What should SuperTopo improve in 2012?

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nutjob

Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
Dec 5, 2011 - 04:45pm PT
+1 embedded video
+1 better search (Advanced search page: by author, commenter, date range, topic summary, or message body)
Ihateplastic

Trad climber
It ain't El Cap, Oregon
Dec 5, 2011 - 04:47pm PT
Ability to load more than one pic at a time.

Buy and sell tab is a cool idea.

I LOVE the idea of a KIVA-type contributions page where people could help fund worthwhile trips.

Personally, I do not worry too much about an "ignore" button... My brain seems to do that just fine.
Gene

climber
Dec 5, 2011 - 04:57pm PT
Picture search!!!!!
Captain...or Skully

climber
Where are you bound?
Dec 5, 2011 - 05:26pm PT
No polititards. EVER!
Let them freakin' call each other.
Toker Villain

Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
Dec 5, 2011 - 06:08pm PT
We should be able to vote anonymous trolls off the island. Thin the herd a bit. Might help mitigate some of crunch's impenetrable fluff.
Russ Walling

Gym climber
Poofter's Froth, Wyoming
Dec 5, 2011 - 06:09pm PT
Realtime chat or a Skype room, so I can show Locker my nuts if the need arises.

Wack every poster with over 10,000 posts, for obvious reasons.

Toker Villain

Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
Dec 5, 2011 - 06:11pm PT
Whack every poster with a Vince Schlomo mug shot!
Chris McNamara

SuperTopo staff member
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 5, 2011 - 06:15pm PT
Thanks for all the feedback. Ill respond in more detail later (epic surf today at Ocean Beach sucked up a lot of the day). Ability to post videos is coming very very soon. Will write more shortly...
Minerals

Social climber
The Deli
Dec 5, 2011 - 09:08pm PT
A few comments and suggestions…

The route beta pages still have many errors and inaccuracies, and some of the info doesn’t even match what is published in the ST guidebooks. I have mentioned this before, both on this forum and by email, but no one seems to care. It would be nice if the information was accurate, especially if climbers are relying on it when climbing. No beta at all is better than incorrect beta.

Yes, as already mentioned, a better search engine(!!!), a view count for threads, and TRs and TR replies broken into pages would be good. In addition to the Comment on this Trip Report link below the last post on a TR page, you could include two more links next to it, such as Return to Recent Trip Reports and Return to Forum List. This would make navigation easier and quicker. The tiny blue links at the bottom of each page are too small and are not terribly user-friendly.

Another thing would be to have a fixed width for text in thread posts so that extra wide photos (that are hosted on other websites), extra long URL links, and excessive repetition of punctuation don’t make thread pages wider than normal. It’s difficult to read a thread when you have to scroll back and forth to read each line, or view the page in a smaller format to see all of the text. URL links and repetitive text should wrap/continue on the next line to retain normal width of thread pages; extra wide images/photos could extend beyond the right side of the page, beyond the text and page format. By keeping a standard page width, it wouldn’t be necessary to scroll to the right in order to click on the <<First, <Previous, Show All, Next>, and Last>> links. I’m not sure if this problem has been fixed recently but it has been an issue in the past. There is also an inconsistency in how these five links appear from page to page – sometimes they appear blue, sometimes they appear black. It’s different from thread to thread. To clean things up, it might be a good idea to delete the Next> and Last>> links from the last page of each thread because such a page doesn’t exist or is already displayed.

When uploading a photo to the site, the maximum dimension allowed is 1024. While it would be excessive for most photos and take up more storage space, it might be nice if the site accepted panorama photos in a wider format. It’s tough to really see the full effect of a panorama photo when it’s like a centimeter tall. Of course, one would have to scroll back and forth to view the image.

Near the bottom of the main forum list page (as well as some other pages), there are three separate sections with red titles. In the section titled Recent Route Beta, the route name is listed after the name of the formation, which is the opposite of the way it is listed on the main route beta page and the individual route beta pages. Trivial, I know…

The site looks good on an iPad, but I don’t use one to post (typing would be a pain). The drop-down menus for each red link at the top of each page don’t work on an iPad, but that’s no big deal. On a regular computer, sometimes the drop-down menus don’t work at all, depending on which page you are on (i.e. Climbing Areas page vs. Forum page). As far as returning to the main forum page from something other than a forum thread page, I agree that the tiny blue links at the bottom of each page could be more user-friendly. There’s always the red Forum link at the top of each page, but you have to scroll up to get to it if you are at the bottom of a page. Brandon, you might try using a stylus with your iPad if you haven’t already; I find that it’s much more precise than using a finger.

As far as the text size on an iPad, the text is bigger and it’s easier to read if you hold the iPad horizontal (instead of vertical), but that might be obvious. You can also zoom in to make the text bigger and eliminate the right column of ads, etc. Zooming in on photos does work quite well, but opening the full size/full res version of the image in a new window looks better.

And… what Skully said! :)

Thanks, Chris.
Mark K

Social climber
San Marcos, California
Dec 5, 2011 - 09:25pm PT
Far to many quality threads that are climbing related fall off the front page because of the choss threads that create thousands of inane posts. Just freaking add a tab for Climbing related and one for "Everything Else". Seriously, thats it.

