Plans for updating the archaic forum?

This thread seems to be becoming a vehicle for insults.

I spent a lot of years specifying, testing and implementing software that assisted engineering production. Some of that time my job title included 'software engineer', and that was what it was - using what was available within a package, plus what could be economically added, to achieve a more useful and representative model of the customer's actual process: times, costs, capacity requirements and current status.

If you think that can be done with the mindset of a 4-year-old, then you're the one with the oversimplified view.

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It's good to see so many people being passionate about their platform of choice.

Probably best to keep to the facts though.

Keep the finger pointing, insults and jives regarding people's chosen professions in the fishing forums!

One and Zero. 2 States.

However it appears that its ok for some who should know better to imply and state that I and others are Neanderthals or worse opposing changes to something which works. But like so many internet functions your face has to fit. Welcome to the data world. One rule for some other rules for the proles who are remiss for not digging the latrines and picking up the litter.

The forum works well enough for me, I even manage posting pictures. The only thing that I would like to see is the little box "remember me" to be present when first logging on. I frequently move to other forums and later back to this one, and always have to log in a second time. The box is always present the second time and when ticked keeps me logged in all the time the browser is open. My browser is set to forget all passwords when shut down, which is as I like it for security reasons.

No update will ever please everyone, the Home Shop Machinist forum was updated and although it suited me, there were a lot of complaints at the time.

Edited By old mart on 12/11/2020 16:15:21

I wonder if your experience matched mine. The hardest part of most projects was finding out what the customer's requirement really was. As opposed to a vague wish list. Above a certain project size, I found most customers have a superficial understanding of their own business. Big picture generalisations, no problem, but extraordinarily weak on detail. Pressed for precision they soon become defensive and non-committal. Instead of a crisp accurate description the developers get a requirement full of generalisations and agreements to agree. Too difficult for the Board so it's left to a junior programmer!

Sad but true that most of us can say what's wrong with software after it's been written but are completely unable to explain what's wanted in advance!

Maybe Neil should offer a prize for best Formal Requirement for a new website. Chaps who think it's easy may be shocked to discover software engineering is seriously difficult. Always a mistake to believe the other guy's job is easier than mine.

Dave

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It would need to be a very big prize by MTM standards

[ Yes, I have earned a crust or two writing formal requirements and managing delivery ]

MichaelG.

It depended on the customer. Certainly there were some like that, usually because they didn't have a clear idea of the direction they ought to take their system in to improve their business, and that usually came from a top management that was either lazy or had been forced by circumstance to change their system when they'd been happy the way it was.

The best customer relationships seemed to start with a modest requirement that was then developed through a series of iterations. By the time any extensive and expensive work started, both sides understood each other well. I imagine that situation applies in many other fields than IT - I've certainly seen it in tooling development too.

Edited By Mick B1 on 12/11/2020 17:57:24

I don't feel equipped or qualified to comment on any perceived need to change the forum, which seems to me to work well enough, and to be used mostly by reasonable and polite people who share information and give and take comment and advice in a mostly adult and constructive manner.

What does disturb me about this thread is the mention of Facebook which I have always avoided because of my perception that it is unsafe and timewasting, and that it so easily leads to divisive, personal and hostile arguments, and of which US politics is an egregious example. Is Facebook really looking over our shoulders and can anything be done to prevent this?

Rod

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I don’t understand this well-enough to advise you, Rod

... hopefully there might be others here, who can.

I can only present the script that I found [and which made me uncomfortable]

MichaelG.

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[ click image to enlarge ]

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 12/11/2020 18:26:50

Event tracking for directed ads. Installed, monitored and managed by MTM.

It doesn't have a great deal to do with Facebook per say; MTM subscribe (and probably pay to use) this service.

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Thanks for that, Lee

Although I regret to say that I don’t understand the relationship sufficiently well to know if I’m comforted.

MichaelG.

Don't get me wrong, it's still Facebook Inc. collecting your information.

They're just doing so at the request of MTM.

Not entirely sure what MTM do with the information they glean, hopefully something ethical!

" The Facebook pixel is a snippet of JavaScript code that loads a small library of functions you can use to track Facebook ad-driven visitor activity on your website. "

Basically it allows MTM to track if people come to the website as a result of ads on Facebook i.e. to see if Facebook advertising is worth doing.

Neil

I have no wish to stifle debate about the forum, but I'm concerned about the tone some of this debate is taking.

The software clearly has several shortcomings, but works well enough to support a thriving community.

It's clear that any future changes need to address the shortcomings without alienating the users. We have had changes in the past which generated grumbles - the change from Flash to HTML5 for the archive, for example. Long asked for by many - but when it happened some people were annoyed by the new reader.

