Suggestion Box

[K4sum1]

Just now, Reciever said:

The rules have been the same since before this forums inception. The PG aspect of this forum was inherited by NBR which such a determination years before this forum's inception.

So I never violated that rule when I was on NBR? I don't think that is possible.

Just now, Reciever said:

You can demo Invision for 14 days. 

See here: https://invisioncommunity.com/clientarea/demo/

This by definition, is something you can grab and test.

I'm pretty sure that is very limited compared to normal Invision. I think I looked at it before, but I may be thinking of another board software.

[Reciever]

2 minutes ago, K4sum1 said:

So I never violated that rule when I was on NBR? I don't think that is possible.

I'm pretty sure that is very limited compared to normal Invision. I think I looked at it before, but I may be thinking of another board software.

Well you should probably dig into it yourself if your so bothered about it. 

I have no idea, nor is it my responsibility to provide receipts for that as it holds no merit or principle in terms of this discussion.

[Samir]

17 hours ago, K4sum1 said:

So I never violated that rule when I was on NBR? I don't think that is possible.

Generally most TOS agreements have something about if a rule isn't enforced, that doesn't mean that its enforceability is reduced or removed.  So while violations may look like they're not being punished, they could all add up into one corrective action.  This is how a lot of forum warning systems work with each violation accumulating points towards some enforcement action that you don't see until it happens.

 

19 hours ago, K4sum1 said:

https://board.eclipse.cx/

Where's the traffic?  If I saw at least one forum with over 1000 posts I'd think you'd have some experience but this is pretty dead.  I would consolidate forums at least into subforums so it looks busier.  You never want to show metrics like "Most users ever online was 37 on 20 Sep 2021, 09:30" if you're a new site.

[K4sum1]

12 hours ago, Samir said:

Where's the traffic?  If I saw at least one forum with over 1000 posts I'd think you'd have some experience but this is pretty dead.  I would consolidate forums at least into subforums so it looks busier.  You never want to show metrics like "Most users ever online was 37 on 20 Sep 2021, 09:30" if you're a new site.

Having subforums in subforums would make navigating the site a bit tedious. Look at General Software & Hardware, look at the subforums. It would be a bad idea to make Microsoft Software a subforum, and have all the current subforums in that subforum. Smaller hitbox and it doesn't look as good.

 

In fact if you want to see how that looks, take a look at a clone board, http://forum.eclectic4un.me/. It has your idea with Microsoft Software as a subforum and it looks bad. It's also more dead than Eclipse, so.

[mujtaba]

@K4sum1Thanks for your feedback regarding the forum software. But let's look at it this way: at the end of the day, it is @Reciever and @Hiew who are putting the legwork and going through the trouble of keeping the forums running and really, everyone uses what they are most comfortable with*.

As a mod who has tinkered with efgxt, NBR Xenforo and the older NBR vBulletin, I can tell you that efgxt has significantly better software. At this point, curating content and users is a far larger concern, as they are the key things that make or break online communities.

And having invested in so much effort to get the forum working to this state, throwing it all away to switch to something else is massive waste of effort. Being a bit more in the know, @Reciever and @Hiew are planning a lot of cool things like NBR classic theme and some other goodies. So I doubt that switching the forum software is worth the effort.

 

* e.g. I fail to understand how Mac OS X users don't lose their minds running that piece of software, but I have seen people that are productive with it.

[K4sum1]

Just now, mujtaba said:

As a mod who has tinkered with efgxt, NBR Xenforo and the older NBR vBulletin, I can tell you that efgxt has significantly better software. At this point, curating content and users is a far larger concern, as they are the key things that make or break online communities.

And having invested in so much effort to get the forum working to this state, throwing it all away to switch to something else is massive waste of effort. Being a bit more in the know, @Reciever and @Hiew are planning a lot of cool things like NBR classic theme and some other goodies. So I doubt that switching the forum software is worth the effort.

I assume you mean better moderation tools? The user frontend for XenForo was better, however I'll probably shut up when all the cool things come along.

[mujtaba]

6 minutes ago, K4sum1 said:

I assume you mean better moderation tools? The user frontend for XenForo was better, however I'll probably shut up when all the cool things come along.

