Website comments
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15 January 2013 at 20:15 #1453
@juniperfish Maybe it’s the Yin Yang fish, but you have the ability to twist me round your little finger: 😀
http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/on-the-sofa/I can see the point though and, as @scaryb wants this topic too, is probably a good experiment.
But no more!
15 January 2013 at 20:34 #1461You’re doing great, Craig. 😀
The forum I help out on quite deliberately selected a database (sql and php) format rather than the standard forum software. Essentially, while we also have a lot of brief conversations, it’s extremely easy to link from one conversation to another. It’s also possible to switch a post from topic A to topic B – or even decide that this post belongs in topic A, B, and C – and cross reference it so it will show up in all those topics.
So we can start a thread on Doctor Who S7, wander on to general Moffatdom and end up on Sherlock – and it doesn’t matter. One of my jobs is switching things into the right conversation; I just go in and relabel the posts, cross referencing if it’s obvious one post is talking about Doctor Who AND Sherlock. I suppose the question I’d ask from experience of a very wide-ranging conversation is: is there a way for the mods to link between threads or even move posts over?
The main board is chronologically based; you’ve got the equivalent with the recent post sidebar.
Hope this is some help
15 January 2013 at 20:57 #1471@craig – thank you! <Yin Yang fish looks extra pleased in your honour>
@bluesqueakpip – that sounds fun, if it really does all link together!
I think this way is fine at the moment <thanks so much for everything @craig our Overlord>
The side-bar which tells you about recent posts is great for navigating. Nice pic for “On the Sofa” 🙂
15 January 2013 at 20:59 #1473Cheers @bluesqueakpip
I’m only just getting used to this myself, but some of those options are definitely available. It is certainly possible to move a post, or posts, to another topic. I can also split a topic from a certain post, so if a topic goes completely “off topic” it is easy to move all posts from a certain point into a new topic.
I’m not sure about being able to make one post show up in several different topics. That’s maybe a good thing though, as the poster thinks they are only posting in one topic. But I may be wrong.
Linking between threads isn’t something built in, but anyone can link to any comment on any topic just by linking to the number/link at the top right of any post (opposite the post’s date).
Re chronology, the topics on the forums pages (once you drill down) are also ordered in terms of which one has been posted to most recently. And we also have the Activity page which shows you all recent activity.
In addition, if we do start to get really busy, anybody can choose to “Friend” users, and get an Activity stream of just their friends contributions (I think).
So there are quite a few useful tools. But please let me know if you think things are getting out of hand. And if you want to be a Mod yourself, let me know, sounds like you know what you’re doing.
15 January 2013 at 22:14 #1477@juniperfish No worries. And I always liked the joke that it was the Doctor who was hiding behind the sofa.
16 January 2013 at 02:38 #1485I think one of the main things to remember is that I don’t think there’s actually a template for what we’re trying to create here (otherwise we’d all just migrate to that other place). It’s a uniquely quirky, experimental (troll and dalek free) little space. 🙂 (and thanks again to everyone for making it that way)
I agree we should leave it for a little while if poss, and see how it evolves naturally – which spaces get used, can we keep (mostly!) on topic without being exterminated or teleported by our mod overmeisters. (kidding! honestly we don’t think you’re that scary @craig @phaseshift !!)
I do have a suggestion for tidying up the front page tho – separate the topics, as you have with the Non-doctor topic categories.
Main bit – on the sofa (nice intro Craig), News, 50th, Speculation on 7 part 2, maybe keep Xmas special here too for now
Previous Episodes, inc Spoilers
Other – Who memories, Companions, Audio, fan fics,
That OK @craig? And as you say it will change as it gradually gets busier.
Right! Am off to try out the sofa 🙂
16 January 2013 at 22:59 #1509But no more!
Please sir … can I have some …
I could do this myself, but I have been wondering about the fragmentation issue myself. There is possibly a thread that could add something though. As we are in January, we have Eleven months to ask… “Who” is the Doctor. We have threads on companions and other items, but not on the man himself.
