In my opinion AI should use some open source platform or at
least something that has editable code, host it on a cloud platform and
never be burdened with dealing with an outside forum vendor again.
I agree completely, which is why that is exactly what we did : )
So are you using the opensource version of Vanilla? For a service that boasts they are so much better than VBulletin, it sure looks pretty lame to me.
Because "looks" are what good database solutions are about, right?
Well, I used the word "looks" to represent a few hours of research today into Vanilla as well as a great deal of personal experience in coding php database applications and also api plugins. The feature set of this software is pathetic. Personally, if I was choosing a forum platform to start building up, I would choose one that had a huge user base with lots of contributors, security auditing and a robust third party plugin community.
Avatars and in-post File Uploads: Server guys seem to have a temporary solution in place for our file uploads problem so avatars should be working again (just re-upload). And I will be re-enabling image uploads inside of posts.Fix didn't take. Server guys are working on this again, should have a resolution at some point tonight. I have disabled uploads again for the time being. Sorry about this everyone.
Update: I am told that as of 45 minutes (3AM EST 12/7/15) ago this should be fixed. Uploads should be working and avatars will finally stick.
Lowercase Names: I went over the code for the import script and someone mapped the wrong field during the import - or took the 'safe' route. I'm not sure which. I have sent an email to the person who wrote it to find out.
Basically Huddler kept two fields for usernames, one for the login username and one for the displayed username. As soon as I hear back from them on reasoning I will write something to fix the case in people's usernames. In the meantime if you absolutely need yours fixed you can message any admin (myself included) and they will adjust it for you.
Update: The concern comes in with users who had significantly changed their names from their logins, or whose names contained invalid login name characters. There's a few ways we can address this, and some test need to be run across the existing user base to see how much of a concern it is. Should have a resolution to this either today or tomorrow.
Mail Server issues: Turns out the mail server we're using ended up on a spam blocklist somehow (which is also our mail server for appleinsider.com emails, so if you felt like you never got a response from an editor or someone, this may be why). We're in the process of switching mail servers. This should happen tonight / tomorrow. We have switched mail servers. Hopefully it will fix some of the issues you guys have been having with receiving your registration and notification emails, and reduce the amount of support emails I have to respond to. Specifically people with older @mac.com accounts and @hotmail.com users. Be sure you double check your junk folders just in case.
Forum Design: We're addressing things as they come up. There will be a complete forum redesign in the near future. Right now our goal is to just get everyone functionally happy until that can be addressed. What is not super helpful are statements like "this sucks" - please try and be more specific. If we can fix an issue quickly, we will.
Missing Features: Features are being added as they are requested where a quick implementation/fix is possible. So please, if you feel as though something very important is missing let us know. If we can find a quick way to implement we will do so, if not it will get added to our development list.
Things we have added so far:
User's post count on each post.
Modification of the quote/reply button.
Syntax highlighting for code entry.
Reply X of Y on each post.
Post Edit Timing: I saw a couple complaints about only being able to edit your post for X minutes after posting. I think this is a good feature, it stops people from retroactively going back and editing their post history. That said, I have updated it from 1 hour to 4 hours.
Spam Moderators are still getting used to the new tools, and we are tweaking the registration process to better help combat this. If you see something there's a 'flag' link under the poster's username in the forums. Click it and report it as spam so it bubbles up on our backend and we can see it. The fact that so many of you think there was no spam on the old forums is a testament to our great moderation team. Trust us, there was plenty. I would like to call out @Marvinspecifically for being a great all around dude, and super helpful during the transition.
As always we are listening to your feedback, and appreciate you being part of this community.
P.S. Try not to clutter up the normal post threads with forums stuff if you can. That's what the feedback forum is for ; )
One thing I'd like to see addressed as soon as possible is some kind of visual structure to these threads. Previously, there were thin line boxes separating comments. Right now, everything is just running into each other with few visual cues denoting who is commenting. Even if only separated with slightly thicker horizontal lines, this would help tremendously. Thanks.
One thing I'd like to see addressed as soon as possible is some kind of visual structure to these threads. Previously, there were thin line boxes separating comments. Right now, everything is just running into each other with few visual cues denoting who is commenting. Even if only separated with slightly thicker horizontal lines, this would help tremendously. Thanks.
If you are on desktop Safari, there is a user CSS extension that would allow you to customize it the way you want:
You can remove the sidebar, which gives a bit more room and shade in the names to separate comments out better. You would right-click the page once the above extension is installed and click 'Manage User CSS', click new CSS and set the include domain to http://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/* so that it doesn't mess up other pages.
