1 Topic by william (edited by william 2008-11-07 06:16:31)

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
  • Registered: 2008-10-29
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Topic: Features / categories you'd most like to see

Any features or categories you'd really like to see on this forum or that you think are missing? Should there be an "off-topic" section?

I'm definitely planning on installing the PM plugin for PunBB, which doesn't have PM (private messaging) functionality built in.

Chat, I'm not so sure about - I think it's one thing that makes teachat good, but it's also bad in the sense that sometimes there are really good bits of information that never make it onto the forum for everyone to read... also, I don't want the site to stay brutally on-topic, but I don't want to make it a completely social thing either. On the technical side, I think the language translations for the chat are separate, so maintaining and updating everything is a bit of a pain; not a huge deal, though. Thoughts about chat one way or another?

Improvements to the look and feel of the site *are* planned, though they may not happen immediately. If you have any strong ideas about the way the site should look, feel free to post in this thread or contact me privately. The look will definitely stay simple and stripped down, but the colors will probably change to something a little warmer, and I'm going to try to come up with some sort of header.

2 Reply by LaoChaGui (edited by LaoChaGui 2008-11-07 12:37:51)

  • From: MA
  • Registered: 2008-11-02
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

I had an idea earlier today for a category called "Ask the Chinese Tea Forum"

This could be useful for a topic like ABx brought up yesterday namely the ooling tea suddenly becoming insipid and the 返青 fanqing question. I went searching around on some Chinese forums for fanqing, and wasn't completely satisfied. Most people just talked about fanqing being a reaction within the leaf because of its water content which needed correction by roasting. In ABx's letter from Jing tea shop, it seemed like the tea would develop a very green flavour, but then improve again after a few months without correction.

ABx and the proprietor of TeaCuppa both seem to notice a change in the tea that seems to happen once a year or so that may just pass by itself and not need correction by roasting.

I thought if we had interesting questions such as this, we could make up a post with questions, translate it into Chinese and try posting it to Chinese forums to see if more information could be had. Then it could be translated back and posted somewhere on Teadrunk

红焙浅瓯新火活，龙团小碾斗晴窗

LaoChaGui's Website

  • Registered: 2008-11-06
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

it would be nice if the link you click on, opens up in a new tab.

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

shuangjiang wrote:

it would be nice if the link you click on, opens up in a new tab.

I don't think 'new tab' is a possible target, since tabbed browsing is pretty much a browser-specific thing AFAIK. It might be possible to set the target to "new" (new window); but it's not the default for PunBB, and I kind of agree with their decision to do it that way.

http://punbb.informer.com/forums/topic/ … tabwindow/ has a little more background.

What I usually do (in Firefox on a Mac) is to command-click the link instead of just clicking it; on Windows you can usually do something similar by middle clicking or control-clicking, depending on the browser you're using.

  • Registered: 2008-11-07
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

I really like what was suggested such as; 'ask tea forum' and an 'off topic'. I posted a simple question on teachat in chat. I asked if anyone could share their  tasting comments on Tie Luo Han, I wanted to hear other drinkers' take on this, and get verification of how at least a decent TLH should and can taste like.   This user started mocking me, as soon as I posed this question. It was an honest question in a tea forum, I rather refrain from visiting that forum. No one is born a Tea expert/snob.

For this reason a category for posing any tea related questions where the questioner is safe from mocking is welcome.

6 Reply by ABx (edited by ABx 2008-11-09 21:22:10)

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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

Who was that, govnur? I thought that we had gotten beyond that in TC. As a quick aside I'll answer as I've been focusing on TLH in the last few days: heavy cocoa and dark fruits, with a rather distant hint of flowers. Should have good depth and a very refined balance and texture. I've found TLH to be very picky, however, and this is the first to go insipid for me.

What I usually do (in Firefox on a Mac) is to command-click the link instead of just clicking it; on Windows you can usually do something similar by middle clicking or control-clicking, depending on the browser you're using.

