a “thrarticle”
Lovely thought. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Bob McCown said:
For the articles, I keep going back and forth on them. They get almost NO traffic now, being off on their own tab. I’m wondering if a special kind of thread, where only the author has rights to continue the thread. And have a separate forum, like we do now, to discuss the article.
I think you are on the right track here, but I agree with Bruce that on-topic feedback within the thread is helpful. I have no idea if this could be implemented without serious work, but rather than lock the thread to only posts by the originator, how about making the originator a moderator of that specific thread only. This would the originator to delete off-topic replies. I know you have always been against deleting posts except in really rare cases, and I concede that it could easily be abused - so maybe the ability to move a post to a linked “chatter” thread or something like that.
In any case, keeping articles them within the forum, using the same editor and picture posting techniques would be a good move.
I really don’t see the issue with posting to articles. It is basically the same editor as for a forum thread, just with additional restrictions and abilities. I just posted an article (first) on truck articulation. I generated the article completely in Notepad, including the link addresses for photos and video. Once I started the article it was simply copy/paste the text into the body area, and copy/paste the photos link into the ‘insert/edit image’ button. I did have difficulty embedding the video which I am sure I can figure out at some point, in the mean time a plain link to the Youtube video will work.
Bob McCown said:
For the articles, I keep going back and forth on them. They get almost NO traffic now, being off on their own tab.
I wonder if it isn’t another foible of this forum software. When I looked at the “Articles” tab, there were only 7 or 8 listed (or so it seemed.) It isn’t at all obvious that there are dozens more categorized under the menu on the left! Or is it just me who can’t see for looking (as we say in the UK)?
If it’s not just me, then maybe a counter under each link telling you how many articles are to be found in (e.g.) Rolling Stock? Maybe list them by date? Maybe they need a bit more pizzazz to entice people to view them?
I don’t think it’s just you Pete, I had a similar experience yesterday when I finally noticed all those categories on the left, and holy cow, I hit the Mother Lode!
Pete Thornton said:
Bob McCown said:
For the articles, I keep going back and forth on them. They get almost NO traffic now, being off on their own tab.
I wonder if it isn’t another foible of this forum software. When I looked at the “Articles” tab, there were only 7 or 8 listed (or so it seemed.) It isn’t at all obvious that there are dozens more categorized under the menu on the left! Or is it just me who can’t see for looking (as we say in the UK)?
If it’s not just me, then maybe a counter under each link telling you how many articles are to be found in (e.g.) Rolling Stock? Maybe list them by date? Maybe they need a bit more pizzazz to entice people to view them?
This software certainly does have its foibles. Despite how its marketed, it’s clearly not an integrated system, nor is the interface consistent across the site. That’s why I’m hoping to go simpler in the next iteration.
The big thing I’m wrestling with is the whole concept of the freight shed. Disk space is terribly expensive to rent, and there are far cheaper (and easier to use) options out there that are dedicate photo hosting sites. I use IMGUR myself.
Cliff Jennings said:
I don’t think it’s just you Pete, I had a similar experience yesterday when I finally noticed all those categories on the left, and holy cow, I hit the Mother Lode!
Cliff and Pete this is what I plead guilty to in a post a couple of days ago 23 July 2020.
My reaction was similar, in my thread I made a recommendation of the categories be on the first page every time the tab is open.
Bob McCown said:
Disk space is terribly expensive to rent, and there are far cheaper (and easier to use) options out there that are dedicate photo hosting sites. I use IMGUR myself.
Bob: how much disk space do you need/anticipate? AWS pricing right now is $0.10 per GB-month. If you had 0.5GB/person (current bronze plan) and 1000 people using on average 20%, that’s 100GB or $10/month. Right? Am I understanding the math? I’m trying to get calibrated on how much “expensive” is… But I bet that’s a low ball figure for how much you are currently storing. And you’d need to double that for safety (backup even though AWS has a reliable file store).
Jim Rowson said:
Bob McCown said:
Disk space is terribly expensive to rent, and there are far cheaper (and easier to use) options out there that are dedicate photo hosting sites. I use IMGUR myself.
Bob: how much disk space do you need/anticipate? AWS pricing right now is $0.10 per GB-month. If you had 0.5GB/person (current bronze plan) and 1000 people using on average 20%, that’s 100GB or $10/month. Right? Am I understanding the math? I’m trying to get calibrated on how much “expensive” is… But I bet that’s a low ball figure for how much you are currently storing. And you’d need to double that for safety (backup even though AWS has a reliable file store).
That’s an interesting idea I didnt think of, and we use S3 a LOT at work. AND the new software has a built in “Place file and image uploads on Amazon S3 storage” setup screen. Using AWS pricing calculator, the storage itself is about $15/month, plus traffic costs. This might work, I have to profile the amount of monthly transfer to get a complete picture.
