+118677 @@ Communications with Andre Massow. With reply. 28/4/14
A day or so ago I wrote a letter to Andre Massow (Site owner and Developer). It was mostly in point form. Andre replied today. Thank you Andre, your quick reply is greatly appreciated.
Andre's reply was also in point form. I have combined the two letters in order for it to make more sense.
I am copying it here because I want everyone to know what is happening. If you have comments, ideas or whatever please let me know. You can send me a private email or you can add a post to this thread. You can even make an entirely new post. It is entirley up to you but I always appreciate polite / constructive feedback and I will pass your thoughts and ideas onto Andre!
-------------------------------------
Hi Andre,
I am wondering what is the best way to communicate with you.
I usually mention some of the forum pluses and concerns in my daily wrap and I am wondering if you read it. It would make it easier if you did.
**Reply: The last two days I have completed the translations for German, French and Español and the days before I have added more servers for better site performance and redundancy (especially in the US & Canada).
Just in case you don't I will list some here.
1) At present the delete post is not working. I accidentally posted my wrap twice tonight and I really don't want both to stay there.
**Reply: 1) I will check the log files and see what the reason for the problems might be.
2) Alan's and my contact details have been appearing on the answer page. I believe Alan has already mentioned this to you.
**Reply: 2) This is very strange, I have not seen anything like this and at the moment I have no idea what kind of bug in the source code might result in such an error. I will investigate this
3) The search function is pretty hit and miss.
**Reply: 3) Only a basic search algorithms are implemented so far. I am still working on an update.
4) Thank you for including the names on the posts lists - This makes it easier and more friendly for us.
5) Thank you for the extra symbols that you have included.
6) I used the stick note facility today and for the first time it actually did work. Thank you.
**Reply: 6) Thanks for the feedback
7) I really like the blue and black colour coding. Although it would be even nicer if we could mark questions as unread.
**Reply: 7) I will consider a new button for this
8) Can you include an information icon (and maybe some other symbols) for the sticky notes please.
**Reply: 8) If you send me a list of icon-types you would like to use, I will try to find some nice icons
9) I am really eager for the upload attachments to work and for the old attachments to display properly. To the best of my knowledge these don't work yet. The old upload and display system was really good.
**Reply: 9) Legal problems with the uploads prevent the re-activation of an upload function at the moment. (Someone could upload content which is illegal here in Germany and as a 'service provider' I have to check each upload which is not possible at the moment) As a workaround I have added the Tiny Pic upload service in the "add image" button of the content editor. With this service you can upload an image to tiny pic and insert the resulting url of the image into the image url field.
10) I am also keen for the message centre to work properly. Some of the features on the old system were really good. I especially liked that the messages sat in the out box until they were open by the recipient. I often edited them and sometimes deleted them in the mean time and I knew whether or not they had been read.
**Reply: 10) Good point, I think I will enhance the message centre very soon
11) Would it be possible to include a 'Thank you - checked as correct by .....' box so that I (and others), know if a mathematician has already checked an answer. Then I can just tick it without any concerns. I want answers ticked if they are correct but I do not have the time, or sometimes the knowledge, to check them all.
**Reply: 11) How to determine if a 'mathematician has already checked an answer'? Ideas?
I am sure there are other things but that is all i can think of at the moment. Could you please keep me informed of any time frames etc - I will in turn keep the forum informed.
**Reply: Because of the holiday on Thursday here in Germany, I think I will have some extra hours to implement the missing features
Thank you Andre, the forum is slowly coming together and I know that you are working hard to make this happen.
**Reply: Thank you very much for your effort to improve the forum!
--------------------------------
NOTES:
2) I have since noticed that fault 2 happens when somone clicks on the person's name down the bottom of the page where 'Who is online' is displayed. I have already passed this onto Andre.
9) I haven't successfully used these features yet. I think some other people probably have. Maybe those people could help the rest of us to understand?