If you get the TabMix Plus extension for Firefox then you can also set it to open any link to a new site in a new tab. That's what I do, though it results in me having 30 or so tabs open that I think I will get to later, but never do.

As to the main subject, I kind of wonder if we shouldn't have a "Literature" forum for posting about books and such. A lot of books cover several different subjects, and it might be nice to have those posts consolidated into one area. Perhaps this could even be a sub-forum of one that is for research in general. Maybe other forums for websites (HighWire Press being a good one, as it has lots of good scientific articles for free), magazines (perhaps these two could be combined to "articles"), and video (documentaries or things like the spot on The Discovery Channel). Being something of an information hound I would love to see a condensed source of information. These things could also probably start as a single forum and branch out later if warranted.

  • Registered: 2008-11-07
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

ABx wrote:

I've been focusing on TLH in the last few days: heavy cocoa and dark fruits, with a rather distant hint of flowers. Should have good depth and a very refined balance and texture. I've found TLH to be very picky, however, and this is the first to go insipid for me.

I found TLH to have thick mouthfeel, the cocoa is faint not as strong as in TKY, smoky like tabacco in a good way:) and slightly cinnamon/spice like, deep, and definitely a heavily roasted tea. I had a look at the leafs after a good 10 steeps and they unfurled back to their greener state, not exactly green but unlike TKY leafs which stay dark brown/black. In my opinion this is a sign of better roasting techniques I have tasted 2 aged oolongs from 2 different suppliers and the better one displayed similar characteristics as the TLH.

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
  • Registered: 2008-10-29
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

ABx wrote:

As to the main subject, I kind of wonder if we shouldn't have a "Literature" forum for posting about books and such. A lot of books cover several different subjects, and it might be nice to have those posts consolidated into one area. Perhaps this could even be a sub-forum of one that is for research in general. Maybe other forums for websites (HighWire Press being a good one, as it has lots of good scientific articles for free), magazines (perhaps these two could be combined to "articles"), and video (documentaries or things like the spot on The Discovery Channel). Being something of an information hound I would love to see a condensed source of information. These things could also probably start as a single forum and branch out later if warranted.

The intent was for the "tea history and culture" sub-forum to serve that function, though we can re-name it necessary.

Unfortunately, I don't believe the forum sofware has the capability of doing sub-forums (deeper than the level the forum's already divided up into, which they refer to as 'categories' and then 'forums'.

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

govnur wrote:

I really like what was suggested such as; 'ask tea forum' and an 'off topic'. I posted a simple question on teachat in chat. I asked if anyone could share their  tasting comments on Tie Luo Han, I wanted to hear other drinkers' take on this, and get verification of how at least a decent TLH should and can taste like.
[...]
For this reason a category for posing any tea related questions where the questioner is safe from mocking is welcome.

Well I think asking a question like this would be absolutely on-topic in the Chinese Tea -> Oolong section. As far as a section where the questioner is safe from mocking... well no one is safe from mocking on Teh Inter-Webs. While I've certainly been known to mock people myself, the goal is to keep this forum a relatively friendly and safe place, so I promise to pwn anyone who mocks you for asking for thoughts on Tieluohan anywhere on this forum.

  • Registered: 2008-11-06
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

i know the guy who mocked the govnur and the culprit is a complete utter idiot whose name shall remain anonymous/unknown. 

i hope that this forum gets better and more populated by smart and intelligent tea drinkers who are not into the tea for posing but for the pure enjoyment of tea drinking.

11 Reply by ABx

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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

william wrote:
ABx wrote:

As to the main subject, I kind of wonder if we shouldn't have a "Literature" forum for posting about books and such. A lot of books cover several different subjects, and it might be nice to have those posts consolidated into one area. Perhaps this could even be a sub-forum of one that is for research in general. Maybe other forums for websites (HighWire Press being a good one, as it has lots of good scientific articles for free), magazines (perhaps these two could be combined to "articles"), and video (documentaries or things like the spot on The Discovery Channel). Being something of an information hound I would love to see a condensed source of information. These things could also probably start as a single forum and branch out later if warranted.

