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What I've been working on for the last few months...

13:49 / 20.10.02

Right everyone... I've been working on a community site (as my job) for the last few months, and it goes into public beta tomorrow first thing, which means that we can let in the general public and see what they think of it and hopefully it'll start actually being useful and cool and stuff... You'll probably notice some similarities with the way in which some of the stuff on it works and barbelith - although most of the cool stuff that is based on some of barbelith's features like distributed moderation is very much behind the scenes at the moment... What you'll probably notice mostly is that the profile pages have all the stuff that I've been promising you here for ages and haven't had the time to implement... Sorry guys!

Basically the site is a place for people to talk about local issues, services, restaurants, roads, schools, nights out etc. etc. etc. but all relevant to their VERY SPECIFIC locality - you type in your postcode and you're shown conversations that are close-by, which you can then join in on.

I'd really appreciate it if any UK-based people could have a wander around the site, maybe post a few things in their local area and respond to any particularly interesting conversations that they see around the place. Particularly if you live outside London, I think it could be very useful indeed as a site, and I'd love any or all feedback you guys might have at this stage... Obviously there are some rough-edges...

Few ground-rules to start off with... I'm giving you all priveleged access, so obviously I'd like it if you didn't misbehave too much! So please limit the swearing to essentially not-completely-explicit language, and treat the site as if it were a fully open, working community... If you have any comments about how it works, e-mail me on tom@barbelith.com as normal or post them on this thread.... And with all that in mind...

forums.upmystreet.com

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:29 / 20.10.02

Just had a (very) quick nose around- that rocks. I especially like the "x miles from this conversation" feature. For some reason that seems to make visualising other users as real people easier. Dunno why. I'll spend more time checking it out in the next few days, but what I've seen so far is way cool.

14:31 / 20.10.02

Registering is a bit tricky. I've received the email, but the first link gets 'the page cannot be displayed' and the second just seems to get stuck - if I enter my email address I get the gremlins page, but when I enter the code from the email, it goes into deep thought and I get nowhere. Looks like a useful site, though.

14:48 / 20.10.02

I just registered again and it all seemed to work fine... Can you clarify again what you did?

14:53 / 20.10.02

I filled in the registration form, got the email.

Then I tried the first link given in the email, and got a 'cannot display' message.

The second option in the email is to click on a link and enter some code. When I do that, the page just keeps trying to connect - at least I assume that's what's happening. 20 minutes later it still has an eggtimer (I'm sure there's a proper description!) and has gone nowhere.

I've also tried entering my email on the page, as it requests, but that brought up a page saying something like 'we know there's a gremlin here'.

I have to go out soon but I'll try it again later.

15:05 / 20.10.02

ah... interesting... irritating, but interesting...

22:35 / 20.10.02

I tried this (think I've been on the website before, but not forums) and the nearest conversation was one of your own, Tom.

With a Cardiff postcode.

My postcode is a Dundee postcode.

08:45 / 21.10.02

Yes, that's going to be quite normal at the moment - one of the reasons that'll be the case is that there aren't enough people on it at the moment to have filled it up sufficiently. That's why I'm asking you guys to go in and post something!

08:57 / 21.10.02

I've figured out the problem - we had the wrong copy on that page - it was supposed to read 'type in the code from the e-mail you were sent' rather than 'type in your e-mail'. D'oh.

09:34 / 21.10.02

I really would appreciate it if people would have a play though... Particularly those of you who live in the UK but not in London...

09:40 / 21.10.02

Registered, am trying to think of conversations to start...

09:41 / 21.10.02

You star!

09:54 / 21.10.02

Looks good, just want to point out that I don't have piles!

10:06 / 21.10.02

I seem to have a problem entering my registration code: it just hangs 'n hangs. *and* I can answer the yoga in w9 question.

10:13 / 21.10.02

It did that to me, but then when I followed the link with the code in the email it worked perfectly - must just be very slow...

10:56 / 21.10.02

I'm still getting stuck, with both sign up messages (ie cut and paste code, or click through from email).

13:36 / 21.10.02

I'm checking this out at this very moment...

13:57 / 21.10.02

On clicking the confirm link or entering the code and submitting, the program she say "Redirection limit for this URL exceeded. Unable to load page."

14:10 / 21.10.02

Basically, you've already confirmed the e-mail address and should now be able to log-in, but because you pressed the link twice it's got confused and is throwing you around the houses. We're working on that now. In the meantime, you should be able to log in as normal from the login page and everything will then be sorted...

14:39 / 21.10.02

This should all now work. Again, can't repeat enough, any one interested in some of the functionality that I have planned for barbelith should have a look at things like the thread-tracker functionality on UMS Conversations...

15:50 / 21.10.02

Hurray! Success. I hope I get some replies, now...

Tryphena Absent

16:09 / 21.10.02

Well Tom I hope I've helped you...

17:31 / 21.10.02

Why can't I see my own question? I can find it when I click on my name - it's there under 'tracking' - but it doesn't appear on the list of conversations in my area.

tom-karika nukes it from orbit

18:13 / 21.10.02

Wow! You have acheived something quite amazing.

No, nothing to do with the neat site design, ideas and technical prowess etc., though that is pretty cool.

No, you have persuaded my MUM, yes that's right MY MUM, who, although she occasionally indulges in a bit of over-shoulder browsing, wouldn't otherwise touch 'that internet thing' with a very long bargepole, that there may be something useful out there.

She is planning to use it to arrange and advertise the PTA christmas bazzar as we speak.

*/stunned\*

23:35 / 21.10.02

I had a strange time registering aswell, saw the page about putting in the code but didn't need to use it as the e-mail link did the trick on it's own. Strange, but hey I'm in and it looks pretty cool.
Even got a chance to shamelessly plug an enterprise some of my friends have undertaken...hoorah!

09:26 / 22.10.02

I'm having a similar thing to Ariadne - the conversation I started in central Leeds doesn't show up when I go to Leeds, though I can find it when I search under the title.

Also, when I go into a conversation in Netscape 4.7, the 'Start new conversation' link is superimposed over 'Login' and 'Register'.

In both these cases I was not logged in.

It's very, very, cool though Tom - well done.

20:53 / 22.10.02

Thanks for all of your help, guys!

Goodness Gracious Meme

21:16 / 22.10.02

Have registered and will try and think of community-related stuff to post about Brighton.

Goodness Gracious Meme

21:30 / 22.10.02

erm, have started a topic on restaurant picks in brighton, adn can't find it, either under title or location...

05:56 / 23.10.02

Wow. This has actually worked. I don't mean in a technical sense - though that too - but in a real, useful, answered my question sense. Thank you Tom.

06:01 / 23.10.02

Oh. But today I can't get in. I get to the page that says 'show me conversations in the past 1 day, 3 days etc' but none of them take me anywhere.

06:25 / 23.10.02

Heh. My nearest conversation is started by Deva.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:25 / 23.10.02

Cool! I've been moaning about the roadworks in Hoxton all week (and, truth be told, for the last few months) and now I have people online who feel the same way!

That's really top, Tom. How many users are you eventually expecting? Cos I imagine it'll get more user-friendly and useful the more people who're on it.

Serious, man. That's way cool.

(Damn... you may have just doubled my internet time...)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:41 / 23.10.02

Quick question- (probably already explained somewhere on the site)- the "distance from conversation" (very cool, as I said earlier)- is that based on who started it, or an average? (because that could be weird- if say, 50 people posted in a thread who were from Brixton, and 100 from Southgate, what would the distance bit say? I know that wouldn't actually happen, because you'd be directed to whoever was closest, but I'm interested to know how this works.)