Rasikas Wiki

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rshankar
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Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26

Rasikas Wiki

Post by rshankar »

How many of you like the wiki page rasikas.org opens to? I for one am not very happy....

mahavishnu
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Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 21:56

Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by mahavishnu »

+1.

I usually access the forum directly from my frequently visited pages/bookmark tab. So, I did not notice this landing page till you mentioned it.

vasanthakokilam
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by vasanthakokilam »

I have asked srkris to post a note here about this. Stay tuned.

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

I understand there is some confusion. But at the moment it isn't very organized, as wiki's tend to be at the start.

I am interested in knowing whether you're saying it should ideally be clearer, or should not be the landing page at all?

mahavishnu
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by mahavishnu »

Srkris, thanks for tuning in.

The landing page (in its unfinished form) tends to be confusing and many newcomers would find it difficult to find the forum. However, having the wiki as a tab, along with the others on top of this page, might be a better place for it while it is in development. We could revisit this issue when the wiki-ing is complete.

Also, is there anything in common between this group and the facebook group with its name? I have often found the FB page is just a repository for random links and does not have the gravity and depth of this site. Are you officially endorsing the FB page by way of linking it here?

Rsachi
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Joined: 31 Aug 2009, 13:54

Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by Rsachi »

My two pennies (have organised and run any sites):
In general a Wiki is the superset and has a repository of reference materials, hyperlinks and more elements. And forum is just one part of it.

The forum in its current form is very active with huge participation. So this can be a prominent window within the wiki. And a click on that section can hide/minimise everything else.

There can be links and click me buttons on the forum page to take us to the Wiki or other specific sections.

Right now only 2/3rds of the page are actually utilised here now. So the right hand side can have links, thumbnails etc. to take us to the wiki, show events, updates etc.

There should be a way to directly reach the forum by bookmarking or whatever.

About FB, there must be a more active linkage between here and the FB page.

vasanthakokilam
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by vasanthakokilam »

All great points.

Here is another angle.

I think we all agree that rasikas.org is the go-to place for any carnatic music enthusiast. Also, I have heard enough offline anecdotes of how a weekly, if not daily, visit to rasikas.org is part of the routine for a lot of people who only read and not post. This includes rasikas, artists and journalists who cover CM.

It will be great if we can list this site in the main 'Carnatic Music' article in Wikipedia. That is a natural channel to discover this site, especially for those who are not familiar with carnatic music who got to the wikipedia article through some Google search. It is only natural that some of them will get intrigued by what they read and want to participate in the community. And we all know that is exactly what we are, a living, breathing and active one at that (irrespective of our own assessments of the quality of our own member generated content ;) )

Now here is the rub. Unfortunately, wikipedia rules, as enforced by that community, do not allow stand-alone forum sites to be listed. One way to solve this problem is to make the forum as an element of a larger site. I am not sure if that is srkris's motivation but I am just stating that as a possible benefit.

I agree that the way the wiki wrapper was displayed yesterday was very confusing.
May be, the "GO TO FORUM" link has to be quite prominent and in much bigger font and may be the overall layout of the outer site should not look like a bare wiki. I do not know how much flexibility srkris has on those presentation matters.

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

I have removed most of the content on the wiki to make it less confusing (for the moment). To address the above issues one by one:

1. Yes it is my intention to re-organize the site to make it more like a self-contained portal and less like a discussion forum which it has been until now.

2. The facebook group is indeed also run by me, however it is not intended to replace this site. The FB group is a looser network of carnatic music rasikas who are already on FB. I am trying to see ways of relating these two resources to see if they can complement each other

3. The wiki was tried some years ago, but it didnt take off the way I expected it to. I am trying to bring it in again to hold kritis, articles etc i.e. as a general Content Management System.

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

Rsachi wrote:Right now only 2/3rds of the page are actually utilised here now. So the right hand side can have links, thumbnails etc. to take us to the wiki, show events, updates etc.
This is now fixed, the space on the right is now removed and all posts occupy the full page

mahavishnu
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by mahavishnu »

Thanks for the clarifications, srkris.

I find the new listing of posts hard to read, the poster's handle/name does not pop-out visually as it used to.
Also, why are posts numbered thus? It used to be easier to locate a post in a particular thread.

I appreciate your attention to these matters!

vasanthakokilam
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by vasanthakokilam »

mahavishnu, we are going through various avatars. Not sure which one we are currently at but here every avatar lasts only a few minutes ;)

mahavishnu
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by mahavishnu »

Mahavishnu is, of course, used to multiple avatars ;)

rajeshnat
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by rajeshnat »

Srkris
Once every 2 years or so , there will be a change out of the blue that puts us all in discomfort . While I have few points to say in #241445 ,which I will wait.

