How we can fix the forum..

[ProtoSD]

The issue however is that as much as we want to be involved the moderators are going to have to decide if they want more of my attention towards development of FreeNAS features or if I need to be involved in the day to day issues on the forums.

I think the people trying to help here realize that and want you to spend time working on FreeNAS, that's why people like myself created the FAQ and other tutorials, but with the number of users & posts, we just don't have the tools that are available in other forums to manage things properly.

The recent amount of traffic is non-sustainable and is burning out others who just want to serve the user base.

Agreed, that's why we've been trying to ask for better tools. After a forum upgrade last year that broke the editing tools here, it took 9 months before it was fixed. We realize you are busy, that's why we're trying to help.

What FreeNAS really needs is a community where people are proactive about solving problems and to that end I strongly encourage the moderator community to nominate several of their own members to which we can grant access to an sandbox version of the vB software for purposes of experimentation with modifications.

Please choose carefully whom you nominate and please read over the vB software site carefully to make sure you understand the level of skill needed to modify a vB instance before picking nominating someone. Note the use of php and database calls as well as the object oriented nature of the code.

Nominees will also need to be willing to sign NDAs and other legal documents before being given access to FreeNAS servers and software.

thank you,

Thanks Alfred


Here's a list of site leaders for people to reference:

http://forums.freenas.org/showgroups.php

 

[HolyK]

For the opening of new threads, on submit take users to a confirm submit page. On this page, present a search result based on the thread about to be posted.

As you wish ^^ this was one of the things on my TODO list :)

Its changing dynamically as user is typing thread title :]

Maybe the thread should be "How can we fix the Admins?" :o

And what if they are not "broken" ;)

James,
6. (This is somewhat related to the forum) Up the number of PMs in the mailbox to 500 or something. When i get involved with PMs with some users its nice to have a big mailbox so you can go back and refer to old PMs. I can't imagine that PMs use that much processing power or disk storage.

Hell yes! Increased :]


2 Alfred: I will send you PM.

 

[cyberjock]

And what if they are not "broken" ;)

You're an admin now.. therefore, you are NOW broken

See how I'm a "Senior Moderator".. no "admin" in there :P

Hell yes! Increased :]

Woot! I have 500 message limit!

Congrats on the promotion to "Forum Technician". I'm not sure if I should congratulate you or say "I'm sorry" :P

It sure sounds like being the admin for a forum isn't as simple as it sounds...hopefully you are up to the task. Good luck!

 

[joeschmuck]

Admin Nomination

Alfred,
You have a lot of people here who care about the forum and the FreeNAS project yet in the past they have had some very good ideas but no help to implement the ideas to make the forum a better place. If I were younger and had more time on to spend on the forums then I'd nominate myself but my days of this kind of work are in the past. I use to run a BBS on a FIDOnet and it was a blast, well before the internet was popular. If you're selecting a forum admin, Protosd would be a responsible person in my opinion, assuming he would even want it.

-Mark

 

[ProtoSD]

Re: Admin Nomination

Mark,

Thank you for your vote of confidence, I'm sure you'd still make a great admin too if you had more free time :)


I've been trying to chat with some of the other moderators today. I was waiting for Milhouse & Survive to reply to my PM. I'm not completely sure where I stand on doing the admin thing myself. I'm tempted and interested in helping though. I wanted to encourage the others to nominate Holykiller. He's been a member here for a couple years, just not as actively as the rest of you. I suggested he be a moderator back then, but he declined because he was busy with other projects. He has his own vBulletin based forum and I was chatting with him and took a look at it today and all I can say is WOW! He definitely has the skills and knowledge. James promoted him to admin with some limited privileges a few weeks ago and he's already been working on improving things. At the very least I would love to spend some time helping him and learning. He still doesn't have all the privileges he would need to add forum plugins, but I'm sure if he did he would do a great job.

I also wanted to recognize some other members who's help and input here I think people consider valuable. PaleoN, gpsguy, pirateghost, JaimieV, Jgreco, and of course Milhouse, Survive, and Joeschmuck ;) All you guys rock! (I hope I'm not forgetting anyone!)


Also, I got a reply from the InsanelyMac forum Admin(s), they don't use vBulletin, so their quiz plugin won't work here. They did offer to let me peek at the source if we needed to.

 

[paleoN]

Re: Admin Nomination

I had intended a dual nomination, but as one of my would-be nominees partially begged off above:

I wanted to encourage the others to nominate Holykiller. He's been a member here for a couple years, just not as actively as the rest of you.

I certainly second the nomination for HolyKiller as he was one of my picks as well. He knows his vBulletin and has been helpful in the past. Not to mention helpful right now! Seems to me he's the most competent person for the job, and as a bonus he's already started.