The intent was for the "tea history and culture" sub-forum to serve that function, though we can re-name it necessary.

Unfortunately, I don't believe the forum sofware has the capability of doing sub-forums (deeper than the level the forum's already divided up into, which they refer to as 'categories' and then 'forums'.

I was just thinking of something outside the context of either Chinese or Japanese history/culture. The Book of Tea, for example, probably covers more about Japanese tea but also covers a lot about tea in general. I think I also used the term "sub forum" improperly; I was thinking of the sections that you have now such as Chinese Tea, Japanese Tea, etc.

12 Reply by ABx (edited by ABx 2008-11-17 06:33:34)

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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

How about a forum for people to request translations? Rather than asking someone directly, people could post something they'd like to see translated, and those that are able to may do so at their option and leisure :) The people able to translate may want to weigh in on this, however, because I could also imagine this getting out of control. I guess how it goes would depend a lot on the number and types of people that join in the future.

As for features, I would really like to see some way to hide our email addresses from our profiles. I suppose it's probably not a big deal right now, as long as the forum is still pretty unknown, but email harvesting bots could make life miserable for everyone that joins up. PMs would be preferable, but I don't know anything about PunBB.

Edit: It looks like there is an extension for PM functionality. The one for BBCode buttons might be nice, too, though I rarely use them myself (I use the BBCode Xtra extension for Firefox).

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
  • Registered: 2008-10-29
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

ABx wrote:

How about a forum for people to request translations?

Yeah - I like this idea as a possible addition down the line if things get busier. I think Robert might have mentioned this idea at one point too.

ABx wrote:

As for features, I would really like to see some way to hide our email addresses from our profiles. I suppose it's probably not a big deal right now, as long as the forum is still pretty unknown, but email harvesting bots could make life miserable for everyone that joins up. PMs would be preferable, but I don't know anything about PunBB.

Profile -> Privacy should let you do this.

ABx wrote:

Edit: It looks like there is an extension for PM functionality. The one for BBCode buttons might be nice, too, though I rarely use them myself (I use the BBCode Xtra extension for Firefox).

Yeah - that's the first option I mentioned I plan to install at the beginning of this thread. Shouldn't take long... I've just been lazy so far.

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
  • Registered: 2008-10-29
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

Ok - I've added private messaging. There's currently no way for users to *disallow* it, though. We'll see if there are any complaints.

  • Registered: 2008-11-07
  • Posts: 68

Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

I am sort of looking at this thread today from the angle of "How can I replace TeaChat?". There will obviously never be the same numbers here, but if most of the serious people came over and we lost the Adagio Custom Flavors crew I would not be sad. You already addressed the livechat (we've tried a few times to kickstart an alternative chat on irc.rizon.net #teachat, this always fails because most people are unwilling to idle there until a few other people log in). Another thing I enjoy there that is missing is a place for pretty pictures. The biggest ones are "Show Off Your Pots and Cups" and "TeaDay". I think the first thread I mentioned would be even more interesting here, and I would replace the second with a less broad "Photo of the Day" thread somewhere - we don't need to carry over the silly polls.
My last comment is about avatars - my brain seems to do a much better job with connecting a person to their posts and giving continuity across threads if they have an avatar. Most people here don't, and I don't want to force anyone, but I had a rather hard time scaling down my own image from TeaChat enough to fit the surprisingly small limit on PunBB.

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16 Reply by william (edited by william 2009-01-02 05:05:02)

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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

Feel free to start threads like that (if we need to add a specific forum / subforum to accomodate those, that would be do-able; the show pots / cups thread(s) could go under the Chinese / Japanese teaware sections). I would love to see people post pictures of their teaware or what teas they're drinking, etc., so if you've got stuff to post, post away. I'll be happy to sticky them.

