New Forum Comments

[malspa]

Is it possible to set the forum up so that when your cursor hovers over a thread title, there's a pop-up showing part of the original post? The old forums had this, and some other Linux forums have it as well.

[richb]

Is it possible to set the forum up so that when your cursor hovers over a thread title, there's a pop-up showing part of the original post? The old forums had this, and some other Linux forums have it as well.

Do not know. I will need to research.

[Louie1961]

Am I the only one who finds this new forum a gross inconvenience to use?

Couldn't agree more. Perhaps Brooko is correct in his assessment (in my case that is), but I am not sure what the problem was with the old forum that we were trying to solve. It worked (at least as far as I could see), and we were all used to it. To me the new forum looks like change for the sake of change alone. I am not a fan. I am also not happy that our stats were all reset to zero. Call me silly, but I was rather proud of my reputation rating and such.

OK, flame away....

[malspa]

Couldn't agree more. Perhaps Brooko is correct in his assessment (in my case that is), but I am not sure what the problem was with the old forum that we were trying to solve. It worked (at least as far as I could see), and we were all used to it. To me the new forum looks like change for the sake of change alone. I am not a fan. I am also not happy that our stats were all reset to zero. Call me silly, but I was rather proud of my reputation rating and such.

I'm very happy with the new forum. Going to the old MepisLovers forums using Chromium or Chrome was very annoying to me. I wasn't having problems with any other Linux forums, only MepisLovers.

[arjaybe]

I'm sorry, but this won't be the desired flame.-) I seem to remember, although I do have CRS syndrome, that we were unhappy more than once with the old forum. I have the sense that this move to a new system was generally agreed to be a good idea. It is my opinion that the differences/inconveniences perceived here don't even register on the same scale as the desirability of the change. But then, I'm adaptable.-)

[carlops]

Am I the only one who finds this new forum a gross inconvenience to use?

Couldn't agree more. Perhaps Brooko is correct in his assessment (in my case that is), but I am not sure what the problem was with the old forum that we were trying to solve. It worked (at least as far as I could see), and we were all used to it. To me the new forum looks like change for the sake of change alone. I am not a fan. I am also not happy that our stats were all reset to zero. Call me silly, but I was rather proud of my reputation rating and such.

OK, flame away....

You asked for it.

But if you had paid attention, you'd have known that:
- the old forum was NOT open source
- the old forum software was obsolete and had to be replaced since it was no longer supported
- the old forum software would have cost money to upgrade to a newer version
- the old forum software had inadequate spam protection
- the old forum software ran on a virtual machine on warren's server, and could not be managed / backupped properly

After a couple of tests it was decided that phpbb fitted the bill best, and the team have worked very hard to get a smooth transition. They did a thorough job.

Instead of whining about some minor changes, you should be proud that this community has people that voluntarily take on a huge project such as migrating a big forum in their spare time, without receiving nothing else but recognition. Apparently, even that is too much to ask sometimes.

[richb]

Am I the only one who finds this new forum a gross inconvenience to use?

Couldn't agree more. Perhaps Brooko is correct in his assessment (in my case that is), but I am not sure what the problem was with the old forum that we were trying to solve. It worked (at least as far as I could see), and we were all used to it. To me the new forum looks like change for the sake of change alone. I am not a fan. I am also not happy that our stats were all reset to zero. Call me silly, but I was rather proud of my reputation rating and such.

OK, flame away....

Regarding your change for the sake of change comment, not a flame response follows. These reasons for change were posted as an Announcement in every forum section on ML.

1. Our version of VB was quite old. Updating it entails a subscription cost. So it was static.
2. phpBB has much better spam control features. Mods and admins were spending an inordinate amount of time banning and deleting spammers on a daily basis.
3. phpBB is open Source, easy to upgrade, and has an active help forum, We could not get substantial help on VB without paying for it.

In my view that is justification enough. there are probably more advantages that the the other team members can list.

Everyone was invited to log in to the test forum that was up for over a month and post comments. In no small part, the results there encouraged us to proceed.

[xToeCutter]

Its just different

[timkb4cq]

I am not sure what the problem was with the old forum that we were trying to solve. It worked (at least as far as I could see), and we were all used to it. To me the new forum looks like change for the sake of change alone.

The problems with the old forum were being hidden from most users. The old (proprietary) software was out of date, and not as secure as the new software. It required constant admin intervention to keep the spam under control. Implementing new features & controls was difficult because the software was out of date and buying the new version would have required a board migration in any case.

With Donna not active anymore it fell upon those willing to run the forum to handle things. I might have made different choices, but they managed to migrate the board with a minimum of interruption in service and kept all the important functionality intact.

I'm still getting used to the new layout myself, and am occasionally annoyed by the changes - but I know it wasn't "change for change's sake".

[richb]

And to add, we are always open to constructive comments and criticism with detail. The emphasis is on constructive. "I do not like it", does not help us much to make improvements.

I am not complaining, as it was a labor of love, but this has turned into a full time job for us for the past several days, (and the pay is lousy). Believe me if we just wanted to change for the sake of change, we would not have lifted a finger.