The Song Fight Bulletin Board

jb wrote:1.One specific advantage of the HTML ban: Forum Spambots, if they manage to slip through PHPBB3's new spambot guards (whatever they are, I'm not quite sure) will need to use BBCode to display their porn images. I'm pretty sure they don't do that at the moment.

2. Also, the new version has CAPTCHA auth for signing up as a user, which should also help cut down on spambot registrations.

3. Plus, you can now report posts that are inappropriate, so we can act on them sooner and you don't feel like you're sitting there unable to do anything about the horrible, horrible naked ladies suddenly appearing on your virgin screen.

1. Thats only a matter of time. Its like the folks who own Macs who swear they are virus free based on the fact they are on a Mac.

2. AWESOME

3. I for one am outraged by the horrible naked ladies! I mean, I stare at those pictures for several minutes just to amplify my outrage!

jb wrote:Also, the new version has CAPTCHA auth for signing up as a user, which should also help cut down on spambot registrations.

It helps for sure - that's one of the things that saved my radnoise forum - once captcha was in, no more spammers.

ps - can't you disable image posting for the first 10 posts or something? That way even if we eventually can get html back, spammers would have to spam 10 times before they could even post nudie pics.

I haven't seen any spam since the upgrade, so maybe an "image ban for the first 10 posts" isn't necessary any more.

Generic wrote:
Also, how has nobody yet mentioned how cool the friends and foes lists are?

roymond wrote:jon - template, avatar placement and friends & foes all addressed in this thread. Agreed about BB code. If it brought obvious advantages, fine, but I'm not aware.

Really? I didn't see anyone talking about it...

...

phpBB2 has a captcha module too, although you have to do a bit of work to enable it.

phpBB3 has less bot activity because it's a new forum system which hasn't been widely adopted yet. The spammers are getting faster and faster at adapting to new systems. Macs are starting to get viruses too.

BBCode is easier to sanitize than HTML (since it's a matter of just converting one basic language to a tiny subset of the other, instead of having to understand enough of the other language to know what you want to allow, and then HTML has a lot of corner cases with things like angle brackets which people don't intend to turn into HTML code and so on). Trying to sanitize both BBCode and HTML at the same time is a huge pain in the ass. I too would have much rather phpBB kept HTML instead of switching entirely to BBCode but I can see why they decided to go BBCode-only, even if it's completely irritating and obnoxious. (Unfortunately, that decision is why I will most likely never upgrade my own forum to phpBB3, since what I use it for absolutely relies on HTML support.)

One thing that bugs me a lot about phpBB3 is the posting interface. There's just too much stuff on it... sidebars with a huge area for smilies, a big ol' font color swatch, and FOUR buttons for post actions! Preview, Submit, Save (which is confusing next to Submit), and Cancel (can't you just go back on your browser?). Also, there's how the forum is trying to be yet another all-encompassing social network (that is to say that I don't like the friend/foe thing), and it STILL doesn't try to actually integrate with anything else via RSS or whatever. It's yet another stupid thing you have to either explicitly check every day or allow it to email you updates, which is far more annoying than just getting an RSS feed to an area you care about and making it skimmable in your favorite newsreader. Plus, they've gone even further down the path of reinventing email, in a way that is of course unable to send email to people who aren't also on the same system, and of course there's no sort of global identity management (e.g. OpenID) which would similarly solve many of these problems, although that's a difficult balancing act with anti-spam measures.

I miss the days that a forum was just a forum and not an entire goddamn operating system.

Can we get links that look like links?

fluffy wrote: One thing that bugs me a lot about phpBB3 is the posting interface. There's just too much stuff on it... sidebars with a huge area for smilies, a big ol' font color swatch, and FOUR buttons for post actions! Preview, Submit, Save (which is confusing next to Submit), and Cancel (can't you just go back on your browser?).

I'll take that all a step further. In compromise to make the forum 'sleeker' it loses it visual navigation as well. Its harder now to skim over because its easier for your eyes to miss where one post ends and another starts based on the current colors schemes. White and gray were easier to split with the eye, light blue and lighter blue just confuses my eyes and I already have trouble distinguishing pinks and purples, this periwinkle and lighter periwinkle is confusing my sight.

All this is minor.

I don't think the links are a problem really, well... maybe make them a different and harder color.

I think the only thing that took me a while to get used to was going straight to the last page of a multi page thread. At first I was going to the first page of an old thread thinking, hmmm, what a tard, someone already started a thread about this last week......and someone already replied with the same reply....and .....wait a tic! DOH!

The funniest thing is when I go to a thread that I think is new, and see a post by me, then thinking someone haxzord my account, then remembering I was extra drunk that night and just forgot.

