Re: [Killietalk] Last Post

[Barry Cooper <barry_cooper at mac.com>]

First, I'd like to say that I gratified by the friendlier tone of this 
conversation in the last couple of days. It may seem paradoxical for me 
to be discussing the forums here, but I know that some of you haven't 
tried the forums yet and I am willing to offer any help and advice that 
I can to assist you. With that, let me make a couple of points in 
response to some of the comments that have been made.

1. Latest posts - there are two aspects to this. Posts can be sorted in 
various ways, but the default is latest posts first (i.e. at the top) so 
if you go to the AKA site and select a partaicular forum you'll see the 
latest. in that forum. Perhaps even better, on the forum home page 
(currently also the AKA site's home page) you'll see a drop-down menu 
headed Main Options. Click on that and one of the options is View New 
Posts. Choose that and you see a screen with the latest posts. You can 
also choose to view unread posts. In both cases the new/unread posts 
appear in a list regardless of which forum they were posted to.

2. Forum topics - at the moment I have set up a limited number of forum 
topics. We can create an unlimited number of forums but the disadvantage 
of having too many is fragmenting the posts too much. The main forum, 
which I expect will be the most used, is General Kllie Discussion. That 
can be used for any subject to do with killies. I have set up specific 
forums for Beginner questions and for Foods & Feeding, Disease Issues 
and Fishroom Issues. These seem to me to be areas where it might be 
helpful to separate the subject matter out. In addition, I have set up 
specific forums for Show Results and Collectors' Reports. The last, I 
hope, might eventually become a good reference for collection codes if 
we can encourage collectors, internationally, to enter a report on their 
trips. Finally, on the topic of discussion areas, AKA members can 
discuss policy issues in the appropriate member only forum.

I am, of course, willing to listen to suggestions on additional forums 
to add - should we have genus specific forums? I can't imagine one for 
every genus. However, we could have Soil Spawners or South American 
Killies, and so on. I think we should play this by ear as we see what 
kinds of areas users would like to create. At present, for example, I 
have been asked to create one for Lonely Hearts. As that's sort of a 
unique area, it might be a good idea.

3. Page layout - One valid concern that I did not recognize is a 
consequence of the size and resolution of the computer screen being used 
by the user. I have a large, wide screen, monitor and did not 
immediately recognize a potential problem with the default theme. That 
is, if you use a small monitor, the center panel, with the forum 
information ,could be uncomfortably narrow. Also, if you use a window 
narrower than about 12", the side panel (containing the diver) will 
overlap the right menu column (which contains the mini-cal and latest 
news blocks, etc.). That side area is purely decorative. I liked the 
flashlight metaphor for killie keepers but I admit the diver isn't quite 
right for an aquarium theme (unless it's one of those giant Dutch 
aquariums). That theme is a modification of one that brings to mind the 
ocean). Anyway, I am working to see if I can eliminate that decorative 
side area without screwing up the rest of the layout of the site. In the 
meantime, you can choose a different theme from those shown in the right 
menu panel. You can use aka-traditional, which closely resembles that of 
the old AKA site, or "default", which is basically a black on white 
theme. I am looking at several other themes and intend to add one or two 
more (possibly replacing default with a more attractive black on white 
or black on light gray). The latter may be helpful to those that have 
problems reading white on blue. The point is to offer some alternatives 
to make viewers on all sorts of systems as comfortable as possible.

4. Notifications - Another question that has been asked concerns 
directing notifications to particular email addresses. At the moment, 
you can choose to have notifications sent as PMs (Personal Messages) or 
email. For PMs you have to go to the AKA site to see them, which I don't 
think is what most users want. So, in the Notifications panel at the 
bottom of the page make sure your notification method is email. There is 
a "Change" link that allows you to change it if it says PM. Now, to 
answer the question above, email notifications are sent to the email 
address shown in your profile.  You can change that to one at which you 
wish to receive these notifications by clicking on Manage Profile at the 
top of the page.

5. "Friendliness" - One thing that frustrates me a little are comments 
along the lines of "I don't like forums - too unfriendly". Such comments 
are not very helpful in that they don't give me any hints as to what the 
user doesn't like. The forums module used on the AKA site has the same 
functionality as virtually all other forums software. The layout may be 
a little different but every forums package is somewhat different in 
appearance. Frankly, to paraphrase PT. Barnum, you can please some of 
the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but 
you can't please all of the people all of the time. These forums will 
become more friendly with familiarity. It would please me greatly if you 
all would give them a fair trial. If you have suggestions to improve 
them, please tell me. I will at least try to respond to them. Although I 
cannot modify the underlying software I can make some changes to the layout.

Just to be specific for a moment, the forums module that we are using is 
the standard for the Content Management System for the AKA site. There 
are reasons for using it. It is well integrated into the CMS, it uses 
the CMS's database and, perhaps most importantly, when you are logged 
into the AKA site you are logged onto the forums (as well as other 
modules). A separate forums installation would require its own unique 
login name and password, an unnecessary inconvenience. Remember that 
with the new AKA site you can use the Remember Me function (on your home 
computer) when you first log in. After that, you will automatically be 
logged in when you return to the site (unless you deliberately log out).

To close, I would like to repeat my plea - please give this a try. I 
think you'll quickly become used to it. If any of you need specific 
help, please let me know by private email (or PM on the AKA site).

Barry

--
Barry J. Cooper
Sweet Home, OR 97386

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