Yahoo Forum Archive

Marta,

Where is the 2006 site? All I have seen so far is the 2005 site...
maybe I'm just missing it and now I'll feel really silly, but I don't
see it anywhere!

Radbooks

On 28/4/06 12:50 am, "denistonr" <denistonr@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Marta,
>
> Where is the 2006 site? All I have seen so far is the 2005 site...
> maybe I'm just missing it and now I'll feel really silly, but I don't
> see it anywhere!
>
> Radbooks
>

Hi Radbooks,

The 2006 site will be at http://www.mefawards.net/mefa2006/ . If you go
there now you will basically see the 2005 site, with all last year/s
nominations. It will be cleared out by the end of the month (hopefully!) so
that people can nominate beginning May 1. At that point it will look just
like last year: only displaying those stories people have nominated for
2006, etc.

Marta

Marta and Radbooks (and everybody else),

The site that is up at the URL below is NOT READY.

http://www.mefawards.net/mefa2006

I put it up, and opened it up for 'nominations' so that Marta could see
the forms, but they are not complete, so I didn't announce it to the
group. Now that it's public, anybody can look at it, and you can
'nominate' a story, but it's just play at this stage, and it WILL BE
DELETED before May 1.

I have just uploaded an almost final version of the story form, so
actually now is a good time to check it out and tell me what you think,
but until we make the official announcement, just put in fake stories
(have fun making up names).

When the official version is up, and ready for this year, I'm going to
move it to http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2006, with capital letters.

If you do login and test things out (with the same user/pass from the
2005 site), check out the difference between self-nominating and
regular nominations, make sure that it doesn't try to require data that
doesn't make sense (non-fiction info for a fiction story, etc.), and in
general, try to enter story data wrong, and see if it lets you. There's
supposed to be error-checking code for all the wrong bits.

Tell me anything that's wrong!

As you may notice if you look at the lists of stories, there will be
lots of missing data. I haven't gotten around to adding all the answers
to the new questions to all the lists. If we have to start taking
nominations before I do this, it will not affect how the data is
stored, just what data you see on the lists. Also, I have yet to build
search functions for all this new data, so don't be surprised if the
filters don't work either.

Unfortunately, the 2006 website will be a bit rough around the edges
when it starts out, but as long as the data is saved properly and we
can nominate stories, and you can see the list of nominations, I think
we should start on May 1.

The more checking you guys do between now and then, to be sure that the
form is saving all the data, that Liaisons can access all the data and
save things, etc., the less likely there will be problems after May 1.

Also, if some Liaison can check the Author Notification Email and tell
me what it should look like this year, I'd appreciate it. I think I
remember someone talking about it, but I can't recall specifics, and
this year, it should only tell them the story name and URL, because the
nominator can't enter all the other data. If you guys can do that, I
can focus on coding.

BTW, eventually I'll move the 2005 site to www.mefawards.net, but not
until there's some downtime.

Later,
Anthony

On Apr 28, 2006, at 5:14 AM, Marta Layton wrote:

> On 28/4/06 12:50 am, "denistonr" <denistonr@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Marta,
>>
>> Where is the 2006 site? All I have seen so far is the 2005 site...
>> maybe I'm just missing it and now I'll feel really silly, but I don't
>> see it anywhere!
>>
>> Radbooks
>>
>
> Hi Radbooks,
>
> The 2006 site will be at http://www.mefawards.net/mefa2006/ . If you go
> there now you will basically see the 2005 site, with all last year/s
> nominations. It will be cleared out by the end of the month
> (hopefully!) so
> that people can nominate beginning May 1. At that point it will look
> just
> like last year: only displaying those stories people have nominated for
> 2006, etc.
>
> Marta
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Anthony,

I'm posting my questions here for now, but is there a place you would
like us to post any comments/problems we encountered in testing the
site's nomination functions?


I have a list of MEFA noms ready and waiting, so I tested two of my
entries: one a nomination for another author, one a self-nomination.


The nomination for another author seems to have been entered properly.
No missing data, given the abbreviated form I had to fill out, no
trouble getting the data entered. It also shows that I now have only
19 nominations left, which is handy.

Self-nonmination is another story. I entered a set of filks, just
because it would be hard to categorize a set of mostly-unrelated
metafic humor. Problems I encountered:

1) I notice we're missing a "Multiple Age" time in the "Times" section.

1a) When I tried entering "multi-age" as an option, that did get added
to a list, but see below.

2) There are a number of what look like check boxes, but which do not
allow you to select multiple boxes within a given choice range.

3) It seems like you can only choose one check box on the entire
self-nomination page. So for example: I chose "I do not wish to reveal
my settings." I then also created and picked a sub-genre listing
"Filk." Once I clicked "Filk," my checkbox mark for "I do not wish to
reveal my settings" no longer was checked. I started playing around
with those check boxes, and as soon as you pick more than one, even if
within different classification areas, then the others become un-checked.

3a) This is a problem because it then becomes impossible to complete
the form. You will always be sent back to a screen that informs you
you have failed to fill in some part of the form, because your check
box choices won't "stick" (except for the last one you checked).

Dwim

Dwim,

Thanks for the comments. I had the 'N/A' code working correctly, so
it's probably something small, and once I track it down, it should work
fine. It actually all sounds like one problem with several symptoms.

