The Milky Way Project Talk

Hello, Milky Way Project!

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Hi Milky Way Zooites (or at least those of you I haven’t met through other projects!)

    My name is Darren--DZM here on Talk--and I've just joined the Zooniverse team. I'm working on a few projects with the team, first and foremost an overhaul of the Talk system. In particular, I’m interested in working to build a unified Zooniverse Talk within which individual project forums are nested.

    If you have any additional ideas for how Talk can be improved, I’d love to know! I’ll also be around these boards as often as possible, looking for any other ways in which I can help out, so I’m always interested in hearing from you all.

    I should admit that I don’t have any type of science or astronomy background, but I’d still like to participate in this Milky Way Project wherever possible! But take any of my comments for what they are: an amateur’s. I am looking forward to learning from all of you, though!

    Anyway, I’ll be around and checking back, so thoughts, comments, concerns, anything like that is always welcome.

    See you around!

    DZM

    Posted

  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Hi Darren and welcome to the Zoo ! 😄

    Glad to have you on board. I'm assuming that all of our older comments (posted all over the place) are being taken into account, so we don't have to send them all over again ! ;D

    Anyway, thank you for posting here in the MWP and happy hunting ! 😄

    Posted

  • jules by jules moderator

    Welcome Darren! 😄 Really good to hear that Talk is on the agenda. As ElisabethB says there are lots of threads on Talk all over the place and many of us have also completed feedback forms so you have probably got enough to keep you busy for a while. If you could post updates here that would be lovely. We've been eagerly waiting for the next version of Talk for some time... 😉

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    I do have a long list of feature requests already, yes! I think that some of them have already been compiled for me--I have a few documents of requests and user stories and a couple of documents compiled by our moderators. Nevertheless, I wanted to mention that if there's anything that hasn't been put through before, now is a great time!

    I will certainly keep everyone posted on the progress. We're still in the very early stages of developing the new Talk, so nobody hold their breath, but we are working on it and it is coming! 😃

    Thank you both for the welcome!

    Posted

  • jules by jules moderator in response to DZM's comment.

    we are working on it and it is coming! 😃

    That'll do for now! 😃

    I think there are so many suggestions now that it's difficult even for us who use Talk daily to keep up with them. What would be good would be to do some beta testing of the new version. But that's in the future - I'm not doing any breath holding just yet! 😉

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    That's why I'm here... to collect all of the Talk suggestions into one Big Ol' Talk Ideas Document (the BOTID!) that our designers and developers can use to make a system that works to promote both solid science and solid fun!

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    If anyone would like to know a bit more about me and my role, there's a new Zooniverse blog post up from Chris Lintott introducing me.

    Feel free to check it out, and I'm happy to answer any additional questions that you might have! 😃

    Posted

  • jules by jules moderator

    Excellent! Always good to put a face to a name. 😄

    I know several people have asked for a better search tool but thought I'd mention it again. It's not very sophisticated especially when trying to locate a post by a word search. For example I searched for "BOTID" which should have brought up your post above but I got nothing. Also when it does find something if you click on a link in the results list to see if it's the one you want and then click "back" the search list disappears! And you have to refresh the page before typing in the search again otherwise it doesn't work. I try to get into the habit of opening a search item in a new window every time but often forget. 😕

    I also know there's been some discussion about the use of operators such as < >. Would it be an idea to have the common ones as buttons to save non-HTML savvy people remembering the code?

    Really good to see you keep popping by and glad the community is keeping you busy! 😄

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Hi Jules, yes, fixing the search is a massive priority, but also a massive undertaking... it's not a quick-fix! 😃 The developers are well aware that it will likely take up a good portion of their winter, and may only be implementable on future versions of Talk. I do not want to launch anything in the future without a much better search engine; I promise that!

    We'll be having a discussion about enhanced HTML capability as well, which would go along with a button system. And I'm hoping that we can do a fix of the myriad "back-button issues" sooner rather than later. It's definitely all in the BOTID!

    Thank you for your support and contributions!!

    Posted

  • 15pkearney by 15pkearney

    yo

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Hello, @15pkearney! 😃

    Posted