deskthority - Suggestions and Changelog

[7bit]

Also, we need a supersession plugin. See, necroposting is bad, but leaving a topic with blatantly false information is also bad. It would be nice to secretly mark a topic as "Obsolete; please see topic X" for updated information — the topic won't be bumped, but anyone visiting it would be greeted with a notice not to believe what's written there. No necros, no people confused by incorrect information, everyone happy.

Unless people think it's OK to necropost a topic?

I think it was a political decision to make sure freedom of speech can not be blocked by closing threads.

Some topics, even after decades, might still make sense to be warmed up from time to time.

[webwit]

If someone wants to post something relevant, I think it's perfectly OK to necropost.

[Muirium]

I'm pro necro too. But with a catch.

Besides manual spammers, who are an annoyance in themselves, the problem is unwitting necromancy. I've seen this a few times: people necroposting without realising it. Usually they're excited about the topic, which they found via search, but don't notice the dates. It's not immediately in your face obvious that a topic has been dead a year if you're oblivious to who Sixty, Ripster etc. are. Some people get quite excited before a regular points out that they're trying to timetravel. Followup is a dream denied to them.

So necroposting = good and bad. I'd add a warning when you try to reply to a necro topic. "This thread is %%% months old. Participants may no longer be active. Continue?" Nothing obnoxious, easily dismissed, but a definite reminder *before* you start pouring your excited comments into a textfield.

(Base the calculation on the date of the most recent post, of course. And try a low limit to see if it annoys people. Many threads like GBs really are necro after only a couple of months. "Guys, guys, I'm too worked up to read the OP: is it too late to join this!")

[7bit]

...
(Base the calculation on the date of the most recent post, of course. And try a low limit to see if it annoys people. Many threads like GBs really are necro after only a couple of months. "Guys, guys, I'm too worked up to read the OP: is it too late to join this!")

Noooo!!!


My group buys never end! The threads must be kept open forver!!!


Maybe, the post date should look like this:
01 Jan 1970, 00:00:00
43 years ago!!!

[Muirium]

I don't know about phpbb, but perhaps it's possible to let the thread starter overide or remove the limit. My idea's more about a sensible default to catch routine misunderstandings.

Always open, eh? Got any more of those Round 1s you sold Mashby!

Date format could be improved. Posts older than a month for instance could gave a different coloured datestamp, and %%% days ago could be useful under them too. But a year is a decade on the Internet so to a new arrival it really does seem feasible that Ripster will answer their question about his shoes…

[7bit]

I don't know about phpbb, but perhaps it's possible to let the thread starter overide or remove the limit. My idea's more about a sensible default to catch routine misunderstandings.

Always open, eh? Got any more of those Round 1s you sold Mashby!

No, I had 2 of them and sold the unused decades ago. Also, it was not from my group buy.

[matt3o]

Oh noes! Matt3o's hacked my Deskthority!

Is watching!

ohmy, I totally missed this. So my evil minions have finally started taking over the internet!

[Muirium]

They were that day, at least. The horror… the horror…

[Daniel Beardsmore]

OK, I shall necropost as needed then =)

[webwit]

The Deskthority wiki last post cell on the forum front page has some sort of time zone error. In BST (UTC+0100), the last post time is showing as UTC, i.e. −1 hour. It should be presented in the same time zone as the rest of the site.

Fixed that.

[002]

I am really looking forward to this edit, Daniel!

beardsmore_timemachine.png (7.02 KiB) Viewed 9192 times

[webwit]

Daniel Beardsmore sounds like a fictional name anyway.
John Titor, is that you??

[Daniel Beardsmore]

My dimensionally-transcendental can of worms does also have limited time-travelling capabilities. Pretty nifty.

And come on, the Dutch have some pretty ridiculous names too!

[webwit]

You mean like Dick Kok?

[Muirium]

Wim Kok was the best name in politics ever. Always enjoyed the BBC news readers saying that one!

[ماء]

a suggestion for deskthority mobile for my slow internet with theme light for esay loaded like mfacebook.etc
Thanks

[Muirium]

Is is slower for you now that the server moved from America to Europe?

DT is already nice and light. People's photos are the slow part. I use the site quite often on 3G cellular and it's fine. Even works okay on my cramped little iPod touch.

But there's definitely an image loading question to answer. They can really bog down a slow connection. And all that crazy jumping around during load when on a page full of them! Perhaps the forum ought to cache medium sized versions of everything and only load full size after a click?

[ماء]

Is is slower for you now that the server moved from America to Europe?

DT is already nice and light. People's photos are the slow part. I use the site quite often on 3G cellular and it's fine. Even works okay on my cramped little iPod touch.