The following CSS removes the sidebar and expands the forum discussion full width, it moves the reply buttons over to the right and shades in the name titles to separate out the comments as well as darkens the separator. You'd hit save after pasting it in and it will change the page layout. It also adds capital letters to usernames, although some won't be meant to have capitals. You can change the colors and settings to something else if you prefer. This extension stores this in cookie data so clearing cookies will reset it.
If you are on desktop Safari, there is a user CSS extension that would allow you to customize it the way you want:
I don't know how anyone else navigates these forums, but something that has always annoyed me from the very beginning has been how I must go to a certain page to see new posts, click on the new link, read and/or comment, reload the new posts page, repeat ad nauseum...
There has got to be a better, simpler way to do this.
The nightmare that was Huddler is over... I'll take this, warts and hiccups, over Huddler. I'm looking forward to a more Mobile Safari-friendly forum experience.
I don't know how anyone else navigates these forums, but something that has always annoyed me from the very beginning has been how I must go to a certain page to see new posts, click on the new link, read and/or comment, reload the new posts page, repeat ad nauseum...
There has got to be a better, simpler way to do this.
That's how I browse the forum, by going to the recent discussions and opening all the unread links in separate tabs, then go back again. If you have something like a sidebar in view all the time showing new posts, it takes up space. I guess that it could be laid out similar to an email program where you have the recent discussion view on the left full-height and new comment notifications pop in indented under each forum title possibly with commenter names and whether or not they've replied to something you said.
To reply to one, you'd just tap in the left bar topic and post a reply on the right. You'd never have to leave the one view. That would probably be better for people on tablets because there would never need to be a new tab opened. The panel on the right could be split horizontally so that you could scroll down the comments while leaving the reply box in place and reference multiple posts without having a separate tab open. The reply box could just be a popup like a picture-in-picture box that you can hide and expand fully so that it's not limited to the right column width.
The profile image I uploaded was working 1 hour ago, now it displays a broken link icon.
There's an issue with the servers just now or there was, it might be fixed. Big websites use multiple servers to scale on higher load but they all need to stay in sync. They can sync wrongly and revert changes or break things. Mine got deleted a while ago but seems to be staying in place so far. Try uploading again and see if it stays in place.
suddenly newton said: The profile image I uploaded was working 1 hour ago, now it displays a broken link icon.
There's an issue with the servers just now or there was, it might be fixed. Big websites use multiple servers to scale on higher load but they all need to stay in sync. They can sync wrongly and revert changes or break things. Mine got deleted a while ago but seems to be staying in place so far. Try uploading again and see if it stays in place.
The profile image I uploaded was working 1 hour ago, now it displays a broken link icon.
OH! BETA TESTERS!
For the older users that still have that tag, I think I might be responsible for that. I vaguely remember including several users in a separate top-level group (like owners, admins, mods, coventry, etc.) in an effort to test out one of Huddler’s abilities, but it never panned out. I guess I never removed them from that group and it just got ported over.
Maybe. That doesn’t explain why the same title is being applied to new signups, though.
Wouldn't it have been better to switch to something like SMF which has a massive number of plugins and layouts and is easily extensible and modifiable? The forum seems to have gone from, well, a forum to a simple "comments" section you see on Wordpress sites.
Yeah, this needs a lot of work. The way the forums render in Mobile Safari is pretty sub-optimal. It don't like that the comment window is tiny, and tapping one of the style buttons makes the cursor disappear from the from the input field. Has anyone tried to use the forums on the iPhone? My guess is: no.
Comments
Update #1
Avatars and in-post File Uploads:
Server guys seem to have a temporary solution in place for our file uploads problem so avatars should be working again (just re-upload). And I will be re-enabling image uploads inside of posts. Fix didn't take. Server guys are working on this again, should have a resolution at some point tonight. I have disabled uploads again for the time being. Sorry about this everyone.
Update: I am told that as of 45 minutes (3AM EST 12/7/15) ago this should be fixed. Uploads should be working and avatars will finally stick.
Lowercase Names:
I went over the code for the import script and someone mapped the wrong field during the import - or took the 'safe' route. I'm not sure which. I have sent an email to the person who wrote it to find out.
Basically Huddler kept two fields for usernames, one for the login username and one for the displayed username. As soon as I hear back from them on reasoning I will write something to fix the case in people's usernames. In the meantime if you absolutely need yours fixed you can message any admin (myself included) and they will adjust it for you.
