This forum badly needs to change - response

[spavel6]

Thank you, Wayne, and the others that keep this forum clean, on-point, and informational.

I think we spent enough time yesterday bashing the site, and not enough thanking the folks that make it possible in the first place.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by hallstevenson
How do you subscribe to a thread here ? I see "Subscriptions" under the username dropdown but within a thread, there's nothing. Do you mean follow ? If you did mean "follow", I don't get notified. I definitely don't want to be emailed about it, just give an indicator here somewhere.

Yeah, there is no "subscriptions" to threads. The only thing you can do is "Follow" a thread, and when someone replies to a followed thread, you should receive an email notification. The key to receiving email notifications is that you need to go into your Preferences first and select "Yes" next to "Should anything added to your Follow Lists be emailed to you" and then Save changes. This setting won't affect threads that you previously followed, only the ones that you begin following from this point on.

And no, there is no "indicator" on the forum itself.

 

[rubberchicken]

Originally Posted by hallstevenson
Originally Posted by rubberchicken
The backend storage is probably massive- easily multiple 10 TB+.

Heh, you were only off by a little....

Originally Posted by 4WD
Easier to check BITOG on smartphones … ðŸ§

Actually, if you tried other forums that have modern software, you'd find that they have a true "mobile" mode and they're really well done.

Originally Posted by glock19
I love that this forum doesn't have ads all over the place. Bitog is the only forum I can stand to visit every day because I don't have to search to find the content hidden in a sea of ads.

Ads have nothing to do with the forum software that's deployed. This site, with this software, could "have ads all over the place" just like others.


Yes, my storage estimates are way off !! I routinely work with systems that have 10-500 TB of space on a single server or cluster. The various pics, pdf's etc can chew up a lot of space rapidly, but I thought that feature had always been there.
I did find that there are companies that offer conversion services from UBB.threads to Xenforo ,and the developers of Xenforo used to be with vBulletin. Assuming that BITOG uses MySQL as the backend, then the conversion might not be as hard.

But my point was that the software is just a small part of the overall costs.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by rubberchicken
I did find that there are companies that offer conversion services from UBB.threads to Xenforo ,and the developers of Xenforo used to be with vBulletin. Assuming that BITOG uses MySQL as the backend, then the conversion might not be as hard.

But my point was that the software is just a small part of the overall costs.

Yes, Xenforo was started by former vB folks. I think vB and Xenforo are the best packages out there too. I looked, admittedly not too hard, for conversion options from UBB and didn't find any but I understand what you're saying. It's really how the data is stored that's key.

I made the same point about software cost in the locked thread. This s/w is probably on a subscription. It's not a case of "the money will be wasted if we switch". You stop paying one subscription and pay for the new one instead.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by Duffyjr
If you click on the follow button then it should show that icon to the right of the thread you selected. To stop just click on the icon and select stop following this thread.


Originally Posted by Quattro Pete
The only thing you can do is "Follow" a thread, and when someone replies to a followed thread, you should receive an email notification. The key to receiving email notifications is that you need to go into your Preferences first and select "Yes" next to "Should anything added to your Follow Lists be emailed to you" and then Save changes. This setting won't affect threads that you previously followed, only the ones that you begin following from this point on.

And no, there is no "indicator" on the forum itself.

I presume the "indicator" is the icon that Duffyjr refers to ? I definitely don't want emailed when someone responds ! I already have it set up as "None" for the notify option.

If I follow what Duffyjr said, you will know what threads have been updated by seeing the icon. Issue is, you have to check each sub-forum to see this icon. If anyone is familiar with "subscribed threads" in other forum s/w and having easy access to a list of your subscribed threads, they'll understand what I and others are referring to. I'm telling you, I'm confident many here have no idea about this feature but I'm certain they'd appreciate it once they saw it.

 

[jayjr1105]

This feature alone would make a world of difference for me at least...

When looking at your own posts/threads started. If it only showed in bold if it was updated with the red number in parentheses. One can dream.

Btw I put the (2) in there as an example on how it would look.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by jayjr1105
This feature alone would make a world of difference for me at least...

