[Craig @replies Emperor]

And as a liitle follow up to @phaseshift ‘s posts. Just posted today:

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@ All

Just a note to let you all know that I’ve fixed the Home page widget so it doesn’t show the first few words of your post on hover.

So no need to worry about the first sentence in the spoilers section anymore.

The only thing to avoid now is not @ mentioning anyone not interested in spoilers.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@fatmaninabox @miapatrick

Was just out for dinner with an ex and she checked her Facebook and I just couldn’t believe it. Have most of the Velvet’s and his solo work on vinyl. Even got to see him live a few times.

I think I love White Light/White Heat most (especially with the huge rock intro), but this seems kinda Doctor Who…

[Craig @replies Emperor]

And just to get us back on topic, I found the BBC has posted the speech we’re talking about on YouTube. It really is quite something.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@phaseshift We are so off topic but who cares? Kit Curran was almost a religion in my house during its short run. If I remember rightly Lawson had just been shot to fame by Local Hero (also starring one Peter Capaldi). Such a shame it was so short lived. Watching those clips brought it all back. Thanks.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

Just a side note, but I thought it was quite fun seeing Clive Merrison, who almost always plays stuffy civil servants these days, playing an American, gun toting, smoke bomb carrying, action hero. I didn’t recognise him in the first episode.

I found a pic of him and Deborah Watling (Victoria) having a “Tomb” reunion.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

This weekend sees the start of our discussions of part 3 of Tomb of the Cybermen

http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/before-gap-bg-episodes/

and in our Steven Moffat retrospective we’re revisiting The Snowmen

http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/steven-moffat-retrospective/

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@blenkinsopthebrave It’s one of @jimthefish ‘s great works. We’ll be featuring more of them every few weeks. Plus others from anyone who wants to contribute.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

Hi all, apologies for the site being down for about an hour or so. Apparently there was a network problem that affected the connectivity to the server. The problem was due to failed network equipment at the host’s upstream provider. Their engineers have now replaced the failed hardware and connectivity should be back to normal.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@scaryb I do apologise, my memory is a bit wine addled. Big thanks to you for the Moffat retrospective!

Cheers @wolfweed (you never cease to amaze with the pics) 😀

And I’ve just re-read my post and although I mentioned some people and not others it was just supposed to be representational – I now feel like Cher at The Oscars for forgetting everyone except her dress designer (or was it her hair dresser). To the mods (Time Lords), thank you so much for all the work, to all the bloggers, nothing posted has ever been anything but excellent, and to all the contributors, you make this site what it is, so a huge thank you to you all.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@phaseshift @Shazzbot @jimthefish @blenkinsopthebrave @bluesqueakpip and everyone else.

Wow, I’ve had my head down all day trying to build a bespoke site in a day (almost succeeded), and now lots to consider. This site has, admittedly, slowed a bit (only a little bit) but I don’t think that has anything to do with the site, I think it’s really just down to a lack of new Doctor Who. I think we’ve done a great job of keeping interest going, with the Moffat retrospective (thanks Bluesqueakpip), the BG episodes (thanks PhaseShift), and @wolfweed deserves a medal for his news collating efforts. Seriously big praise deserved there. My Mum keeps saying to me “You’re doing a better job than the BBC”. Such has always been the lot of Doctor Who fans.

It has picked up this week thanks to the trailer and will probably go crazy nearer the episode, and then I’ll probably start getting email from the hosts! I do feel there is a momentum gathering as we near the episode, it seems busier day by day and, thankfully, visits and page views per visit have increased by about 30-50% since the redesign, which at least makes me feel the effort was worth it.

As to the direction the site should take, I honestly don’t know. In the words of Indiana Jones, I’m making this up as I go along. But I did the redesign because I wanted us to stand out as a quality site for Doctor Who discussions. We already were, thanks to the many great contributions, but I wanted the design to try and reflect the quality of those contributions (and also make it much easier to read on mobile).

Why do I want us to be a quality site rather than just a general, popular one? For many of the reasons Blenkinsop gives. But that does kinda make us a bit niche as it will put off people who just want to ask (for the millionth time) how Strax is still alive. But is that a bad thing?

