedicated forum, where, as jlumartinez has pointed out, we can discuss different topics in parallel.
Shubedobedubopbopbedo wrote: Additional categories for discussion that might be interesting:

1. Nuclear fusion for spaceflight.
2. Renewable energy via fusion.
3. Off-topic discussions.
Thanks, these are good ideas. For now, let's put 1 and 2 in the Implications forum. And 3 is already identified (but perhaps not clearly enough) with the General forum.
Shubedobedubopbopbedo wrote:And if someone edits a post, it should say so.
I do like that feature in forums that have it. I'll look into it.
Shubedobedubopbopbedo wrote:We should also be able to search the forum for content.
You can (use the Search link at the top of each page).
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

Shubedobedubopbopbedo
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:38 pm

Post by Shubedobedubopbopbedo »

The main issue for me is that designing something is graphics-intensive, whether we're just talking about artistic renderings, or fully dimensioned blueprints. Right now only Nasa Spaceflight really supports images embedded in posted messages, and only Yahoo supports a repository of images/files. One can discuss a design until the cows come home and never really create a vivid image in people's minds, when a single image with a few numbers and labels is all that is needed.

JoeStrout
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Posting images

Post by JoeStrout »

You may a very good point there. I still think that most people who will be designing any graphics probably already have a site where they can host them. But if you don't, then until we can add that capability to this forum, here's what I recommend:

Upload your graphics to your favorite photo-sharing site, such as Flickr, Photosite, Shutterfly, etc. (there are many of these and they're free). Then you can post about it here and embed the image in your post. As a bonus, people casually browsing the photo-sharing site may stumble upon your image, be curious, and follow it here (if you've also provided a link in this direction).

I know, being able to upload images here directly from your hard drive would be more convenient. I just don't see any easy way to add that to phpbb2, but I'll keep looking into it.

Thanks,
— Joe
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

Zixinus
Posts: 200
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:39 pm

Post by Zixinus »

If you want to host files, then I have two recommendations:

http://www.imageshack.us/ For images, hosting is free, and if you register up, your files stay up longer. It's slow, and may have adds, but its free.

http://rapidshare.com/ You may host relatively small files here for free.

cuddihy
Posts: 155
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2007 5:11 pm

Post by cuddihy »

Joe,
I just want to say, great job, and thanks! You are clearly a php whiz. I'm not even good at blogspot!

I'll be interested to see what you do with polywell.org
:D
Tom.Cuddihy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Faith is the foundation of reason.

JoeStrout
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Post by JoeStrout »

cuddihy wrote:Joe,
I just want to say, great job, and thanks! You are clearly a php whiz.
Hah! You're far too kind. Actually I detest PHP only slightly less than Perl, but this isn't the place for language wars. The phpbb2 software we're running here, combined with the ISP I'm using, really makes it all pretty easy.

Now if we can just get people to stop replying to that thread on the nasaspaceflight forum, and move their discussion into well-organized threads here, life will be good. :)

Thanks,
Joe Strout
Talk-Polywell.org site administrator

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