Tell me what OS and browser you're using, just in case I can isolate
issues to that. The checkboxes should allow you to choose several.

Maybe we should move the comments about the testing over to
mefa-discussion.

It is possible that I might have to delay starting. I'll be sure to let
you all know when I'm ready.

Thanks,
Anthony

On Apr 29, 2006, at 10:59 AM, dwimmer_laik wrote:

> Anthony,
>
> I'm posting my questions here for now, but is there a place you would
> like us to post any comments/problems we encountered in testing the
> site's nomination functions?

--snip discussion of problems with form.

> Dwim

I was using Mozilla 1.01 for Mac OS 9.1

Dwim

On Apr 29, 2006, at 2:13 PM, dwimmer_laik wrote:

> I was using Mozilla 1.01 for Mac OS 9.1
>
> Dwim

Hmmm. That one's pretty old.

Try it again, but I'm not sure the problem isn't that fairly old
version of Mozilla.

I've updated several things, and didn't notice the same problem you
were talking about. I did have one issue, where you couldn't choose a
Story Type, and it is required, so you'd always get an error on your
own stories.

I did test this time, and I was able to self-nominate a story.

I also nominated a story by you. Could you test that you can finish
entering the data?

You might try Mozilla 1.2.1, the last version they made for Mac OS 9.

This is a 'net installer' a small download that lets you choose what
parts to install, so you only download what you need.
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2.1/
mozilla-macos9-1.2.1-stub.bin

This is the full installer.
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2.1/
mozilla-macos9-1.2.1-full.bin

Anthony

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Anthony Holder <aaholder@...>
wrote:

>
>
> On Apr 29, 2006, at 2:13 PM, dwimmer_laik wrote:
>
> > I was using Mozilla 1.01 for Mac OS 9.1
> >
> > Dwim
>
> Hmmm. That one's pretty old.
>
> Try it again, but I'm not sure the problem isn't that fairly old
> version of Mozilla.

Ok, I tried it again from work (which uses a much more recent
version of IE for non-Macs) and had no real problems, save that at
one point, I checked two sub-genres. I was told to go back and fill
in everything with an asterisk. I had filled everything marked with
an asterisk in, the problem was apparently that I checked two
subgenres. Once I got rid of one of them, everything went through
without a hitch.

<snip>

> I also nominated a story by you. Could you test that you can

finish

> entering the data?
>

I also tried this, and it worked without any problem.

> You might try Mozilla 1.2.1, the last version they made for Mac OS

9.

>
> This is a 'net installer' a small download that lets you choose

what

> parts to install, so you only download what you need.
>

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2.1/

> mozilla-macos9-1.2.1-stub.bin
>
> This is the full installer.
>

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2.1/

> mozilla-macos9-1.2.1-full.bin

Thanks, I will try to get these when I get home. I am terminally
lazy when it comes to dealing with upgrades and have long since
resigned myself to being irreparably old-fashioned until I get a new
computer, but this will surely prove motivating!

Dwim

Hi Anthony,

I've played around a bit, and it looks good so far. Some things I did:

1. I submitted my poem "The Shield-maid's Dance of Death" under the name
Anthony/Marta CoAuthors. Which is obviously not by the two of us, but I
wanted to test how the self-nomination form handled co-author nominations. I
clicked on "Self-Nominate a Story", then the link to create a new co-author
group. This opened up that form in a new window. Submitting it directed me
to the nomination form listing *all* authors, not just what I'd see for the
"Self-nominate" link. I filled out this form and got an error message that
didn't make a lot of sense - that I could not yet submit a review, I think.
But when I looked at the list of submitted nomination it showed up fine -
not awaiting any further approval.

2. I nominated a drabble of mine under my own name, and that went through
fine. All of the filters to add new characters, time periods, events, etc.
worked fine, and the form was clear and easy for me to use. (It has
"Nomination Incomplete" by the nomination, whereas the story in #1 did not.)

3. I nominated a made-up story under Dwimordene's name ("Gandalf and
Radagast's Awesome Adventures!") It seemed to be the same form as what I saw
for a self-nominted story, and on the list of nominated stories it does not
display "Nomination Incomplete".

The only other thing I noticed was that the boilerplate at
http://www.mefawards.net/mefa2006/index.php?page=index seemed a little
confusing. After nominating three stories I now see:

********



Nominate a Story (17 Nomination(s) Remaining)
You may now nominate a story
Self-Nominate a Story
Nominate a story for which you are the author or co-author. (As an
author, you will see the full story form.)

********

This made me think that self-nominated stories didn't count toward the
limits. Maybe something like:

--------

Nominate a Story ([#] Nomination(s) Remaining)
Click <link>here</link> to nominate a story of which you are not the
author. (You will provide some basic story information to begin the
nomination process.)
Click <link>here</link> if you are the author or a co-author. (You will
see the full story form where you can enter all the information we need
about your story.)

--------

Really, it's a very good form, a huge improvement over last year. Thanks for
all the time you've put into this.

Oh, and my browser is Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4. Is that an old enough version
that might be causing problems? If so, I'll update and try again.

HTH,
Marta

> Tell me what OS and browser you're using, just in case I can isolate
> issues to that. The checkboxes should allow you to choose several.
>

I forgot to mention my OS in my earlier email - it's Mac 10.3.9 .

Marta