Making the new forum usable?
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@johnpoz Oh man that is confusing but ... makes sense now at least. The old forum was definitely easier as far as that goes, as it would search and sort across all subforums. If the Netgate folks have a backend way of making it behave like that it would be a godsend.
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https://forum.netgate.com/topic/131303/any-chance-to-bring-back-old-forum-look
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We are also still having some problems with NodeBB indexing the posts due to the sheer number of them. On both SMF and the new forum the best search is to use Google instead and put
site:forum.netgate.comin the query, like this. -
Ok. Good luck getting things to settle down. Will try to use those suggestions. I still do miss the old forums! Not sure what it was but they were just very easy to read for some reason.
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As for the old forums, with SMF I got almost the same behavior when searching forum-wide for one or multiple keywords. Got topics from a few days ago intermixed with ones from years ago, never got a time-sorted reply. So I've still got my hopes up, that with NodeBB or re-indexing those posts we'll finally get that sorted out :)
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^ agreed searching on smf was no picnic in the park ;) It was very hit or miss and luck. I almost always search for something via google vs the forums internal search feature.
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This new forum works really well on smartphones, the same couldn't be said about the old one.
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Also true ;) I have not tried it yet.. But smf was a pain in the ass trying to read and or reply from phone.
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@kpa said in Making the new forum usable?:
This new forum works really well on smartphones, the same couldn't be said about the old one.
I agree 100% - so much better when driving to work in the mornings and having a quick read on the phone instead of having to wait for the big screen.
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hehehe - ok, not sure I would condone reading anything while driving.. But if your stopped at a light or something I guess..
Looking at your phone while driving here in chicagoland can get you a ticket even.
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@johnpoz said in Making the new forum usable?:
hehehe - ok, not sure I would condone reading anything while driving… But if your stopped at a light or something I guess…
Not while driving myself of course ;) The lady is driving sometimes if she needs the car herself or for fetching the kids and on those days I'm free to enjoy a bit of morning newsflash on the way to work getting up to speed before stepping into the treadmill :D
Looking at your phone while driving here in chicagoland can get you a ticket even.
In Germany it could not only get you a ticket (and a costly one) but also traffic violation points (one or two depending on how dangerous that was) and in some cases even a one month ban on driving. So: no way :)
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Ah ok yeah that makes perfect sense.. I have never gotten such a ticket here, but my son got one. It was a costly fine, I believe in the 100$ range but I don't think he got any points on his record.
Such fines here in the US are more about making money for the City/State vs actual teaching the people to be more safe.. Wonder how many people would wear their seatbelts if they got caught not wearing they would loose driving license for a month or something vs just the $ fine..
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@France : when you are "looking" at your Phone while driving : 135 € and 3 point deducted.
Everybody starts with 12 points. When you reached zero points, the driver license is destroyed.
If you have no other fines during 2 years, the 3 points are restored.Btw : about 750 000 people drive without a license because they reached "zero" points (so they aren't assured neither). You have to go to a school, take the 20 lessons at least, redo your 'theory' etc etc (costs more then 1200 €, take some months).
Sorry for the going away from the subject.
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Yeah it happens.. This thread was over anyway ;)
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I visit a lot less now because of the forum layout. If I had been a new user of pfSense who needed serious help, I would be turned off from the product. It's not just a matter of being different from the former pfSense forum software, but pretty much every other forum most people visit. It's seriously a distraction and hindrance to your good name.
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Just from a constructivism point of view, the new forum layout is terrible. Clearly a major regression over the old forum. Also the "We collect your private info and process it" warnings are concerning.
What is "we collect"? Anyways, seems its "trendy" these days to collect everything and store and process useless data. Hard drive manufacturers must be laughing their ***** off.....
Just my 2 cents
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Nah!
Another vendor too switched to this "thing". I don't know what it is, but it's nothing like a forum software. I am too confused and lost and i won't get used to it. It's a pity to see going down so many out there recently...
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@pftdm007 said in Making the new forum usable?:
Just from a constructivism point of view, the new forum layout is terrible. Clearly a major regression over the old forum. Also the "We collect your private info and process it" warnings are concerning.
What is "we collect"? Anyways, seems its "trendy" these days to collect everything and store and process useless data. Hard drive manufacturers must be laughing their ***** off.....
It's a legal disclaimer. The only data being "collected" is what you supply: your username, other info in your profile, the posts you make, etc. Only things necessary to run the forum (plus whatever extra optional things people put in their profile). Thanks to the GDPR, even when there is nothing unusual going on, a company still has to disclose that information is being "collected" when it can be used to identify a person in some way. Nothing is being sold or run through a third party. Logs are only kept for 30 days or less, too, so it's not like things are piling up, other than the forum content, which is sort of the point.
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@max93 said in Making the new forum usable?:
but it’s nothing like a forum software
And would you be so kind to point out how its not like a forum? People create posts/threads in sections related to a specific topic for the exchange of information.
How is that not a forum?
fo·rum
ˈfôrəm/
noun
noun: forum; plural noun: forums; plural noun: fora1. a place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.Your post by its every nature shows that this s a forum ;)
If you want an example of how NOT to run a forum check out the dropbox idea of a "forum" ;)
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@jimp said in Making the new forum usable?:
@pftdm007 said in Making the new forum usable?:
Just from a constructivism point of view, the new forum layout is terrible. Clearly a major regression over the old forum. Also the "We collect your private info and process it" warnings are concerning.
What is "we collect"? Anyways, seems its "trendy" these days to collect everything and store and process useless data. Hard drive manufacturers must be laughing their ***** off.....
It's a legal disclaimer. The only data being "collected" is what you supply: your username, other info in your profile, the posts you make, etc. Only things necessary to run the forum (plus whatever extra optional things people put in their profile). Thanks to the GDPR, even when there is nothing unusual going on, a company still has to disclose that information is being "collected" when it can be used to identify a person in some way. Nothing is being sold or run through a third party. Logs are only kept for 30 days or less, too, so it's not like things are piling up, other than the forum content, which is sort of the point.
Nice clear explanation, thanks for clarifying. So I understand not much has changed from 10 years ago in terms of data collection...
As for the new forumn layout, there will be a "getting used to" learning curve for sure but other than that, its not easier to use than before. For example yesterday I posted a new thread, and realized I had forgot relevant information. I searched for the "Edit" button for quite some time, and even searched for "Edit forum posts" forum wide, only to accidentally click on the three little dots on the lower right corner of the post, and find "Edit", "Delete" & "Bookmark". They looked like a single gray vertical bar on my display (probably due to low DPI count). Its just not intuitive. We've seen buttons at the same places for decades, now their functions are hiding behind some other function that is not standing out in the UI.
To me this is the most annoying part. Changing for the sake of changing. Things dont always get better, actually I found with software development, the best seems to be behind. This is true not only for this forum, but for anything else (iOS, Android, MS software (think of Windows 10), GNU stuff, websites, etc)....
