www.talkcyprus.org

[erolz]

Hi

I just thought I would jot down a simple 'to do' list here of things I think we still need to do with the forum.

I am leaving out the rework of the category structure on the basis that it is a 'being done' thing and not a 'to do' thing.

Here is what I have atm

1. Sort out moderation - rules and people

I hope to have something posted about how I think moderation should be handled on the forum, to start the debate on this. I know we are doing fine with just me and Alexandros as admins currently but I still want to get some agreement on what kind of moderation we want and then who will be tasked with the role.

2. Comprehensive Site specific faq

I want to produce (or better still have someone else or several someone elses produce) a site specific faq for new users of the forum. The sections I have in mind currently for this are

General blurb about site 'philosophy'
English translation of non English posts
spell checker
word replacer
avatars
ranks
calendar
photo album
moderation

If you can think of other things to go in it then let me know.

3. Create a 'best of / summary' sticky for as many sections as possible.

A simple idea really. Basically to try and summarise information in the section in general. The most obvious candidate section would be the 'cyprus problem resources' section. The section has a lot of useful resources in there but a summary of these with them group into sensible categories and then links back to the actual threads of each would be very useful imo. It could also be used in other sections if there was someone willing to do the work. In the jokes section for example a sticky along the lines 'best jokes from last 3 months'. Clearly this will require some work from individuals or groups of them. Am I dreaming in hoping that there may be members willing to do this work?

[city]

Erol, I could write some for 2. Comprehensive Site specific faq .
(excluding
-General blurb about site 'philosophy'
-moderation )

For some of the others I would need some technical data from you I guess. I will know what exactly I need, once I start writing.

And of course someone should do a crosscheck on my English then as the FAQ should be faultless. :-)

[erolz]

Thanks City

If you do a first rough draft and post it up then maybe some others will join in and help check / improve it ?

Thanks again City.

[city]

Ok, here we go:
I have collected and copy/pasted/edited some of the info from Erolz’ and other members posts, as most of the info needed for this FAQ is already contained somewhere in the forum.


2. Comprehensive Site specific FAQ

This forum comes with various special features and some rules one might not know from other forums. They are listed and explained hereafter.


English translation of non English posts

Whenever you wish to post in languages other than English, you must provide an English translation in the same posting.

Copy/paste regulations

Please do not copy/paste entire articles from news sites or similar into your postings.
Place a link instead and give a short extract what the article is about.
This also avoids copyright issues regarding the originator of that content.


spell checker

This function can be turned on/off in your profile.
The ‘Always check spelling before posting:’ option defaults to 'yes' but you can change it to 'no' if you prefer.
When the option is set to ‘yes’ and you wish to use it, hit the 'spell check' button located under the text box you are writing in. A window pops up and you can check the suggested corrections. Once finished hit the ‘submit’ button to post your message.

word replacer

The word replacer allows abbreviated codes to be displayed in full.
There are a few commonly used abbreviations, especially relating to the Cyprus problem, that might not be familiar to everyone. The word replacer transfers the abbreviations into written out words, so that anyone who does not know the abbreviation will understand what is being said.

This is currently in place for the following terms:

‘G C’ = Greek Cypriot
‘T C’ = Turkish Cypriot
‘T Cs’ = Turkish Cypriots
‘G Cs’ = Greek Cypriots
’r o r’ = right of return
’N C S’ = northern component state
’S C S’ = southern component state
’T C C S’ = Turkish Cypriot component state
’G C C S’ = Greek Cypriot component state
‘R N C’ = Republic of Northern Cyprus
’R o C’ = Republic of Cyprus

The word replacer works with either capital/upper case or lower case letters.

Please note: if you are using RSS feed it does not make these changes and only the abbreviations appear.


avatars

The picture under the users name at the left of each post is called “avatar”.

If you wish to add such picture to your profile, select the profile button (top of the screen) then scroll down to the bottom of the page (Avatar Control Panel).
You can use any of the avatars provided in the site’s own gallery there, upload a personal one or you can link to an external image. Please do only link to an off-site avatar if you have it stored on your personal web space, as hotlinking to other sites can cause problems.
Avatar size limits currently are 129*120 pixels and 12288 bytes. These limits apply to user uploaded avatars. There is no automated checking of avatar sizes for linked too avatar, so please make sure they are within these limits yourself.

Avatars can be static or animated pictures, both is possible.

There is also a 'turn off a user’s avatar' function which you can use if you do not wish to have someone’s avatar displayed to you.
In order to do so for a certain member, you have to click the very left small button you find at the bottom line of every post, just next to the ‘profile’ button.


ranks

Ranks are used to show how active a member is contributing to the forum.
They work by counting the number of posts a member submits.

the current list is as follows

Village guest 0 - 50
Villager 51 - 200
Senior Villager 201 - 400
Mukhtar/is 401 - 700

MP 701 - 1000
Ministerial 1001 - 2000
Vice-Presidential 2001 - 3000
Presidential from 3001

calendar

The main aim of the calendar is to provide information regarding events in Cyprus, especially bi-communal events.
Furthermore, to promote the understanding and appreciation between the two communities on the island the calendar contains religious holidays. Entries about cultural events like concerts for example are also welcome.
Some important anniversaries in Cyprus' history are also included, so that we can all reflect on them.
To improve and build our community here in the forum and getting to know each other a little bit better in various ways, the calendar also has a personal touch and tells other people about members’ birthdays.