----------------------------------
melodymathforum@gmail.com
+33661 With regard to problem 2, I've realised that everytime a member answers a question, the one line summary that appears in the Answer (and on the Question) page contains a link to their profile. The one line summary is text only - it doesn't even cope with superscripts and subscripts for example. If the first line in the reply is something that can't be represented by text - a LaTeX insert, for example, a blank appears on the summary line and just the profile link is left.
+118677 9/6/14
Another problem for Admin to iron out
-------------------------------------------------------------------
(log(sqrt(10)+1))^2=
$${{log}_{10}\left({\sqrt{{\mathtt{10}}}}{\mathtt{\,\small\textbf+\,}}{\mathtt{1}}\right)}^{\,{\mathtt{2}}} = {\mathtt{0.383\: \!570\: \!947\: \!098\: \!647\: \!1}}$$
-------------------------------------------------------------------
log(sqrt(10)+1)^2
$${{log}_{10}\left({\sqrt{{\mathtt{10}}}}{\mathtt{\,\small\textbf+\,}}{\mathtt{1}}\right)}^{\,{\mathtt{2}}} = {\mathtt{0.383\: \!570\: \!947\: \!098\: \!647\: \!1}}$$
+3146 Hi Melody,
(log(sqrt(10)+1))^2=
log(sqrt(10)+1)^2
These are different questions and the second one is incorrect.
What result would you expect?
+118677 hi Andre,
This is what they should be:
(log(sqrt(10)+1))^2=
$${log}_{10}\left({\sqrt{{\mathtt{10}}}}{\mathtt{\,\small\textbf+\,}}{\mathtt{1}}\right) = {\mathtt{0.619\: \!331\: \!048\: \!066\: \!094\: \!5}}$$
$${\left({\mathtt{0.619\: \!331\: \!048\: \!066\: \!094\: \!5}}\right)}^{{\mathtt{2}}} = {\mathtt{0.383\: \!570\: \!947\: \!098\: \!647\: \!1}}$$
---------------------------------------------------
log(sqrt(10)+1)^2
$${\left({\sqrt{{\mathtt{10}}}}{\mathtt{\,\small\textbf+\,}}{\mathtt{1}}\right)}^{{\mathtt{2}}} = {\mathtt{17.324\: \!555\: \!320\: \!336\: \!758\: \!7}}$$
$${log}_{10}\left({\mathtt{17.324\: \!555\: \!320\: \!336\: \!758\: \!7}}\right) = {\mathtt{1.238\: \!662\: \!096\: \!132\: \!189\: \!2}}$$
ALSO EQUAL TO 2(Log(sqrt(10)+1)
$${\mathtt{2}}{\mathtt{\,\times\,}}{log}_{10}\left({\sqrt{{\mathtt{10}}}}{\mathtt{\,\small\textbf+\,}}{\mathtt{1}}\right) = {\mathtt{1.238\: \!662\: \!096\: \!132\: \!189}}$$
+118677 Two days ago I sent an email to Andre Massow, owner and developer of web2.0calc.com. He replied almost immediately and many of the issues that I spoke of have already been addressed. Thank you Andre. Your timely efforts are very much appreciated.
Below are extracts from the letters:
8th June 2014
Hi Andre,
There are a number of things I should discuss with you but the most pressing one is the message system and the member section.
I like many of the features that you have introduced but a lot of tweaking is definitely needed.
Introducing the avatar feature was extremely popular with all the members.
We are all receiving phantom message notifications. Every time someone posts anything on the forum we are each sent a new message notification.
This thread was posted on the forum yesterday. Some of the members were not very polite but they were just having fun.
http://web2.0calc.com/questions/attn-registered-users#r
Answer: this should be only notifications for questions you have viewed before. Maybe it is more reasonable to only show notifications for questions on the watchlist.
Clarification email
The pop-up messages that we get for posts are fine. No one is complaining about those. Sometimes they are helpful.
