A Linear Board?

POSTED BY: Haken
UPDATED: Wednesday, June 5, 2002 23:06
VIEWED: 7830
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HAKEN

Monday, June 3, 2002 9:36 AM

What is a linear message board? Seems as though many of the Buffy and Angel fans are used to using one of these. Maybe I can build one here if I saw one.

SHAMUS

Monday, June 3, 2002 9:49 AM

This is the one they are talking about. http://www.bronzebeta.com/ Personally, I think the format sucks. However, there are many people who swear by it.

Nothings exceeds like excess.

HAKEN

Monday, June 3, 2002 11:41 AM

It looks like one big BLOG. Not much different from my little Taglog. That's what they want?

SHUGGIE

Monday, June 3, 2002 1:12 PM

I really don't understand why linear boards are so popular. They are a pain to read. Everything jumbled up together.

On the other hand the official Firefly forum one-post-per-page style drives me potty too.

Shug

Her lips were saying 'No' but then I looked into her eyes
... and her eyes were saying 'read my lips'
- Niles Crane

J

Monday, June 3, 2002 4:51 PM

As far as the linear thing goes, it is simple mechanically, I guess. There's no navigating beyond refresh and scroll, refresh and scroll. You can find everything and don't have to keep track of what you've visited and what you haven't. But linears are very particular. The new posts have to be at the top, there has to be spoiler font and support for large sigs, visible IP numbers are preferred (for troll hunting), it has to be archived and searchable - probably all kinds of things I don't even know about. For me, it's easy enough to lurk on in a kind of incoherent way, but genuinely following the convo is hard and contributing to it has always been beyond me.

I come from the opposite end of the spectrum - to me even boards like this and the official Firefly site, as different as they are, fall into one class I call "hybrid" because they're like a bunch of linear boards at the same site. True threaded for me means each post is unique and self-contained on a thread list and there's a hyperlink to each that changes when you've visited it.

This is a great place, though, and I'm green with envy - my coding abilities are to this as "goo goo ga ga" is to English. But I've just started trying to teach myself the hyper-advanced bits of HTML and CSS, along with a JavaScript gimmick or two. In time... in time.

The one thing I'd especially ask about is how to find new posts. It's all great except that keeping track of timestamps and scrolling around for new posts is really unfun. vBulletin (another hybrid format) has a great system of anchors for each post and interwoven hyperlinks and a new messages page that shows you every new message since the last time you were on, using cookies. Does this site have something like that and I'm just missing it?

I've written an epic. Sorry about that.

Oh - and maybe a preview screen. Somehow I catch dozens of errors proofing a preview screen that I've missed by just looking back through the post page.

Case in point - had to come back and edit that very freakin' paragraph.

HAKEN

Monday, June 3, 2002 7:52 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by J:
The one thing I'd especially ask about is how to find new posts. It's all great except that keeping track of timestamps and scrolling around for new posts is really unfun. vBulletin (another hybrid format) has a great system of anchors for each post and interwoven hyperlinks and a new messages page that shows you every new message since the last time you were on, using cookies. Does this site have something like that and I'm just missing it?

This site currently does not have a system like that, but I'm working on something similar. Should be ready real soon.

SHUGGIE

Monday, June 3, 2002 9:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by J:
True threaded for me means each post is unique and self-contained on a thread list and there's a hyperlink to each that changes when you've visited it.

How does that work?

You have a link to a thread - you click on it and have a series of links to posts within that thread? And there's a way of seeing which posts you've already read? Is that it?

Sounds like a lot of clicking to me.

Shug

Her lips were saying 'No' but then I looked into her eyes
... and her eyes were saying 'read my lips'
- Niles Crane

HAKEN

Monday, June 3, 2002 10:58 PM

Check it out. I just wrote the function. Look to your left under latest posts. The only question is, how do you want to sort it? I currently have it sorted from oldest to newest.

This is a one shot deal. Once you leave the thread or refresh the thread, the pointers are reset to the time you read the thread. Now if you were to hit refresh after someone makes a new post, it'll show up.

Just click on the name or date and it'll take you to the post.

Even I gotta pat myself on the back for this little hack. :hyper:

TIEKA

Tuesday, June 4, 2002 12:33 PM

I am much more used to threaded boards. Yes there is a lot of clicking, but the pages load faster, and I only have to load the links and then just what I want to read. If I go to the pages every few days or so, the hyperlinks remember where I've been, (that is, they are a different color for visited. The time is set up by my browser) so I can tell at a glance what is new.

The problem with the linear type forums is load time. I know a lot of people have much faster connections, but I don't see the point in loading 20 messages that I have already read.

Then you add in the confusion of taglog forums. To me they resemble chat rooms. I guess if you are really comfortable in chat rooms and that type of discussions, then taglogs are fine. I still don't like the load time for a taglog.

Now for me the ideal forum is threaded, with 5 posts per page (assuming that there are at least 5 replys to the same post). There is also a nice little greeting when I log on that tells me there have been 7 replies to my posts, 4 new topics, 9 new replies. Then it would put all of the new stuff on one page for me to select from. There would also be avatars, images, UBB coding, and the whole thing would never crash, and would load in less than 10 seconds.

Oh yeah, while I'm at it, I want world peace, cold fusion, and cats that sleep in as long as I do.

Tieka
to all

/:>Cannot find REALITY.SYS...Universe Halted.

HAKEN

Tuesday, June 4, 2002 1:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Tieka:
Now for me the ideal forum is threaded, with 5 posts per page (assuming that there are at least 5 replys to the same post). There is also a nice little greeting when I log on that tells me there have been 7 replies to my posts, 4 new topics, 9 new replies. Then it would put all of the new stuff on one page for me to select from.

Now that I can actually tell you what posts are new in each thread since you read it last, I can do most of the stuff you ask. In fact, I could probably stick all that info under the "MY FIREFLY" screen. You could say that it's sort of an "OUTLOOK TODAY" for this website. If there's a definate interest in this, I can create it.

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