Site Suggestions

[Esh]

Ah, I\'m not here to make demands or anything, but I think that a few, seemingly simple changes to the site could make coming here a little more convenient for everyone, including new users. They\'re just suggestions, like the subject implies, but forgive me if I come off as rude at some point.

First, when you log into the forums, I think the page should stay AT the forums. I\'m not really sure why it keeps putting me back on the home page, and it\'s a rather odd thing to me. Especially because I can\'t really find anything on the home page that I would need to log into for.

Second, I\'m not really keen on the link to the forums opening a new window/tab, rather than staying inside the one I\'m already on. It\'s a little bit annoying to click to the forums, log in, then click to the forums again, and have to close two tabs. Maybe that\'s just me, or maybe this was a request, but personally, I think it would be nicer to keep it inside the same window.

Finally, on the same line of sight, I think that there should be a link to the forums inside the navigation bar from the homepage. The big \"RM Forums\" button is rather hard to miss, true, but clicking on it, and combined with it opening a new window/tab, it gives me the impression of being somewhere off-site, completely unaffiliated with RM.com. This one is purely cosmetic, and isn\'t really important at all, and, knowing me, I\'m probably alone in this feeling, but I thought it was at least worth mentioning.

Just a few suggestions, is all. Nothing world ending.

[Shirluban]

I connect directly on the forum home page, so I encounter none of your problems.

[Tina]

I get the same as Esh; when logging in I get a new window of the front page, not the forum, then have to click on the forum again, leaving me with three RM.com tabs open. But lately it seems that the auto-logout has been removed, so the problem is much diminished; now I only rarely need to login.

[deJENNerate]

Thanks guys. I\'ll try and get some testing done to see if I can fix some of these things. I\'m really swamped lately, but I should be getting some help by next month, so things will get better. The suggestions are great!!! Please put up more like this. I promise I will do my best to get as many of the suggestions in as possible.

[Barticle]

Hi Jenn. I´ve been playing MFC so I´ve heard you saying \"Jenn desu\" several times. B)

Thanks for this. I don´t get the pop-up windows but I do have the problem of getting dumped back to the main site homepage after logging-in to the forums (fora?).

Another thing I´ve noticed is an issue with the page numbering in the forum threads. For example on Hotel´s thread about playing at a jansou, on the Reach Mahjong sub-forum index it doesn´t give any indication (yet) that there´s a second page in the thread - when I click on the thread subject it takes me to page 1, but there is a page 2 (with your post).

Other threads with more posts do give the [Page: 1,2] option so you can jump straight to page 2. It´s as if there are mismatched settings somewhere - it starts a new page after the 10th post but doesn´t give the shortcut link until there´s eleven (or similar).

Also I agree that a more prominent link to the forums would be good.

[Tom Sloper]

I just tried to post (in another thread) some kanji, but couldn\'t figure out how to do it. It gets converted to unicode, but not unicode that gets read by a browser and displayed as kanji.

Whether I paste in unicode or kanji, either way, it turns into 兵庫県神
An ampersand followed by a pound sign followed by five digits followed by a semicolon.

Due to the subject matter here, sometimes (okay: Often) it\'s helpful to be able to post kanji or katakana or hiragana.

[Tom Sloper]

Oh - and as for the \"I have to re-log-in\" thing, I think it happens every time your browser downloads an update.

[Barticle]

A basic point of web usability - clicking on the site logo at the top of a page should take you to the homepage.

[deJENNerate]

Thanks guys!! Keep posting these here!!

I\'m completely taken up with keeping things updated, but once I get a bit ahead of the game we\'ll start going through everything one by one.

[Esh]

Well, as long as you\'re asking. . .


Another cosmetic thing, but something that irks me is the use of the Chinese terms used in the rules section. The Craks, Bams, and Dots don\'t really bother me that much, or at all in fact, but the calling, Chow and Pong and Kong. I feel it\'s rather. . .unauthentic for a Japanese version of a Mahjong game. I mean, I can understand the angle of trying to help American and Chinese players into it faster, but it can also be confusing to newer players of the game in general, since from what I can tell, most of the Japanese Riichi players got into the Japanese version by watching Akagi or Legendary Gambler Tetsuya. I won\'t pretend to know how popular Riichi is in Europe, considering they have their own official website and everything, but here in the states, you pretty much don\'t know about the Japanese version of Mahjong unless you watch Akagi, or someone who\'s watched Akagi tells you about Akagi.


Oh, another thing. When I updated my avatar, it brought me to a page that looked exactly like the old site format. Thought I should mention that as well.

[Tom Sloper]

something that irks me is the use of the Chinese terms used in the rules section. The Craks, Bams, and Dots don\'t really bother me that much, or at all in fact, but the calling, Chow and Pong and Kong. I feel it\'s rather. . .unauthentic for a Japanese version of a Mahjong game.

Actually, those aren\'t "Chinese" terms anymore. They\'re English terms (the terms that have been used in English works about mahjong since 1920). http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/mjfaq06.htm
I completely agree that to a large extent it\'s either Japanophiles or otaku who come to the point of wanting to learn about Japanese mahjong; but they are not necessarily bilingual.
When I write about Japanese mahjong, I use the English terms when there are established English terms, and give the Japanese terms in parentheses. Often, though, there aren\'t any English terms, so then I use the Japanese terms (and explain them in English in parentheses).

[zzo38]

I have one suggestion of this web-site, add some stuff about Washizu Mahjong. Add a forum category and also some articles, too.

The other suggestion, is to make unicode characters to work properly.

And also, make ALT+S to do \"send\" instead of \"spoiler\", please. Nearly all other web-sites use ALT+S to send!

[FixxeR]

There\'s a small problem with \"Mark all forums read\" function on the forum main page - function itself works okay, but it loads up the old page design for some reason.