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New Forum Testing Site


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[from issue 30 of the summary report]

 

To improve the community spirit and interaction within the forums, a new forum setup has been put online to see if it better meets the demands of the ever growing community.

 

We would like to know if the forum testing site provides a better experience by providing better search results and overall better performance compared to the current forums.

 

As the community is growing every day, new forum members have been given moderator status to help keep the forums in a clean and stable manner.

 

We welcome Pierre (The_Bear) and Fritz Clapp (zzfritz) on board the moderator team, who are the first to be invited in helping out.

 

The forum rules have also been updated to be clearer on how the forum is expected to run, and to refer both members and moderators to when problems arise.

 

The forum testing site is running on a snapshot of the current forum from last week. The content there is to serve as a testing and playing field to familiarize ones self with the new and different interactions available.

 

No support will be provided on the forum testing site - those seeking support, please do so on the current forum at http://www.oscommerce.com/forums.

 

If the overall feedback is positive, an announcement will be made stating what date and time the forum will be put offline so the migration process can occur in a safe manner.

 

The forum testing site is available here:

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/ib/

 

[Please note, if and once the migration has occured, the current address of http://www.oscommerce.com/forums will still be used to access the support forum]

 

Feedback regarding the forum testing site is appreciated! Please reply with your thoughts to this thread here and not on the forum testing site.

:heart:, osCommerce

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Hmm...

 

The new forum program seems to work fine (after very limited testing), but golly gee why would you abandon phpBB? phpBB is a great forum app, and I generally prefer it to all the others I've used and set up. Plus it's very easy to customize to meet your needs.

 

Are you having overall performance issues with the phpBB board? I haven't noticed any myself. The only thing that has frustrated me here is that some search terms (e.g., "email") are apparently eliminated from the query because they are too common, yet the results page only tells you that there were none (and this could be fixed).

 

For various reasons which community members have brought to our attention.

 

For one, I could not merge your reply (which you made in the news forum channel) to this thread - that is something that is possible with the testing forum :)

 

A great enhancement in the search results is being taken to the page in a long thread where the term searched for is found.

 

Performance is also a reason for the migration - though, this can only be truely seen when an amount of users are online at the testing site.

 

But - we are not migrating due to performance reasons as we are not the ones using the forum - its you people :D We are offering a better alternative (atleast, in our opinion) and whichever the community feels more comfortable with will be the one that's used.

:heart:, osCommerce

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But - we are not migrating due to performance reasons as we are not the ones using the forum - its you people  We are offering a better alternative (atleast, in our opinion) and whichever the community feels more comfortable with will be the one that's used.

 

Well to me it does not matter, I want functionality, and the search part if it is better, if it makes it easier to find information then better for myself....looks, and performance are not a concern to me, I have noticed that phpBB always needs to be refreshed on my browser, so I can get the current topics, even after I have been to the page....

 

Hope this one does not do this....it is frustrating at times....

 

Performance is also a reason for the migration - though, this can only be truely seen when an amount of users are online at the testing site.

 

let us know a time to be on it, I am sure we can get a hundred or so to be online at one time if you were to ask Harald...give it a real work out so to speak....

 

 

For one, I could not merge your reply (which you made in the news forum channel) to this thread - that is something that is possible with the testing forum  

 

Are we now going to be able to edit our posts??

 

I am not sure why you do not want us doing so, but it would make things easier for us who make mistakes or want to amend our posting.....

 

cheers,

Peter McGrath

-----------------------------

See my Profile (click here) for more information and to contact me for professional osCommerce support that includes SEO development, custom development and security implementation

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My concern with a forum is the ability to search.

 

It must be me, but I can never get decent results when I search for a subject using more than one word.

 

I just tired it on the test site. I found the phrase 'image directory" in the thread How can this be done?

 

So I searched for image directory and "image directory". The search found the thread when I searched using image directory, without the quotes, but it only found image not directory.

 

That would be nice if we could search by a two word phrase. If it's possible, but I am not performing the search correctly, please shed some light.

 

Thanks! :-)

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That would be nice if we could search by a two word phrase.  If it's possible, but I am not performing the search correctly, please shed some light.

 

Thanks!  :-)

I believe that you have to use image and directory as your search criteria.

 

I have to agree that I also am not able to find topics that I know exist when using words that are in the topic with the current forum.

 

Definitely provide a date and time and I will do my best to be there to help test performance of the test forums.

 

My only experience with forums has only been as a user, but I have found that I like Invision the best, followed by phpBB and then vBulletin. Not that it matters but I figured that I would just throw that out there.

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." - A. Einstein

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And yes, I would absolutely love to be able to edit my posts. :)

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." - A. Einstein

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I would like the edit post features too...

 

but we can't because of a few crybabies on the newsgroup who can't be bothered to join the 21st century.

The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing

- Edmund Burke

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Invisions search blows away PHPBB.

 

And No, we are not going to be able to edit our posts. Because of the synchronization of the news servers. PHPBB does have the option of edit, it's just disabled.

Steve

-------------------------

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I would like the edit post features too...

