(OT) Checking in

[Dirk41]

I'm here after some help from Julio. Love the new layout.

[schillingfan]

You look like I would expect from your name, except for the "ole" part.

[donaldorc]

Wondering if there is a quick way to return to the forum without having to scroll all the way back to the top.

I'm glad to see that this is no longer an issue. The mast head at the top of the page is floating, and a link to return to the forum is ever present! YAY

[phillychuck]

You can also just type "u" which takes you up a level (if you like keyboard shortcuts and it works on your system--it's fine on my mac).

[julio]

When you're in a thread, clicking on the red hat in the floating header bar will take you back to the home page. Clicking on the thread title will take you to the beginning of the thread. As PC noted, typing 'u' will take you 'up' (back) one page, to wherever you were last.

Also, if you find yourself on an error page (not likely, but possible if you have bookmarks left over from our phpbb board), the large blue "Philliesphans" in the home page header is a link back to the home page.

[olgrandad]

Sounds simple enough, but where are my "preferences"?

[julio]

Click on your avatar in the upper right corner - in your case, since you haven't uploaded an avatar, that's the purple circle with a letter "O" in it.

On the menu that drops down, click on the sprocket icon, just below the purple "O". This opens your preferences.

[donaldorc]

Pretty cool. I just got a badge for posting a link that got over 50 clicks. This is new!

[stockton]

I made it. Haven't been around for awhile, but it's good to see all the familiar names.

[olgrandad]

Pic is 12 years old, when I joined this group. Hence rather dated, so I decided simply to go with the assigned icon.

[donaldorc]

This forum has been rather dead. Is it because there is little to discuss, or is it because not all of the members have been able to enter yet?

[zambonir]

Doesn't seem any less active (for the quieter parts of the off-season) to me. Even during the playoffs there wasn't much posting. Also, holidays (and weekends) are always slower.

But it did take AustinFan a while to get here

[julio]

Austinfan apparently has a life, which intruded for a while.

More generally, my reply to posts about "forum is dead" is this: If there's something you want to discuss, post about it - start a topic. Don't wait for somebody else to bring it up.

The news right now is coming from the Winter Meetings. Pending any Phillies deals, that's going to be minor-league news (Cozens in the news today), non-Phillies news, former Phillies news, etc. There are posts on those things...

EDIT: A further comment on this. One of the nice things about Discourse is that admins have access to a data dashboard. That dashboard tells me that we tend to have weekly low posting totals on weekends (something I would probably not have noted without the stats in front of me) - evidently more of our users are reading/posting on weekdays (from work?!) than on weekends. Today's (Monday) post total is already more than twice yesterday's, and it's relatively early.

[zambonir]

I always notice the holiday/weekend slowdown because I still work a lot of those days, and presumably like many of us, read the board when I should be working!

Sidenote to new board format that I just learned: it saves posts you start but don't finish, even (I think) if you close out the topic or your browser.

[LoneStarPhan]

We need one of those big time trade rumors.

So how can the Phillies trade for Trout this off season?

There has to be a slight chance that the Phillies can pull off the deal to get real interest in a thread. Back in the days of the Lee trade from Cleveland, Haliday from Toronto, etc., there wasn't a player too good to think the Phillies might not go after him. This off season, we are not expecting those type moves.

Hopefully, we are not heading back to the days when a Terry Adams signing was the highlight of the off season.

[donaldorc]

So how can the Phillies trade for Trout this off season?

Yeah, guess I am remembering the signing of Jim Thome around Thanksgiving back in 2002. (Has it been that long already?) There was incredible excitement and activity on this board.

[philphan_1]

Thanks Julio for helping me get back into the sight. It looks great.

[julio]

Good to see you here, philphan_1!

[donaldorc]

Did this site go for several days without the little numbers in blue for each topic? They designate new posts that I haven't read yet, and I couldn't imagine that no one had posted for several days. In any case, I'm glad to see them back. Helps my browsing.

[LoneStarPhan]

I saw that too. I thought I had changed something by mistake.