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December 09, 2001

review: BMW F650gs mesage board

Message From: #760 - 2001-Dec-06

Subject: new board: thoughts

Some thoughts on this new BMW f650(gs) message board.

The best feature is that each message has its own URL.

The worst feature is that the Perv 7 days/Next 7
days navigation is ambigous or broken.

First, thanks for the effort, and success in getting it running.
Second, I can offer some advice on how to make it better:

Two features I'd like are optional cumulative voting (karma)
as seen in slashdot or greymatter blogs. Members vote
on good/bad or 1-10 on any message. Members set their
reading karma threshhold and view only messages with
greater than threshhold karma.

Another nice to have feature is a 'message museum' where
particularly good messages -- which stand by themselves,
as trip reports, modification instructions, or whatever
-- are selected by a moderator, or the audience via karma voting,
are maintained as a companion to the board.

Perhaps in July 2002, a page of '50 best messages'
would entice new Chain members to sign up.

Some of the new features are a bit odd or broken. See below:

1. Clicking on + in the subject/author list to expand a thread
should make the article window show the lead article in the
selected thread. Instead, the article window is unchanged
by this click.

2. If I'm logged in. the 'login' link should change to a
'welcome $nicname' indicator. If I see 'login', I click on
it and log in, repeat. repeat.

3. The Prev 7 Days | Next 7 Days are broken in ways that
I haven't fully explored. But keep clicking on 'Next 7 days'
and see duplicated navigation:

Prev 7 Days | Next 7 Days
Prev 7 Days | Next 7 Days

Select 'Next 7 days' a few more times, since it's still
an active link.

Then select 'Prev 7 days' to go back. repeat.

ually you get a list of messages, but it's much
shorter that the list you saw when you first logged in.
Why don't next and previous just go back and fourth ?

When I first view the newmessageboard, the most recent posts
are shown, but the link to 'Next 7 days' is active. Is
this a link to posts which are newer than now ?

I'm just unclear about the direction of 'prev' and 'next'
posts. is prev = older and next = newer, or does next sometimes
mean 'even older' ?

4. A link to 'newest posts' would simplify navigation,
if it linked to a list of the newest posts or newest threads.

5. Regarding the confirmation of registration e-mail

5.1. don't use html in e-mail.

5.2. the page I get from the 'activate account' is broken.
I tried both Opera on NT2000 and and lynx on NetBSD.

5.3. try to keep URLs one line long by not making them so long;
and or not indenting them so much.

4. You might like to uses a special 'newuser@f650.com'
for such automatic verification e-mail and save the

webmaster@f650 for human correspondance.

5. Changes keep happening to the board as I write this message,
and try to verify the issues I'm reporting.

Dates were in and are then not in the subject/author window.

I hope it is safe to make changes to a running board.

Usually, changes are tested, then once a month (or so)
the system is locked for a few minutes for a software upgrade.

6. If I have expanded a thread with +,

read all 48 meassgeas in the thread and
hit browser refresh to see if there are any new posts
in the thread, the subject/author view collapses
the thread, and it's hard to find the same subject again
in the subject/author window.

When I select a thread or + or -, there can be some
weird vertical jumping causing me to lose the
sight of the thread I clicked on, or whose +/- I click on.

7. re DHP's 'there is a major UI issue with not being able to
expand a topic and keep it expanded while examining another topic or message'.

I would agree if I saw that happen, but if I click on two +
to expand two threads, I see two expanded threads. I saw
this before I signed up and specified something about exanding threads.

I could go on, but another thing to consider is to use
an existing message board package. For instance, the Honda

The S2000 board is one of the best.

Oh, and I'd like a much bigger message composition window-textarea.

thanks,

David W. Crawford #760 dc@omor.com

my hands are still cold, I can almost type.

Posted by dc at December 9, 2001 06:46 PM

Comments

Posted by: zaida at April 13, 2003 11:36 AM

Posted by: Randy Weaver at August 29, 2003 03:24 AM

Posted by: Beammer Man at February 12, 2004 07:20 PM

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