Moderation tools are massively better. I also wrote a storage guide here and I was pretty happy with the UI. The general opinion about the NBR Xenforo migration was very negative and IIRC we lost users due to that. Not only the ad infestation was terrible (fixed that with adblock), it was was also pretty ugly. Xenforo also broke the rep system.

[K4sum1]

8 minutes ago, mujtaba said:

Moderation tools are massively better. I also wrote a storage guide here and I was pretty happy with the UI. The general opinion about the NBR Xenforo migration was very negative and IIRC we lost users due to that. Not only the ad infestation was terrible (fixed that with adblock), it was was also pretty ugly. Xenforo also broke the rep system.

I was only around for XenForo, but I have used old vBulletin boards before, and they seem decent.

[Samir]

18 minutes ago, K4sum1 said:

Having subforums in subforums would make navigating the site a bit tedious. Look at General Software & Hardware, look at the subforums. It would be a bad idea to make Microsoft Software a subforum, and have all the current subforums in that subforum. Smaller hitbox and it doesn't look as good.

 

In fact if you want to see how that looks, take a look at a clone board, http://forum.eclectic4un.me/. It has your idea with Microsoft Software as a subforum and it looks bad. It's also more dead than Eclipse, so.

I see what you're saying, but navigation is only an issue if you've got traffic that is being impeded by it.  The problem with empty forums is that it seems like no one is home.  Better to have one place that's hopping and once it gets busy enough, move threads to created subforums which then also suddenly are 'full' too.

 

I think of building a forum like throwing a party.  You can have the best band, best dj, the best food, drinks, etc.  But if no one is there, even when people get there they'll leave.  You need some sort of critical mass to allow gravity to work.  With a party, you can't change the size of a room when there's only 10 people there and then make it bigger for when there's 100--but you can with a forum.

 

Some pretty unique content on your site--wish you the best with it. :)

[Hiew]

20 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I had  not really noticed it before, but since you guys mentioned it I refreshed the page and see now what you are referring to. If I had a slower internet connection it might be kind of annoying, but the images load very quickly as I scroll down the page. I am assuming the "pop" that @Rage Set mentioned is how they instantly/sudden appear on the page as you scroll down. Not sure if that is what that means or not.

 

One additional thing I did notice was if I was like half way down the page when I refreshed it would load the page at the same place I was at prior to the page being refreshed, but then it would scroll itself up to the top of the page almost as if I were scrolling the page myself. Very odd, and I had not noticed that before.

 

23 hours ago, Rage Set said:

 

The loading as you scroll makes the page jerk for me. The images POP. I thought it was my browser. I kept my Inspector on, trying to figure it out myself. Now I know. 

As per these posts, the current setting is to "lazy load" the images (as you scroll to them they load). This setting is to save on bandwidth for mobile users, low bandwidth users, and the server. Since bandwidth isn't much of an issue for the server (we haven't even hit 0.01% of our cap) I'll toggle this setting off for the moment to see how it performs for everyone.

@Mr. Fox@Rage Set@Reciever

[Mr. Fox]

Just now, Hiew said:

 

As per these posts, the current setting is to "lazy load" the images (as you scroll to them they load). This setting is to save on bandwidth for mobile users, low bandwidth users, and the server. Since bandwidth isn't much of an issue for the server (we haven't even hit 0.01% of our cap) I'll toggle this setting off for the moment to see how it performs for everyone.

@Mr. Fox@Rage Set@Reciever

Awesome, thanks. I will reply if I notice an improvement or an issue. 

[Aaron44126]

If you actually disabled lazy load...  I'm still having "loading scroll jerk".  Annoying because it breaks anchors, or links to a specific post in a thread.  If I try to open the oldest unread post, or if I hit a bookmark to a specific post, it loads to the right spot briefly and then scrolls way off so I have to scroll down to find what I wanted.  (Firefox + Inverted theme, if it matters.)

 

Easy example I just picked out of a hat.  This link should take you to the second to last post on the first page of this thread.  It lands there briefly and then throws me up to like the 7th-to-last post.  Never had such a problem with NBR.  There is something happening during/after load that is throwing it off.  If the cause can't be determined, it might be fixable as a workaround with JavaScript (reset the scroll to the anchor after load is fully done).

