Cycling UK Forum

I was chatting to our local PCSO a few evenings ago. Apparently he doesn't have the authority to deal with traffic offences, he has to leave them to proper policemen.

fausto copy wrote:We're looking at getting our own website and someone asked why we can't CTC provide one.
Given that we have to include "CTC" into our official title, it seems like a fair question.
So, why can't CTC provide a service for clubs to use part of the official website for instance?

I quite agree, local groups could quite easily have the ability to make use of website facilities that "piggy-back" on the main CTC site. In fact this was included as a requirement for the main site re-build, due by next March, which is good.

A big advantage could be that things like runs lists and recommended refreshment stops could be integrated with the main site, and thus with a central events list and the Cyclists Welcome list. So local groups could feed into these with their local knowledge, but the results could be used by anyone via the main site.

I'd also like to see:

• A CTC website style guide, complete with standard logos, colours, etc.
• URLs like http://groupname.ctc.org.uk that either go to the CTC-hosted pages, or redirect to the group's existing site wherever that might be.

This isn't particularly difficult to organise, but does need some commitment and funding.

brianleach wrote:Is it my internet connection or is the load and navigation time of the new look website far far longer?

You may find that the default look of the forum might take a little longer to load (a few other people have mentioned this too) especially if you're using an old browser like Internet Explorer 6 (in which case upgrading to an up-to-date browser like Firefox, Opera, or Internet Explorer 8 is strongly recommended).

If this is a problem, you can change the look of the Forum to "subsilver2" which uses fewer images (and so will be quicker to download on a slow connection)
by following the links "User Control Panel" > "Board preferences" > "My board style".

You'll see that subsilver2 is pretty-much the same style as the previous version of the Forum, but it's actually slightly more efficient than the old forum in terms of the amount of data you have to download to view pages.

Anthony

robgul wrote:Most forum software has an option (at admin level) to set the viewing so that hovering the mouse over the thread shows the first sentence or two of text ... is that possible? - it just makes it easier to decide whether to open/read a thread where (perhaps) the title may be unclear ....

(You'll find that the fora for C+, the Comic and yacf have this feature ... as do those that I run for our club and a couple of business related sites)

As far as I'm aware phpBB3 doesn't have this facility, but it does sound interesting. It would require quite a bit of hidden text to be added to the forum lists, and some javascript code to display this as you hover. I'll have a look to see how those other forums implement this, but can't promise that I'll find time to modify the phpBB code.

Sorry, it's me, Anthony Cartmell

JohnW wrote:A lot depends upon what one is trying to improve - function or fancy - and whether improvement is necessary anyway.

Having heard a little about the problems of maintaining the current site, and hearing a lot about how difficult it is to find things on, I think the main reasons are functional. The current content management system was installed way back in April 2003, so in web site terms it's getting pretty old: technology has moved on somewhat since then.

JohnW wrote:Of course, fashion and opinion come into it, but an improved web-site to me is one which is quicker, easier to navigate, contains no spin or splather, and which gives me quicker access to what I want access to.

I quite agree, and I personally hope to play a part in making the CTC site something that we can be proud of, rather than embarrassed by. There is a lot of potential to make some big improvements, and to add useful new features: a decent Events calendar is one thing that is clearly missing at the moment, for example.

My usual advice is to ride in the track made by the left-hand wheels of the cars. This has several advantages:

1) Cycling there will make you most visible to car drivers. As a car driver, I spend a lot of time looking where my wheels are going to go, in order to avoid potholes, etc.
2) The road is generally smoother, cleaner, and better-maintained than at the edges.
3) This positioning rule works in all road situations, even when you're riding in a lane some way away from the kerb, or if the lane is wider than normal. Riding to a fixed distance from the kerb can lead to problems in situations like roundabouts.

Cheers!

Anthony

Mick F wrote:[color=#BF0000]Traceroute has started ...

traceroute to c2c.freeforums.org (74.86.125.241),

Are we going via Dallas?

Yes, if you go to c2c.freeforums.org, which must be hosted on a server in Dallas.

The CTC forums are hosted on one of my servers in London's docklands. The official URL is forum.ctc.org.uk, but for technical reasons this is an alias for ctcforum.fonant.com behind the scenes (technical reason: I can control the IP address of the server more easily when it's in my fonant.com zone than if it was in the CTC.org.uk zone, so I can move the forum onto new servers whenever needed).

Not sure why anyone should be noticing slowness, but it is probably down to local conditions: the internet is a vast world-wide web (hence "www") of networks, all connected in multiple ways, so if there's a slow connection in one place data gets automatically routed a different way to avoid the congestion. If you do traceroutes on different days, or times if day, you might see that a different route is being used to that used before.

Sounds definitely like you need to talk to your ISP and complain that at some times you get very slow connections. They should have the tools and expertise to diagnose where the problem is.

What we really need to do is some packet loss testing: use ping with larger packets, and see whether any get lost. If packets do get lost then they have to be sent again, making the network appear very slow. This is what happened to my ADSL last year for a bit, there was a routing error at the exchange: some sites were normal, others I couldn't get to at all.

Try using ping with a larger packet size, and twenty pings:

C:\> ping forum.ctc.org.uk -l 2048 -n 20

Network speeds using ADSL may well vary depending on the time of day. ADSL is sold with contention ratios of up to 50: this means that there are up to 50 people all using the same connection: if they all start downloading something at the same time then your speed will only be one fiftieth of the normal speed. The idea is that it's rare for anyone to be downloading continuously, so connections, and costs, can be shared. Lower-contention ratios are available for business use, but you pay quite a bit more.

Sorry, folks, seems that the board has a maximum size for all attachments of just 25Mbytes by default. Since obviously this isn't enough space for you lot and your photos, I've removed that limitation.

So you should be OK uploading images again now

Sorry folks, something killed the database. I'll add some additional monitoring on the server so I get to hear about this happening more quickly.

Nope it was there in the old version too

There's a similar icon next the the name of the last person to post on each topic: this takes you to that last post.

kwkirby02 wrote:Is this a change from the previous board? I'm sure my personal messages used to go to sent items....

The new board does the same as the old one. Since the PM messages don't actually go anywhere (they're just added to the Forum's database) they aren't like emails.

"Outbox" = "Ready for the recipient to read", I suppose the message is still logically waiting to be delivered, as the recipient hasn't seen it.
"Sent" = "Read by the recipient", I suppose now the message has been delivered, as the recipient has read it.

As soon as you "send" a message, it will appear in your Outbox and simultaneously appear, unread, in the recipient's Inbox - the time taken to "deliver" the message is zero

I do think we might come up with better terminology though. I was hoping the new version of phpBB would have fixed this naming problem!

"Inbox" => "New Messages"
"Outbox" => "Sent, but unread, Messages"
"Sent" => "Sent, and read, Messages"

I see the new board allows you to create your own PM boxes/folders, and even write rules to handle messages as you wish

GeoffL wrote:I've switched to subsilver2 and since making the switch clicking the link in the notification email takes me to the first post since my last visit, just like it used to with the old system. FWIW, I thought that the admins had fixed it.

The theme you choose doesn't have any effect on how the forum works, it only affects what the forum looks like.

Shouldn't the link should take you to the first new post in the thread that you're watching? I don't see what needs fixing?

There may be confusion as the "Subscribe topic" link shows with a ticked box (in the default theme: other themes may vary) when you're not subscribed, and a cross-in-a-box when you are subscribed. The icon is, confusingly, showing what the state will be after you've clicked on the link, and not the current state.