Questions about the New Forum Software

[AW Admin]

I just came across a post that mentioned a 10k character limit. The poster split their story over three posts. That's going to be a pain to critique. I'm interested in learning if the character limit is imposed by the software or if it can be adjusted. I like the idea of hard limits on post sizes--can't tell you how annoyed I'd get by 8k word posts by newbies--but this post was overall under 4k words, I think. Long, but crittable. Anyhow, this is a low-level concern, to be addressed in some future iteration of the boards.

I increased the post character limit to 15K. I don't want to make it much larger than that yet, since it can cause things to slow down. I very likely will feel comfortable doing that down the road.

The character limit includes the BB codes, the tags that produce the formatting.

Formatting is causing the issues. The issue is in part caused by redundant tags.

You can see the tags if you click the vertical Ellipses at the far right of a post form.

You'll see More Options; a new row of icons will appear, probably on the left of the post window.

the [ ] button will show you the tags. Here is an example of a tag that turns on a font, one that sets a font size, and then the font and font size are turned off.

[SIZE=3][FONT=book antiqua]Your Parragraph[/FONT][SIZE]

If you select Every Single Paragraph and set a font and size tag, all those characters count. Those tags are usually redundant.

Instead, don't set the font and size, or set a single font and size for the whole post, by selecting the entire message, and then set the font and font size.

I'll write a new formatting FAQ when I can, and I'll try to add these tips to the current FAQ cheat sheet.

 

[AW Admin]

In other words, don't over format.

 

[litdawg]

In other words, don't over format.

Thanks for breaking it down for me, Barney-style. I appreciate it! That's complicated, and it makes sense. There's just so much to consider on the back-end of an endeavor like this. I appreciate what you're doing!

 

[MythMonger]

Since yesterday I've only been able to quick reply to posts and not click reply from directly below the post.

Yesterday, on my iphone, I was able to reply normally with bb formatting and everything.

The very next post I replied to on my iphone wouldn't take. It would give me this:
Oops! We ran into some problems. Please try again later. More error details may be in the browser console.

I copied everything and emailed it to myself, switched to my home Win10 laptop and got the same error. I tried again with my Win10 work computer today and got the same error.

Tried again with a different post just now on my work computer and received the same error.

I've tried different browsers (Edge and Chrome).

All of the posts were under SYW if that helps.

 

[AW Admin]

All of the posts were under SYW if that helps.

Can you be more explicit about where in SYW? It's a bunch of forums.

Thanks.

 

[MythMonger]

Can you be more explicit about where in SYW? It's a bunch of forums.

Thanks.

Both qlh and sff

 

[AW Admin]

Thaks

Both qlh and sff

Thank; that's helpful.

 

[AW Admin]

Two things to keep in mind.

1. If you're posting rapidly, with less than 30 seconds between posts, the forum isn't going to be happy.

That's a setting to deter spammers. It's the same amount of time as on the old forum.

2. If you're copying and pasting text from a word processor, the forum is frequently not going to be happy because often that text has formatting codes you can't see, either codes associated with the particular product, or html.

Either are potential problems.

I am going to be tweaking various things, particularly in SYW, but my drive crashed late Friday, I've been trying to get my computer fully functional again, and create new backups and perform my personal jobs/responsibilities, which are aversely affected by not having a functional computer, and I'm fried.

There isn't anyone else I can delegate this too, or I would.

So please continue to be patient; I'm going as fast as I can.

 

[PastyAlien]

Oops! We ran into some problems. Please try again later. More error details may be in the browser console.

All of the posts were under SYW if that helps.

I only get this error when I use coloured text. Maybe the errors are happening to critters in SYW because we tend to use coloured text in our crits?

Don't know if that will help figure out what's going on, but I thought I'd share just in case.

I am going to be tweaking various things, particularly in SYW, but my drive crashed late Friday, I've been trying to get my computer fully functional again, and create new backups and perform my personal jobs/responsibilities, which are aversely affected by not having a functional computer, and I'm fried.

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear this! I hope you get your computer back up and running soon. And this error is no big deal and a low priority, at least for me. I'll just avoid coloured text for the time being. Thanks for all the amazing work you've done on this huge transition!

 

[MythMonger]

Two things to keep in mind.

1. If you're posting rapidly, with less than 30 seconds between posts, the forum isn't going to be happy.

That's a setting to deter spammers. It's the same amount of time as on the old forum.

2. If you're copying and pasting text from a word processor, the forum is frequently not going to be happy because often that text has formatting codes you can't see, either codes associated with the particular product, or html.

Either are potential problems.

I am going to be tweaking various things, particularly in SYW, but my drive crashed late Friday, I've been trying to get my computer fully functional again, and create new backups and perform my personal jobs/responsibilities, which are aversely affected by not having a functional computer, and I'm fried.

There isn't anyone else I can delegate this too, or I would.

So please continue to be patient; I'm going as fast as I can.

FYI my posts appear to be working normally again in QLH, including colored words.

ETA: the same problem later appeared in SYW SFF

 

[Silenia]

The great majority of my posts don't show up if I go to my profile & check my posts, nor if I do a forum search for posts made by me. However, if I manually browse to such replies, they do still exist. (E.g. my post here) Posts involved are pretty old (2019 and before, and probably mostly 2014-2017 if I'd have to guess)

No big deal, just wondering if this is a known issue.

 

[AW Admin]

The great majority of my posts don't show up if I go to my profile & check my posts, nor if I do a forum search for posts made by me. However, if I manually browse to such replies, they do still exist. (E.g. my post here) Posts involved are pretty old (2019 and before, and probably mostly 2014-2017 if I'd have to guess)

No big deal, just wondering if this is a known issue.

