Technical Support on Merger Zoo

[Alice]

I thought I'd create this board specially to point out any errors or ask questions about running it - other questions, such as comments on the tutorial or whatever, can go in the feedback thread. That will make it easier I think.

My first point - once I am logged into www.galaxyzoo.org, Merger Zoo disappears!

[Ioannab]

My first point - once I am logged into www.galaxyzoo.org, Merger Zoo disappears!

Thanks Alice, for setting up this board - just what is needed. 

Agreed about Merger Zoo disappearing - we need a link adding to use after we have logged in. 

Another problem I am having is that the Reset button does not work for me: I am using Ubuntu 9.10/Firefox 

[echo-lily-mai]

My first point - once I am logged into www.galaxyzoo.org, Merger Zoo disappears!

If you hit refresh twice it comes back, refresh again and it will disappear!  (well it works for me)

[Alice]

Ooooh, I shall have to try that

(I only set up this thread, I can't set up new boards. I think that was Kevin )

[yashanii]

i have some issues with the applet in the main window
Example 1
Example 2

when i switch the applet to the separate window this problem doesn't occur
the browser i'm using: Firefox v3.5.5


[edit]
i don't know why, but it's fixed now...

[garrett_cw]

I did a thousnd simulation compareisons last night and picked 5. Now I come back and I can't find that work or carry on with it. A new merger is on the front page.
Does this mean we cannot stop working on a merger and come back to it later to work some more? 

[jules]

I did a thousnd simulation compareisons last night and picked 5. Now I come back and I can't find that work or carry on with it. A new merger is on the front page.
Does this mean we cannot stop working on a merger and come back to it later to work some more?  

OK -not done this for a while so forgive me....
Not sure what you mean Curtis. Do you mean 1,000 simulations for the same merger? After enhancing 5 mergers I am always taken to the evaluate screen - though this doesn't appear to be working properly for me as none of the galaxies appear on the right hand side. However after clicking on the third merger the session ends.

Firefox and Vista.

EDIT - I think I know now - you mean you kept hitting the "more" button to pick the best of the bunch over several screens?
Getting there.....

FINAL EDIT - ignore me Curtis. 

[jwallin]

Hi all,

First of all - thanks so much for getting this forum operational.   We really need the help.

Just a couple clarifications.  The targets are going to rotate periodically - about once per day.  If you want to go back and work on a recently shown galaxy, you should be able to use the target bar and select it from the menu.   (The icon in the applet looks like a bull-eye.)   We will likely rotate back to some of the targets again if we get enough states viewed.   Currently, we have the default set to cycle if we get 250,000 states viewed by users.

After you enhance, you have to save the work you did.   When you click the save button, it should put your new galaxy into the bar on right.   

Also, whenever you have selected 8 galaxies, you will need to do the evaluate step.  You will pick the top 3 of 8.   We record these, and then put you back into the explore or evaluate section of the applet again.

I hope that helps.  I will try to check back as much as I can to see how things are going.   We are approaching the Thanksgiving Holiday this week in the states, so family stuff may be dominating my time for a few days.

Finally - thanks so much for spending time on this project.   We will keep you updated on how the analysis is going as we crunch through it.

cheers!

John Wallin - Computational Scientist/Astronomer, Merger Zoo

[jules]

Thanks John! Having read the Blog and your post I now know what I am doing! Loved the beta version but haven't been back for ages and forgot the finer details. Sussed it now - I never was one for reading the instruction book. Just dive straight in.....

Love this project!

[garrett_cw]

Thanks John.

Jules, your edit was correct. and I would not ignore you. 

[jules]

Thanks John.

Jules, your edit was correct. and I would not ignore you. 

I have left my post intact as a sober reminder that instructions are probably there for a reason......

[Thomas J]

And don't forget to hit the STOP button when you have finished the session.

[echo-lily-mai]

Sorry, it’s me again.................

It's great that Zoo Mergers has been launched, however.................

My merger count is 0, and it hasn’t saved my favourites. (i had only saved a couple) What’s happened? 

Hope this can be fixed

First, let me say thank you again to all of you for your help with the beta.  Your hard work has helped us tremendously and we are grateful.  We'll be producing some scientific papers for a conference happening in January.  We hope to present the results of your efforts with the beta and the preliminary results of the new site.

Second, I'm glad to see you haven't all been frightened away by the beta and some have even tried the new site.  The My Mergers feature is new, and like many new things, it may not be functioning 100% for all users.  If you keep having trouble with saving favourites, try reloading the applet.  If you're currently in the applet, click Stop and follow the on-screen prompts to save your current work.  You can then visit the home page or the tutorial again.  This might help refresh your browser cookies.  Then try launching the applet again by going to "Merge Galaxies".

As to the merger count number on the My Mergers page, I'm not sure why that's not being refreshed.  But the same steps as above may help.  BTW the number refers to a unit of work that is not a direct reflection of the number of individual simulations you've looked at.  It's more like the number of merger targets you've analyzed and the number of times you've worked on them.   

We know we have a lot of room for improvement with the My Mergers page, but we wanted to have a least a first attempt at letting you save and view favourites.  We hope to improve the utility of this page in the future. 

We're very interested to continue hearing any feedback you may have.  Again, thank you so much for your help with the beta.  We've been very busy the last several months trying to apply what we've learned with your help to make the new site even better.

Thank you,
Anthony

I tried again today and it’s still not working. My merger count is 0, and it hasn’t saved any favourites.    Just thought i would let you know.

[Dave]

Same here echo-lily-mai
0 activity, after 2 sessions on the merger.
After hitting the 'stop' button, I made sure I read all the button  instructions before hitting them, on my way out of mergers,  as I had a concern from yesterday that my activity wasn't being logged & I wanted to make sure I had'nt missed anything.

Maybe the simplest solution would be for the 'stop' button to automatically save on being activated & a pop-up which tells you it is 'saving the data', before taking you to the choices section of continuing etc.

[jules]

Merger account seems to be working for me and I have something in favourites - but not resembling the mergers I saved!