Ultimately, changes in how the web works make changes in the forum inevitable and unavoidable. As I hope my earlier post made clear MyTimeMedia were actively researching the options but Covid means that the process has stalled indefinitely. At some point, however, changes will come. The cost of changing will, in part, reflect the amount of work needed to keep the existing forum structure and data intact as well as dealing with redirects etc. to minimise disruption to users, advertisers and search engines etc.

We have no idea what changes will come at the moment but no doubt some people will take to them like a duck to water and others will have more difficulty adjusting. As with all previous changes we will do our best to help people through any difficulties and keep disruption to a minimum.

Personally I hope any changes can make the archives more easily and consistently accessible, and we can streamline and simplify the subscription renewal process, apart from the much requested changes:

• An easier to use editor.
• Direct pasting of links, including links to some external sources automatically embedding content (e.g. video, images).
• A simpler way of managing user libraries and an end to the 'image rotation' issue.
• Easy quoting of multiple comments.
• Linking to specific comments, including in other threads.
• Being able to go direct to the first unread post in a thread.

Some nice to have features might be:

• Some slightly more advanced text formatting.
• Basic reactions (e.g. thanks, happy, sad, confused) to postings.
• Automatic signatures.
• More flexible ignore options (e.g. ignore a user completely, or just ignore their signature).
• Properly threaded personal messages.
• More attractive and useful profile pages.

None of these 'changes' would alter the fundamental feel of the forum in terms of how the discussions work or the topic structure.

Plus, the forum is only just over 11 years old (as far as I can tell). I don't think may of us have entirely lost the ability to adapt to a few changes over the past decade?

I'm happy for people to offer their own views on what they would like to see kept or changed, but please can get away from framing any changes as an 'us versus them' situation, please?

Neil

Thanks very much for the explanations Neil.

Brian

Forum software that I am familiar with are "SimpleMacines", and "Xenforo".

The SimpleMachines software is pretty nice, but I must say I prefer Xenforo, as it has some really nice features.

There are forums that feature advertisement sections for forum conversion services to convert your forum to Xenforo.

You have to do your own research and be sure that whoever you select has a long history of delivering excellent conversion work. There are some unsavory folks offering conversion work, and you certainly do not want to use them.

I have ported one forum from SimpleMachines to Xenforo, and the result was seamless, with no data lost, and no problems since the change (I hired someone in Europe who had excellent references).

The advertisements used here would probably require some customization to the standard Xenforo package.

A Xenforo license can be purchased fairly inexpensively, and that is required before you can get someone to start modifications.

I feel for those who run forums; they take criticism from every direction, and often get pushed into what seems like "no-win" situations.

I do feel that a good software upgrade would be well liked once people learned the changes, but I can say for sure that using a Xenforo forum is infinitely easier (in my opinion) than using this software, and I don't mean that in any way to be critical of this site, but rather just pointing out that software has changed very much for the better over the last few years.

Edit:

One example of a XenForo feature is that I can select and upload pehaps 30 photos at once (varies according to what you set up your site for), and place them on the page as either thumbnails, or full sized images, and I can intersperse text anywhere between the photos.  No albums are required unless you just want to create an album.  One has to be religious about downsizing photos to perhaps 100 k each, but this greatly streamlines the entire photo posting process, and I think woud encourage folks to post more photos in more threads.

Edited By PatJ on 13/11/2020 04:29:35

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Edited By PatJ on 13/11/2020 04:41:16

Thanks Neil for your considered response above. Could I just reiterate my own WIBNI? (wouldn't it be nice if...)

The ability to upload other file types, and have a page for files.

I know that one can send files in other ways, but the nice thing about this is that this site could build up a library of ME related documents that members could browse without having to first find specific threads and contact the authors to ask for links or files. A good example of a site where this is possible is this:

**LINK**

(you may have to register to see this page, but it's free). So for example I created a folder there with (so far) just a couple of files related to my software-controlled version of the Synchronome.

Another example is the Quorn-Owners group - an amazing repository of useful information and discussion of the Quorn of direct interest to members here.

Although part of the overall website these don't actually have anything to do with the "forum" if you exclude threads relating to problems with them.

But if you are including other aspects of the site then the age old problem of the way a response to a classified can loose the senders e-mail needs to go on the list.

John's Library for files is also more of a website item and not so much forum related unless you just had a topic where files could be posted. Then you need to find a way to make it searchable and hope all those uploading give the item a meaningful title as there is no capacity for a librarian. There is a similar section on MEM for posting drawings but it gets posts with those looking for a source of drawings, querying something on a drawing , etc so you end up with a lot to search through.

Then there is also a file size limit on MEM which can be a pain for various files even for photos, I'm happier to upload 30 photos straight from my phone or camera than have to go through and resize 30 before uploading as a batch. 

All these uploaded files and I think even Video was mentioned obviously take up storage with will also need funding.

Edited By JasonB on 13/11/2020 07:58:15