When looking at your own posts/threads started. If it only showed in bold if it was updated with the red number in parentheses. One can dream.

Btw I put the (2) in there as an example on how it would look.

Yes, that would be helpful.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Originally Posted by wwillson
There are some great posts in this and the other thread.

We have considered other more 'modern' forum software many times and will continue to look at options. Our conclusion every time has been that all things considered, there isn't a 'better' option available. There are a few features that we wish we could have, but UBB Threads is a much cleaner and easier to read format than almost every other forum software out there. It's also extremely fast and secure. UBB does have the ability to 'like' on FB and several other social media platforms, but we leave it turned off, as it would clutter our beautifully clean pages. The storage space now is about 20GB and growing pretty quickly since we started hosting images. I won't say exactly how much BITOG costs a month to run, but when you add up a fast dedicated server, server management (I used to do it all, but frankly I don't want to worry about server failures anymore), Cloudflare, programming, etc, it's very expensive to operate. We also refuse to clutter our beautifully uncluttered site with zillions of ads like you'll see on many other forums, I believe it destroys them. BITOG is a 20 year passion for myself and many others here, it would be a terrible shame to destroy it by putting ads all over the site. I do wish folks that visit here would allow our single ad we display at the top that pays some of the bills.

Wayne

I think it's fine the way it is.

 

[03cvpi]

I would not change a thing. This is the easiest site to read and has quality people that are willing to help and offer their opinions. It isn't buried in ads clamoring for your attention. No tracking or finger printing cookies. I stop by everyday to check this site. Other sites that cater to my vehicles are laden with ads and tracking cookies seem to have a higher number of rump holes. Those sites I visit with the brave browser and search just for the info i need and leave.

 

[BISCUT]

Originally Posted by wwillson
There are some great posts in this and the other thread.

We have considered other more 'modern' forum software many times and will continue to look at options. Our conclusion every time has been that all things considered, there isn't a 'better' option available. There are a few features that we wish we could have, but UBB Threads is a much cleaner and easier to read format than almost every other forum software out there. It's also extremely fast and secure. UBB does have the ability to 'like' on FB and several other social media platforms, but we leave it turned off, as it would clutter our beautifully clean pages. The storage space now is about 20GB and growing pretty quickly since we started hosting images. I won't say exactly how much BITOG costs a month to run, but when you add up a fast dedicated server, server management (I used to do it all, but frankly I don't want to worry about server failures anymore), Cloudflare, programming, etc, it's very expensive to operate. We also refuse to clutter our beautifully uncluttered site with zillions of ads like you'll see on many other forums, I believe it destroys them. BITOG is a 20 year passion for myself and many others here, it would be a terrible shame to destroy it by putting ads all over the site. I do wish folks that visit here would allow our single ad we display at the top that pays some of the bills.

Wayne


I'm only one voice but I appreciate the lack of FB IG and all other links and LIKES nonsense. This sight is KISS based and I love that.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by wwillson
....it would be a terrible shame to destroy it by putting ads all over the site.

You shouldn't imply that switching forum software will add "ads all over the site". That's just false. Forum software, including this one, allows the site operators to determine a) if ANY ads are used, b) where any such ads appear, and c) how many ads appear. To be clear, this site could switch and if wanted, NO ads are shown.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Originally Posted by wwillson
There are some great posts in this and the other thread.

We have considered other more 'modern' forum software many times and will continue to look at options. Our conclusion every time has been that all things considered, there isn't a 'better' option available. There are a few features that we wish we could have, but UBB Threads is a much cleaner and easier to read format than almost every other forum software out there. It's also extremely fast and secure. UBB does have the ability to 'like' on FB and several other social media platforms, but we leave it turned off, as it would clutter our beautifully clean pages. The storage space now is about 20GB and growing pretty quickly since we started hosting images. I won't say exactly how much BITOG costs a month to run, but when you add up a fast dedicated server, server management (I used to do it all, but frankly I don't want to worry about server failures anymore), Cloudflare, programming, etc, it's very expensive to operate. We also refuse to clutter our beautifully uncluttered site with zillions of ads like you'll see on many other forums, I believe it destroys them. BITOG is a 20 year passion for myself and many others here, it would be a terrible shame to destroy it by putting ads all over the site. I do wish folks that visit here would allow our single ad we display at the top that pays some of the bills.

