Hi all,

Well, it's been quite a while coming, but we just launched a major change to the web front-end for the Control.com forum. We've made some navigation improvements (at least we hope you think they're improvements), such as:

- Replies to posts appear on the entry page, and don't get buried with the original post.
- There's a calendar feature that lets you go back to a previous day's post - even years ago.
- We've added some links to some topically related articles in Control Engineering magazine.
- You can choose from two different "skins" (appearance schemes), and we hope to add more over time.

You can also sign up for a personal RSS feed (although this is NOT licensed for use on public websites -- it's just for personal convenience).

Perhaps the most important aspect of this change is that we've moved to a new platform which will allow us to more readily add features in the future.

So, enjoy the new site, and let us know what you think and what you'd like to see in the future.

Ken Crater
[email protected]

 

In reply to Ken Crater - You said "let us know what you think". As they say, "be careful what you ask for, as you may get it". So (in no particular order):

A) Under "select a page style", two themes are offered - BluFu and Classic. The site uses cookies to store the theme selection, and defaults to BluFu if cookies are not enabled. This isn't really a "bug", but you should add a note that "cookies must be enabled to use this feature". Otherwise, people will be wasting time trying to figure out why it doesn't work.

B) The navigation bar at the top needs a "home" selection to take the use back to the default page. If you click your way around the web site for a while, there isn't any obvious way of getting back to the home page. This isn't a problem for people using a reasonably modern web browser (they'll be using tabs anyway), but some readers will persist in using something old and obsolete like MS-InternetExplorer, in which case they'll have problems getting around.

C) You need a "postings guidelines" page in a fairly obvious spot (probably linked to from the front page, and also from the page where you compose a reply). This should tell people how to write a question that will get useful replies. It should also inform people about any style guidelines that you would prefer (e.g. first two sentences should be a brief summary of the post, if that is in fact what you want). It should also warn people about what will cause postings to be rejected by the moderator.

D) Perhaps the above was intended to be taken care of by the "site guidelines" page which is linked from the Post Article page (http://www1.control.com/addPostingForm). This URL however (http://www.control.com/guidelns) simply displays the default (entry) page again. Perhaps the page is missing or misspelled?

E) You need a better explanation of what the topics mean so that people will post the messages under the right topic. Perhaps you intended this to be covered under the above mentioned missing page? A page linked from the front page however would be a good idea (I believe the old web site had one, but I couldn't find it on the new one).

F) You need a "hints and tips" page to tell people how to do things like link in outside images in order to display diagrams or program rungs. See the recent discussions on this under "ENGR: The Physics of... Armature Reaction", and "PROC: GAS CONTROL VALVE".

G) Under the old forum pages, the summary page listed how many replies each original posting had. This isn't present in the new format. This was a useful feature, as it highlighted which topics seemed to be "hot" (had a lot of replies), and which ones had none (so you take pity on someone and help them out).

H) A "frequently asked questions" page would be good. If someone has provided a pretty definitive reply to a frequently asked question, this could be linked to from a FAQ page. After all, who could forget Tim Linnell's epic treatise on "adoptive control"?

I) I had a look at the default page HTML. Under "meta name" / "content" there is a list of keywords, which I assume are for use by search engines. You should add one or more keywords for the GE Mark V controller, as that seems to have become very popular of late.

J) A new topic covering power generation, boiler control, substation control, steam and gas turbines, etc. would be useful, as there seem to be a great many discussions on these lately and it would be useful to group them together. If you use Google to search for "mark V turbine" the top two results are from GE Power, and the next two are from this list, so this site seems to be an important resource on this topic.

K) Your stats pages are open to anyone if they know where to go to get in. Was that intentional?

L) If you run the default web page (I didn't check the others) through an HTML validator, there are a number of syntax errors. For example, the DOCTYPE declaration is missing. It should be something at least like <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">. There are various other errors as well (I won't deal with them in detail). My web browser displays the page OK, but you shouldn't count on the browser always being able to "guess" its way around errors.

Is this the sort of feedback you were looking for?

 

Woo-hoo! Some great feedback from a long-time contributor to the forum. We knocked off a few of the easy ones...

Michael Griffen wrote:
> The site uses cookies to store the theme
> selection [...]
...we've added a note to that effect.

> The navigation bar at the top needs a "home"
> selection to take the use back to the default
> page.
Done. Actually, although it was overly subtle, the red logo is also a link to get you back to the home page, FYI.

> You need a "postings guidelines" page in a
> fairly obvious spot [...]
Also done (actually, this was a broken link problem from the postings page, but we also put a link on the site header).

> You need a better explanation of what the
> topics mean so that people will post the
> messages under the right topic.
Actually, I don't think we had this before (and perhaps it shows :-( but it's an excellent idea, now on the feature to-do list.

> You need a "hints and tips" page to tell
> people how to do things like link in outside
> images in order to display diagrams or program
> rungs.
Hmm, this is a perennial problem (not to mention a potential security issue). We'll give it some thought. Thanks for getting it on the table, though.

> Under the old forum pages, the summary page
> listed how many replies each original posting
> had.
I think we can add this near-term -- while not completely trivial, it's not terribly difficult either.

> A "frequently asked questions" page would be
> good.
Oh, yes! Hmm, a user-maintained FAQ would be a nice touch, and in keeping with the spirit of things. What do you think?

> You should add one or more keywords for the GE
> Mark V controller, as that seems to have
> become very popular of late.
[grin] Agreed.