I thought a thread just called “The faces of the Doctor” could be an intersting idea. In each month in the runup we could examine each of the Doctors. Later interpretations could be referenced and compared, but for January the approach could be the First. @scaryb gave me the idea with the link to the e-book that has been produced. Is that vision of the First Doctor correct? It could also take in those tangential arguments about the perceived “magic” and “spirituality” of the Doctor over time.
We benefit in having people like @scaryb and @blenkinsopthebrave who saw those shows, and people like me who can look back on a missed opportunity in being born too late.
I’ve looked at my available mod functions of taking out the interesting argument that was developed in the memory stand into something more appropriate, but the main function seems to be split (which I oould make work) but if you have additional powers I require you to adopt the mantle of “Demi-God”, if other people agree this is a good idea, of course.
16 January 2013 at 23:29 #1513@craig – yes I second the above idea of @phaseshift‘s <flips four fins in supplication?>
Also – ahem – there are two threads for The Lodger?? One started by @craig with about 10 posts in it (which you arrive at via the picture on the front page) and one started by @phaseshift in which @phaseshift and @JanettB only have posted, which you can arrive in by clicking @janetteb‘s last post link on the right side of the blog?
I love parallel universes and was tempted to start having a conversation with my parallel universe self by conversing across the two spaces 🙂 <goes off to implement spacey wacey-ness>
17 January 2013 at 00:27 #1531Just got in and it is bloody cold in London, and I’m from Scotland! Also, had a few ales so apologies if I’m a bit sarcastic e.g @juniperfish why does it not surprise me that you want yet another topic! 🙂 Any more and I will set @blenkinsopthebrave on to you. “Faces of the Doctor” is a good idea though. Please go ahead and set that up @phaseshift
I am such a softie!
The Lodger issue is my bad. Phaseshift got there before me and I didn’t check. I’ll try and merge the two tomorrow. Apologies.
Will also look into the whole memory strand thing. I don’t think I have any more permissions than splitting a thread, but will check. I was actually thinking about it last night (you guys keep me awake at night) and thought maybe @juniperfish you would like to change your mega-post into our first blog post. With a few tweaks it could really work. I’m not sure I can turn follow ups into comments on a blog, but if not they can be copied and pasted. Although I like database hacking, so probably not a problem.
Sorry, still in our infancy here and still learning!
17 January 2013 at 16:31 #1579I am such a softie!
Thanks for being so 🙂 I promise not to make any more unreasonable demands (for a while!)
My posts on The Doctor and magic and @jimthefish ‘s too, have vanished, so I assume they will be re-posted in the soon-to-be “Faces of the Doctor” thread?
Yes – I could indeed turn my “great thoughts” 🙂 into a blog post, but not right now as I’m up to my ears in work deadlines – so maybe repost the discussion thread as is for now?
Many, many thanks to you and @phaseshift for dedication, work and sleepless nights (!)
17 January 2013 at 17:33 #1585Apologies – I moved the posts last night into the new thread but forgot to post a link here:
http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/the-faces-of-the-doctor/Yorkshire is colder than Ruta 3.
17 January 2013 at 18:11 #1587@phaseshift (@jimthefish and @craig) – thank you 🙂
May we have a picture link on the front page under “Current Topics” for this thread “The Faces of the Doctor” please <puleeeeeese with cherries ontop> ?
Otherwise no-one will ever find it and I love the idea of looking at a Doctor per month over the next eleven months of the 50th Anniversary year…
Your demanding multiple time-lines fish-friend…
17 January 2013 at 18:59 #1617Have added a picture link on the Home page, and merged the two Lodger threads. Also have segmented the Home page after a suggestion by @scaryb and renamed the audio topic to something more appropriate.