I think the thing we need more than anything is more users, so that things start to pick up critical mass. I hope that the current direction of the forum (maybe a little overly dry and academic for some) doesn't discourage other people (or newcomers) from posting. I really want to see this be a friendly and welcoming (though focused) community. I haven't been trying to promote it too aggressively in other venues, mostly because I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but feel free to encourage people to join and participate.

I'm a little hesitant to do the chat, more for technical reasons than anything else.... but it's something I can do in the future.

Edit: I've updated the settings to allow 100 x 100 avatars, up to 20k. Better?

  • Registered: 2008-11-07
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

Avatars are much improved, thanks!
I'll kick off the Show Off... threads of China and Japan now.

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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

It would be nice if you didn't have hand-code smilies or do any other kind of coding. Have an easier interface for that. And how about photos? It all seems complicated. The profile section might be tweaked a little too, to put more information in there - as the user sees fit.

翠塵翔人
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

niisonge wrote:

It would be nice if you didn't have hand-code smilies or do any other kind of coding. Have an easier interface for that. And how about photos? It all seems complicated. The profile section might be tweaked a little too, to put more information in there - as the user sees fit.

Warren - welcome and great to see you here. Hope you'll stick around. I wish I had better answers for these questions, but I don't personally plan to implement most of these particular suggestions.

A lot of this is a question of personal preference, and I specifically chose PunBB over heavier forum software like phpBB because I didn't want a really bloated interface or the really cutesy stuff with lots of little icons and pictures. I guess some people might find a WYSIWYG editor useful (and there are some mods to include one), but I don't think that the forum markup is that complicated, especially if you only want to do basic stuff like quote people's text or post photos. I know it may seem a little daunting if you haven't done a lot of web programming, but it doesn't take that long to get used to, and most of the common forum software these days does use similar markup. I'm not against adding features if they're really in demand or helpful to large numbers of people, so I'm not writing any of this off completely, but so far, I don't feel like there's a big need. I'm happy to hear if other folks disagree, though.

As far as including extra fields in people's profiles, I'm not sure how hard that would be. Sanzui's new setup is pretty fancy and lets you include a lot of stuff (it's like a mini social network), but I'm not at all that ambitious. The only thing I can suggest would be linking to your profile elsewhere in the URL field. We could also have an "introductions" thread if it would help people to get to know each other or post information about themselves. What kind of information specifically did you have in mind?

Posting photos does require that you have somewhere to host them (there are free services like flickr / photobucket which will work), but aside from that, you just put them inside an [img] tag with a closing tag on the other side of the url. I am not a fan of the graphical smilies - you can choose to have them displayed graphically on the forum if you like, but I don't see any reason to encourage people to use them. I don't think typing :> quite equals hand-coding - it's pretty standard, and doesn't involve that much typing. There's a little howto if you're not sure which ascii smilies translate to which graphics.

I answererd Lew's question about RSS separately on RFDT (folks - it is possible to subscribe to new or recently active topics via RSS).

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

For those who are interested, btw:

[new topics]
http://teadrunk.org/extern.php?action=new&type=rss
[recently active topics]
http://teadrunk.org/extern.php?action=a … p;type=rss

I will try to put some actual links to this somewhere. It doesn't work perfectly, but should give you an idea of new posts and / or updates if you subscribe in your feed reader. Only downside is that you may get notified when there's spam, even if an admin deletes it.

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
  • Registered: 2008-10-29
  • Posts: 284

Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

I've updated the link that you should use to get the RSS feed at:
http://teadrunk.org/topic/251/forum-upgraded/

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
  • Registered: 2008-10-29
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Re: Features / categories you'd most like to see

I know some folks had asked for a chat / shoutbox type feature, similar to what Teachat has. While I'd been a little hesitant (since I think there's a lot of value in having the things people talk about archived for posterity), it does seem to bring more people around, and creates a venue where people can talk more informally.

I know the location (at the very bottom of the front page) isn't ideal, but let me know if you like the feature.