 

[HolyK]

Thanks to all for support, anyway i must say one thing ... even if i have vBulletin knowledge, i still have limited PHP skills, so more complex tasks would be a bit difficult to me.

BTW: One friend of mine said "Community means unity" and i agree, its not about "who" is "what", but about people.

 

[joeschmuck]

I have to agree with the others here, HolyKiller although fairly new to me has been posting some very valuable information and helping people out. My first thought was he's one smart SOB. He also has my support and nomination if he's willing.

I'd like to point out that if/when we do get a few more admins in the group that we should not make this a job for them. I like this forum not only because it supports a good project but the long term people here are a pretty cool group of folks and you can develop a relationship with them.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, I just found my first 2 posts of spam. Brand new user posted "for sale ATV" in the Italian and French topics, but the posts are in English. Almost certainly a scam.

http://forums.freenas.org/showthrea...Foreman™-4x4-ES(TRX500FE)-3000USD-22968618713

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?11724-For-sale-atv-can-am-outlander-4000usd-22968618713

If you aren't an admin those links won't work. Not sure how to proceed... Perma-ban? Those are soft-deleted for review by whomever wants to deal with the person.

 

[ProtoSD]

Interesting, those posts were somehow created as "guest" and guest can't be banned.

 

[HolyK]

Hmmm, this user was "probably" deleted by already installed "Spam-o-matic" plugin since the "Easy Cleanup: User Action" is set to "Remove User". I never used this thing so i will need to take a look on it.

If user is physically deleted, all of his posts/threads are marked as "Guest" since the user account does not exist anymore.

 

[joeschmuck]

Too bad those postings don't automatically disappear too :)

 

[ProtoSD]

Hmmm, this user was "probably" deleted by already installed "Spam-o-matic" plugin since the "Easy Cleanup: User Action" is set to "Remove User". I never used this thing so i will need to take a look on it.

If user is physically deleted, all of his posts/threads are marked as "Guest" since the user account does not exist anymore.

You're right, I forgot about that.

Thanks to all for support, anyway i must say one thing ... even if i have vBulletin knowledge, i still have limited PHP skills, so more complex tasks would be a bit difficult to me.

I wouldn't worry too much about that, I don't think many of us know PHP, but I'm sure if we ask, someone will be able to help out. I'm pretty resourceful and can figure out stuff pretty quick most of the time. Don't let everyone's support force you to make the choice if you have other commitments or aren't sure if you want to, I think everyone would understand.

I never got a reply from Survive or Milhouse, so I'm assuming they're not interested.

 

[HolyK]

Too bad those postings don't automatically disappear too :)

I've done some tuning. Threads/Posts are now automatically "soft-deleted" (just for now, to avoid unnecessary deletion, i can change it later to phys. delete)


EDIT: Several prefixes added and also MODs are now able to change/remove prefixes of selected threads directly from threadlist.

Also users are able to change prefixes of their threads whenever they want. For example from [PROBLEM] to [PROBLEM-FIXED] :]


EDIT2: Clicking on prefix will now set/unset filter on thread list

EDIT3: Removed usergroup colors, it was not intended.

 

[joeschmuck]

So are Mods green and Admins red now?

 

[ProtoSD]

Nice, are people able to search for those prefixes, so if someone wanted to search for all the BUILD posts?

 

[HolyK]

Yes, they are. Just leave the "Keyword(s):" text field empty and select prefix instead. You will get all of the threads with specified prefix as a result. You can also combine the search with specific forum categories. Or you can directly filter list of the threads by clicking on prefix (see above) or by filter bellow the list :

 

[cyberjock]

Not that I'm complaining, some of these newfangled features look promising. But maybe we should make an off-topic threads of "HolyKiller's forum changes" for future posts since we're really not talking about how we can fix the forum, but how we ARE fixing the forum.

 

[ProtoSD]

What do you guys think about having a prefix called "Repeat"? That way we can set it for posts that we know have been discussed or answered already.


And what about creating subcategories for the Hardware section for, Network, Disks & Controllers, Power Supplies, Motherboards, and ??? other suggestions?

 

[cyberjock]

What do you guys think about having a prefix called "Repeat"? That way we can set it for posts that we know have been discussed or answered already.


And what about creating subcategories for the Hardware section for, Network, Disks & Controllers, Power Supplies, Motherboards, and ??? other suggestions?

While the "REPEAT" idea sounds like an interesting(not sure if it will work) if the thread OP can change it that kind of defeats the purpose.

Having different sections may be useful. But if we go that route we should have a sticky with the most commonly asked questions and answers included for each section as appropriate.