First things first, In first place as of now when we read the threaded discussion, the poster id is not registered in our heads because of the UI change and lack of proper labels between posts. Could we revert the view as before where each threaded discussion post will have user names at a prominent place that registers in our head as we read, with the post number of the post in an ascending serial number instead of #241445(Aadhar ID).The report and quote can have the same buttons.

Also please be careful in changing the layout, whenever we change the layout we are not adequately testing , in the past quite a few content posts have got truncated especially when we use a single or double quote. It has happened in the past.

I wish i had taken the snapshot of the previous look :( , now I am just rolling my eyes like this smileys |( |(

vasanthakokilam
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Rajesh: I see your point definitely. Any UI change has the issues you point out. But see if you can get used to it after using it for a few days.

Beyond that, there are a few things which can be improved. As you say, the article number should be for the thread/topic and not global. Also, having the words 'Email' next to each id is a bit much and not visually pleasing. But then someone else might prefer that explicit indication to an icon to the right. That said, I am not sure how much flexibility the software provides to make all these suggestions happen.

The main advantage of the new scheme is that now we have bigger content area. Previously, there was a lot of space wasted on the left where the user id box was present.

On that count, what do you all feel about the bigger content area? The lines are indeed long. Is it good or bad?

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

Earlier the post numbers were sequential within a thread and they could repeat in other threads, now they are unique, every post number is unique, and can never be found repeated in the entire forum. It therefore serves the purpose of more easily identifying a post even when its thread is not stated, and one can directly locate a post (for example #162500) by using the URL:

Code: Select all

http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=162500
These changes are introduced with the intent that it would be more user-friendly for everyone in the long term, and may be unusual in the short term. I was keeping in mind the large population of senior citizens & new users who use the forum, who might now probably find it easier to see who has posted something and how they can be contacted without having to guess if they were clicking the right icons.

However I am willing to hear everybody out and revert back to the old layout if necessary. The script itself is very flexible and allows for a lot of personalization.

Rajesh, how can the report and quote can have the same buttons, they serve different purposes?

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

What about now?

arasi
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by arasi »

srkris,
This is good!

Yesterday was tough for me :( Things looked different, cluttered and confusing, I have to say, and not aesthetically pleasing.

Thanks for your consideration for old folks, this format and fonts and colors look good (almost the same as before). There is order here, and it's also pleasing to the eyes. Blue it is folks, and the fonts are pleasing and look uncrowded.

Green is a calming color, but remember, when we tried it once before, it looked washed out?!!

I looked for 'edit' this morning which was gone! Then figured out that the pencil icon was what I had to click to edit. Great! Icons for edit and E-mail are a good idea. No more fonts to crowd the space.

Appreciate your trying to make things better for all of us...

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

Thanks Arasi, I will try to bring back the sequential post numbering as well (in addition to the post IDs which are already there at the top right).

Please let me know if you think of any other improvements.

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by Nick H »

This is all a bit confusing, and, having been away, I am obviously arriving back in the middle of an ongoing process and ongoing discussion, with which I am not yet in tune. Given that, here's a couple of off-the-cuff reactions...

Post numbers: Thread-sequential post numbers are essential: unique post IDs are irrelevant except as links.

Post numbers give a sense of where one is in the thread, but unique IDs leave me feeling lost.

The advantages of both can be had by using a thread-sequence number, which itself is a link to the unique ID. This is how most forums seem to do it.

(oh, crossposted maybe: I see you are onto this one :) )

Functionality: how to Quote a post from that post? Did we ever have multiquote?

Multiquote is usually misunderstood by users until they get used to it, after which they can't live without it :)

Page Navigation:
The current page is not highlight, so what other number to click on? Next and previous are really good, first and last can be useful.

rajeshnat
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by rajeshnat »

Nick H wrote: Post numbers: Thread-sequential post numbers are essential: unique post IDs are irrelevant except as links.

Post numbers give a sense of where one is in the thread, but unique IDs leave me feeling lost.

Page Navigation:
The current page is not highlight, so what other number to click on? Next and previous are really good, first and last can be useful.
Nick,
Let us hope srkris will work on post numbers and get that. Agree 100% on what you wrote on post numbers. We need post numbers.

On page navigation , in the previous avatar in the right side the page no that you clicked willl be highlighted differently than the remaining pages , but that is gone now . As such you still do know which page you are by seeing the Page x of y where x indicates the page that you are . You can see in the left side of the page at both top and bottom.