It really comes back to the contributions and I think the USP is their quality. You have all made this site what it is. I don’t care about attracting thousands of users but I would like to attract more people who also like to discuss Doctor Who in the same way we do and gain more distinct voices. How we do that, I’m unsure. I am conscious that if the Guardian couldn’t do that more than it already did then maybe we’re a minority and maybe we’ve already found most of our fellow (time) travellers.

As to polls, there are a few poll plugins for WordPress so it wouldn’t take long to implement a trial (I don’t think anyway, famous last words, I’ve not tried one yet). The one on Radio Times was on PollDaddy and there’s a plugin for that so I could probably implement something almost exactly the same quite easily.

I know there’s been a lot of discussion today about polls. I’m indifferent to them in general (don’t think I’ve ever voted on one), but am quite happy to try them out on the site to see what happens.

Have I made a point or just waffled? Sorry, long day. Hope you get the gist.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@timeloop I had deleted the latest one but got your moment text from the one before. Hope it’s okay.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@timeloop Very weird. I’ll delete the duplicate post.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@timeloop It did go into spam but I’ve removed it and it is now live.

No idea why as there aren’t many links in it.

As you could post here you’re not marked as a spammer. But let me know if you have any other problems.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant I was never anything other than calm. However, your post at 7:56 did frustrate me as it seemed antagonistic when I was just trying to put my point across as clearly as I could. I apologise if I came across as abrupt.

Firstly, you ignored the fact that I had already said I would look into the check box issue.

Secondly, as @timeloop noted, you were unbelievably, eh, pedantic, regarding how to go back to an old tab.

Thirdly, you raised a completely unrelated issue which did nothing to further your argument and just made you come across, to me anyway, as petty. You might just as well have added “…and you smell!”

You have a perfectly valid opinion and so do I, they just conflict. I think the consensus seems to be that control should remain with the user so I think I’ll leave things as they are (although I’ll try to remove the check box so there is no confusion).

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant And I’ve said I’ll work on getting the checkbox working.

Re going back to the previous tab or closing the current one – it’s really just a difference of semantics, both achieve the same thing. Are you being argumentative on purpose?

The Music page problem was noted long ago and people are now mostly posting links rather than embedding, but I have no control over what others do. I’m not spending several days reprogramming WordPress and BBPress over one thread.

This site is never going to be perfect, because it’s just me, not a team of developers and I have a finite amount of time to spend on it. It kinda works and I’m happy with that. You may just have to learn to live with that fact.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@timeloop We’re talking about the one in the top left. @pedant (IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan) wants all links to other sites to open in a new tab. The back button is then useless (so in a way the website has had an influence). Instead you get back by visiting the previous tab.

I prefer to leave the choice up to the user. They can Ctrl+click to open a link in a new tab if they want to. Or just click, and then hit the back button when they want to go back.

Hope that makes sense. What do you think? Do you use the back button or do you open new tabs? Or both? And would you like new tabs automatically, or just when you choose?

 

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant I’m honestly not being indifferent (and I work in communications, not tech, I just dabble in websites). I understand your point but I just have a different opinion from you. I think the back button works most of the time, that  for most users the back button is still something they use, and opening a new tab without them choosing to is a pain, especially on mobile. I’ve watched users become completely disorientated because they didn’t know how to go back from a new tab, because they hadn’t realised a new one had been opened.

I am however looking into how to enable the tick box for target=”_blank”. As you rightly pointed out, it doesn’t work at present. I thought I had a quick fix last night, hence my test posts, but it didn’t work.  Will dig into the functions.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@bluesqueakpip I’m really stuck I’m afraid as I’ve done everything I think I possibly can. The editor now has all of  these set to true:

• paste_remove_styles
• paste_remove_spans
• paste_strip_class_attributes
• paste_text_sticky (i.e. just paste text)
• paste_text_sticky_default

But I’ll do a bit of searching and see if there’s anything else I’ve missed.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant

I’m afraid I’m not convinced. At least, I’m not convinced enough to decide to spend a few days programming when I have other things to do.