Which reminds me, must catch up on more of them while I can. I’m “working” at home tomorrow because of the snow warning. Plenty of time on my hands…
We’ll get this right eventually! 😀
17 January 2013 at 19:22 #1619@craig – you are a star! Possibly even a small supernova 🙂
Right, can we also have – a three dimensional chess board (like the alarming electrified game the Doctor was playing before he found decapitated Dorium), a jukebox and a, uhm, an unlimited supply of jammy dodgers?
Ok, kidding! <slopes under a rock and waits hopefully for biscuits :-)>
17 January 2013 at 19:50 #1623@craig – def a supernova i think.
@juniperfish – think it’s your turn to bring the jammy dodgers…? 🙂
3-dimensional chess game – what a great idea! Multi-player option?? (With random “electrified” squares that explode and log you out of the forum when you land on them…. = @craig‘s revenge on people who keep asking him to add more threads, redecorate etc 😉 )
<looks round casually, examines fingernails, whistling casually… who? wha?… you mean me??!> (It’d be fun though!)
Haha – was just thinking – this website is definitely becoming “smaller on the outside” 🙂
17 January 2013 at 21:21 #1627Hi guys – I have no suggestions, but just observations!
@craig – obviously you’re a star, @everyone else – you’re obviously stars too!I just wanted to mention a design process called “desire lines” which I think we’re adopting and it’ll be fascinating to see what happens.
I work in/’do’ user experience and have always wanted to convince a client to create an unordered system; for behaviour to create the ‘experience’ but, well… clients kinda want to know what they’re paying for, and what I just typed either sounds wanky or scary (or both!).
oh, btw – if it matters, if I post to one topic and any moderator happens to think “actually this should be moved to another topic, or cross-posted to multiple topics” it should be fine, as I’ll basically either go to the thread I had posted to and am interested in, or simply look at all recent activity (wherever it is) – which is what i do as i can’t remember where i posted anyway!
oh and btw again – love the Faces thread.
this is fun – thank you!
18 January 2013 at 01:07 #1641@whisht thanks for the props.
I’m really interested in the desire lines concept. I do websites as part of my job (not full time – hence the piecemealness) so I read the usuals, Jakob Nielson, Steve Krug etc. for UX or Usabilty (are they the same thing?) info, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across desire lines, and yet I really like the idea as I briefly understand it.
I’m all for users creating their own site and I’d love that to happen here (within reason – there’s a certain fish we keep having to reel in!). If you have any articles or papers you could link to that you think are useful on this point I’d love to read them.
19 January 2013 at 10:20 #1719ah @craig – I’m afraid I not only know of any books, but I’m not sure anyone else has ever made the connection!
Maybe there is no connection – it only occurred to me when chatting to a mate who’s a parks manager and something about emergent patterns and behaviours made me think of navigating forums and knowledge bases but… it never went much further than that (story of my life!).
To be honest, you’ll be able to tell me more based on your experience!
oh, btw I could never stand Nielsen (no concept of what “design” means – he conflates it with images), but Krug is better, but I’ll see if I can find a booklist a colleague lent me (she’s far more thorough professional than I!).
21 January 2013 at 21:08 #1797Swimming by here to give a quick “Praise Him!” to @craig again for the timely hosting (and all that diligent backing up too) 🙂
Sliding Doors huh? From trying to fix scripts to building interweb palaces of Who…
I have a teensy request (honestly, I am not a high maintenance sort of fish!). I missed the “edit” window on my Bond post in the Films thread and it has a typo (an unnecessary “our”) in the first sentence which, now I’ve spotted it, is bugging the nice clean lines out of that opener. If you have time, would you mind deleting it from the universe?
<hides under a fez with pernickety other self> I spend too long arm-wrestling the written word 🙂
21 January 2013 at 22:42 #1807@juniperfish. Done. I won’t tell if you won’t tell. 😀
22 January 2013 at 12:28 #1819@craig – thankyou so much 🙂 <sighs with literary relief>
27 January 2013 at 16:23 #1997@craig – just wondering – have you exterminated some of the lurkers recently? I notice some of the more unpronounceable members seemed to have disappeared? I did wonder if they were trolls or just from galaxies with different spelling conventions. In which case we now have an almost 100% record re members being actively involved 🙂
27 January 2013 at 16:51 #2003@scaryb Yes, I went on an cybermat extermination session yesterday after a bot posted 5 spammy updates. Bot sign-ups should be less over time, as the changes I’ve put in place filter through to Google etc. Am trying to keep this board completely human. And yes, we may not have too many members yet, but it’s good that nearly all are active.