But there's definitely an image loading question to answer. They can really bog down a slow connection. And all that crazy jumping around during load when on a page full of them! Perhaps the forum ought to cache medium sized versions of everything and only load full size after a click?

Nope,Just my connection quite slow not stable,my internet specialist mobile. :lol:though not used mobile phone
Yes DT more few fast now,but loading image indeed slow

[Julle]

Is it possible to mess around with how phpBB embeds Youtube videos?

The current way embeds videos in a way that requires Flash plugin to load. i suggest, if possible, that we change the embed code to something like this:

Code: Select all

    <div class="youtube" id="video_id" style="width: 320px; height: 180px;"></div>
    <script src="https://labnol.googlecode.com/files/youtube.js"></script>

It utilizes Google Plus's video embed javascript workaround thingie. This way we could reduce page load times especially in threads like "What are you listening right now?" etc... The script loads Flash only after you click it.

Here's a really crude demo comparing the two ways, the upper being the better solution:
http://julle.kapsi.fi/youdemo/testi.html

[Muirium]

I favour this too. I'd also like to be able to do this:

Code: Select all

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC1xuVCBl4o[/youtube]

Instead of only this:

Code: Select all

[youtube]gC1xuVCBl4o[/youtube]

Because I always forget and have to edit!

By the way: Flash is not required. I don't even have it installed. Yet (almost) all of these videos still work automatically in HTML5. One good thing about Google owning YouTube is they're into purging Flash from the internet (thanks to having an ARM platform to think about). Die in flames, Flash, have mercy on us all!

[webwit]

It currently uses Flash because it's a three year old snippet of code
It uses the video code only between the tags because of a phpBB restriction for custom tags. Youtube videos can be accessed with different urls, like through the youtube.com domain but also the youtu.be domain. There's no regexp or similar functionality to filter the video code from different url formats. Hence the video code only.

[7bit]

I demand that there is a download link, so I can download the video file.


Also, I want a content description, so I can decide if it's worth it.

[Muirium]

Could we make new post notifications in subscribed threads work the same way as PM notifications: email the (text) content rather than just a link? The PM notification emails are much more useful to keep track of things quickly when you haven't time to fully check the site. Short and to the point.

[scottc]

Could we make new post notifications in subscribed threads work the same way as PM notifications: email the (text) content rather than just a link? The PM notification emails are much more useful to keep track of things quickly when you haven't time to fully check the site. Short and to the point.

While I agree with the idea, won't this cause problems with the "We won't sent any further mails for this topic until you follow this link to the thread" thing that is triggered when you follow the link from the mail? I suppose that could still remain in-place, but it seems awkard to have to open a link just to get further mails when you've already seen the content.

Perhaps mails could be more informative, then: Topics could be like "[Deskthority] New post: Topic ABC" (instead of the way it is now where the mail for every thread ends up in the same conversation view from info@deskthority due to the same title) and just include the contents of peoples' posts by default, with links to opt out from further mails. This would result in a significant amount more mail, but would be a lot easier to filter through things, in my opinion.

[ماء]

Why does my email is full DT, simply because I've seen a lot of threads?
I should delete any open email

[Muirium]

Only when you click this button:

Subscribe to Topic.png (12.14 KiB) Viewed 8767 times

Subscribing to a thread is an opt-in thing that already gets you a lot of email. It's really for keeping track of something you need to know about, like a sales thread you started or a project you run.

I just want those emails to be more informative than they are right now. Example:

Hello Muirium,

You are receiving this notification because you are watching the topic,
"Going Mechanical: Filco, Ducky or what else is best for me?" at
"deskthority". This topic has received a reply since your last visit. You
can use the following link to view the replies made, no more notifications
will be sent until you visit the topic.

If you want to view the newest post made since your last visit, click the
following link:
http://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?etc.etc.etc.

If you want to view the topic, click the following link:

http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/goi ... t5079.html

If you want to view the forum, click the following link:
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/

If you no longer wish to watch this topic you can either click the
"Unsubscribe topic" link found at the bottom of the topic above, or by
clicking the following link:

http://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?etc.etc.etc.
--
deskthority

That's a lot of text, and usually longer than the actual post you're being informed about! If we can do it, I think we should.

[bhtooefr]

Or if in your options you set it up to auto-subscribe to threads.

[Merijn]

It would be nice if we would have an at least optional SSL certificate on the website. Especially for when exchanging payment and address information via the PM system. Nowadays SSL shouldn't be the bottleneck for about anything and they come pretty easy on the monies.

[wheybags]

+1 for SSL. forced SSL tbh

[bhtooefr]

For that matter, StartSSL is free for Class 1 validation.