Improvements to website?

[DracoM]

:cool2:[a] could we possibly have more posts per page?
[b] is there any chance the site could be a different colour? Red is......well, is it R3? Dark blue? Or mellow green? Or is there a facility to change the colour that I have not yet found?

[Anna]

I like the colour. The only thing I would improve is that the page just does not refresh automatically and there is no facility to tell you someone has posted before you hit the post button and you may wish to revise your post, apart from that, I think it's perfick!

[antongould]

I think it's perfect

[decantor]

More posts per page? Yes, I agree that might be helpful. Scrolling is faster than page-turning.

When a thread extends to numerous pages, we can choose the page where we start to read by selecting from 1,2,3........12. I think it would be more useful if the choice were 1........10,11,12. Newcomers to a thread will usually start at Page 1; but followers of a thread, visiting perhaps a day later, will want to catch up nearer its end. As it is, we have to go to the last page and then flick back to find the last post read. (I appreciate this change may not be possible on technical grounds.)

Colour - red is demanding on ancient eyes, and maybe encourages a feisty atmosphere. But, having been on other vBulletin boards, I'm not sure that they provide friendly, calming pastel shades. They seem to favour, as it were, Prokofiev over Fauré!

[french frank]

:cool2:[a] could we possibly have more posts per page?
[b] is there any chance the site could be a different colour? Red is......well, is it R3? Dark blue? Or mellow green? Or is there a facility to change the colour that I have not yet found?

I think you can have a choice On your profile page - General Settings, scroll down to Thread Display Options > Number of Posts to Show Per Page. You choose! (I have 40 and think that's a good number)

On the colour, hmmm, well, red was chosen to reflect the Radio 3 colour, of the banner background and the MB sidebar. I have to confess to being less than a novice in changing these things and am not sure how to modify what we've got. The default is a 'standard' blue like r3ok, and I wanted us to be 'distinctive' ... One person said red was good for dyslexia but another felt the red was a bit harsh - but this varies a bit from machine to machine.

The reason for the announcement was that, like a coup leader who promises democracy and an end to corruption, I said that after six months I'd see what people felt about a more formal moderation system, more explicit house rules and stuff like that ... ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I have got used to red, but being more objective, it is quite an aggressive colour - blood, fire, etc., but it can also be cheerful. Perhaps we shouldn't meddle, as to change may upset people more than leaving it.

On the question of house rules, general behaviour and moderation, things seem to happen in waves. Weeks can go by with very little apparent disturbance, with everyone treating one another with respect, but a storm will appear and things become fraught for a while.

I would suggest that in the long term a clear set of guidelines is more helpful than relying too much on goodwill and commonsense. None of us is perfect.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

thank you for your diligence and concern ff, but the forum is fine and is now a red forum ... the membership continues to grow ... there are many interesting and amusing threads and very little misbehaviour .... thank you

[salymap]

I like the red on this forum although it is not usually one of my favourite colours. The only thing I don't like is the clock[time] at the bottom of the page, which often means a reboot to update the information as to who is on line etc. Still that's a small quibble.

Congratulations all round are called for.

[Lateralthinking1]

I would still like a longer time for writing a post before being timed out.

Could we have Radio 3 type pictures on the introduction page, eg Lucy Duran and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan?

Are we actively promoting the site anywhere and how is the spider doing?

I like the red and white.

[amateur51]

I would still like a longer time for writing a post before being timed out.

Lat, you could always prepare your text as a Word document and then when it's polished to your liking, you can whizz on over here and copy it into the thread of your choosing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJeEwkVoUpk

[Anna]

Lat,

Not sure I understand your first point about being timed out, but then I don't post anything that is long, so I've never had time outs. I think if you first compose your answer in Word or Works and then copy and paste it would solve the problem.

The red is good because all off the shelf one size fits all forums are insipid blue and look the same, red makes it stand out and also, of course, links to the R3 house colours.

Edit: Cross posting with Am51 re Word!

[Frances_iom]

FF - if you do make any changes could you test then for the 0.1% users like myself who browse without Javascript and without displaying any images - also I wasn't aware there was any colour on the MB as I always browse with my settings rather than the websites.
Text loads quicker, tho for some reason this MB is one of the slowest and has some of the messiest onmouse hover that I've seen.
Javascript is heavily implicated in many attacks (eg National Geographic (a family safe site) was recently serving malware from its banner adverts

[french frank]

I would still like a longer time for writing a post before being timed out.

Do you mean, 'I would like a still longer time ...'? . The default would be 15 mins, but I first increased it to 60 mins and currently it has been at 2 hours for some while ...

Could we have Radio 3 type pictures on the introduction page, eg Lucy Duran and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan?

Not quite sure what you are calling 'the introduction page'.

Are we actively promoting the site anywhere and how is the spider doing?

The spiders are very efficient. I think I mentioned somewhere that if you're replying to a recent post and decide to google something relevant, you're liable to find the post you're replying to is already the top hit . There's no strategy for publicising the forum though I stick up a link whenever it seems appropriate e.g. on the R3 blog.

Googling "Radio 3 Forum" gives us the top hit and it's already generating sub-links to particular boards. (More in a PM)

I like the red and white.

I am a bit attached to the red myself, though refinements might be possible at a later date.

[french frank]

FF - if you do make any changes could you test then for the 0.1% users like myself who browse without Javascript and without displaying any images - also I wasn't aware there was any colour on the MB as I always browse with my settings rather than the websites.
Text loads quicker, tho for some reason this MB is one of the slowest and has some of the messiest onmouse hover that I've seen.
Javascript is heavily implicated in many attacks (eg National Geographic (a family safe site) was recently serving malware from its banner adverts

I'll discuss this with Mark. I can't think why page loading should be slow (does anyone else have a problem?). Which sort of links are 'messy'?

[french frank]

F_iom

I'm a bit stumped. I'm currently using Camino (a Safari-type browser) with Java/Javascript turned off. The forum itself looks pretty much the same and I have no problem with speed of loading pages.

The only differences I see is that any random/moving content is affected (the FoR3 homepage has an empty lh sidebar but the embedded Listen Live image is visible; the BBC Front Page has all the 'tickertape' headlines presented in a list).

Something else in your personal settings?