+1

And a buy/sell page would be cool too.
Decko

Trad climber
Colorado
Dec 5, 2011 - 09:31pm PT
SuperTOPO is much more mature than other sites.......

It's hard to suggest how to keep it that way as when folks from other sites find it and are anxious to be a part of this community.......

The beauty is the simplicity........

PAUL SOUZA

Trad climber
Central Valley, CA
Dec 5, 2011 - 09:36pm PT
No multiple user names to limit trolling.

Smartphone browsing friendly for climbers on the go. Such as Tapatalk.
froodish

Social climber
Portland, Oregon
Dec 5, 2011 - 09:52pm PT
A more modern structure would be nice - at the very least, some classes/ids on the main content tables would make it much easier to use things like Greasemonkey to customize the experience.

A way to follow threads and be presented with the new posts in a thread you're following would be great.

As mentioned upstream, a layout that would limit the size of photos (via max-width resizing or even clipping via the overflow property) would increase the readability. Ditto on clipping/shortening long links or text entered without breaks.

Fix the auto-linkifying thing so that it handles https and other normal url characters like the twiddle (~) (url encoding is your friend).

I'd vote for stripping more than 3 breaks in a row in posts before storing things in the DB to eliminate the annoying (IMHO) occurrences of multiple screens of white space that show up in some posts.

Linkify the Last Post cell content (ie: "Dec 5, 2011 06:43pm") to the last post in a thread.

A more responsive design that would adapt to smaller screens on iPad/smart phones would be groovy but some small things would increase the usability on small screens tremendously:

* Let the contents of the Author columns wrap. Some of the usernames are very long and end up being the widest column on a small screen.

* Increase the hit area of some of the links, like the links in the Msgs column (set those to take up the entire area of the table cell)

The drop-down menus for each red link at the top of each page don’t work on an iPad

I'm guessing that's an easy fix - just add click handlers to the list items that contain the sub-items (iOS browsers don't do the hover -> click translation on non-anchor links)
HighTraverse

Trad climber
Bay Area
Dec 5, 2011 - 10:10pm PT
I've got an issue for SuperTopo guide books.
Please make them larger so you can make the print and drawings larger.
Reading a topo at night by headlamp is nearly impossible.
At least make the print/pictures larger for eBooks.
Provide purchase of individual topos at large scale for a low price. 3 for 1$ maybe?

SuperTopo forum:
Multiple picture uploads in one upload panel.
Better search filters.
Allow each user to filter out individual threads, or to mark individual threads as "preferred" and then list them first, per user. That would probably be a cookie thing.

Even though there's plenty of drivel, please don't censor topics, posts or users unless it's egregious. The current censorship policy, if there is one, is fine. I think the users do a good job of calling out offensive activities.

I don't think anything is really broken. Just some opportunities for improvement and optimizing user functionality.
SteveW

Trad climber
The state of confusion
Dec 5, 2011 - 10:28pm PT

If Nature gets a sushifest tab, why knott an OUCH! tab too!!!!
Jay Wood

Trad climber
Land of God-less fools
Dec 5, 2011 - 10:36pm PT
+1 for larger type in guide books. (hey, you're getting old just as fast as me!)

Mountain project has a happening buy/sell page. ST could be as good, with more West-Coastie activity. This would dovetail somewhat with the gear review emphasis.

Any way to block those 'does this dress make me look fat' type spam posts?

Chinchen

climber
Way out there....
Dec 5, 2011 - 11:55pm PT
Another vote for topic rooms. AGAIN.
neebee

Social climber
calif/texas
Dec 6, 2011 - 12:08am PT
hey there say, chris... most likly i am the only one that has this trouble...
but:

when you changed so we could upload our own photos, instead through a photo-service, well:

at FIRST there was ONE window to work with, to click on:
click this:

//upload photo from your computer...
upload photo from your previous...//

well, that worked great, and really FAST FOR dial up, like me..

then, within (days???) there was SUDDENLY ANOTHER BOX, THAT we were lead to:

do you certify(something like that) that this is your own photo)...

//well, WITH those TWO BOXES, two windows, to handle, it takes me
"TIME UPON TIME" up to 4 min, to upload a picture, :(//

before YOU HAD THAT DONE, it was nearly instant! *with your first box, only being all i had to hit...



SO QUESTION TO YOU NOW IS:

CAN'T you PLEASE compbine the messages, all into one, and MAKE ONLY one
upload-box for us to upload the pics???



thanks so much, chris...
:)
nature

climber
Aridzona for now Denver.... here I come...
Dec 6, 2011 - 12:13am PT
a "Coffee Tips and Tricks" tab
ms55401

Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
Dec 6, 2011 - 12:14am PT
a strict quota limiting posts -- maybe 100 per month

no one here posts such scintillating content to warrant posting hundreds or even thousands of posts per month. And it seems that maybe two dozen posters are responsible for 50% of the traffic on this site -- probably more given the multiplicity of accounts

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