1. This site tends to have pretty robust URLs so unless you’re a few screens down into Activity (which is admittedly produced by AJAX once you “Load more”) then the back button is gonna work pretty well, and will reliably take you back to where you were. And yes, tabs did change everything, but I know people who still don’t use them (my boss absolutely hates them). I love them and Ctrl+click opens a link in a new tab, which I do frequently, so I’m not sure what the problem is. Ctrl+click means I have control and not the website.

2. Again, I’m not sure what the problem is. Adding target=”_blank” to links will not make clicking backwards and forwards between pages reliable, it will make it impossible (in terms of going back and forward). You would be able to tab through pages but, as I said, that’s a bit more difficult on mobile. And how do you accidentally hit “back”? Are you posting from a mobile? I’d be interested to know as I just can’t see that ever happening. And I don’t think I could do anything to stop you accidentally hitting “back” anyway unless I was there to grab your mouse.

3. If you mean the check box when adding a link I’ll test it now as I didn’t know it didn’t work. Here’s a test link. Hmmm, seems to have worked, but I won’t know until I post.

4. That’s what Ctrl+click is for. YOU can decide if you are returning, not the site.  Are you making a case for opening a new window every time you click on a link? I would end up with about 300 tabs after 20 minutes.

I do think that “the overwhelming majority of users”, if that’s what they want, need to learn to Ctrl+click. It gives you so much power.

And I don’t think the back button is tyrannical. It’s kinda sweet and helpful really. It’s got me out of scrapes before and has never done me wrong, not once. I like it, and I also like the ability to choose to open a link in a new tab, rather than have it forced upon me. Is forcing that not tyrannical?

[Craig @replies Emperor]

Aw, I know you’re not. It just these stupid computer algorithms 😉

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@scaryb Saved you

http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/the-day-of-the-doctor-the-50th-anniversary-special/page/14/#post-18970

You seem to have been marked as a bit of a spammer for some reason. There are a few posts of yours in spam.

I’ll look into that, as I know you’re not!

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@scaryb I’ve found it!

Am just trying to activate it. For some reason it was marked as spam. Which is strange.

If I can’t reactivate it I’ll PM you the text and you can re-post.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@scaryb I’m just looking through the database now.

Can you remember the first sentence, that would help. Or is the first sentence in your email @bluesqueakpip ?

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@d12345 Thank you.

I think I may have started the Doctor Zero theory with this post:

http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/s33-7-14-the-name-of-the-doctor/#post-9595

Either before the first Doctor or, as @bluesqueakpip suggested, a Doctor who does not count as the Doctor so counts as zero.

And I wouldn’t focus too much on the number of regenerations. They’ll find a way around that, and the Doctor will be regenerating for many years to come.

I hadn’t thought about a future Doctor though. Interesting…

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@d12345 I look forward to reading your posts… with paragraphs. You have some great ideas so it is a shame they’ve not been very well presented so far (to our English language eyes).

On English language forums, unless you are just posting one or two sentences, it is expected that you will break up your text into short paragraphs. Just like I did here 😀

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@d12345 I have edited your last post just to add paragraphs. Do you not think it reads better?

You can do what you want, I’m not telling you what to do, but I can confirm that you’ll be ignored if you don’t split your text up. Just hit “Enter” a few times.

And Shazzbot didn’t call you a roach, she was just comparing you to a roach. It’s slightly different. Don’t take it personally anyway, she abuses me all the time 😕

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant I’m not keen on target=”_blank” on links (unless they are to PDFs). It takes away user control and can disorientate, especially on mobiles, as the back button doesn’t work. And the back button is the second most used feature of the web after hyperlinks.

I hope most people know that they can just do Ctrl+click to open a link in a new window if that’s what they want.

I know this is old, but a lot of it still stands, especially with the rise of small mobile screens.

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/the-top-ten-web-design-mistakes-of-1999/

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@d12345 I think you mentioned the words “redemption of the trolls”. 😉

I hope you will live up to that. You have made some good points but you are not expressing yourself well.

It’s not “my house, my rules”. Far from it. Everything goes here. I’m not telling you what to do. But I’d like to point out that your posts will not be read if they are just big blocks of text. You wouldn’t want that, would you?

Jakob Nielsen is a usability expert and he has made many studies on how users read on the web. If you want people to read your posts you should “write for scannability : don’t require users to read long continuous blocks of text”.