GAP said:
Cliff Jennings said:
I don’t think it’s just you Pete, I had a similar experience yesterday when I finally noticed all those categories on the left, and holy cow, I hit the Mother Lode!
Cliff and Pete this is what I plead guilty to in a post a couple of days ago 23 July 2020.
My reaction was similar, in my thread I made a recommendation of the categories be on the first page every time the tab is open.
I agree, great idea. And, as Pete suggested, give those category headings a bit more pizzazz. It’s almost like the Articles section already is, or is close to becoming, a great online “magazine,” except no ads, no monthly hardcopy, and no cost. What a wonderful resource to leverage a bit more.
Cliff Jennings said:
GAP said:
Cliff Jennings said:
I don’t think it’s just you Pete, I had a similar experience yesterday when I finally noticed all those categories on the left, and holy cow, I hit the Mother Lode!
Cliff and Pete this is what I plead guilty to in a post a couple of days ago 23 July 2020.
My reaction was similar, in my thread I made a recommendation of the categories be on the first page every time the tab is open.
I agree, great idea. And, as Pete suggested, give those category headings a bit more pizzazz. It’s almost like the Articles section already is, or is close to becoming, a great online “magazine,” except no ads, no monthly hardcopy, and no cost. What a wonderful resource to leverage a bit more.
I agree that the articles section could be classed as a magazine.
I think that the rise of online forums has also contributed a little to the demise of printed magazine, only recently the local newspaper changed from hard copy to online due to the rising costs of printing and distribution.
This has been happening quietly for a few decades for example FAX then email replacing a large part of the Post Office letter delivery business, I left the Post Office in 1983 and it was happening then…
Bob McCown said:
Jim Rowson said:
Bob McCown said:
Disk space is terribly expensive to rent, and there are far cheaper (and easier to use) options out there that are dedicate photo hosting sites. I use IMGUR myself.
Bob: how much disk space do you need/anticipate? AWS pricing right now is $0.10 per GB-month. If you had 0.5GB/person (current bronze plan) and 1000 people using on average 20%, that’s 100GB or $10/month. Right? Am I understanding the math? I’m trying to get calibrated on how much “expensive” is… But I bet that’s a low ball figure for how much you are currently storing. And you’d need to double that for safety (backup even though AWS has a reliable file store).
That’s an interesting idea I didnt think of, and we use S3 a LOT at work. AND the new software has a built in “Place file and image uploads on Amazon S3 storage” setup screen. Using AWS pricing calculator, the storage itself is about $15/month, plus traffic costs. This might work, I have to profile the amount of monthly transfer to get a complete picture.
Too cool. I’m old enough to remember how exciting it was to get a 500 MB hard drive for ONLY $500! Today, I can get a 1 TB drive for $45! (Just a SLIGHT improvement!) (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
Bruce, we are dating ourselves.
My first work on IBM Computers was upgrading from 10mb to 20mb Hard Drives!
Lou Luczu said:
Bruce, we are dating ourselves.
My first work on IBM Computers was upgrading from 10mb to 20mb Hard Drives!
And I sold & serviced computers for Tandy/Radio Shack. 8" floppy disks with, I can’t remember - what 500K on each? My first PC was a TRS-80 Model III - I later bought a used Model 1 to play with. Both used cassette tapes for storage. No random access unless it was loaded in RAM - which was only 16K. I still have pristine copies of nearly every Tandy/Radio Shack computer catalog. All together they might be worth $5 (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
Is this a contest now? I programmed an 8008 (8 bit microprocessor) by hand assembling the object code and typing it into an EEPROM programmer. Had 1.25k EEPROM and 256 bytes of RAM.
Or: I programmed a Nova minicomputer using paper tape and had to memorize the paper tape reading program that I entered using switches on the front panel.
I’m an oooooooooooold neeeeeeeeeeeerd…
Lou Luczu said:
Bruce, we are dating ourselves.
My first work on IBM Computers was upgrading from 10mb to 20mb Hard Drives!
My first Com Pewter was a Commodore 64. I thought I had the world by the tail when I upgraded to an IBM 8086, with a 20 MB hard drive, and 256K memory.
Well hell you guys, that’s nothing. I once stayed at a Holiday Inn Express!(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
And I worked with an IBM 360 with 5 tape drives and a disc cabinet. Took up the area of my living room and I felt like ‘Damn we’ll never get this into personal use’ (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Mine was a pair of 360 Model 30s at Montgomery Wards, each with 8 2401 tape drives and 12 2311 DASD devices. They both had 64K of memory. In hindsight I’m amazed how much work they did with such a small amount of memory. They were both upgraded within about six months to Model 50s with 256k.
Thanks for the prod to my memories, real not virtual. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
THERAD DRIFT, THREAD DRIFT, DANGER Will Robinson DANGER!!!