Entries to the calendar can be made by every registered member, but they need to be validated by the moderators/admin before appearing publicly in the calendar.


photo album


The photo albums are divided into two main types of Album. Public Albums and Personal Albums. Each of these can then have sub categories (and sub sub categories).
Pictures posted to public albums must be 'approved' before they will appear there after being uploaded. This is done by the moderators/admin.
With Personal Albums you can manage the categories in the gallery using the option found at the bottom right of your personal gallery page (after you have uploaded a picture to it, which creates the personal gallery). From here you can create categories and sub categories for your album, set and change the description for these categories, change the order of the categories in your personal album. By editing a category from this page you can also control the permission levels of various aspects of your personal gallery.

These are as follows:

View level - this controls who can see your personal gallery
(or individual categories or sub categories)
‘All’ means anyone including guests can view this gallery or sub category.
‘Reg’ means only logged on forum members can and
‘private’ means only you can view it.

Upload level - this controls who can put pictures into your personal gallery with the settings as above.

rate level - This controls who can assign a rating (a score from 1 - 10) for the pictures in this gallery

Comment level - this controls who can assign comments to a picture in this gallery.

The current limits on uploading pictures to albums is 1024 pixels (width) by 768 pixels (height) and total file size of 350k.

When scanning pictures in order to upload them it is advisable to set the ‘dpi’ (dots per inch) options (if available) at 72 or as near as you can. This works well for pictures that are to be displayed on a computer screen and will help keep file size down.

blue card

In the top right corner of each post is a small square blue button.
This can be used to automatically report that specific post to the moderator(s) of that forum section. The moderator will be notified via an email telling him/her who has reported the post, how many times it has already been reported and a link to the offending post.
The moderator will then decide if any action is necessary to be taken with regards to this post.

Hotlinking

Please do not hotlink to other sites without permission of the owner of the site you are hotlinking from. If you wish to use content like pictures from other peoples websites, please pay attention to copyright regulations. Available pictures from the net can be uploaded to your personal album at talkcyprus.org in order to avoid hotlinking.


Live chat room

This forum has a live chat room that allows forum members a real-time-conversation.
The link can be found at the bottom of the forum index-page or at the top left menu-box at the forums’ portal page.

Known bugs:

Firefox users are not able to change the font color. Default color is black.
Spidernet users may appear all with the same member name, due to a set up problem with the proxy at Spidernet side. There is currently nothing we can do about this. Sorry.

[erolz]

Thanks very much for doing this City. A great first cut for a site specific FAQ. Very much appreciated by me.

Re the points raised.

Avatar size limits curently are 129*120 pixels and 12288 bytes. These limits apply to user uploaded avatars. There is no automated checking of avatar sizes for linked too avatar, so please make sure they are within these limits yourself.

Re Blue card action we could just change the text to read 'the moderator will then decide if any action is necessary with regards to this post'

Yes I think we should mention something about the chat room. Also we should probably put something in there about hotlinking in general (do not do it without permission of the owner of the site you are hotlinking from) and explain how users could place the image somewhere where hotlinking to it is not an issue. Finally we prob put something about not copying and pasting entire articles from news sites but instead placing a link and an extract.

Great work City. You have really broken the back of this task and saved me much work. Thank you very very much.

[city]

erolz wrote: ....Avatar size limits curently are 129*120 pixels and 12288 bytes. These limits apply to user uploaded avatars. There is no automated checking of avatar sizes for linked too avatar, so please make sure they are within these limits yourself.

added to original post

erolz wrote: Re Blue card action we could just change the text to read 'the moderator will then decide if any action is necessary with regards to this post'

done

erolz wrote: Yes I think we should mention something about the chat room. Also we should probably put something in there about hotlinking in general (do not do it without permission of the owner of the site you are hotlinking from) and explain how users could place the image somewhere where hotlinking to it is not an issue. Finally we prob put something about not copying and pasting entire articles from news sites but instead placing a link and an extract.

added to original post

P.S. you should add BBF to the word replacer list :-)

[brother]

Excellent work city. :wink:

[Dhavlos]

well done city. :)

[city]

Thanks guys! :D
No corrections, additions, comments.......?

[brother]

not of the top of my head at the moment, you seem to have been very thorough.

[Dhavlos]

not from what i could see, i'll leave it up to you guys, you lot would know a lot more about how it works than me!

[city]

brother wrote: ....... you seem to have been very thorough.

:D That sounds as some of the prejudices re. Germans might have some truth in it.... :wink:

[brother]

city wrote: brother wrote: ....... you seem to have been very thorough.

:D That sounds as some of the prejudices re. Germans might have some truth in it.... :wink:

:lol: :lol:

[petethegreek]

Bravo City, bravo.

:D

[erolz]

OK

I have 'modded' the standard faq system to be able to incorporate the 'site specific faq' into it. This means that we could now add any number of faq's in the future should we wish to, if we can write them of course. A 'Annan plan' faq could be a good idea given the appraent differences people see in it perhaps? Alexandors fancy giving this one a go perhaps? :)

Anyway the site specific faq can be found at

http://www.talkcyprus.org/forum/faq.php?mode=sitefaq

It is not complete yet and still is a 'beta version'. It could do with more editing and re writing to make it easy to read and understand and of course the missing sections need to be filled in but it's a great start imo. When it is complete I will add a link to it to the welcome PM that new user get on signing up.

Again thanks to City for her help with this. If I had to write all that text from scrathc I would never have got round to it.