 

but we can't because of a few crybabies on the newsgroup who can't be bothered to join the 21st century.

 

Spoken like someone that has no clue why that's the way it is. :roll:

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search it's better in ib? so let's change to ib..

if not, stay with phpbb...

 

@edit post

mmmm... always you can post a new message..

 

cheers

emiliano

patagonia, argentina

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The upcoming version of phpBB (2.2) has a rebuild search function.

Merging posts will be implemented too.

 

And phpBB is also a sourceforge project, while IPB isn't. :)

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PHPbb sucks right now, IB is leaps and bounds better, and the owners have stated it will be free always so lets roll with the new.

 

The Quick Reply feature IB has is great.

 

The skin is better looking too but that isn't such a bid deal.

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I would like the edit post features too...

 

but we can't because of a few crybabies on the newsgroup who can't be bothered to join the 21st century.

 

Spoken like someone that has no clue why that's the way it is. :roll:

 

Exactly.

Even if it wasn't because of the newsserver I doubt if we would switch "edit post" on.

All it does is make the rest of the answers etc in that thread obsolete / confusing.

 

Use your preview. Works quite good.

"Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them"

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Additional not-so-important reasons why you might prefer IB

(I did not spot them straight away which is why I mention them here):

[*]My Assistant

[*]ability to block PM from specific users

[*]export your PMs once the mailboxes are full

[*]create PM maildirs

[*]subscribe to complete channels

[*]manage your subscriptions

[*]get an emailed copy of a post (on subscribed threads)

[*]download html / text / MS Doc version of thread

[*]ability to report a bad post with single click

[*]prev - next buttons while reading a thread

[*]quick search on forum channel index (search this channel for...)

 

Mattice

"Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them"

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For one, I could not merge your reply (which you made in the news forum channel) to this thread - that is something that is possible with the testing forum :)

 

(...)

 

Performance is also a reason for the migration - though, this can only be truely seen when an amount of users are online at the testing site.

 

Have you ever tested FUDForum? It's at http://fud.prohost.org .

 

It's one of the best and fast I have tryed yet.

Well mantained altough it's GPL (which IB isn't, altough sayd free - as in gratis, not in freedom)... and it can synchornize any Forum room with NNTP servers and mailing lists like mailman and allow you to keep a discussion in a newsgroup, mailist and forum at the same time.

 

Best,

 

 

Lopo

If I helped you, you can help others too.

Search Affero Network. Thanks :)

--

moving mentalities >> fast forward

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I would like the edit post features too...

 

but we can't because of a few crybabies on the newsgroup who can't be bothered to join the 21st century.

 

Spoken like someone that has no clue why that's the way it is. :roll:

 

Exactly.

Even if it wasn't because of the newsserver I doubt if we would switch "edit post" on.

All it does is make the rest of the answers etc in that thread obsolete / confusing.

 

Use your preview. Works quite good.

 

Preview doesn't work so good though when you find a bug later on in some code in the original post, or make a suggested change. It would be much easier to see updates to the original post - especially in the Tips/tricks, and contributions forums.

 

It becomes very cumbersome to read 26 pages of posts to find one little piece of code, or look for an update to the contribution.

 

Just my $.02 of course... ;)

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It becomes very cumbersome to read 26 pages of posts to find one little piece of code, or look for an update to the contribution.

 

It sounds like a good thing to do for the Tips and Tricks channel, however a reason against applying it to the Contributions section is that the person needs to hunt for the reason why the main post was edited or why the code snippet was updated.

 

As Mattice noted, that does break the flow of the discussion - it may be better to start a new thread when such a change occurs [to prevent the 26 pages turning into 40, 50, .. :)]

 

but we can't because of a few crybabies on the newsgroup who can't be bothered to join the 21st century.

 

Nice attitude coming from someone that personally wanted change. Since we've proposed a change, I'd like to ask you to contribute your part by fixing your attitude.

:heart:, osCommerce

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It sounds like a good thing to do for the Tips and Tricks channel, however a reason against applying it to the Contributions section is that the person needs to hunt for the reason why the main post was edited or why the code snippet was updated.

 

Point well taken, on the contributions section. There's a need to have that documentation and see who/what/why/when changes were made. Thanks for pointing that out.

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Most of the time I find that I would like to edit my post when there are no replies. Usually people catch their mistakes pretty quickly.

 

So what about enabling editing posts if there are no replies to the thread yet? I am pretty sure that this can be done with IB.

The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing

- Edmund Burke

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Most of the time I find that I would like to edit my post when there are no replies.  Usually people catch their mistakes pretty quickly.

 

So what about enabling editing posts if there are no replies to the thread yet?  I am pretty sure that this can be done with IB.

 

Wouldn't it make sense to reply to your thread with the corrections and any more info, to bring it to the top of the list for a greater chance of people seeing and replying to it?

:heart:, osCommerce

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IPB does have a time limit on editing. That can be set to any even minute. This will limit someone from coming back days later and editing a long thread. Why not set it to, oh maybe, 2 minutes. When that expires. Then the post is locked.

Steve

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