[Reciever]

15 minutes ago, Aaron44126 said:

If you actually disabled lazy load...  I'm still having "loading scroll jerk".  Annoying because it breaks anchors, or links to a specific post in a thread.  If I try to open the oldest unread post, or if I hit a bookmark to a specific post, it loads to the right spot briefly and then scrolls way off so I have to scroll down to find what I wanted.  (Firefox + Inverted theme, if it matters.)

 

Easy example I just picked out of a hat.  This link should take you to the second to last post on the first page of this thread.  It lands there briefly and then throws me up to like the 7th-to-last post.  Never had such a problem with NBR.  There is something happening during/after load that is throwing it off.  If the cause can't be determined, it might be fixable as a workaround with JavaScript (reset the scroll to the anchor after load is fully done).

That happened to me a couple of times as well and is repeatable, at the time I assumed it was because I use brave and/or waterfox.

 

It may be a matter of time, but I will consult with Hiew and see if additional research is needed.

[Aaron44126]

Playing around with this.  Here's the JavaScript to correct the scroll after load.  If you can find a place to put this so that it fires when the page is fully done loading then it's a workaround.

 

[Edit] Can we also please fix code blocks in the inverted theme, thanks 🙂

 

if (location.hash) {
	document.getElementById(location.hash.replace("#", "")).scrollIntoView();
}

[Hiew]

Yeah this is definitely not intended behaviour and is extremely annoying. I'll have some time tomorrow to go over these issues and will follow up!

 

edit: This may also be due to the cache needing to be rebuilt for older posts.

 

 

Edited February 17, 2022 by Hiew

[Aaron44126]

I think that it may yet have to do with image loading happening late.  The "unexpected offset" of the scroll seems to be line with the height of images loaded in further up in the page.

[Aaron44126]

8 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

I think that it may yet have to do with image loading happening late.  The "unexpected offset" of the scroll seems to be line with the height of images loaded in further up in the page.

 

Lazy-load image placeholders have no height.  When they get filled in, the layout of the page changes, and if you aren't consuming the page top-to-bottom then it will be noticeable.

 

This page describes the issue (and a fix which seems a bit complex to me).  https://css-tricks.com/preventing-content-reflow-from-lazy-loaded-images/

 

If you have disabled lazy loading, it seems like it is still happening — maybe it is just loading all of the images in right away without waiting the user to scroll, but the page is still loading first with images "missing" and they are getting filled in moments later.  This is what is causing the "loading scroll jerk".

 

[Edit]

Checked out some HTML coming back from the server and it looks like images are set up properly, with "src", "height" and "width" attributes which should not cause a lazy load or lazy load jerk.  Unless, I wonder if this is causing the problem.

[Reciever]

On 2/17/2022 at 1:26 PM, Aaron44126 said:

 

Lazy-load image placeholders have no height.  When they get filled in, the layout of the page changes, and if you aren't consuming the page top-to-bottom then it will be noticeable.

 

This page describes the issue (and a fix which seems a bit complex to me).  https://css-tricks.com/preventing-content-reflow-from-lazy-loaded-images/

 

If you have disabled lazy loading, it seems like it is still happening — maybe it is just loading all of the images in right away without waiting the user to scroll, but the page is still loading first with images "missing" and they are getting filled in moments later.  This is what is causing the "loading scroll jerk".

 

[Edit]

Checked out some HTML coming back from the server and it looks like images are set up properly, with "src", "height" and "width" attributes which should not cause a lazy load or lazy load jerk.  Unless, I wonder if this is causing the problem.

Meant to get back to this earlier, we have a ticket out with Invision for this issue now. I dont know how much we can expect as this is a first for us, but it will serve as granting us with some reference for Invision as well as hopefully a solution for this minor but admittedly annoying issue.

[Ishayin]

Since initial aesthetic appeal can often significantly impact the impressions of new arrivals to the forum. I have two thoughts regarding themes:

 

1. Once the selection of themes available is more or less settled for the time being, perhaps we could have a poll as to which one is everyone's favourite? That option could then be made the default theme such as to have the best chance of pleasing new arrivals.

 

2. It would be great if the theme selector could be made a lot more noticeable for new users. Perhaps by moving it up the top? I think most people would miss it as it is now.

