State of the forum(s) + changelog

[iceeedtea]

Most of the speed issues have been fixed, but there are a few formatting/etc errors across the forum. They will be corrected gradually.

I've had to remove the "word count" modification because it was inducing problems. I may add it back later.

Word count was useless anyway. It's like phpBB telling me that my English is too wordy, when I already know that.

It's still dead slow. I told it to load a page, ran to the basement to grab a soda, came back, and it was still loading. :|

[Daijoubu]

Can't only blame the software, the hardware is slow too

[Christopher]

The speed is fine for me. *shrug* :sleep: If you have a bunch of windows/tabs going it will be sluggish [during peak hours].

I'll just ignore your comment, Daijou.

Anyway, welcome aeriyn to the moderating team. :happy:

[Christopher]

http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=4391

http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=4593

[Daijoubu]

Ok, speed it now better

Still haven't put the css into a file?

[Christopher]

I'm having some problems with that. In your opinion, what's the benefits of such?

[doclloyd]

As a programmer/web developer (in my limited scope) putting the CSS information into a file vs. inline on each page does a couple things:

* Cuts down on filesize for each page

* Allows the browser to cache the CSS information and not have to retrieve it on every page view. This should cut down on hits on the web server.

* Only one place to modify the stylesheet info. Makes changes everywhere all at once.

Hope this helps

[Daijoubu]

Saves bandwidth for the end user (less KB to download) by making it cacheable and the server ($$?)

If you had GZIP on, saves CPU cycles at compressing it on every page view

Actually, it's pretty simple, copy the current CSS produced by phpBB and paste into:

templates/subTrail/subTrail.css

Edit the .tpl file by un-commenting the link and getting rid of the inline CSS

[Christopher]

I'll get to that next, Daijoubu.

Anyway, added a simple Karma mod. You can only Applaud [+] or Smite [-] another user once a hour. Moderators and administrators have the ability to do this unlimited times.

Eventually I may put in a system of rewards [free discs, etc etc] for those who have enough karma points.

Next time someone helps you or you see another user help someone in a way that should be rewarded, give them a good karma point. If someone is arrogant and/or rude to another user, give them a bad karma point, etc. You cannot give karma points to yourself.

I also made some small asthetic changes to viewtopic.

[crazeybt1]

hmm...... well just letting you know that sometimes i experience some problems using Firefox 0.8 note* sometimes i don't see the plus and minus signs for the Karmas, just a bunch of text

and you mention rewards..uhh thus far you seem to be the only person with 2+ and you're always here obviously you'll get more than the most users.. are you eligable to win any thing.. bearing in mind again you post the most in all topics etc... :cool:

[Christopher]

Whoa, I would upgrade to Firefox .9.2, as .8 has quite a few security issues. :happy:

Can you take screenshots of where the karma errors occur? You cannot give karma to yourself, remember that. I doubt I'll give myself anything, but I am interested in rewarding others. Poor skyther already has -2. :laugh:

I know I'm here alot, and I know I post alot, but this place is my "baby" and you know how things go with bugs [which have been pretty much corrected as of late]. I also work for a cable internet service provider, and when things aren't busy there I idle here.

[mr.java]

You do awsome.

[Christopher]

Thanks - I value your kind words. :happy:

[crazeybt1]

hey thanks for the advice i'm now downloading the 0.9.3 :smile:

but you know i came here and you know how your own karma options would just b in text no plus or minus buttons..well when i came here first i found all the other users options appeared that way...but having typed a reply to address that earlier i noticed they were enabled again..then i thought it's probably because i wasn't signed in yet.. it's only logical

:smile: chances are Skyther(x) might have the most negative responses etc from his statements altho they seem indepth and very technical he got a way of handling "opinions" :grin:

[skyther]

Wha? I just downloaded 0.9.1 2 days ago!?

People here are dorks.

[edited :rasp:]

[crazeybt1]

-3 and counting.... :laugh:

[Daijoubu]

Opera rules

[Christopher]

This new theme is under construction, but good enough to go live. I alleviate a bit on it here:

http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=5659

[Christopher]

Alot of the kinks have been worked out but there are still some things missing across the board. They will be corrected gradually.

The old theme, subTrail [ya know, the green one], is now available as an alternative theme if you choose not to employ this one.

[mAjEsTiC]

hey nice...i go away for like 2 weeks and i didn't even recognised this site when i came back...nicely done kurisu... :happy:

[Christopher]

Don't forget, you can set your theme back to the old one if you want. :happy:

[crazeybt1]

This is way smooth keep it up *thumbs up* :cool:

[Christopher]

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Anyway, the short lived Karma is out. It just wasn't what I wanted, but I will shop around for some sort of member/topic rating system as I think that's a keen feature. Custom titles may not work with the Sosumi template, btw..that should be corrected in a little while.

