BR Forum Feedback

[Gus]

Shiv - Firefox has extensions like 'drag and go', 'quick drag' etc that has options to configure actions on link clicks and even different actions for diff types of links (url, pics etc)

[RamaY]

Mods,

I created Secularism v2.0 thread and requested to close the old thread. Can you please do that?
Right now, we have to active threads on same topic.

TIA

[Viv S]

IMPORTANT: Please have the 'BR Discussion Forum' link on the main page direct the user to the 'Board Index' NOT the 'Active Topics' section. This is first and foremost a defence (and strategic issues) forum rather than one for religion and social issues.

A new user shouldn't visit only to be confronted with three different threads on the US, another three on Secularism, and then plenty more on politics with only a handful relating to defence (if that).

[arshyam]

^^ The politics and religion stuff shows up only when we are logged in. Regular users will only see the threads from the 3 open forums. That said, I agree with you that since BR's main focus is military, upon clicking on 'discussion forums', we should by default show either mil stuff only (with a link to the other forums), or the old behaviour of the BRF main index page.

Also, can I make some suggestions?
1. The main site has too many colours and is quite hard to parse the content from the colours. For example, the title at the top - the background image is B&W and the BR heading is in white. The end result is that the title is not really that visible and looks cluttered. Can we consider lightening the colours or greying out the background image so that the BR heading is easily identifiable?
2. Similarly, the tape effect for the photos below the menu link - the B&W band above and below the photos take the attention away from the menu links, I had to search for them before finding out that they were right there. Can we replace the black colour with a lighter/greyish hue to make it less prominent? That way, the links above, and the photos themselves will stand out, as content is the key.
3. If the above 2 points aren't clear, one can check out the difference between the main site and the blog page - the latter is easier on the eyes and gives prominence to the content, with minimal distractive colours.

JM2p.

[Viv S]

^^ The politics and religion stuff shows up only when we are logged in. Regular users will only see the threads from the 3 open forums. That said, I agree with you that since BR's main focus is military, upon clicking on 'discussion forums', we should by default show either mil stuff only (with a link to the other forums), or the old behaviour of the BRF main index page.

Even for non-logged in users, the active topics thread throws up the 'Railways', 'Understanding the US', 'Physics', 'Islamism', 'Out-of-India', 'Agriculture', 'Roads', 'IT' and other such strictly non-defence threads.

[Viv S]

Also what the hell happened to the 'News' section on the main page? That was arguably one of the best parts of the BR site. Just keeping a close eye on that was enough to stay up to date wrt all India defence related news.

[member_28108]

The LCA thread should stop using pinglish etc. It may look cute for the writers but is inappropriate there and it should be stopped.

[Viv S]

<Bump> (I know its a sticky thread but still.)

To reiterate - can we please have the BR forums link on the main page be redirected to the board index instead of the khichdi that is the active topics page?

Its a bad idea to have the main entry to an establishment be through the smoker's lounge. It effectively sidelines BRF's raison d'etre i.e. the defence section.

[shiv]

<Bump> (I know its a sticky thread but still.)

To reiterate - can we please have the BR forums link on the main page be redirected to the board index instead of the khichdi that is the active topics page?

Its a bad idea to have the main entry to an establishment be through the smoker's lounge. It effectively sidelines BRF's raison d'etre i.e. the defence section.

Second that

[Jagan]

<Bump> (I know its a sticky thread but still.)

To reiterate - can we please have the BR forums link on the main page be redirected to the board index instead of the khichdi that is the active topics page?

Its a bad idea to have the main entry to an establishment be through the smoker's lounge. It effectively sidelines BRF's raison d'etre i.e. the defence section.

Second that

(let me throw some fat in the fire)

I think BRF should own the discussions rather than hide them.. if we are scared of the topics being read by others, then maybe we should not encourage them in the first place?

[Vayutuvan]

There is no "right to be forgotten". Only now we hear voices being raised for such a law. Till such time a law is enacted i suspect many people would like to post only under pseudonyms. This applies to not just BRF.
If I ma I would like to put up the point that a para event ban on BRF is just that - permanent. Obviously there is an honor code involved.

[johneeG]

Mod saars,
is it possible to start a thread: Why not call out Pakistan's bluff on UN resolutions on Kashmir?