The posts are all there in the database. I'll look into it; thanks.

 

[Silenia]

The posts are all there in the database. I'll look into it; thanks.

Thanks for confirming the posts are indeed all still existent, just not showing up on searches.

You're welcome. Like I said, not a big deal, and I know you'll get around to fixing it at some point, you always do. I know you've got a whole list of more important things (on and especially off AW) to deal with at the moment, so please take your time.

 

[tko]

I just critiqued a 2.5K word work and got the message "over 15K character limit" when replying. Seem like my added comments pushed it over the limit. The practical limits for posting works, considering the additional work count of any comments, might be only 2K words, which seems light.

 

[AW Admin]

I just critiqued a 2.5K word work and got the message "over 15K character limit" when replying. Seem like my added comments pushed it over the limit. The practical limits for posting works, considering the additional work count of any comments, might be only 2K words, which seems light.

Please see this post. The characters include the formatting tags; typically the problem is that the person critting is over-using formatting tags, for instance, setting the font and size for every paragraph, rather than for the entire post.

I'm a little reluctant to increase the number of characters per post again just yet. The size of posts directly affects the responsiveness of the site, the speed of the database, among other things.

 

[Silenia]

Strictly speaking not a question, but figured this was too tiny an issue for a thread all its own: the text on the forum index in the "Welcome to the Absolute Write Water Cooler" misses a word (emphasis mine):

Welcome, writers! [...] Absolute Write offers information writing as well as editing, publishing and agents.

Strongly suspect that was meant to read "offers information on writing [...]" or similar.

 

[AW Admin]

Thanks; fixed it.

 

[Maryn]

FWIW for any other members for whom the new site is a bit glitchy...

Turning off my ad-blocking software for just this site helped. I still have some glitches, but fewer than before.

Maryn, content

 

[Silenia]

Speaking of likely glitches, whether or not I am capable of editing and/or deleting my posts appears to be sub-forum dependent: in most places my posts have an edit button right next to the report button, but no delete button.

In Writing Excercises & its Flash Fiction Challenge subforums (ETA: and the Brainstorming subforum), there is an additional delete button (except on posts that started a thread: edit button but no delete button there).

On the other hand, in the NC-17 Erotica Discussion section, my posts lack both Edit and Delete buttons.

I suspect this is not intended behaviour?

EDIT: Persists across browsers; persists when disabling all browser extensions/add-ons.

 

[AW Admin]

Speaking of likely glitches, whether or not I am capable of editing and/or deleting my posts appears to be sub-forum dependent: in most places my posts have an edit button right next to the report button, but no delete button.

In Writing Excercises & its Flash Fiction Challenge subforums (ETA: and the Brainstorming subforum), there is an additional delete button (except on posts that started a thread: edit button but no delete button there).

On the other hand, in the NC-17 Erotica Discussion section, my posts lack both Edit and Delete buttons.

I suspect this is not intended behaviour?

EDIT: Persists across browsers; persists when disabling all browser extensions/add-ons.

I have had to set the permissions for all forums.

I'm working on it.

AW allows members to edit, but not delete posts. Writing Lab is at the very end of the over 100 forums, so I'm getting there.

 

[Silenia]

I have had to set the permissions for all forums.

I'm working on it.

AW allows members to edit, but not delete posts. Writing Lab is at the very end of the over 100 forums, so I'm getting there.

Oh, okay. Makes sense things won't all be in place immediately, and I really didn't and don't mean to rush you, I just happened to notice because I wanted to fix a grammar whoopsie & found myself lacking an edit button, so figured I'd better check whether the issue was known. Once more, my heartfelt thanks for your work & quick responses. AW is incredibly lucky to have you.

 

[Maryn]

Indeed.

Maryn, woman of few words, except when writing

 

[MythMonger]

Two things to keep in mind.

1. If you're posting rapidly, with less than 30 seconds between posts, the forum isn't going to be happy.

That's a setting to deter spammers. It's the same amount of time as on the old forum.

2. If you're copying and pasting text from a word processor, the forum is frequently not going to be happy because often that text has formatting codes you can't see, either codes associated with the particular product, or html.

Either are potential problems.

I am going to be tweaking various things, particularly in SYW, but my drive crashed late Friday, I've been trying to get my computer fully functional again, and create new backups and perform my personal jobs/responsibilities, which are aversely affected by not having a functional computer, and I'm fried.

There isn't anyone else I can delegate this too, or I would.

So please continue to be patient; I'm going as fast as I can.

I hope you don't mind an update on the posting error, but I had a chance to do some trial and error on the latest SYW SFF post I created.

I received the same browser error when I posted my short story, which I assumed was too long. I split the story in two and previewed it, no problem. I added a sentence about splitting the story in two, previewed it, had the browser error. Removed the extra sentence and it worked again.

I typically get the same browser error whether I post or preview it.

People replying to my posts are also reporting errors.

My other browser errors were for long posts, so I'm thinking it's due to the character limit. I saw where another poster on this thread received a character limit error, but I've never seen one.

I hope this helps.

 

[AW Admin]

Yes. This is due to the character limit. The tags count as part of the total characters.

When I look at the tags on the posts with the problems I see lots of empty tags, where a tag is turned on then off again immediately, and many font changes that are successive.

If you click the vertical ellipses on the top right of a posting form, it reveals more options. One of them, [ ] will show you the tags in your posts (you will need to toggle it off again to use the editing GUI/Icons).

 

[MaeZe]

I can't post in my Linkedin thread but I can post elsewhere. Tried twice and tried quoting someone to no avail. It's only in that one thread so far.

Using my older Mac. Not due to character limits. And not posting rapidly.

But I was able to post using my new Mac.