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/be-succinct-writing-for-the-web/

It might be worth a try. Just saying…

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@enlighteneddespot Glad you could join us. Hello back. 😉

Regeneration always seems bittersweet (my ex-girlfriend, who’d never seen Doctor Who before AG Who, burst into tears when Christopher Eccleston regenerated but soon loved David Tennant)… But, somehow, regeneration has always seemed at the right time and for the best.

And next time we get Peter Capaldi. I just hope he can live up to expectation (but given notification of directors and rumoured writers I think they may be stepping up their game). I am hoping to be blown away.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@d12345 Thank you so much for fulfilling your promise! Love your theory. Me, I’m still hanging on to a Doctor Zero theory, but I like your thinking.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@juniperfish Glad you like it. I thought about red and blue but…

As for hosting costs, you and your doppleganger can buy me a pint. But is that two pints or half a pint each 😕 ?

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@craignixon Episode One ends when you see the first Cyberman (or what looks like a Cyberman – we’re not sure if it’s real yet) so you can stop live blogging after that 😀

Look forward to it.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@jimthefish Sounds good, or maybe the Troughton sketch, which I really liked. Will see how they work. Might be a couple of days though. Have stuff to do. Parents are visiting this weekend!

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@osakahatter and @timeloop Thank you both very much. Change is always a bit worrying, but glad you think I’ve got it reasonably right.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant I did realise after I posted that there are still a few places that could still do with not changing the a:visited colour, like the Current Topics on the Home page. Have fixed them and will fix the others shortly, but I think for body content and All recent activity it’s still good to change it.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@steve-thorp I don’t think it does, but when the clocks change it will change with them (I think!). It isn’t exact anyway as the official time of broadcast has been set. I just guessed around 7:15pm.

@pedant I did consider that, and some of the links do have a:visited set to the same e.g. the names at the side and the latest boxes on the Home page. It would look better, however I thought I’d put usability over beauty in people’s posts and in the All Recent Activity box. At the moment, if someone posts 4 or 5 links you’ll know which ones you’ve already seen. Same with recent activity – you’ll know what you’ve clicked on already.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@jimthefish Thanks Jim, really appreciate it.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@scaryb Don’t say I’m not good to you!

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@blenkinsopthebrave

Cheers, in both senses of the word. I just use ‘pop open’ as a term of phrase. I can hardly remember the last time I had to reach for the corkscrew, probably because it happened a few bottles ago.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@jimthefish and @Shazzbot

I’d had that idea myself. It was never supposed to be a home page image that would be static. It was just what I came up with today. I much prefer a dynamic home page.

So Jim, if you’re happy doing that, that would be great. And it would give the site a really individual feel.

@scaryb Change to footer made, and thanks for your contribution to the wording.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@blenkinsopthebrave Glad you like it too. It’s changed even more today (so I hope you still like it), and I’ve got further plans as I don’t feel it’s quite there yet. But it’s definitely getting close.

Now, I’m just about to pop open my evening’s bottle. (I won’t add a smiley).

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@Shazzbot I’d spelled it correctly. It’s just that I’m scared of you. 😉

@tardisblue Many thanks. Glad you like it. 😀

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant It’s either that or your name overlaps your posts making bits of them a bit unreadable. Is up to you.

@Shazzbot You were just telling me to avoid Americanisms, now you’re telling me to use M.O.?

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant That would be cool if I can isolate wiped members pages from general 404s. Will look into it.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

Wow, wiped completely. Not even Anonymous. Coooooooool.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@ddd123 Well, that was 10 minutes.

I’m now going to press the big red button. I don’t even know what it does. Let’s find out.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant @Shazzbot

That’s basically her modus operandi (which I just looked up in case I spelled it wrong).

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@pedant @Shazzbot

There’s a new Spammer feature that I’ve been wanting to try. I may get my chance in 3 minutes.

[Craig @replies Emperor]

@ddd123 And you might look deleted in a few minutes unless you can redeem yourself.

You talk of YouTube videos but no links? You don’t use punctuation. You can’t spell. You sir, all the evidence tells me, are a troll.

Make an interesting post and I’ll let you live. You have 10 minutes from now.

Go on, redeem yourself. I really hope you do. It’s fun to join in properly.

[Author]

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