The idea is to highlight that Pakistan is occupying a part of Kashmir violating the UN resolutions and Parliamentary resolutions in Bhaarath. This is important because the only tune that pakistan sings on kashmir is, "UN resolutions... UN resolutions". It needs to be exposed that UN resolutions are actually asking Pakistan to get out of Kashmir. And the word 'plebiscite' is not found anywhere in UN resolutions.

UN resolutions only talks about the 'will' of people without mentioning any details. On the other hand, it clearly tells the pakistani regular and irregular forced to vacate Kashmir.

So, it should be Bhaarath reminding pakistan about UN resolution instead one see Pakistani bluffing about UN resolutions.

Here are a list of posts which can be used to start the thread:
Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

Post 4

[K Mehta]

I would like to create a voluntary "le-ejjucashun" thread for people who want to "look/act east" after too much shallow focus on bakis. In it people can self nominate or can nominate certain posters for le-ejjucashun.

We can have a list of threads on look/act east as well as topics needing people to work on. People can volunteer to le-ejjucate themselves on these topics.

This is a broad idea and any guidance from moderator team is welcomed and requested.

Lot of people including me are having a shallow focus and knowledge of baki affairs but are only posting on these threads while various look east and other threads are on page 2/3 of thread list. Too much heat and too little light is coming from these baki threads.

Even look deep into bakiland using Urdu is not happening. We would need a Urdu media watch thread for this, preferably two threads with one dealing on Indian and another on global media including BBC and baki media

So it can be a look deep/ look east le-ejjucashun, where people should post at least one post in these look deep/look east threads for every post on baki threads.

Just a thought. Does the mod team approve the idea(s) ?

[Shreeman]

Look folks, given how obtuse, obscure, partisan, rambling and unreadable my posts are, I shouldnt be making this post. But this ukraine-style revolution of attacking everything russian, and always by what looks like 2? may be 3 posters has to go. I am all in favor of issue based lynching but lynching of individuals on made up claims is making defense threads look like cat fights.

As an aside, yes the vik. contract was flawed. Neither side expected or inspected the rotting cables or planned for changed politics. India should have walked away from it. But it didnt become a mistral deal, did it? Now, based on imperfect knowledge that mud slinging is merely demonising the flagship in service.

To an uninitiated idiot, selected posters are coming across as paid salespeople or worse.

My uncalled for 2c.

[DexterM]

Dear Mods,

Kindly delete my account as soon as time permits. If possible, please make sure my email ID does not remain available to anyone.

Thanks in advance.

[Gus]

Mods please clean the modi achievement thread and keep it articles alone. no commentary/discussion.

[shravanp]

Mods garus.

The food/wine thread is locked. Can we create a new one or is it gonna be off limits topic?

[Rahul M]

for any thread locked after 100 pages, permission to open new one is automatic, unless specifically mentioned otherwise in locked thread.

[Vayutuvan]

United States Submarines
Gentlemen rakshak: I have a copy to give away but sorry to say it is the 2002 edition . Nevertheless I will mail it in the US free to the first claimant. I have three more on Air Power (old editions but could be useful to to some doing research) whose details I will be posting in the next couple of days.

[A Sharma]

Why the defence news section on main site has news from Pakistani source? Specially when it's about Kashmir and says IOK on link itself

[Viv S]

:groan:

TO THE MODERATORS/ADMINISTRATORS

Can we please at least have a conversation about the the automatic redirection to 'Active Topics' page? The first topic on the page when accessing BRF right now was the Love & Marriage Thread. Interesting read. But is that the first thing you want a new member to the forum to be seeing as representative of a two decade legacy of debate and coverage of defence and strategic issues?

Yes, there exists a BRF community. Yes, they should be able to engage in casual chats. But is that the purpose of this forum?

What does religion, caste, secularism, education, physics, maths, movies etc have to do with armoured vehicles, helicopters, LCA, defence R&D, munitions, missiles etc? Why present it all as a kichdi in one vessel?

I'd like to be able to invite some knowledgeable folks from an armed forces background to BRF without prefacing it with, 'No no its okay. Just please keep scrolling down.'

[hnair]

Viv S, point taken. Admins are figuring out how to get this done.

Meanwhile a back-request: Can you please rethink writing a line-by-line "quote 'n rebuttal"? It is a killer, to scroll through some of your posts in a device smaller than an IMAX screen. Please gather your ideas and write a nice little paragraph, so the phone-screens dont get worn out by multi-touch scrolling

[Viv S]

Viv S, point taken. Admins are figuring out how to get this done.

