Moderator edit: CODE TAGS. Please, can someone (anyone) tell me why such a simple thing is so difficult?
It made me smile ... I've been away from the Forum for a while, it is nice to know that things have not changed.
In the current web page for creating a post the codetag icon is the 19th icon. I think it looks like a scroll of ancient papyrus with anglebrackets in front. Now, I am not a great fan of Egyptian hireoglyphics, so I do not associate that with "code". Yes, one can hover over the icon and get an explanation; however: there are the obvious icons Bold, Italics, Leftjustify, bullet list - obvious becasue they are the same in Word and OpenOffice - and there are 10 non-obvious icons that you need to hover-mouse-over to understand.
The newbie is in a hurry. As we all know to well, they do not have time to read all of Nick's excellent sticky "How to use the Forum" (which require another click to follow the link to the full post unless you're in the Troubleshooting section).
Lets think for a moment. What is the most used formatting in a post? Is the Bold? The "glowing text"? "Insert a table"? No, it is of course "Code Tags". From a simple usability point of view it should be the FIRST ICON IN THE LIST, and if possible it should say CODE (not a fancy icon).
The second thing is it that it requires some exposure to code tag formatting but I have no idea how hard that is - I've used for so long. I know some web-editors allow rich WYSIWYG style editing.
I hope this is an answer for the frustrated moderator (I feel with you) and maybe if we all are really lucky David Cuartiellis reads this post and finds a way to tweak the interface.
Msquare:
... and maybe if we all are really lucky David Cuartiellis reads this post and finds a way to tweak the interface.
Uh oh.
Someone has been away for quite some time.
Are you actually asking to make any changes to the forum software ?
David doesn't seem to be doing anything like that, these guys are very busy fighting another fight at the moment.
They do have a staff for that, but don't get me started on how well that works out (i'm sure they are doing their best however).
About the code tags and RTFM in general:
I know of some forum from my country, that (used to) makes you read (you really need to read it) their rules, do some quiz to show you rally read and memorised it, before you can finish your registration to the forum and be able to participate in it.
Do we really need to treat people like presumed nasty toddlers instead of welcoming them ?
Why doesn't anyone seem to have the decency to just read these manuals that are pointed out on top of every single forum section ?
MAS3:
Uh oh.
Someone has been away for quite some time.
Are you actually asking to make any changes to the forum software ?
No, not really. I've been through two forum "upgrades" and do not want destabiliasation. I would think that changing the order of the icons would be do-able with limited effort.
The forced entry exam would be way over the top. Maybe a large and friendly help button brings up the "how to use the forum"?
(Yes, I noticed in other discussion references to arduino.org. Lame of the .org people.)
Would you have to make the comments you are making if the .org people were behind this Forum ?
To paraphrase "What have the .cc people ever done for us ?"
I don't care which group wins that battle. I'm just irritated that despite mutiple requests the current crowd can't be bothered to participate regularly in this section of the Forum.
As we all know to well, they do not have time to read all of Nick's excellent sticky
I don't believe that. That they don't TAKE time to read anything, I believe. Some people, not naming any names, can't even read the advice they get here.
PaulS:
Some people, not naming any names, can't even read the advice they get here.
I don't want to name names either, but some people, with over 700 posts, know we advise you to use code tags, and choose not to on the grounds that "hey, it's just a lot of fuss over a font".
What is the most used formatting in a post? Is the Bold? The "glowing text"? "Insert a table"?
I believe I asked a while back that the number of stupid emoticons got reduced considerably. Nothing has happened. I mean, you can express maybe 5 or 6 ideas with emoticons: happiness, anger, sadness, just joking, surprise, fear. We have 49 emoticons to choose from - a ridiculously large amount.
The Karma is one of the last critical issues to be solved, then everything else should be much simpler to adjust.
I just assigned Adam to the Code Tags issue as well. Next week he can work on it.
I care - I go thru a lot of posts, and having to scroll thru long posts that fill up 2-3 screens worth of text is a pain in the wrist. Gonna get carpal tunnel syndrome going thru all that.
CrossRoads:
I care - I go thru a lot of posts, and having to scroll thru long posts that fill up 2-3 screens worth of text is a pain in the wrist. Gonna get carpal tunnel syndrome going thru all that.
How is getting Karma fixed, whatever "fix" is being implemented, going to help?
Nick, please read the moderators list, we fixed the karma listing and adding.
AWOL, karma will help because we can avoid some spam and/or access to playground based on karma. If karma == 0 the user cannot access some feature you decide.
CODE tags and emoticons are under review and with a proposal from the UX team, again in moderators discussion.
It's great if you fix Karma but I don't Karma should be a requirement for Playground editing access. I prefer to spend my time contributing to the Playground instead of the Forum. I have put some work into the Playground over the last year, hopefully most of it for the good. With my Karma of 0 this would not have been possible with the new system. I'm sure there are others that would also have been excluded. I think you should try the captcha thing first and see how much spam and vandalism there is to the Playground before excluding people based on their popularity on the Forum.
There are no rules for the arduino forums, however moderators seem to "make up rules as they go" A.K.A "hidden rules".
MAYBE we (and i mean moderators / admins) should make a topic with rules / guidelines, and prevent silly topics like this one.
You can actually piss of moderators with your signature, true story!
However i could not find any guidelines about this signature thing.
If there we some rules, we can stick to them and keep the board like the admins/mods desire.
We can only hope this will be made in the future ....
This is my idea about this ..., no need to start a flame-war
janvier123:
You can actually piss of moderators with your signature, true story!
However i could not find any guidelines about this signature thing.
A recommended option would be to use a common sense first. Your large banner was distractive and made the forum difficult to read for others as well. It could be perhaps even better if it would be as a text-only version.