Update: The concern comes in with users who had significantly changed their names from their logins, or whose names contained invalid login name characters. There's a few ways we can address this, and some test need to be run across the existing user base to see how much of a concern it is. Should have a resolution to this either today or tomorrow.
Mail Server issues:
Turns out the mail server we're using ended up on a spam blocklist somehow (which is also our mail server for appleinsider.com emails, so if you felt like you never got a response from an editor or someone, this may be why). We're in the process of switching mail servers. This should happen tonight / tomorrow. We have switched mail servers. Hopefully it will fix some of the issues you guys have been having with receiving your registration and notification emails, and reduce the amount of support emails I have to respond to. Specifically people with older @mac.com accounts and @hotmail.com users. Be sure you double check your junk folders just in case.
Forum Design:
We're addressing things as they come up. There will be a complete forum redesign in the near future. Right now our goal is to just get everyone functionally happy until that can be addressed. What is not super helpful are statements like "this sucks" - please try and be more specific. If we can fix an issue quickly, we will.
Missing Features:
Features are being added as they are requested where a quick implementation/fix is possible. So please, if you feel as though something very important is missing let us know. If we can find a quick way to implement we will do so, if not it will get added to our development list.
Things we have added so far:
Post Edit Timing:
I saw a couple complaints about only being able to edit your post for X minutes after posting. I think this is a good feature, it stops people from retroactively going back and editing their post history. That said, I have updated it from 1 hour to 4 hours.
Spam
Moderators are still getting used to the new tools, and we are tweaking the registration process to better help combat this. If you see something there's a 'flag' link under the poster's username in the forums. Click it and report it as spam so it bubbles up on our backend and we can see it. The fact that so many of you think there was no spam on the old forums is a testament to our great moderation team. Trust us, there was plenty. I would like to call out @Marvin specifically for being a great all around dude, and super helpful during the transition.
As always we are listening to your feedback, and appreciate you being part of this community.
P.S.
Try not to clutter up the normal post threads with forums stuff if you can. That's what the feedback forum is for ; )
One thing I'd like to see addressed as soon as possible is some kind of visual structure to these threads. Previously, there were thin line boxes separating comments. Right now, everything is just running into each other with few visual cues denoting who is commenting. Even if only separated with slightly thicker horizontal lines, this would help tremendously. Thanks.
If you are on desktop Safari, there is a user CSS extension that would allow you to customize it the way you want:
http://code.grid.in.th
You can remove the sidebar, which gives a bit more room and shade in the names to separate comments out better. You would right-click the page once the above extension is installed and click 'Manage User CSS', click new CSS and set the include domain to http://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/* so that it doesn't mess up other pages.
The following CSS removes the sidebar and expands the forum discussion full width, it moves the reply buttons over to the right and shades in the name titles to separate out the comments as well as darkens the separator. You'd hit save after pasting it in and it will change the page layout. It also adds capital letters to usernames, although some won't be meant to have capitals. You can change the colors and settings to something else if you prefer. This extension stores this in cookie data so clearing cookies will reset it.
There has got to be a better, simpler way to do this.
I'll take this, warts and hiccups, over Huddler.
I'm looking forward to a more Mobile Safari-friendly forum experience.
Really? My view on this update is that they’re making us wish we had Huddler again.
That's how I browse the forum, by going to the recent discussions and opening all the unread links in separate tabs, then go back again. If you have something like a sidebar in view all the time showing new posts, it takes up space. I guess that it could be laid out similar to an email program where you have the recent discussion view on the left full-height and new comment notifications pop in indented under each forum title possibly with commenter names and whether or not they've replied to something you said.
To reply to one, you'd just tap in the left bar topic and post a reply on the right. You'd never have to leave the one view. That would probably be better for people on tablets because there would never need to be a new tab opened. The panel on the right could be split horizontally so that you could scroll down the comments while leaving the reply box in place and reference multiple posts without having a separate tab open. The reply box could just be a popup like a picture-in-picture box that you can hide and expand fully so that it's not limited to the right column width.
There's an issue with the servers just now or there was, it might be fixed. Big websites use multiple servers to scale on higher load but they all need to stay in sync. They can sync wrongly and revert changes or break things. Mine got deleted a while ago but seems to be staying in place so far. Try uploading again and see if it stays in place.
For the older users that still have that tag, I think I might be responsible for that. I vaguely remember including several users in a separate top-level group (like owners, admins, mods, coventry, etc.) in an effort to test out one of Huddler’s abilities, but it never panned out. I guess I never removed them from that group and it just got ported over.
Maybe. That doesn’t explain why the same title is being applied to new signups, though.
It doesn't really feel like a forum.