Wayne


Thanks for your dedication to keeping this board going Wayne.

Only comment I have is that it would be good if there was some way to setup the software where you could see if any new posts were done in threads you posted in like jayjr1105 mentioned above. Then when you click that thread, it jumps you to the first new post similarly like the software does now. It would make it a easier to keep up on threads people post in and want to continue reading and participating in.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by ZeeOSix
Only comment I have is that it would be good if there was some way to setup the software where you could see if any new posts were done in threads you posted in like jayjr1105 mentioned above. Then when you click that thread, it jumps you to the first new post similarly like the software does now. It would make it a easier to keep up on threads people post in and want to continue reading and participating in.

That should be a basic, default setting in any piece of forum software - "view first unread post".

 

[PandaBear]

My only problems are:

1) The account gets logged out after a while, can we keep it logged in?
2) The layout isn't very space efficient, I'm wasting my space on the left with the "Who's on now", "New Members", "Forum statistics", etc. Can we have a way to move it so it save some space?
3) Some of the "poll" are done by messages and you don't see how the numbers are summed and counted.

Text is fine, it is fast and less to go wrong.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by PandaBear

2) The layout isn't very space efficient, I'm wasting my space on the left with the "Who's on now", "New Members", "Forum statistics", etc. Can we have a way to move it so it save some space?

Preferences --> Turn off left column.

 

[wwillson]

Originally Posted by hallstevenson
Originally Posted by wwillson
....it would be a terrible shame to destroy it by putting ads all over the site.

You shouldn't imply that switching forum software will add "ads all over the site". That's just false. Forum software, including this one, allows the site operators to determine a) if ANY ads are used, b) where any such ads appear, and c) how many ads appear. To be clear, this site could switch and if wanted, NO ads are shown.


Yes, you are correct, the ads displayed are not native to the platform. I was making a comment about our philosophy of keeping our site clean.

 

[xxch4osxx]

Originally Posted by BISCUT
Originally Posted by wwillson
There are some great posts in this and the other thread.

We have considered other more 'modern' forum software many times and will continue to look at options. Our conclusion every time has been that all things considered, there isn't a 'better' option available. There are a few features that we wish we could have, but UBB Threads is a much cleaner and easier to read format than almost every other forum software out there. It's also extremely fast and secure. UBB does have the ability to 'like' on FB and several other social media platforms, but we leave it turned off, as it would clutter our beautifully clean pages. The storage space now is about 20GB and growing pretty quickly since we started hosting images. I won't say exactly how much BITOG costs a month to run, but when you add up a fast dedicated server, server management (I used to do it all, but frankly I don't want to worry about server failures anymore), Cloudflare, programming, etc, it's very expensive to operate. We also refuse to clutter our beautifully uncluttered site with zillions of ads like you'll see on many other forums, I believe it destroys them. BITOG is a 20 year passion for myself and many others here, it would be a terrible shame to destroy it by putting ads all over the site. I do wish folks that visit here would allow our single ad we display at the top that pays some of the bills.

Wayne


I'm only one voice but I appreciate the lack of FB IG and all other links and LIKES nonsense. This sight is KISS based and I love that.


I have to agree. I get tired of seeing all those links and like stuff on everything.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by PandaBear
1) The account gets logged out after a while, can we keep it logged in?

This site sets a 30-day cookie that causes this. It's not necessary. I think many users don't encounter this because they log in and log out each time they visit or they routinely delete cookies (believing it's 1995 and is needed in order to save disk space).

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by wwillson
Yes, you are correct, the ads displayed are not native to the platform. I was making a comment about our philosophy of keeping our site clean.

I know it's beating a dead horse but a "clean site" is absolutely attainable with Xenforo, vBulletin, etc. The "look" is up to the folks that operate the site.

 

[Hall]

Clean-up suggestion: Get rid of the "Email Post" button