[aldarxt]

Don't know if this is the right thread but came across an old bookmark and thought it might be something, I am not that tech savvy but this site https://ipfs.io/

Might it be good for archiving the NBR website or provide access to it. I don't understand what it is but scanning through this site made me think about the loss of our Prized website forums. I hope someone might get an Idea

[Ishayin]

On 2/25/2022 at 2:48 PM, aldarxt said:

Don't know if this is the right thread but came across an old bookmark and thought it might be something, I am not that tech savvy but this site https://ipfs.io/

Might it be good for archiving the NBR website or provide access to it. I don't understand what it is but scanning through this site made me think about the loss of our Prized website forums. I hope someone might get an Idea

 

I've also been keeping an eye on IPFS as an interesting development, but it's still early days for getting a forum system working on it. See e.g.:
https://discuss.ipfs.io/t/ipfs-discussion-forum-software/6318/8
https://github.com/fazo96/ipfs-boards
https://ipfs-forum.turbolab.ch/

 

For the distributed social networks we have up and running here and now, you might like to look at the Fediverse:
https://medium.com/we-distribute/a-quick-guide-to-the-free-network-c069309f334

[ryan]

im loving the rep system. however the main issue will be getting new members. does anyone have a suggestion as on how we will keep this alive. As I do not see it surviving without getting at least a few new members here and there

[Aaron44126]

1 hour ago, ryan said:

im loving the rep system. however the main issue will be getting new members. does anyone have a suggestion as on how we will keep this alive. As I do not see it surviving without getting at least a few new members here and there

 

We're getting multiple new members daily (most days).  Not really sure how many are fully new or how many are trickling in from NBR.  Getting people to engage or stick around is another matter...

[Hertzian56]

I was still a relative noob at nbr but I'm thinking that it got a lot of followers because of its early period where it had reviews of new equipment and probably got early loaner stuff from manuf's. I don't know how old the site was but maybe it hit a wave of when laptops became more mainstream so people were looking for reviews and real help(not manuf garbage help)?

 

My assessment of when I joined was that it had some old hands that stuck around in several threads to help out people in even old equipment like the precision line, was helped enormously by Aaron here and thequintic(bad spelling I know) The kind of people who like what they have and want it to last and/or discovered perfectly good older used equipment that was well built and fit their needs so they searched for info on it and then wanted to do their own upgrading like MXM cards etc There was really only one main place I ever found: NBR.

 

Notebookcheck has the new stuff and really thorough reviews bar none, best site today for that, if you can draw your own conclusions from their testing and ignore the sponsored/paid for praise. I don't think they really have a forum from what I've seen just comments. Their comments structure etc are a$$ backward order imo, wouldn't give me much confidence as to any sort of forum from them. It would be cool if this site could link up with them somehow, but I think they're primarily a German site.

 

Those of us who came over are pretty dedicated it's a daily thing to just read through what's new etc That's a good seed for growing imo NBR probably took years and years to have so many active members and I bet it was like 10% active 90% 1-2 comments and gone or just occasional browsers.

 

 

One thing I wish this had, or I'm missing it, was how many members it has and highlighted new members in an easy to find place like laptop-forum did.

[Aaron44126]

On 3/7/2022 at 12:30 PM, Hertzian56 said:

One thing I wish this had, or I'm missing it, was how many members it has and highlighted new members in an easy to find place like laptop-forum did.

 

The link I left in the post immediately above lets you see the member list (with a total count) ordered by most recently joined.  You do have to dig a bit, but it's there...  (I just have this bookmarked.)

 

I hadn't thought very hard about it but you are right, the editorial content (reviews) that NBR used to have probably helped a lot to build the user base up, especially early on before there was so much in-depth tech stuff in the forums.

 

I think that @Reciever mentioned that he has some ideas or plans for a reviews section on this site.  I definitely am making plans to take a stab at a professional quality review for the Precision 7770 once it is available. (I was already planning to do this on NBR, before the move.)

 

I think that having some quality technical content will bring in more users over time just as they stumble upon it via Google (I'm talking about in-depth GPU upgrade threads and troubleshooting stuff like we used have at NBR).  Getting the momentum going to build up a library of that content will be the tricky part.  The old NBR threads will also help out; users will find their way in via NBRCHIVE (banner at the top) ... once it is more well indexed and showing up in web queries.