27 January 2013 at 17:47 #2007Nice one. We should pick up more genuine members once series 7 (and Dan’s blogs) restarts. Then I won’t look like quite such a lonely geeky obsessive on the “Recent posts” lists, LOL
Btw I wouldn’t necessarily restrict the blog to “humans”, just organic. Others species also welcome to speculate. I think we should bar Time Lords (and Ladies) tho, on grounds of prescience. And def no TARDISes – they have no concept of “spoilers” – pasts, presents and futures being all one to them!
9 February 2013 at 09:29 #2523Just realised there is an edit function on posts! @craig, I love you!
10 April 2013 at 00:22 #4877Hey @craig I’m in – haven’t been able to log on – I sent you an e-mail. Anway sorry to bring website hassles to your door when I’m sure you have enough on your plate…
Yay – I’m back! 🙂 And thanks as ever for your kind and awesome webmastery.
11 April 2013 at 21:50 #5173Hi everyone,
There have been some real issues with the site tonight, as you may have noticed over the last couple of hours. I really do apologise.
Have been on to my hosting company for the last 2 hours. I think it may be resolved, but think I may have to change host anyway if they have become a regular target for hackers.
Will keep you posted.
11 April 2013 at 21:56 #5175Thanks so much @craig and what a stressful pain in the a*** for you! Yes, I’ve been trying to log on without success this evening. So sorry your kind offer is turning into a hassle!
Nevermind. We can always duck back onto the Guardian if this is a regular event until you and @haveyoufedthefish can switch. I think it’s a good idea to support Dan’s blog too in any case.
If there is anything we can do shout out. I personally have the computer know-how of a gnat but others on here may have suggestions?
Is it costing you £?
Take care and put your feet up for a bit – we’ll survive – see you guys here tomorrow or on Dan’s blog or both!
11 April 2013 at 22:05 #5177Cheers @juniperfish
It’s not stressful but it is a pain in the a***.
The hosting doesn’t cost much, about £30-£40 a year, but maybe that’s the problem. I may have to go to something that’s not on a shared server if @haveyoufedthefish can’t help (or at least is ona virtual private server), and that’s about £300 a year – still not that much for a year’s worth of entertainment from you lot so would be quite happy to pay for that.
However, they’ve put stuff in place tonight to stop more brute force attacks. We can only hope that may be the end of it.
11 April 2013 at 22:10 #5179Hi @craig – echoing @juniperfish, unfortunately I have no tech know-how but let us know if we can help.
11 April 2013 at 22:12 #5181@craig – if you have to up what you pay for hosting I’m pretty sure regulars would be happy to contribute via PayPal? There are about 70 members on here now – if 30 folks gave a tenner we’d be sorted 🙂
Keep us posted and let us know!
11 April 2013 at 22:26 #5185Re: shared servers – we use Hostgator for our ‘trial’ site. That is, the one where we rebuild the databases and stress the system. For our ‘public’ site we use ICDhost.
We’ve also had a huge number of ‘visitors’ in the past few weeks who seem to have been trying to find their way in past our defences; what I’ve currently done is block the IP addresses of the worst offenders (who seem to be Russian porn sites) using an .htaccess file.
If it’s any help, I can e-mail you a list of those addresses.
11 April 2013 at 22:37 #5187Hi Craig,
I’ve sent you a PM about something but just to reinforce the general feeling outlined above, please don’t be afraid to ask for help on this. I think everyone is immensely grateful for your efforts and any help we can offer is going to be given withour reservation.