> A new topic covering power generation, boiler
> control, substation control, steam and gas
> turbines, etc. would be useful, [...]
To date we haven't created any application specific topics (except, of course, the catch-all Applications topic). I'd like to know what others think of this, generally. We may have a two-tier topic+application hierarchy, for instance.

> Your stats pages are open to anyone if they
> know where to go to get in. Was that
> intentional?
You mean security-by-obscurity really doesn't work? Ah well. No deep dark secrets there, but they're now passworded. Don't ask me why.

> If you run the default web page (I didn't
> check the others) through an HTML validator,
> there are a number of syntax errors.
Oops. We tend to focus on testing using various browsers (Firefox, Konquerer, IE, etc.) on various platforms, since standards compliance doesn't always translate into browser compliance (and, sadly, vice-versa). But the specific point you site is one we'll fix.

> Is this the sort of feedback you were looking
> for?
Absolutely! Thank you for taking the time to share your observations.

Best Regards,
Ken Crater
Control.com

 

Hey Ken,
Why dont you setup a forum using free forum creation software, these softwares have hundreds of features that this forum is missing. Its almost as if squishdot havent caught up from the 90s

Not only that, when a post is moderated, at least you know why it is, unlike this forum, where posts get moderated without any explanation as to why. I wouldnt even be suprised if this post got moderated!

Here are some links and an example of a forum i created.

http://www.mkportal.it/

http://www.simplemachines.org/

example- http://www.cksclan.net/main/index.php

the example really makes yours look lame im sorry to say.

Dennis

 

In reply to Ken Crater - With regards to how to post images using outside image hosts, I have already been conducting e-mail conversations with the moderator on instructions for this. You may wish to discuss that further with her.

With regards to a user-maintained FAQ I believe that having the list members provide the content would be the ideal method. However all additions, changes, or corrections should be approved by the moderator (not for technical content, just for moderation guidelines).

The FAQ could just be a static web page, so this doesn't require a big change to the site. New additions or changes could be submitted via e-mail to the moderator, with all changes announced via the INFO topic (e.g. New addition
to FAQ "xyz"). Anyone submitting a new FAQ should write it such that the list maintainer could just cut and paste the text onto the FAQ page. Submissions will likely come as a result of someone having answered the same question
umpteen times. Does this sound practical?

With regards to a new topic to cover turbine control, boiler control, power distribution, and pipelines, I felt this was analoguous to how we have special topics for motion control (MOTION) and process control (PROC). We seem to have a large volume of posts on these new items that we didn't have in the past, and they seem to end up scattered through all sorts of different topics. APPS could remain as a general applications grab-bag for items that don't seem to fit anywhere else.

A two-tier topic+application hierarchy sounds interesting, but I have a feeling that it would require big changes to the web site, and I'm not sure the result is worth the effort at this time. I can't think of any other cases where we really need a new topic. Some of the existing ones in fact are under-utilised.

I wish to point out that these are not items of particular concern to me, so the opinions of others should perhaps have more weight in this.

With regards to your stats page being open, I see that it is now closed. The reason why you might want to keep it closed is that you are trying to sell advertising on the web site (you have to pay for the bandwidth somehow), and
the raw stats that show up there may not be what you want to present to your potential advertisers.

With regards to another suggested change, I had a look at your posting guidelines (which are now on line). I would suggest that for "1) Anonymously Yours" you also add a sentence to the effect that experience has shown that if
the poster includes their name with their question, they are more likely to get an informative reply from someone than if they post anonymously.

 

Kudos to Mr. Griffin--excellent review of the cosmetic changes to control.com and the need for posting guidelines to try to establish some logic for where queries get posted. It would sure make searching for relevant posts a lot easier for everyone.

The two-tier hierarchy approach (topic+application) might prove helpful, but it does seem that the moderators should help direct posts when appropriate.

There is also a great need for some ability to post graphics/images; Mr. Griffin's suggestion of using a web image hosting site is great, but that may grow old for the host if it's used extensively and it may prove cumbersome for some who post here. Security is a high priority--but the inability to post graphics/images severely limits the ability to convey some information at times.

Avatars would also be nice--since it would be helpful to know some information about the poster/respondent and his/her experience and equipment at site. Many people won't use them--but those who do will see a great advantage, and hopefully others will catch on after a while, seeing their usefulness and necessity.

Other than that, things seem to be pretty much as they were--albeit with a face-lift and the ability to see replies on the main page without having to search or wait for them to be sent to the automation list subscribers. Both are nice improvements.

markvguy

 

I reply 3-4 times per week, but about I'd guess 1/4 to 1/3 of my replies never show up, because I can't wait for the response of the system after clicking the "add" button on the reply page.

It got really bad around August, but in the last month or so, the response time has decreased dramatically, sometimes as quickly as a second or two.

And then other times no response (your comment has been submitted to the moderator) has happened after several minutes and I just have to move onto other things, and it becomes clear that my submittal never made it when my reply never shows up over the next day or two.

I wonder how many others have that happen?

David

 

Thanks for mentioning this, David. Response time is one of the reasons we're moving to a new platform from our old Zope-based platform. This is a high traffic site (well, by industrial standards and we sometimes have several web crawlers hitting us hard at the same time. I've been doing some tuning over the past few days, which has resulted in typical response times under 2 seconds, and that's without using any caching on this end (every request generates a series of database queries). With caching on, sub-second response should be the norm.

Having said that, some functions (including posting messages) are still directed to the old platform. These should be faster now that much of the other traffic has been offloaded to the new site, but we'll ultimately move these to the new world too.

Thanks for contributing your thoughts -- and please continue to do so -- and for your contributions to the discussions here.

Ken Crater
Control.com