[skmetal07]

hey kurisu, i have a suggestion for the boards, im not sure if others really care but if u could use more contrasting colors, especially in between posts, that would reallllly help with reading, scince they all just kinda blend in, i have tried both templates and like the older one better, and if u can fix that one so that it doesnt go halfway off the screenit would really help, i hate scrolling sideways. just tring to help out, dont mean to be complaining

[Christopher]

Thanks for the suggestion. :happy:

Now when you say inbetween posts, do you mean the dark grey divider line?

..and about the other template "going halfway off the screen", could you take a screenshot and e-mail it to me?

[Christopher]

I fixed a few format issues with subTrail and added Paypal donation links to both templates. Donating to such will benefit the forums in the long run by helping pay for future upgrades and such..and I promise that all money donated will go strictly towards benefits for the forums and minidisc.org as a whole - nothing for personal gain.

[Christopher]

I am adjusting the way banners look for the forums so they fit in with the Sosumi template. The banners will probably change around a few times before things are finished, so what you're seeing now is not the final product. Give me a few days and things will be finalized.

[Christopher]

I am not aware of the full implications of the dangers that are ahead of us, but there are currently issues with certain databases which are crucial to the forums. I am not sure what will come of this. The database that contained information with the Ads has been affected somehow and no longer functions.

This is not a result of my tweaking, btw.

I am being quite open with this dilemma, but I will not hide such from you folk - you're my friends. :happy: I will keep you informed of what occurs, but we've been through worse.

Things may seem a bit slower until we get this resolved. I appreciate your patience.

[jadeclaw]

Kurisu, do yourself a favor:

Install phpMyAdmin on the server (behind a passwort of course) and use it to regularly backup the database.

You can save data and the structure in one go using the export function and restore the whole kaboodle with it,

if something goes wrong. It already saved me tons of headaches...

phpMyAdmin is here:

http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/

(Of course, if you doing that already, you are free to ignore my post)

[Christopher]

(Of course, if you doing that already, you are free to ignore my post)

:happy:

[Christopher]

Looks like the database woes have been corrected and things are back to normal. Anyway, I consolidated "Japanese MD/Hi-MD scene + MD/Hi-MD Media Discussion" and made it a subforum of "Tips and Tricks". Not the most appropriate place to put it, but the forum wasn't seeing much use anyway.

Reactive Sounds now have their forum in the Marketplace.

[Christopher]

The forums were down last night [EST] for an undetermined amount of time. The reason was due to certain limitations of the current hardware we're employing.

[Christopher]

I'm rebuilding the search indexes, so if the forum seems slow for the next couple of hours that is why.

[Christopher]

I will attempt to do some restructuring of the forum, but slowly at best. I spent quite a while fixing up some code that was incomplete on the admin side and the board seems better off because of such. I'll probably do a few enhancements to this layout before I transition it from beta to whatever I will dub it after.

Also, http://forums.minidisc.org/viewforum.php?f=80

and,

http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=6380

[Christopher]

Halloween mode [for Sosumi] is complete; press refresh a few times if things look odd.

[Christopher]

http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?p=33568

[Christopher]

Altered the cellpic colors slightly [sosumi]. Refresh for the change if necessary.

[Christopher]

I have altered a few things with the Sosumi template. I hope that the changes are agreeable.

Also, we will be upgrading to MySQL 4.1 tonight if all goes well. :happy: I don't have an ETA, but everything should be finalized by tomorrow morn.

[Christopher]

Still no move on the MySQL upgrade, Eric seems to be having difficulties. I need more authority..of course, knowing me and my ways of editing in a live enviroment, I'd probably destroy the whole forums. I really hope we can make a move soon to MySQL 4, it'd be nice. :sleep:

Anyway, there's something that I'm going to have to do from time to time that will throw things off with the number of users who have visited the site today. To stay #1 in google for relevant searches, I have the keep the sessions for all users logged or not logged into the forum from becoming full. If the sessions file becomes full, search engine bots cannot spider the forums and keep us #1 for relevant searches. If we aren't #1, then we won't get hits. Google has fed us an additional million and a half page views per month, so it's very important that I keep that listing error free.

Previously, when I left it unattended, our search listing would just be an error. Now, if you're searching for something and the site comes up as an error in the search listing and you've never visited the site, would you click on it? Figures have put it around 90% "No."

So, from time to time I will have to manually clear out the sessions file to assure that things are kosher. The unfortunate side-effect of such is it will reset the # of unique visitors to the site in the index, and also log anyone out who is logged into the forums. I will try to do this at a time when things aren't busy, but sometimes these resets will have to occur at peak times.

I am still seeking solutions to this issue, but we're in a much better place than we were before, and the future of these forums look very bright indeed. :happy:

I thank you for your continuing patience with my never-ending tweaking in hopes that the end result will be something satisfactory to the both of us.

[Christopher]

We're still having issues with the Google listing. Damnit.

Anyway, I updated this a bit and I hope that you all check it out for some insight on how to keep that computer of yours free of malicious junk.