It's Tuesday, again, and that means it's time for the Tuesday Rant. This is the thread where you get to complain to us, and we get to ignore you totally without even reading your comments. Just kidding - we read every comment carefully before totally ignoring it.
Unfortunately, some of the past Tuesday Rants went a little off-track, so we have to present a new set of Rant Rules. If these get general approval, we'll modify our Terms of Service and notify all users.
First, no toolbar rants. This is now explicitly forbidden unless accompanied by cute pictures of cats. Anyone complaining about the toolbar without posting a lolcat will find their toolbars mysteriously double in size each time they complain. Don't say I didn't warn you! Pink unicorns are not an acceptable substitute for cats.
Second, no rants over a thousand words, and yes, I'm looking at you, Josh. A good rant should be focussed and precise, you make your point, add some italics for emphasis (but never underlines!), and Post. Fifty to a hundred words is perfect.
Lastly, keep your rants on topic. Rants about mothers-in-law, crazy bosses, and incompatible browser versions are not allowed by the new ToS. Neither are rants about rants, or rants about us missing the last couple of Tuesdays.
Thanks for your patience and help in making these new rules work. Now let the ranting start!
Okay…my topic of the day is collaboration. I'll start with forums, though very functional some tweaks would enhance the experience. Some new features I'd like to see are: 1. a simpler way in the WYSIWYG editor to post photos, users not familiar with the syntax are blown away on how to upload a pic and 2. the ability to watch or subscribe to individual threads or forum categories. I could have thrown in emoticons but I would probably have to turn in my man card so I'll stop at 2.
Next topic for collaboration is the watching feature. There were some groans when it first came out but the capability to "Watch" individual pages, categories, or the entire site was a great tool to assist in collaboration. (allright, technically this last paragraph wasn't a rant but more like butt kissing…my apologies)
Enough for a Tuesday, Ken
I don't always get mail notification on new PMs! Moreover, when I'm on Wikidot and have a new PM I don't have the little envelop flashing that on every other service tells me, to go to my messages. Unacceptable!
Piotr Gabryjeluk
visit my blog
What's even worse is that when Wikidot does actually tell you "Notification waiting", it makes you take a long detour to see the message, and does not take you back to where you wanted to go. And I really don't like the popup, it just gets in my way.
I also do not like that PMs are not pages with URLs. This sucks. I'd like to have every PM a page on my private wiki, and a module that lets me send a comment back to a user so that our discussion is nicely threaded.
Anything that is not built using sites, categories, templates, modules, and tags, is on my kill-list.
Portfolio
I like the popup… it gets in my way :D
My complaint about the PMs is that when you go to them, you lose the page were were going to (from the pop up). The links should open a new window or tab.
Timothy Foster - @tfAuroratide
Auroratide.com - Go here if you're nerdy like me
1. Why is on THIS page no hint, no remark, no legal entry hosted and powered by Wikiot ?
- only the loved ( I have no lolcats by hand) top toolbar is here with a link to the main page in the left image.
2. Why is there no standard category or CSS ( like _no_surrounds_) to use it on some special pages ( like our www.poll.wikidot,.com now use it ) - this would be fine for all who would like to show some content on other sites/pages iframe-ing this one page wihtout all surrouondings tool-bars, Side-bars, headers, footers… This is explicit a break of the ToS - but this would be known and prepared by wikidot itself.
Of course with a lovely automatic inserted powered by Wikidot!
3. Why does nobody tell me that there is a thread-watching possibility ? - means without the complete rest.
( I only have to stop watching the site ( this gives the menu for watchng back on screen) and start watching the page with the forum-thread).
- Or do I understand here something wrong ? -
Oh God, 192 words now, I am guilty…
Service is my success. My webtips:www.blender.org (Open source), Wikidot-Handbook.
Sie können fragen und mitwirken in der deutschsprachigen » User-Gemeinschaft für WikidotNutzer oder
im deutschen » Wikidot Handbuch ?
