Launch of New Forums!

[Davvo]

So, with that said: can you make your "risk of data loss" resource look identical on the new site to how it does here? No. Full-justification just isn't available AFAICT on Discourse. The other formatting features can happen--centering would require an additional plugin on the site (that does exist and they can add, but it isn't there yet), and color requires some funky HTML tags. But can you readily retain the logical divisions? Sure you can, using different levels of headings. Tables, again, are already supported. Images are supported. Blockquotes are supported. And I think the availability of footnotes will be helpful for longer posts like yours.​

My point is that in order to make a resource or a post with similar readability levels is going to be more time consuming and more difficult, requiring more knowledge and time to spend on it: I don't see this as an improvement. And from another angle, it's contradictory for a company as committed to Open Source as iX is: raising barriers instead of lowering them.

I don't want to give a lesson about UX design or reader engagement: it's not my place to do so; it's my honest feedback. IMHO Discourse does look less suited for longer posts than this forum.​

 

[Arwen]

I routinely use the following user attributes to determine how I respond.

• Joined date
• Message count
• Likes

The first is useful to help guess at the meaning of a post, when less details are given. Same with message count. If both are just recent, (joined a few days ago and just a few messages), I can guess they are new to TrueNAS and ZFS. That does not mean that I treat them poorly. It may mean I explain more in detail of why something is the way it is.

As for the likes, they give feedback to both the receiver and other posts. I can "like" a post to indicate that I think the information is good and correct, (or just like it). Plus, this allows someone reading it to get an idea of what is useful information.

Now it would be nice to maintain the categories, like "MVP" or "Hall of Famer". Just so we get an idea of how much they have contributed. But, I guess we can use message count...

 

[duderuud]

Very sad to hear. The old Xenforo forum is much easier to read and navigate imo.

At the moment we don't have any Xenforo tool to do a full download / zip of your threads, just the methods mentioned in the other thread here.

Install this add-on:

Export thread

Premium upgrade: This XF2 add-on along with the entire collection can be purchased for $35.00 USD. Your Premium upgrade will allow you to download as many XF2 add-ons as you like for one year. Please see the entire collection located in the...

xenforo.com

 

[awasb]

[...] Please bear with us, were new to this and want to make sure we get the core experience working well first. [...]

Pun intended?

 

[ChrisRJ]

That is the hope. We personally like it and think it'll provide a much more modern experience going forward.

That is an incredible inward-looking approach. Of course I may have missed any upfront discussion with the community. But others' reaction so far indicate that I am not only one surprised here.

We can migrate resources over as needed. @wsoteros just did one now:

That is either poor planning or poor communication. These words means that before this was brought up, nobody at iX had thought about it and now things are being rushed.

What about user accounts? Would I have to start from scratch with a freshman's reputation?

One of the biggest strenghts of TrueNAS, for non-enterprise versions, is its community; some would say its biggest strenght. This strenght has been built year by year by knowledgeable users post after post on this forum. Switching to another one, for whatever benefits you have identified, without porting its content is going to deal a huge blow to this strenght.
You are betting big this time: I daresay that such a switch would be the final nail on the coffin of what has been TrueNAS up until now, because I honestly don't see this forum remaining up for much longer after the official switch.

Make sure to weigh the options well, iX.​

I strongly support @Davvo 's points.

As for me, I really need to think what this means and I want to handle it.

 

[jlpellet]

I created my account on the new forum & it seems to work as well as the old for my daily use. We'll see if more use changes anything. Did have to gooogle how to log off since am new to the sware.

 

[Kris Moore]

What about user accounts? Would I have to start from scratch with a freshman's reputation?

No, we are going through and bumping up existing users reputation as they show up in the new system. You can ping once your account is created and we'd be happy to set that for you.

 

[awasb]

Code:

root@truenas ~ # ping -A -c 1 ixsystems                                                                                                                    [0]

ping: Unknown host

Well ...

 

[winnielinnie]

No, we are going through and bumping up existing users reputation as they show up in the new system.

I guess some random person is going to inherit my reputation? (Maybe that's a good thing, since I've tarnished my own reputation.)

 

[Kris Moore]

I was wondering who would be the first one to mess about with trying to register a regulars username... I'll DM you and we'll get it sorted out.

 

[tprelog]

Suddenly, I get 502 Bad Gateway when trying to access the new forum. Did we break it already?

 

[winnielinnie]

For the record, @Davvo doesn't owe me money. That's an imposter, people. I also never sent floppy disks and CDs with old versions of FreeBSD to @Kris Moore's house as a method of intimidation. None of that is true. It's the imposter. I am innocent.

I'll be giving a press conference on Saturday April 6th on these very forums to answer any more questions from the public. Hopefully, I can clear my good name.

 

[Kris Moore]

Suddenly, I get 502 Bad Gateway when trying to access the new forum. Did we break it already?

Installing the new "Reactions" plugin, will be back in a moment.

 

[Kris Moore]

Installing the new "Reactions" plugin, will be back in a moment.

Back now

 

[Cellobita]

Code:

C:\Users\Marcello>ping once your account is created
Ping request could not find host once. Please check the name and try again.

Didn't work...

 

[nabsltd]

All I can say is: Welcome to the free-for-all


Looking at the new forum, there's already several bad tags: VM and Linux. Is "VM" for discussion about running VMs inside TrueNAS, or running TrueNAS as a VM? These are very different problems. And, what, exactly, would "Linux" be for...hardware for Scale (that should be tagged Scale), command line on Scale (also Scale), or Linux VMs running on TrueNAS? Or, would it turn into a general "how do I do something in Linux" tag, which should never happen, because questions like that don't fit on a forum about TrueNAS.

So, you may save money by not paying for the forum software, but you need to pay a lot more moderators to manage threads. Every thread-opening post needs to be read by a moderator so that tags can be set properly. If you are going to use a tag-based setup, you have to have a fairly decent number of very descriptive tags that users immediately understand. For example, there should be tags for every type of "run inside of TrueNAS"..."VM hosting", "Jail", "Docker", etc.

The next few months won't be fun for users with questions about TrueNAS.

 

[danb35]

pay a lot more moderators to manage threads

iX pays moderators? When did that start?

Also, sufficiently-senior non-moderator members can change categories and tags of topics, so it doesn't need to be mods.

 

[nabsltd]

iX pays moderators? When did that start?

Also, sufficiently-senior non-moderator members can change categories and tags of topics, so it doesn't need to be mods.

It will likely have to start in the form of one of the frequent-posting iX employees spending more time moderating.

Sure, volunteers will help, but even those "senior" members don't read every single new thread today, but it's pretty much required for Discourse.

I generally glance at every new thread title in a few sections here, but I'll likely stop that once the move is done, since it's more of a pain with a tag system. If others follow suit, then questions will not get answered, as the whole point of Discourse is to display what's "hot". If you post and nobody replies, your post quickly falls away from view, because it's driven off not just by other posts with the same tags, but all posts about anything that gets cross-tagged with your tags.

 

[Davvo]

If there is pay I volunteer to be the spearhead of the Discourse migration!

 

[c77dk]

created account at the new forum - now I just have to get used to it