The problem is that these messages then trigger a phantom pop-up message saying that we have a PRIVATE message.
It is the phantom messages announcing private (non-existent) mail
that is upsetting people.
Now you have made it so that only new messages are displayed when the message centre is entered. Once I click on an avatar that person’s new mail is displayed. This is fine but whether I deal with it or not the message is then transferred into the person’s file and that is where I need to go next time to deal with it. …….
RESPONSE: Andre has already introduced an inbox and an outbox. That was quick.
Thank you Andre!
I would also like the ability to reply to individual messages.
I just saw on the forum that Andre told Rosala that this would be implemented soon.
Thank you Andre.
If I want to send a message, I have to find the username somewhere else on the forum or I have to choose from a list. I am not at all sure that that list is comprehensive. Anyway, why can’t I just type in the name that I want, or maybe just the first couple of letters, and have the possibilities presented to me from the list?
The member list that was available on the old forum was infinitely better.
Sometime in the future I would like to send a welcome note to each new member. At present I do not even know which members have joined on any given day. I have no comprehensive list of member statistics at all. Please make it more like it was before.
RESPONSE: Which features do you want? a "recently created user accounts list"?
I think members would like to know some limiting numbers eg
RESPONSE: limit: 25. when overflowing, the oldest entry is deleted
but the current list feels way to long. 5-10 would be a "cleaner" look, especially for first time forum visitors.
RESPONSE: no hard limit yet. but this has to change in the near future for performance reasons (displaying a list of e.g. 1000 messages uses a lot of database and application server resources)
RESPONSE: I have to think about this
RESPONSE: Icons are now on the left - Thank you Andre.
RESPONSE: Scrollbar has been added - great, thank you Andre.
RESPONSE: this is not really easy to implement, so this could take a while
I see. Would an additional line in the search results with a link to the corresponding question be helpful? (Yes it would - not sent yet)
RESPONSE: Do you have a link to such a question?
RESPONSE:
This is a very difficult topic. There are so many LaTex commands which are not designed to be called by irresponsible users in an web service environment. If you call these commands on your local PC and the PC crashes, this is one thing, but if any user can crash a webserver with just a single command, it only takes seconds and all webservers will be not available for other users. At the moment there is a whitelist with allowed command with a high probability that it is not easy to find a LaTex command combination to crash the webservers, but there have been crashes in the past even with the whitelist. Every additional package increases the risk for crashes dramatically. For displaying math formulas LaTex is really fantastic, but from an developer point of view the language itself and the whole software design of it is the most ugly thing ever created.
Really, the message system and the member section is the priority as far as I am concerned at the moment.
Thank you, Melody.
+11912 melody im having a problem !
when i post an image then there are points that appear at the corner of the imge for if we want to enlarge it in any direction so when i enlarged my image and made it bigger and posted it then after it was posted i saw that the imge was not in the shape given by me but its orignal one ! so i just wanted to tell u that those enlarging points or corners didnt work !
u can try or see it by just trying to post an image !
+118677 Yes you are right Rosala, the pictures cannot be resized. Maybe Andre will look at this sometime in the future.
+118677 I thought it might be beneficial if I start making a list of things that I would like to talk to Admin about.
1) Member section - ability to find any member etc etc
2) Export feature in converstion threads
3) reply icon (Admin has already said that this is coming)
4) Sticky intro post at top of forum.
5) Please don't reduce max number of sticky topics but can moderators choose the order of them please.
more to come.
+8262 Melody, how can I tell Andre about something? I need to ask him something.
+11912 Melody i need to ask Andre something , thats about adding something to the website!how can i do so?
+118677 Hi Rosala,
Well if it is not a private matter then you probably should ask me to pass your message on.
OR
You can send a message to admin if you want.
And there is an email address under the 'about' tab at the top of the page.
I am not sure if he will actually get your message though.