If I have not communicated right to you , for illustration see this thread http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21361 , where page 1 of 2 says which page you are.

Page 1 of 2 [ 33 posts ] Go to page 1, 2 Next

rajeshnat
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by rajeshnat »

srkiris ,
One feature I miss for the last 2 years it was there till about 2 years is the View all topics by user .
When a user's profile is clicked , we used to have two links called View all Posts by User and the View all Topics by User. The second is a killer feature that has gone , can we bring it up please . That feature of where it gives view all topics by user will give a quick insight what all new topics each user has posted . Please bring that . I raised that in another thread here in this website issue, you remained silent , please bring that feature back.

Nick H
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by Nick H »

"page one of n" ---gotcha :)

Quoting posts --- I can see the " now. Either that or my eyesight has been updated. Either is possible!

:D

rajeshnat
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by rajeshnat »

srkris
Overall this version is better than the short lived (2 day version) that was there last week. But I still feel the one that used to be there till last week for a year or so was better than even the present one.

I see you have bought a facebook link to the top. I have no idea what your idea is there , you may plan some thing and suddenly bring it up without any discussions . But I hope facebook users are not allowed to use their facebook login id and use this site directly with a single sign on experience . That will be a sure disaster as posts will be in this site as well as facebook , and there are few like me who dont care a damn about facebook and more concerned with the exclusivity of this lovely site rasikas.org than clicking a link from this site to facebook or viceversa.

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

Rajesh,

Facebook is not integrated into this site, if that is what you mean. This site is separate and does not share any login or cross-posting with Facebook.
The facebook link that shows is just a group that those who want can go to if they are facebook users. You can ignore it if you dont use facebook.

"View All topics by user" & "View all Posts by User" are available from the search page.
View all topics by user = Search for author : XYZ, Display result as: Topics (if you want to search topics started by a user, select Search within: First post of topics only)
View all posts by user = Search for author : XYZ, Display result as: Posts (Also available as a single click from user profile under the link "Search user’s posts")

Edit and quote buttons (pencil & quotation icons) are available in the top right of every post.

Sequential post numbers: Working on this.

Page navigation: Hope Rajesh's explanation is clear.

Arasi has made some suggestions by email that i am looking into.

Smala (and others) made some suggestions at http://www.rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21390 that I am looking into. Don't know why we need separate threads for the same issue, will merge it into this tomorrow.

The issue seems to be that different users have different needs, and what one likes is not liked by others. I will therefore focus on the more popular change-requests first i.e. those which a lot of us think needs changing.

mohan
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by mohan »

Didn't realise the quotation icon was actually something you can click to quote! I wonder if there is another icon available which actually has a box around it (like the Report this Post, ! icon).

vasanthakokilam
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Yeah, the quotation icon is too cute for its own good.

rajeshnat
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by rajeshnat »

srkris wrote: "View All topics by user" & "View all Posts by User" are available from the search page.
View all topics by user = Search for author : XYZ, Display result as: Topics (if you want to search topics started by a user, select Search within: First post of topics only)
View all posts by user = Search for author : XYZ, Display result as: Posts (Also available as a single click from user profile under the link "Search user’s posts")
Srkris
Your workaround is good . But still you are asking me to go to search type XYZ in search for author field and make two selections , that is bit of a pain. I found with your input :

When you click on user profile , you see search users post, so that is kind of the same as view all posts by user .

Infact you can have two links next to Search Users Posts , namely Search User's topics, Search Topics stated by User.

For eg with srkris as a user:
-------------------------------------
Search User's Posts -> link is http://www.rasikas.org/forums/search.php?author_id=2 is already in place
Add two more links next to it. They are

Search User's Topics -> link is http://www.rasikas.org/forums/search.php ... &sr=topics

Search Topics stated by User ->link is http://www.rasikas.org/forums/search.php ... &sr=topics

The third is very very useful where we can quickly locate the posts that we started .

Nick H
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by Nick H »

different users have different needs, and what one likes is not liked by others.
Being a technical person, I'm sure you realise that needs and likes are different. Whilst I am not too-much old quite yet, I still need a special pair of specs for reading a screen, and I get very impatient with phone systems that seem designed only for youngsters with perfect vision. These usability issues have to be tailored so that the site is accessible to everyone. Those of us that need even bigger type (and I do, for quite a lot of sites) need to be aware of CTRL-plus.