Meanwhile a back-request: Can you please rethink writing a line-by-line "quote 'n rebuttal"? It is a killer, to scroll through some of your posts in a device smaller than an IMAX screen. Please gather your ideas and write a nice little paragraph, so the phone-screens dont get worn out by multi-touch scrolling

Will do. Thanks.

[Suraj]

:groan:

TO THE MODERATORS/ADMINISTRATORS

Can we please at least have a conversation about the the automatic redirection to 'Active Topics' page? The first topic on the page when accessing BRF right now was the Love & Marriage Thread. Interesting read. But is that the first thing you want a new member to the forum to be seeing as representative of a two decade legacy of debate and coverage of defence and strategic issues?

As hnair indicated, we're looking at this. We may be constrained by the phpBB version. We're usually very conservative about updating versions, due to eventful past forum updates. If we're able to figure out the phpBB settings, we'll do it.

[shravanp]

Provide a human sounding name of your choice then.

Saar, after much deliberation and not-so-creative mind, can respected mods change my user id to 'sachidanand' ? Also, once the user id is modified, would I login with new user id?

[Vayutuvan]

Mods garus.

The food/wine thread is locked. Can we create a new one or is it gonna be off limits topic?

skekatpuray: I hope you keep contributing the new iteration Food and Wine - 2. Please look for it.

[Vayutuvan]

for any thread locked after 100 pages, permission to open new one is automatic, unless specifically mentioned otherwise in locked thread.

Rahul M: One doubt. Would this be archived or goes to trash can to be deleted later? If the latter, I would like to archive the thread for my own use. There are lot of interesting recipes and food (and wine ) facts in there.

[Rahul M]

you can use ArmenT's thread archiver tool (search in forum) to do that. threads would normally be deleted after some time.

[Gagan]

Forum goes off line every day at 0130 hrs IST / 1600 hrs Eastern Time (US), stays off line for about 40-50 mins.

[nachiket]

Forum goes off line every day at 0130 hrs IST / 1600 hrs Eastern Time (US), stays off line for about 40-50 mins.

It's because of the automatic backup of the database. Can't do anything about it.

[K Mehta]

I want to know if it is OK with the mods to open the following threads
1 local/regional language/ vernacular media watch thread, where articles of interest with an English summary are posted.
2 Indian urdu media watch. I feel the need especially after the YM janaza pics.
3 international Urdu media watch. Esp paki media to explore/expose the going ons in bakiland.
2&3 can be initially kept together if needed.

[Rahul M]

1 is already there. plz check arshyam's excellent thread.

yes to combined urdu thread. we can split later if needed.

[chetak]

I am making this post because I detest the following people - no strike that

I am making this post to see if something that was not possible earlier is possible now.

Would it be possible to get links posted on the forum to open in a new tab when they are clicked?

Press Control while clicking on a link - it opens in a new tab. Works, at least in Chrome and Firefox.

If you are old fashioned like me and are using a three button mouse with the center button also enabled, then pressing the center button on a link will open a new tab in all the browsers that are used on my PC, Opera, Firefox and it's 64 bit version- Waterfox and IE 11.

[Vayutuvan]

you can use ArmenT's thread archiver tool (search in forum) to do that. threads would normally be deleted after some time.

Thanks.

[K Mehta]

OK.
Regarding 1 the thread is a specific namo govt coverage thread, we need a thread to discuss the regional issues etc. The thread by arshyam is an excellent focused thread, let's not dilute the focus.

[shravanp]

Mods,
Is it possible to create another user account using same email? I need to get rid of my user id. I requested to modify it to something else, parantu the request is unanswered.

[SaiK]

we have search within forum, but can we have search within topic?

[shiv]

If you are old fashioned like me and are using a three button mouse with the center button also enabled, then pressing the center button on a link will open a new tab in all the browsers that are used on my PC, Opera, Firefox and it's 64 bit version- Waterfox and IE 11.

Brylcreem I mean brilliant. Pressing scroll wheel on mouse does the trick. Thanks

[shiv]

United States Submarines
Gentlemen rakshak: I have a copy to give away but sorry to say it is the 2002 edition . Nevertheless I will mail it in the US free to the first claimant. I have three more on Air Power (old editions but could be useful to to some doing research) whose details I will be posting in the next couple of days.

Plij. Air Pawar for me bennedose at hotmail

[Vayutuvan]

hakim saab: Sure. I will also post the amazon links for these books.