Oh where oh where can the developer be ?!

mnology · Post by **mnology** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:00 am

Whatever BB software gets decided on, please consider having RSS feeds on for the forums. Thank you.

Korpus · Post by **Korpus** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 3:34 am

jfrazierjr wrote:
trevor wrote:We'll try the free route first with http://www.simplemachines.org/ since it looks to have the features we want. If that fails, then we'll do vbulletin

Well... if THIS:
http://www.simplemachines.org/about/features.php:
Tracking of new and old unread topics, not just from your last visit.
works like I expect it should... I will be a huge happy clam...

Yes you get a link which shows you your unread since last visit then if there are none or you decide to click on another link you will get all unread posts completely.

It also has a nice stat tracking thing if that is your thing, one of the scariest is telling you how long specific users have been reading ("online") the forum for.

Now depending what you want to do with the rest of the site one thing I feel that SMF has over PHPBB3 is the SSI tools which allow you to use the aspects of the forum in other external scripts (for example I have a tool in one of my forums that uses the login info/methods of the SMF forum for authentication)

Orchard · Post by **Orchard** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:06 am

Hmmm....I missed that.

But it does seem like PHPbb v3 might be viable. It almost seems like a case for toying around with both just to see which is less painful.

RSS feeds is quite likely a good idea as well, since it would be VERY useful to be able to point an RSS reader to the forums and simply get a feed that way (I'd use it!).

On the other hand, I'm going to agree with something BigO said to me over chat: all forum software stinks, it just stinks differently. I suspect it's mostly going to be a matter of choosing WHICH features that we'd love to have that we are willing to live without.

Again, much like the b39 switch, any changes in the forum are going to result in complaints. I think we all know that. It's only a matter of how painful it really will be.

Orchard · Post by **Orchard** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:19 am

Azhrei wrote:Maybe we're looking at different things, but the link Orchard posted to the phpBB2 vs. phpBB3 page has a tooltip for "Unread message tracking" that says, "Full persistent read/unread tracking -- not limited by per-visit sessions".

I can't be 100% certain of what that means but it sounds to me like it does include the per-thread read/unread tracking...

I'm not sure how I missed that, but looking at it again...yeah.

That'd be nice.

Azhrei wrote:I'm actually surprised that HTML is allowed at all in open forums because it allows for cross-site scripting attacks (in a variety of ways) and is very difficult to filter out on the server side. I notice that phpBB3 has "custom BBcode buttons", which I assume means that we could add our own BBcode fragments to support adding in any additional customizations we may need, making it unnecessary to have HTML support! (Right now the only use of HTML support is to DISABLE IT so that attributes on elements are not eaten up by the posting software!)

I can imagine some other uses for HTML, but yeah, if we can make our own BBCode (I occasionally need a table or something), then it'd be fine to not have HTML.

Azhrei wrote:Otherwise, I like the other features: multi-quote replies, multiple attachments, user-created forms, template-driven pages with caching, subforums, subscribing to forums in addition to threads, topic bookmarks, WYSIWYG post editor. My big issue with phpBB3 is that it's only at v3.0.2 which seems a little young to me. Although that means only two sets of patches in the last 7 months after initial release, which is saying a lot about its stability.

Overall it looks like phpBB3 and simplemachine are fairly similar. Personally, I think another feature we should allow is member selection of themes.

jfrazierjr · Post by **jfrazierjr** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:58 am

Orchard wrote:On the other hand, I'm going to agree with something BigO said to me over chat: all forum software stinks, it just stinks differently. I suspect it's mostly going to be a matter of choosing WHICH features that we'd love to have that we are willing to live without.

I am all for any new software the resets Trevor and UntoldGlory's post counts to 0.

Amaril · Post by **Amaril** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:02 am

mnology wrote:Whatever BB software gets decided on, please consider having RSS feeds on for the forums. Thank you.

