Suggestions for Content on Metro Jacksonville

[TheCat]

Also, forums? Suggestions for improvement?

[TheCat]

What about in terms of functionality? What are some platform things you would improve?

[ronchamblin]

I love the site, as it has improved over the years.  I think that the fellows working it have done an excellent job in all respects.  Its been trial and error.... experimentation. 

I am working now, and will get back with some input during an evening. 

For now however ... is there any way that it can be set up so that I can remove any posts about which I disagree ... and perhaps ban certain individuals?

[funwithteeth]

Also, forums? Suggestions for improvement?

Institute a limit on the number of posts you can quote within a post. It's not uncommon for people, when responding to something, to add to a quote chain of already long posts. (This being due to a lot of text or large pictures.) This occasionally makes a chore of scrolling through active topics.

I don't know if I explained very well what I'm talking about. A quick search for an example didn't turn up anything.

EDIT: Something like this

Person X submits a three-paragraph post.
Person Y responds, quoting the three paragraphs and adding three paragraphs of his own.
Person X responds to that with another three paragraphs, quoting Person Y's post in full as well as the entirety of his original three-paragraph post.
Person Z jumps in quoting everything above, adding two paragraphs and a large picture.

And so on. Once you get to Person Z's post, you have to scroll past nine paragraphs you've already read.

[AuditoreEnterprise]

Also, forums? Suggestions for improvement?

Institute a limit on the number of posts you can quote within a post. It's not uncommon for people, when responding to something, to add to a quote chain of already long posts. (This being due to a lot of text or large pictures.) This occasionally makes a chore of scrolling through active topics.

I don't know if I explained very well what I'm talking about. A quick search for an example didn't turn up anything.

EDIT: Something like this

Person X submits a three-paragraph post.
Person Y responds, quoting the three paragraphs and adding three paragraphs of his own.
Person X responds to that with another three paragraphs, quoting Person Y's post in full as well as the entirety of his original three-paragraph post.
Person Z jumps in quoting everything above, adding two paragraphs and a large picture.

And so on. Once you get to Person Z's post, you have to scroll past nine paragraphs you've already read.

+1

[BridgeTroll]

What about in terms of functionality? What are some platform things you would improve?

Bring back spell check...

[David]

Also, forums? Suggestions for improvement?

Institute a limit on the number of posts you can quote within a post. It's not uncommon for people, when responding to something, to add to a quote chain of already long posts. (This being due to a lot of text or large pictures.) This occasionally makes a chore of scrolling through active topics.

I don't know if I explained very well what I'm talking about. A quick search for an example didn't turn up anything.

EDIT: Something like this

Person X submits a three-paragraph post.
Person Y responds, quoting the three paragraphs and adding three paragraphs of his own.
Person X responds to that with another three paragraphs, quoting Person Y's post in full as well as the entirety of his original three-paragraph post.
Person Z jumps in quoting everything above, adding two paragraphs and a large picture.

And so on. Once you get to Person Z's post, you have to scroll past nine paragraphs you've already read.

+1

I agree as well. It's so annoying when people don't take the time to edit out the almost endless strings of previous quotes.

I mean, who does that?

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Also, forums? Suggestions for improvement?

Institute a limit on the number of posts you can quote within a post. It's not uncommon for people, when responding to something, to add to a quote chain of already long posts. (This being due to a lot of text or large pictures.) This occasionally makes a chore of scrolling through active topics.

I don't know if I explained very well what I'm talking about. A quick search for an example didn't turn up anything.

EDIT: Something like this

Person X submits a three-paragraph post.
Person Y responds, quoting the three paragraphs and adding three paragraphs of his own.
Person X responds to that with another three paragraphs, quoting Person Y's post in full as well as the entirety of his original three-paragraph post.
Person Z jumps in quoting everything above, adding two paragraphs and a large picture.

And so on. Once you get to Person Z's post, you have to scroll past nine paragraphs you've already read.

+1

I agree as well. It's so annoying when people don't take the time to edit out the almost endless strings of previous quotes.

I mean, who does that?

Yeah.  I don't know that we should limit it, but possibly make people take a class on proper editing within the forum.   It would also be a great idea to make peoples' edits visible instead of just having the edit tag at the bottom.  Makes it easier to hold people accountable to their statements in case it wasn't already quoted in the next reply.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Also, forums? Suggestions for improvement?

Institute a limit on the number of posts you can quote within a post. It's not uncommon for people, when responding to something, to add to a quote chain of already long posts. (This being due to a lot of text or large pictures.) This occasionally makes a chore of scrolling through active topics.

I don't know if I explained very well what I'm talking about. A quick search for an example didn't turn up anything.

EDIT: Something like this

Person X submits a three-paragraph post.
Person Y responds, quoting the three paragraphs and adding three paragraphs of his own.
Person X responds to that with another three paragraphs, quoting Person Y's post in full as well as the entirety of his original three-paragraph post.
Person Z jumps in quoting everything above, adding two paragraphs and a large picture.

And so on. Once you get to Person Z's post, you have to scroll past nine paragraphs you've already read.

or get in a hurry and not realize that they're actually posting their comment above someone else's /quotes instead of below it.

+1

I agree as well. It's so annoying when people don't take the time to edit out the almost endless strings of previous quotes.

I mean, who does that?

Yeah.  I don't know that we should limit it, but possibly make people take a class on proper editing within the forum.

[Sonic101]

Maybe you could expand and add more coverage for some surrounding towns. Like make an area for Fernandina or St. Augustine issues and coverage.

Otherwise maybe the UI and layout could be updated. The site doesn't feel as modern and clean as some other sites.

Thanks. We're definitely looking to improve with our coverage of NE Florida communities such as Fernandina Beach and St. Augustine. What are some examples of sites that are viewed as clean and modern?

www.arstechnica.com comes to mind. It has a very expansive forum and an established user base whilst providing news briefs and in-depth features on the front page. Menu bar at the top provides simple navigation.

On an unrelated note: making a comment feels like I'm typing code for Visual Basic, with its bracket commands and identifiers. When I first started using the site it was the most daunting aspect  for me. It feels like it could be simpler, but I realize that there could be a lot of coding involved to change it.

[funwithteeth]

I see what you multi-quoters are doing

[David]

Yeah.  I don't know that we should limit it, but possibly make people take a class on proper editing within the forum.

Basic HTML. just blow out everything except the top line and what you're quoting and make sure there's only one end quote [0/quote] at the end (without the zero) but because user-friendliness is at an all time high maybe there's some nifty tool that'll do the leg work for you.

These kids. Back in my day I had to copy 5 lines of html code just to get a picture to post on livejournal. Uphill! Both ways! Now that I think about it, MJ's interface is similar to a live journal interface in that regard.

[Charles Hunter]

RE endless quotes - another forum I am on only grabs the typed message you are quoting, not every quote that it and all its predecessors quoted and requoted.  Also, if you are responding immediately after another post, quoting it isn't really necessary, it is right there!

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Also, if you are responding immediately after another post, quoting it isn't really necessary, it is right there!

Except that the original poster can a:) edit their comment or b:) delete their comment later on which would leave your's completely out of context and the future readers with a big ol'

[Sonic101]

Why not just have the someone's post and all the replies to that post listed under it and a "Show More Replies" button if there starts to be too many of them. Kind of like Facebook or Gawker sites.