Let's try some new stuff!

About This Message Board
1

In view of Jerry’s announcement re technical considerations here we’re taking a closer look at increased functionality that we can do here at the SDMB.

We will turn on functions, evaluate to see if they have an adverse effect on overall system performance or otherwise throw bugs/errors. If they work without problem we’ll keep 'em turned on; if they don’t, we’ll have to turn them off.

We’re starting this morning with RSS feeds, which are now turned on for this board. NOTE: We do not yet have them activated for the rest of the site – that has to be done other ways by other people – it’s just the board side.

You should be seeing your feed button activated for this site. Please check it out and let me know how it works. Likewise let us know if you see any problems on the site – increasing slowness or other not good outcomes. A post in this thread is fine, so is PMs, emails.

In case of something that really needs a timely response email to me will be the fastest. TUBADIVA at AOL dot COM.

I’ll also be posting a global announcement on this subject because not everyone reads ATMB.

Let’s see what we can do for you here.

2

On the older server/install you had made a nice change to include search options of 2 days ago, 3 days ago, etc.

Could you please put these back.

How about trying out Tags. This is another feature that can help with less searches being needed.

These two should have little to no impact on the server.

3

What’s an RSS feed? How and for what purpose are they used?

4

What URL do we add to outlook to get the RSS Feeds? I’ve never set one up before, but it prompts me for a URL. I tried http://boards.straightdope.com and it failed. I also tried adding the /sdmb at the end and that also failed.

5

RSS is, IIRC, Really Simple Syndication. It’s used to keep current on frequently updated content. You’ll need an RSS reader to take advantage of it, but (again, IIRC) both Firefox and IE can read the data, though a plug-in or extension may be necessary.

6

RSS feeds are a way for you to look at aggregate SDMB posts in your browser instead of looking at the posts thread by thread on the board.

Here’s an example of what feeds look like, open a browser window and enter this link:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/external.php?type=RSS2

When your browser opens a site that has feeds activated, the feed button on your taskbar should light up. You can then click on that button and see what there is to see.

You can also access and control feeds from the favorites/feed/history button in IE, look for the star on the far left hand side. In IE version 7, anyway.

7

In Firefox 3, it seems to put a little orange square with white curves at the right side of the URL input box. Try clicking that if you want the feed.

8

That little orange square is on most web browsers now, I think.

Here’s what it looks like, courtesy of Wikipedia: RSS - Wikipedia)

9

Ohh! Ohh! Ohh! Mr. Kotter!

Try the [mod] tag next!

This should make a functional one that won’t break when the Quote feature is used on it:

[noparse]
<table border=“1” width=“50%” align=“center” cellpadding=“2”>
<tr align=“center”>
<th colspan=“2” bgcolor=“#E1E4F2” align=“left”><b>Mod Hat On</b></th>
</tr>
<tr align=“center”>
<td align=“left”><a href=“FAQ - Rules for Posting at the Straight Dope Message Boards - About This Message Board - Straight Dope Message Board”><img src=“http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/buttons/report.gif” alt=“!” border=“0”></a></td>
<td align=“left”>You kids get off my damn lawn! Don’t make me get my stick! You just wait until I get my jackboots strapped on! What’s that? Do I wear a strap-on? Oh, you little motherfuckers!</td>
</tr>
</table>
[/noparse]
You can paste that code into Tryit to see how it’ll look and function.

10

Any chance you could try polls next? Please?

11

Only if there’s some way to turn off the graphs. Those things could rival the “you’ve posted to this thread” disaster.

12

That’s cute, very cute, in fact.

If I may ask, where did it come from? Besides from you – not implying anything, just curious. Is it in use somewhere else around here? Wouldn’t want to infringe/swipe.

13

I made it for these guys, but they haven’t implemented it.

14

Very cool. I’ll run it by staff and management, see what they have to say.

Thank you very much.

15

Cool. You’re very welcome.

16

Hmmph. My new mummy gives me avatars and she lets me pick my own logo. New mummy says that’s why daddy left old mummy, because she wasn’t fun or pretty any more.

17

Oh give it a rest. :rolleyes:

At least they are trying to spiff the place up finally. :slight_smile:

18

rss feeds? Wow!!! :slight_smile:

19

I would really like the OP of a thread to be able to mark certain posts as adequate answers to their question for GQ. Can we do this?

It would also be nice to be able to vote on thread and/or posts.

20

Could you please elaborate on your concerns here? I am not familar with the “disaster” of which you speak. I also don’t see why we would need a way to turn off a graph. You can just scroll past it to get to the OP.