Yes, RSS feeds please! I use RSS obsessively!

Orchard · Post by **Orchard** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:19 am

jfrazierjr wrote:
Orchard wrote:On the other hand, I'm going to agree with something BigO said to me over chat: all forum software stinks, it just stinks differently. I suspect it's mostly going to be a matter of choosing WHICH features that we'd love to have that we are willing to live without.
I am all for any new software the resets Trevor and UntoldGlory's post counts to 0.

Now you are just being mean.

I can only guess this is fueled by pure jealousy.

The solution, of course, is to post more often.

Post early, post often.

Kinda like voting, but more effective.

Amaril · Post by **Amaril** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:25 am

I personally hate postcounts. They results in nothing but random posts about postcounts that triggernotifications to people to who don't care about post counts.

If I ever implement a forum, my postcount system will include only "1" and ">1".

UntoldGlory · Post by **UntoldGlory** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:59 am

I ignore you, for your postcount is merely 546!

No, I totally agree. I mean, I get into silly offshoots and debates and discussions all the time, but that doesn't make more more knowledgable or more of a vet or anything. I mean for pete's sake, Giliath only has like three hundred and some posts right?

RPMiller · Post by **RPMiller** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:30 am

That is why I try to stay out of the post count bloat threads, or unsub from them if they start up in a regular thread.

One thing about vBulletin that I really like is the reputation system. It is a great way to "reward" people for great posts and "punish" people for inappropriate posts. I am happy to say as a mod at the CG I have yet to give out negative reputation or even give an infraction (different system) to anyone. Infractions are nice because you can set banning rules and such so if someone is just out of control and accumulate enough infractions they get auto banned. Of course none of that negative stuff happens here so I look at the positive reputation, oh and the built in gallery feature is also a great asset.

Does SMF have a similar mechanism?

Orchard · Post by **Orchard** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:38 am

RPMiller wrote:That is why I try to stay out of the post count bloat threads, or unsub from them if they start up in a regular thread.

One thing about vBulletin that I really like is the reputation system. It is a great way to "reward" people for great posts and "punish" people for inappropriate posts. I am happy to say as a mod at the CG I have yet to give out negative reputation or even give an infraction (different system) to anyone. Infractions are nice because you can set banning rules and such so if someone is just out of control and accumulate enough infractions they get auto banned. Of course none of that negative stuff happens here so I look at the positive reputation, oh and the built in gallery feature is also a great asset.

Does SMF have a similar mechanism?

Hmm....

I notice both SMF and phpBB3 have moderation available, but I have no idea how they compare to the reputation system in vBulletin (of course). We need someone with experience in these to pipe up.

The phpBB3 site mentions nothing about a gallery, and neither does the SMF site that I can find, but there may be extensions/mods for either/both that would work nicely. I tend to agree with Trevor--best to try something free first, and if that doesn't work, vBulletin can be purchased. I'd donate a bit, and I suspect that my players would too...

Just my thoughts on the matter.

BigO · Post by **BigO** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:40 am

Well, lets start by outlining the problems we are trying to solve. What's wrong with the current one? What are the pain points we are trying to fix?

Amaril · Post by **Amaril** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:41 am

BigO wrote:Well, lets start by outlining the problems we are trying to solve. What's wrong with the current one? What are the pain points we are trying to fix?

Lack of RSS feeds and annoying post counts.

RPMiller · Post by **RPMiller** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:42 am

I think the absolute number one problem is that you lose all unread post indicators if you close out your browser session and had opened the forums.

Meaning you have to look at everything in one session or "get lost".

UntoldGlory · Post by **UntoldGlory** » Wed Aug 13, 2008 12:25 pm

RPMiller wrote:I think the absolute number one problem is that you lose all unread post indicators if you close out your browser session and had opened the forums.

Meaning you have to look at everything in one session or "get lost".

Yep, that's my number 1. Trevor mentioned that and wanting subforums.