Typography/design begins with basic rules that have developed over centuries, and that need only minor modification for on-screen implementation. Whilst black-on-white has long been acknowledged to be the most readable combination, for screens it is dazzling. I'm happiest with greyish/blueish backgrounds: others may pick their point on the spectrum to recommend, as long as there is sufficient contrast, it does not matter.

I do agree with making the ["] a bit more obvious: I completely failed to see it!

skris, ongoing thanks are due for all the ongoing work. Keep it up, it is wonderful facility for us all, and it is too easy for us to take it for granted.

rajeshnat
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 08:04

Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by rajeshnat »

Crama wrote: I have vision problems and the new format makes it difficult to read. Anybody to listen?
Srkris
Not to upset you in any way , but the above comment by Crama has to be taken as a priority . I think the present layout gray is perhaps bit too dark, and the foreground font is bit too light for most of us (inclusive of me, CRama are finding it very difficult). I was thinking we can do few things ,
1. There are two alternate bands one is light grey and the other dark grey . Can the dark grey ones like post id #242113 made as white
2. Can we use a font like sans serif /helvetica . I dont know what this font is , is that ariel dont know, but the font is not easy to read for continous long posts

As a fall back can we revert to what it was prior to two weeks that was live for a year. I thought we got everything right then.Certainly not getting any mileage from this change ;)

Nick H
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by Nick H »

Unless you have some overriding setting in your browser (that can be done), this is a sans serif font.

Typographical wisdom of the ages is that a serif font is easier to read, but usually serif fonts seem to be used in applications like this one. Perhaps they look cleaner.
Can the dark grey ones like post id #242113 made as white
Please, not white ...as per my comment above, it is dazzling. Even though I use software to be able to adjust the brightness of individual widows, I still have a problem with pure white: it is analogous to high volume in a concert!
As a fall back can we revert to what it was prior to two weeks that was live for a year
Preferred by me too.

girish_a
Posts: 427
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 13:33

Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by girish_a »

mohan wrote:Didn't realise the quotation icon was actually something you can click to quote!
Me too! It is quite well camouflaged. Couldn't have guessed it was an icon :)

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

Are we all happy now that we are back on the old look?

mahavishnu
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by mahavishnu »

I was in the middle of a message and when I finished posting it, the website refreshed and went back to the old format!
A very welcome surprise.

I like this layout much better, Srkris. I think we should keep it this way for a while.

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

OK Mahavishnu, sorry for that glitch.

Rsachi
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by Rsachi »

SRKRIS
Thanks a lot for the new aunt-sized fonts!

vasanthakokilam
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by vasanthakokilam »

Sachi: :)

Nick H
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by Nick H »

Thank you skris.

It's tough running a forum. It's like putting a heap of work in to painting a house, and then everybody complains about the colour. But you are appreciated :)

And my fonts are the same size as they were before! :lol:

Nick H
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by Nick H »

Still happy... but there are a number of errors showing up as pages open.

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

Yeah Nick, I was trying to make some modifications to the template to introduce sequential post numbers, but they didnt work (you saw the errors), and I have reverted them back.

mohan
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Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 16:52

Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by mohan »

Nice to see the return of the old layout - with a few changed icons :)

Why doesn't this thread appear in the list of active topics?

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

Hi Mohan, the "Website Issues" section is not viewable for anonymous users, and probably it's permissions restrict threads from showing up in active topics.

smala
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by smala »

Both general look and the default font is more pleasing and readable. Thanks for reverting, skris.

arunk
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by arunk »

I also like the new, old look.

One suggestion. Now *every* post in a thread as the thread-name (e.g. Re: Rasikas Wiki in this one) in extra bold, extra large size compared to poster name. I would suggest, to rebalance the sizes. The thread name need not be so prominent in every post under the thread itself.

Thanks
Arun

arasi
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by arasi »

Arun and Mohan,
I agree. I think as we see all the improvements, we are able to see ways of fine-tuning it further.

One big plus is something which I noticed, but there is no mention about it ;)
Remember how we needed to scroll down every time to see the new posts because the General Discussions page was top-heavy with locked BhArathi threads?

Thanks Srkris for changing that. If it's agreeable, you may even transfer them to the Literature section of the forum. Just a thought...

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

arunk wrote:The thread name need not be so prominent in every post under the thread itself.
Good idea, done.

srkris
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by srkris »

Sequential post numbers have been re-instated now.

Nick H
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by Nick H »

Great! All is well now :)

arasi
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Re: Rasikas Wiki

Post by arasi »

Good to have the post numbers back!

Srkris,
The smileys I have to get used to. Ah, how I miss my wink now!

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