wrongplanet features/bugs you care most about

Post Reply New Topic

Ow. Sorry. You are quite correct that the search function does not work.

There is a cost, on the server, of maintaining an index for the "proper" phpBB search function. The username search does work "properly", but the keyword search is disabled, internally. All the "fine detail" bits an bobs on the search page don't do anything, if you use the "keywords" box. Taking that option relies on an index that Google maintains externally. Hence the search itself is not all that up-to-date. It's pretty much just an ordinary Google search, but one that only shows matches that start with "www.wrongplanet.net".

I'm not sure why MrMark gave the search as a link, as that would not be guaranteed to work. If Alex were to come up with a "smarter" search function, he might just call it "smart-search.html" and, after testing, change the page link to go there. Eventually, he might remove the "old style" "forum-search.html". I'm not saying this would happen - just that it could.

The profile update page has been through exactly this sort of game, I think. Although I have a link set as per:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/forums-profi ... ofile.html
I wouldn't be too surprised if that stopped working.

Whenever you bookmark a link to part of the internal workings of the board, bypassing the supplied menus, you have to be prepared for it to maybe stop working.

PS. Belfast, I just remembered that I forgot to say - I was wondering if maybe you were not seeing the menu line at the top of the page. That, in itself, was a new feature, a while back. In particular, you could set a browser to override the CSS styles, and have:

which would stop you seeing any of the links on that line.

It's not that, in my case. I do see the clickables atop page/window-it's just that I disregard them because I assume they don't necessarily actually work (as I mentioned before about having read invarious threads about the search function being disabled). Thus, I don't bother with trying to use it.
Have no idea what "CSS styles" means-I generally fail to comprehend technology.

So far as I can tell, the memberlist bookmark I saved (as I could never find link to it otherwise) still works properly.

Also, when it comes to another function (and I know I recently said this here), that I didn't automatically know to translate the word "discusssion" as being the link to "forums", so I just have the index page bookmarked (obviating need for using the clickable item in menu).

Have no problem (at least, if we're referring to same thing) updating my profile, as have learned that is doable through the "my account" blip in top right hand corner.

I should have supported you there! I rather like consistency. We have one set of forums....

• It is reached at the address:
  
  http://www.wrongplanet.net/forums.html
  
• The page title (what shows on your tabs, or window title, for instance):
  
  Wrong Planet Forums
  
• When on a list of posts, at top and bottom, the navigation link says:
  
  Wrong Planet Forums Forum Index
  
• When on a list of topics (or the list of forums itself), but only at the top, we have one bit of consistency - those links also say:
  
  Wrong Planet Forums Forum Index
  
• At the top of the page, it all goes different, and like you say, we have the completely different:
  
  Discussion
  
• A highlighted link on the front page says (in the singular, note):
  
  discussion forum

I'd say that every one of these could just say "Forums".

The last one, "discussion forum", is a tautology:

Yes, that is the link I have stored in my frequently-used bookmark menu. Appreciate your patience in fleshing this out for me, as I feared being rebuked for pointing this out (and due to my relative ignorance as to comprehending computerese !).

My comment about "not being able to find way back to forums" was when on a non-forum, but within WP site, page. For instance, when in private messages or updating my profile or something, can't recall exactly-was another thread in which I commented on this, I think.
Think it was in there that I saw coment explaining that "discussion" was "the forums".

Agree. "Discussion" makes me think of Wiki where discussion means arguing about what should or shouldn't be on site, or admin. discussions on fora such as WP-rather than open communication between regular site members (aka the oldschool phrase "message board").

I suppose my terminology goes like this:

The whole of WrongPlanet is a "message board", "bulletin board" or just plain "board". By that, I'm just meaning that WP is not a site sourced just by the owner, but it has a membership, who contribute largely to its content.

Within the board, discussions are organised by general theme into specific areas of interest - hence the "forum" (and on some software, sub-forums, and so on).

A single "forum" will have more than one conversational "topic", AKA "thread".

The "thread" concept was around way before it became as simplistic as it is on WP. E.g. in NNTP newsgroups, topics become multi-threaded and cross-posting is catered for. While this can be quite "clever", I get the impression that the whole concept has "evolved" and the simple board/forum/thread/post hierarchy is what works.

uhm... why are we arguing over linguistics.

We're not arguing. We're trying to reduce confusion.

I also find it confusing that the "Forums" are called that, sometimes, but become "Discussion" at the top of the page, or the rather long-winded "Wrong Planet Forums Forum Index" elsewhere.

Ohhh now i see what yer taking about.. all these discrepancies here... i barely notice them but n00bs might have issues... i uphold your argument or whatever we are calling it proposal arugment blah!

A very nice feature to have would be threading for PMs. With the current system, if you want to review a series of PMs between yourself and another member, you have to alternate between your inbox and sent PMs and open each individual message in succession- needless to say, that method is rather cumbersome. If a series of PMs between two members that were responding to previous comments of each other could be viewed all together as a thread, it would be very helpful.

I came here to suggest that. It is just a coincidence that someone else asked for it too. (Coincidence is when the Universe wishes to remain anonymous)

How many topics do you suppose there are on: whats your favorite Aspie movie/TV character? Whats you favorite t-shirt expression?

Its a fun topic and i bet its been done many times
How big an item is a reasonably good search feature? Big money, big bandwidth? big something? Big DEAL!

Thanks, Nora

Take care, Nora

Is there any way we can get the "post reply" button away from the "new topic" button? I mean, how many people go inside of a thread and post a new thread anyway, compared with how many people accidentally start new threads while trying to reply?

quite a big deal, actually. don't have the money to implement a search feature of our own without severely slowing the site.

http://wrongplanet.net/supporters.htm

Alex it doesn't necessarily have to be that expensive. I have talked before about various options to improve overall performance not just the search/db side of things. Bear in mind I'm not always the most tactful person, so I will say it like it is.

One of the most obvious things that could improve performance is archiving. I don't even need to know anything about your setup to know this is the case. You can nearly always improve things by archiving.

Nobody is expecting to be able search the result of every single thread and post since 2004. It is a known fact that as tables grow performance will be less. It is perfectly reasonable to have archive periods/groupings and search within these, and even have restrictions/priorities searches within archive periods/groupings. It can be done countless ways. The only requirement is that when you separate you don't leave any straggling relationships that are important for it to work. You could even have a way to resurrect achieved threads, although personally I would favour not. Seriously if I really wanted something from 2004 I would have no problem waiting a little while for it. I don't think people will grumble too much if they have to do one or two searches to get what they wanted, if the search is accurate. The problem with the google search is that it is designed for indexing on the macro scale, relative to the whole web. BB threads on average have a notoriously poor rating (why wouldn’t they?), and those pages are just not so easily indexed. You get plenty of noise too even if you put lots of no follows. It isn’t strictly chronological either, it simply doesn’t understand or care about the logic and relationships of the forum.

I also mentioned search engines/accelerators that you can add-ons that you can use for indexing. Obviously this would be something worth considering after any archiving and considerations how you are going to use it with specific archive periods, groupings.

There are lots of other things that you can do to improve overall performance, but those are the two main ones I would recommend for now.

If you let diseconomies linger those diseconomies will grow and totally engulf everything. It is definitely worth being proactive towards them.

Not to be alarmist but I have noticed an overal nock on performance over months compared to normal browsing. Someone likened it to trying to wade through molasses at times. There are plenty of thing you can do improve the requests/response times.

On the off chance that you are interested here is and extension that works with prune posts to move to an archive.

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=912205

You can use auto pruning with it. Works with phpBB 3.

Also there are extensions that work like vbulletin archive to make search engine friendly threads.