Upcoming Site Changes

[bduddy]

Is it just me, or are the spotlights that appear at the top of the page a small subset of the full list? Maybe keep only that subset on the spotlight page?

I agree with others that have said there are too many forums and too many stickied threads in the popular forums. And will there be any discussion of the reputation system? I certainly think it could, at least, use some changes...

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Spotlights rock.
Sticky threads - not so much. There are a BUNCH of outdated/obsolete/just plain useless stickied threads that take up a ton of space at the top of the forum pages.

Wholeheartedly agreed. There are 10 stickied threads in General.

That means a quarter of the threads displayed per page are exactly the same every page, and some have been locked for years. One is even a link back to another sticked thread! They're all important, but they're also using up some really important screen space and repeating each other a lot. It's silly that you have to scroll down (at least on my monitor) before you even see a 'real' thread in the general forum.

A bunch could be moved into the READ THESE THREADS FIRST! announcement at the top of the page, or a new 'bestof' subforum.

[sarah_storer]

I know that by now there have been hundreds of posts commenting on the spotlights. Personally, I really enjoy seeing some new gem of wisdom (or silliness) every time I look up! And just like many have said, having someone clean out the junk would be a much better alternative to just deleting them all together. It is true that there are wonderful links to past discussions that are hidden under all of the inside jokes piled in that section. I'll add my name to the petition for keeping the spotlight posts

[Amanda Morrison]

Originally Posted by Billfred

*No slight to the UFH and WFA areas; they've just collected dust for so long that it's easier to let them go.

At the time these features were implemented, there were far fewer ways to recognize the contributions of these mentors.

UFH did a fantastic job introducing many outstanding but lesser-known mentors (including many who are now pretty much legendary for their contributions to the world of competitive educational robotics*). There were also multiple active CD members that volunteered to oversee the administration behind the scenes, but this is no longer. Now there are many programs and endeavors that have effectively replaced this type of recognition.

They served their purpose. It's time to go.


*In today's world they call this legendary listing "the IFI company directory".

[JohnBoucher]

I have always enjoyed the spotlights. I make it a point to read them. Honestly, it makes me smile when I see one of mine. It's a grass roots pat on the back from the community. When I maintained my blog, I set up a feed from them on it.

We need to do what is best for Chief Delphi. Adding in the social media aspects hopefully will bring more users in and bring some traffic back.

Could we make it an user option? Turn it on or off depending on how much value it adds to your Chief Delphi experience?

[RoboDesigners]

Re: spotlights:
As for being impossibly long: I am probably only 5 or so pages from reading *all* of the spotlighted quotes. (I took a break from CD for a while... )

The "good" quotes can remind us of what FIRST stands for and why we're here.

But, even the funny/"bad" ones can brighten someone's day (namely, mine ) as they see some engineer/programming joke pop up. Sure, there are some that would totally require clicking the "view thread" link to see, but even the silly comments can bring up some interesting threads.

Technical difficulty aside from upgrading, do they really annoy people that much? If you really hate them, you can use Adblock Plus to block the "spotlight" table element.

As a programmer, I totally understand the desire to retire the feature if it requires more work for an upgrade. So, I totally support removing the feature if it's too much work to upgrade.

That said, if they're removed, would saving an archive of all of those quotes in a *.csv or *.txt file should be pretty straightforward? (I forget if it was disclosed how those spotlights are maintained/stored, but I have this odd feeling it's in an XML, CSV, or text file.) If they could be archived for future readers, that would be totally awesome.

[Navid Shafa]

Originally it sounded like the changes would be seen over the next few weeks, but it's been a month since the headline hit CD...

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is eagerly awaiting the new CD

Any news on where we are in the process? I realize this is a big undertaking, is there anything the community can do to help?

[tickspe15]

They have started making some minor changes. For example the unsung first heros feature has been removed.

[Foster]

It's the tried and true method.

Put a CDer in a pot of boiing changes and they will hop out.

But slowly make changes, and the CDer won't notice until it's all done (cooked)

[toastnbacon]

I am of the opinion that the spotlights are a good thing to have around. Maybe there are some inside jokes in there, and maybe it's not all useful. But it's fun to go and explore in there. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have a committee go through and weed out the ones that don't belong there, but I have to say that I can't really see a downside from keeping them.

[pfreivald]

In a pique of irony, I found this thread because of Karthik's spotlighted post about getting rid of spotlights....

I like the spotlights, even the silly ones.

[yash101]

You should really add some AJAX chatrooms for people to discuss about a topic without having to wait for a forum reply. It may boost forum efficiency by a lot

[coalhot]

Originally Posted by team1165wins

You should really add some AJAX chatrooms for people to discuss about a topic without having to wait for a forum reply. It may boost forum efficiency by a lot

I disagree with this, for a few reasons.
For one, it would complicate things. Someone starts a topic about a specific issue, which has been already discussed in length in chat. Also, it would be harder for users to search the forum to find past threads, if things had been discussed in chat (this is a big concern actually, since most of my CD use has shifted from reading random posts to using it as a resource, somewhat like google search)

The second point is that chatrooms cause forum traffic to drop, and discourage regular posting. Why make a thread if you can just ask it in chat? And because of that, forum participation drops. This happened on another forum I am on, that one almost died.

As for efficiency, I need to point out that most users don't stay on CD for prolonged amounts of time. Mostly, we come on, check the frontpage, forums and sub-forums we're interested in, and that's it.

Oh, and there's a chatroom, #firstchat on Freenode if you really want. Warning: it's highly disused...

[PayneTrain]

Forums are designed to encourage people posting collected, coherent discussion to fuel the discourse of a community over a long period of time, also providing a place to be referenced in the future for ideas and a cornerstone of a community's history. Chief Delphi is a slice of FIRSTthropology, or something, like our own little town hall. A chatroom doesn't have any of these benefits and comes with drawbacks that create word vomit and provide nothing of use to the community long-term. There are "chatroom opportunities" through other outlets with FIRSTers, be it webstreams or Facebook messaging, but I don't think a chatroom here is in the best interests of the community. It's like putting a middle school cafeteria in a courthouse.

Of course I'm not an admin, so this opinion is worth about as much as a disco record or AOL Free Trail CD.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

or AOL Free Trail CD.

What? You're kidding me. Those things are very useful as art.