12 April 2013 at 07:06 #5203@craig just adding my support. Like others my computing knowledge is minimal but I do have a Paypal account! You shouldn’t be out of pocket.
Let us know.
12 April 2013 at 11:52 #5207Anonymous @
@craig — just to echo the sentiments expressed above. If it becomes necessary to move to a more stable home then just let us know what you need. We’ll be happy to help I’m sure…
I do have a couple of sites myself and also largely use WordPress and they’ve both been running like crap this week too, so it could just be a general WordPress issue which will hopefully sort itself out presently…
12 April 2013 at 16:22 #5227Hi Craig. It might be worth putting a small note on the front page – I thought you had had a code injection or something!
There are some worthless scum out there, aren’t there?
12 April 2013 at 18:05 #5235Hi everyone and thanks for all the kind words and useful advice. Hopefully this is just a blip and normal service will be resumed shortly. My hosting said they were under sustained attack for 2 days. They’ve put in defences, but now you get a weird pop-up login if you try to log-in.
@pedant I will put a note on the Homepage. I’m just waiting to find out if it can’t be removed. Don’t want to put off new members.
12 April 2013 at 19:14 #5241So it turns out no hosting was safe last night. For some strange reason that kinda makes me feel better (or at least less guilty for using a cheap shared server).
A large botnet has been attempting to break into WordPress websites by continually trying to guess the username and password to get into the WordPress admin dashboard. This is affecting almost every major web hosting company around the world.
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/strategy/item/32269-major-brute-force-attack/
Will still keep an eye on the hosting, but seems it was nothing to do with them. I’ve added more protection against brute force attacks now. So fingers crossed the cyberbots are now banished!
12 April 2013 at 19:17 #5243Oh, and I’ve removed the weird log-in pop up that some people got. That was my hosting’s cross-server solution, but I’d rather handle my own security in a way that’s unobtrusive to users.
Now… back to The Doctor, finally… 😀
12 April 2013 at 21:29 #526113 April 2013 at 12:21 #5317By the way, @craig, if you should ever feel inclined to adopt a website motto, I’m particularly fond of Rory’s comment from The God Complex.
No, it’s amazing you’ve come up with a theory even more insane than what’s actually happening.
Something like “We come up with theories even more insane than what’s actually happening.”
😀
15 April 2013 at 06:40 #5639@craig Just reinforcing what everyone else has been saying (and my recent messages) You’re doing a great job and if you ever need help/support (£s ootherwise), just ask. Daleks, Trolls, Botnets and GIs beware! 🙂
@bluesqueakpip‘s suggestion for a webste motto would get my vote 🙂
Oh, and a big hi to all the newbies. Great to see the forum filling up.
15 April 2013 at 12:10 #5645@craig I heartily third @scaryb and @bluesqueakpip‘s suggestion for a by-line for the Forum! Can we have that? <pretty please> 🙂
15 April 2013 at 17:48 #5663@craig – thanks. 😀
15 April 2013 at 17:54 #5665@bluesqueakpip My pleasure. I like it!
15 April 2013 at 18:04 #5667nice work @Bluesquaekpip, @scaryb and @juniperfish (and of course @craig all-praise-him).
that by-line made me laugh!
(and after a perusal of the Guardian blog, we need far more of that!)15 April 2013 at 19:52 #5685@craig @bluesqueakpip @scaryb – awesome – that’s so “us” 🙂
16 April 2013 at 17:18 #5779Hi @craig – site seems to be running well again so thanks for all your efforts 🙂
I wondered if the music thread could have its own spot on the front page under “Non-Doctor Topics”? <looks supplicating>. Because I can’t find it (it’s not obvious where it is unless someone has recently posted in it) and it’s fun?
But what to call it? “On the Decks”?
16 April 2013 at 17:42 #5783Love our new motto. As a mission statement, it describes us here perfectly…
16 April 2013 at 19:34 #5817@juniperfish My pleaure. And yes, have been meaning to do that. I’ll think of something 😀
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