Since this is Tuesday Rant,
I would like to repeat a double request/wish I made several months ago on the pro-side:
I agree — the first wish in particular would make the next/prev page module more accurate in terms of autonumbered pages too (one could delete a page and recreate it, and it would be in an incorrect order).
The second wish is VERY powerful.
There's something different about your sig… very funny!
Really ?
I guess it's about your karma in footer, you cheat!
Piotr Gabryjeluk
visit my blog
Gabrys,
Did you miss the community-crime ?
I've noted the two requests, both very useful. Indeed, ordering by title is useless. Setting future date on blog postings gives us auto-timed blogs… in one go… lovely.
Portfolio
Please, do not say that, do not remove a functionality that works well on some sites for good reasons.
Thanks for having read this post.
You did write "not the title" and you did explain why titles are not sortable. Anyhow, I don't think we ever removed functionality that worked well on any site.
Portfolio
Can we please have an option to let ListPages list (and not ignore) pages starting with an underscore? That's must for File-Manager-kind-of tasks.
Yes. It already ignores pages starting with underscore but for a file manager we'd need the ability to show hidden pages.
Portfolio
My this Tuesday's rant is the way preview works. I would like to be able to see comparation of two changes without having to scroll, scroll, scroll, and scroll down, until I get to the part that was changed. Also, I would like to have some button that says: next change, so I can see immediately next change, instead of what I have to do now: back to scroll, scroll scroll, scroll up, then to click to another two versions then click to comapre versions and then again scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, down… It is time consuming, nerve consuming and awfuly borring.
Wikipedia solved it in a very nice way. You compare two versions, and it shows you only the part that is changed. Then you click NEXT you see next change, then again NEXT, and you see next change etc…
I know that maybe you didn't count with very long pages, but I do have them, and when I have to check what some of my members wrote or changed, it is really unpleasant job.
Can this be chaged?
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
Actually, that wouldn't be too hard to do: Wikidot would just need to put an ID in the span of each change (where source has a different colour), and a floating javascript button that says "next change", and would increment the ID value by one (change-1, change-2)
Personally, I'd like to just see the differences with some context: it seems redundant to show the whole page, even for short pages.
Portfolio
After a great weekend with Bono and the lads… [bulk of comment deleted by mods due to being totally off-topic, not to mention the atrocious spelling] … Can't find a spellcheck tool here?
However, for those interested in the original post, click on "show more" then on one of the revisions. [gerdami]
The Power Lead System With The Tools and Training for Your Online Success!
http://viralurl.com/TheAusterity-Buster/02
That was only 433 words?! It seems like 2,000 while reading it. ;)
Other stats:
Although you broke Pieter's rules on at least one level, I appreciate your plug for tweetlater - it looks cool!
-Ed
Community Admin
This is my first ( or second? ) rant.
I don't like the way page tags works; just a list of "space separated" tags is no good.
When I insert tags in a page I would like a list from where to choose existent tags, that is because I am often in the situation where ( let's talk about cats ) some pages are tagged as cat some others as cats some others as kitties.
That is because I can't remember every tag I've added one month ago.
So please add a list of already used tags!!! :D
I like the idea.
Portfolio
Me too!!!
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan. - Paul McCartney
Confluence offers this kind of thing…
My rant for today:
It's Wednesday afternoon and there's still no new blog post here.
Piotr Gabryjeluk
visit my blog
I've made an issue on our internal tracker and will get someone on the Wikidot team to look at your request probably sometime in late 2010.
Portfolio
Such an awesome MTTR!!!
I'm ranting. Well, a small rant..
The ListPages module should be able to sort by the author of a page! Is that possible?
It would mean that the websites that create a profile page for each member (TI-Basic, for example) would be able to list the most recent / highest rated / all contributions from a user.
This could be combined with other parameters to only show the most recent contributions by a certain user, in a certain category, with certain tags attached — for example.
~ Leiger - Wikidot Community Admin - Volunteer
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