This isn't really of great import in the scheme of things, but I am curious. I was glancing at the new "points" system and I wondered if it were still true that, as well as gaining 4 points for commenting on another member's work, one was still being given 4 points for commenting on one's own work. I always remember feeling slightly miffed that certain members amassed a high number of points so that it looked as though they had commented on lots of work, but when one looked at the profile, it became apparent that they had only posted on their own work.
Just a thought.

I think limits on Group membership should be removed. Looking around since my return I've noticed that there aren't the numbers of active members in each Group to warrant it, but there are a lot of silent members (I won't say 'inactive' because the are regularly checking in), hogging places. If a Group Host finds their Group is being swamped with members actively posting work, then it should be up to them to contact David and request numbers be limited.


(Btw, the Bold on 'actively posting work' didn't work)
Edited by NMott at 15:47:00 on 12 January 2014

I've listed a number of things that don't work here on the forum, but have had no replies to pleas for help and to date none of them work. Personally I think the website was better before the changes, at least everything worked.
Jo

but have had no replies to pleas for help and to date none of them work

That's a shame. David has been very helpful when I've had specific issues. I hope he can help you too.

Group title, description and image - as they are now

Agree. It's a really good look. And I like that the host can change the image or description, so if the group would like a change it can be done easily and quickly. 

Group forum - as it is now

Agree.

‘All current work’ - all work presently posted in the group, listed in date order of latest activity.

Mostly agree, but I would prefer it to be in order of work posted rather than activity, otherwise work would end up jumping up and down the page. Also, sometimes new group members who haven't yet realised that it's more relevant to comment on recent work, comment on work posted a year or more ago, and it could appear at first that a revised version of the work has been posted by the author. 

Each item in the list to include title of work, author (+ link to profile), date of latest activity, and  links to the 2 or 3 latest comments. 

Agree. It would be useful to see at a glance which recent comments relate to which work.

It isn’t necessary to include the author’s summary of the work. And, to keep it really simple, there’s no need for the word count or the number of comments link.

Mostly agree. The summary looks nice but takes up too much room on the page. I have already found the number of comments link useful, but then again it wouldn't be needed if there are links to latest comments because it would be clear there has been a new comment. 

‘Latest activity’ - as it is now. Could be useful.

Personally, I'm not keen on having forum comments grouped together with work comments and 'likes', etc. Replies to forum posts already show numerically in the forum section, but perhaps unread replies could be shown beside the overall number. 

‘Group members’ - delete all of this as members will be listed under ‘All current work’.

I find a members list useful, although at the moment it takes up a lot of room and perhaps it could be arranged horizontally across the page instead of vertically. I like to see when a new member has joined (but might not have posted work yet) so I can welcome them to the group. To that end, if it was possible I would prefer if the members were listed in order of how long they have been in the group, rather than according to points. 
 

I'm actually a big fan of being able to see "number of comments" and "latest comment by" and "link to latest comment" in the list of posted work for the groups I'm in (it actually is something I'd really love to have in the main forum list too). That way, it would be possible to see at a glance, without having to click on anything, whether any particular work in the group is suffering a lack of comments and would be worth prioritising for a critique. I think this would be especially effective if paired with "date posted", and the list of work was shown in order of original posting (as per Manusha's comment). Then, it'd be easy to filter the list by eye to see what was current, and of those, what was looking a bit neglected/enjoying lots of attention.

This would seem more helpful, to me, than having links to the last 2 or 3 comments. That's because, if you were to click a link directly to the 3rd most recent comment (say), I think it would feel more natural to scroll down after reading it, to see the 2nd and 1st most recent comments, than to click "back" after each comment to find the direct link for the next one. Of course, it would mean having to scroll up to read any earlier comments you've not seen - but if you have more than 3 comments to catch up on you would have to scroll up anyway.

hrm. I do hope I'm not garbling things again...

Anyone who has a specific problem can always WWmail David Bruce; there's a lot going on on this thread, and with the best will in the world things can get missed.

David, if I edit a post after it's posted, the hyperlink un-links, and I can't get it back as there are no formatting buttons. Not sure if other formatting stuff also disappears.

I'm running Firefox with Windows Vista here - but I can't remember if it happens on my laptop, which is Chrome and Windows 8.1.

I have to say that overall all the different fonts don't look as good in Firefox as they do in Chrome, but I know different browsers are nightmare, so I'm saying nowt. (I'd run Chrome on here if I could, but for some reason it's got the famous glitch, and won't load)

Help! All the text has gone small (it happened about 30 mins ago) in the forum threads. Strangely, not in the Guidelines, etc above as I type this, which suggests it is not my PC/browser but another issue.
 

Emma - forum edit now has links too, and the font should be back to normal in the forum page.
Edited by david bruce at 10:53:00 on 13 January 2014

also the 'no message' problem should be solved in the work comments now

Good news - thanks, David!

Is anyone else having problems with the word-count facility?  I've uploaded yet another story where the word-count on my Word programme says the piece is 862 words, and yet the uploaded version on WriteWords says 955. 

 

Sandra

 

 

Yes- alarming when I thought my competition entry had suddenly burst the limits.

Sheila

Sandra and Cornelia -
I've just been working on this. There is a new word counter function now which I'm hoping will be better. Please can you try editing your work and re-submitting and see if it improves. I've tried with a couple and the word count does now seem to match that set by Word.

The reason for the differences is technical because it has to remove all the HTML formatting and this can sometimes get confusing.