You know what? You can "report" your own posts, haha.
-bill

Generic wrote:

Generic wrote: Also, how has nobody yet mentioned how cool the friends and foes lists are?

roymond wrote:jon - template, avatar placement and friends & foes all addressed in this thread. Agreed about BB code. If it brought obvious advantages, fine, but I'm not aware.

Really? I didn't see anyone talking about it...

Sorry, there was a daily with lots of site change discussions going on, which doesn't help you, so here is the one on avatars.

And here's friends & foes in this thread.

Hey, I just noticed that if I log in on a different computer, everything is green and a much better style. But logging in on this account everything is the original blue style that is confusing.
Is the green style the new set up, but the blue is stuck in my cache or something?
signed,
Color Me Confused.

fluffy wrote:I miss the days that a forum was just a forum and not an entire goddamn operating system.

I miss the days when all the discussion was on usenet and you could read it with whatever software you liked (slrn for me, mainly). Web-based forums have been a gigantic step backwards as far as I'm concerned.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:Hey, I just noticed that if I log in on a different computer, everything is green and a much better style. But logging in on this account everything is the original blue style that is confusing.
Is the green style the new set up, but the blue is stuck in my cache or something?

Yes, most likely. Clear your cache.

obscurity wrote:I miss the days when all the discussion was on usenet and you could read it with whatever software you liked (slrn for me, mainly). Web-based forums have been a gigantic step backwards as far as I'm concerned.

For once, obs and I agree on something. Come to think of it, it happens from time to time.

SPUD

jb wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:Hey, I just noticed that if I log in on a different computer, everything is green and a much better style. But logging in on this account everything is the original blue style that is confusing.
Is the green style the new set up, but the blue is stuck in my cache or something?

Yes, most likely. Clear your cache.

Actually, that didn't do it. I went to my control panel and the drop down box gave me 6 different styles to choose from. I changed it there. But it looks like the default for new members is Glossy Green.

So to all that are still stuck with the blue style, go to your control panel and choose a new one.
Did everyone already know this? I'm I the last to know, as usual?

Usenet was nice but it also has several major flaws. There's no reasonable way to keep semi-private conversations private, and its authentication was complete crap. Just like SMTP (which is also falling by the wayside with the current generation of users), NNTP is an example of an early protocol designed back when you could expect everyone to be more or less agreeable and all the later additions were badly shoehorned in.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

jb wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:Hey, I just noticed that if I log in on a different computer, everything is green and a much better style. But logging in on this account everything is the original blue style that is confusing.
Is the green style the new set up, but the blue is stuck in my cache or something?

Yes, most likely. Clear your cache.

Actually, that didn't do it. I went to my control panel and the drop down box gave me 6 different styles to choose from. I changed it there. But it looks like the default for new members is Glossy Green.

So to all that are still stuck with the blue style, go to your control panel and choose a new one.
Did everyone already know this? I'm I the last to know, as usual?

Do you have multiple user accounts or something? You shouldn't have to change the style on more than one computer for it to take effect for one user.

On second thought, never mind. Let's not try to explain this to each other. I don't have the patience at the moment.

jb wrote:

On second thought, never mind. Let's not try to explain this to each other. I don't have the patience at the moment.

You're going to make a great Dad.

roymond wrote: Sorry, there was a daily with lots of site change discussions going on, which doesn't help you, so here is the one on avatars.

And here's friends & foes in this thread.

I'm often told that jokes are a lot less funny when you have to explain them.

Generic wrote:

roymond wrote: Sorry, there was a daily with lots of site change discussions going on, which doesn't help you, so here is the one on avatars.
And here's friends & foes in this thread.

I'm often told that jokes are a lot less funny when you have to explain them.

Uh...yeah...so, one of the references was where I suggested, and the other I dug out for you. If that's explaining a joke, I guess I get your point. But cool either way.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

jb wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:Hey, I just noticed that if I log in on a different computer, everything is green and a much better style. But logging in on this account everything is the original blue style that is confusing.
Is the green style the new set up, but the blue is stuck in my cache or something?

Yes, most likely. Clear your cache.

Actually, that didn't do it. I went to my control panel and the drop down box gave me 6 different styles to choose from. I changed it there. But it looks like the default for new members is Glossy Green.

So to all that are still stuck with the blue style, go to your control panel and choose a new one.
Did everyone already know this? I'm I the last to know, as usual?

No, it looks like *I* am the last one to know/figure out. I didn't realize that I controlled my own 'style'. Green now, which puts avatars back on the left and adds a nice solid black line in between posts. MUCH better. (although, now the quote button is on the bottom right instead of top right...I'll get used to it.

Hobz, are you using FireFox?