SDA Forum

2010-11-17 05:59:42 am

Since arkarian has said he doesn't want any SDA-specific stuff in the currently stickied 'taiga forum' thread, I thought I'd make a thread for discussing the SDA Forum specifically. The primary purpose of this thread is to discuss the implementation of Taiga Forum at SDA. Discussion about forum settings, default style preferences, or ways to rearrange the forum to take advantage of Taiga Forum features belong here. Bug reports and feature requests for the Taiga Forum software itself belong in the Taiga Forum thread. If you don't know which thread an issue belongs in, make your best guess.

Thread title:

ExplodingCabbage

2010-11-17 06:01:46 am

There are three issues I can think of right now that belong in this thread:

1) The verification still allows everyone, including guests, to make new threads. Seeing as only Mike has any legitimate business making threads there, and we've had a couple of troll threads and fake verifications posted in there by guests since we moved to Taiga, I think it makes sense to restrict the ability to make new threads to admins like it was on SMF.

2) In the taiga forum thread, people expressed mixed feelings about the SDA logo link at the top-left of the screen and the random text link underneath the 'SDA Forum' title. What was agreed by pretty much everyone was that the SDA logo should link back to http://speeddemosarchive.com/, not to http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/. What was more controversial was what to do about the link under the SDA Forum title. It was disputed whether this should link to the forum or the site front page, and people also argued over whether the silly text was a good thing or whether it should be either scrapped completely or replaced with a phrase saying what it's linking to (like 'Back to main page' or 'SDA Forum Index' depending on what we decide the target should be).

Personally I don't like the silly text but whether we have a (sensibly labelled) link there or not and whether we have it link back to the main site or not, I don't mind.

3) Attachments. Back when the forum ran on SMF, guests could download them; now they can't. I'm told there is a setting in the admin panel that can change this. Given that many runners like to post progress videos in planning threads, and that people who aren't SDA members sometimes follow those threads, it seems to me that it would be beneficial to let guests download attachments again, and it never caused any problems back on SMF so I don't imagine it would here.

Issue 2 requires discussion. Hopefully issues 1 and 3 can be solved in 10 seconds by an admin clicking a couple of buttons in the admin panel.

There are three issues I can think of right now that belong in this thread:

1) The verification still allows everyone, including guests, to make new threads. Seeing as only Mike has any legitimate business making threads there, and we've had a couple of troll threads and fake verifications posted in there by guests since we moved to Taiga, I think it makes sense to restrict the ability to make new threads to admins like it was on SMF.

2) In the taiga forum thread, people expressed mixed feelings about the SDA logo link at the top-left of the screen and the random text link underneath the 'SDA Forum' title. What was agreed by pretty much everyone was that the SDA logo should link back to http://speeddemosarchive.com/, not to http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/. What was more controversial was what to do about the link under the SDA Forum title. It was disputed whether this should link to the forum or the site front page, and people also argued over whether the silly text was a good thing or whether it should be either scrapped completely or replaced with a phrase saying what it's linking to (like 'Back to main page' or 'SDA Forum Index' depending on what we decide the target should be).

Personally I don't like the silly text but whether we have a (sensibly labelled) link there or not and whether we have it link back to the main site or not, I don't mind.

3) Attachments. Back when the forum ran on SMF, guests could download them; now they can't. I'm told there is a setting in the admin panel that can change this. Given that many runners like to post progress videos in planning threads, and that people who aren't SDA members sometimes follow those threads, it seems to me that it would be beneficial to let guests download attachments again, and it never caused any problems back on SMF so I don't imagine it would here.

Issue 2 requires discussion. Hopefully issues 1 and 3 can be solved in 10 seconds by an admin clicking a couple of buttons in the admin panel.

ExplodingCabbage

2010-11-17 06:08:16 am

Just stumbled across something else from a planning thread:

Quote:

EDIT: Appears as though there may be a limit of 20 total attachments (the attach button doesn't even show up for me any more). So I might have to do some consolidation of runs (combine 2 into 1, like I did with the WW missions) in order to get all of them on here at once.

I presume this can also be changed from the admin panel. Since people have a use for large numbers of attachments, and I can't see allowing them doing any harm, wouldn't it make sense to remove this limit?

cyghfer

2010-11-17 10:52:39 am

give me silly text or give me death i say

and i also like the current setup with the banner linking to the main forum page and the silly text linking to the home page, but i'm just used to it now. i remember being a little confused when we first switched to taiga as to navigation. (however, since nixing the silly text would be a necessity in making a clearer navigation system, i think it should stay the way it is :W)

arkarian

2010-11-17 11:22:40 am

gamelogs.org

Quote from ExplodingCabbage:

The verification still allows everyone, including guests, to make new threads. Seeing as only Mike has any legitimate business making threads there, and we've had a couple of troll threads and fake verifications posted in there by guests since we moved to Taiga, I think it makes sense to restrict the ability to make new threads to admins like it was on SMF.

this is actually due to tf -- we just haven't had time to implement this feature yet. it's coming though.

RandomEngy

2010-11-17 12:08:45 pm

A Crab

I believe two things:

1) There should be links both to SDA and to the forum index.
2) Links should describe where they go.

So yeah. The Speed Demos Archive image should go to the Speed Demos Archive.
The cryptic text is especially bad because not only does it not tell you anything about where it leads, its placement right below "SDA Forum" misleadingly implies it goes somewhere on the forum.

Add silly text somewhere if you like, but don't slap it on as the label of an otherwise useful link. Whether or not some existing users have gotten used to a completely backwards and unintuitive system should not stop it from being fixed.

nate

2010-11-17 01:55:51 pm

swapped the link targets. now let's see how many people complain. Wink

afaik guests have been able to see/download attachments for some time now. let me know if not.

the thread creation thing requires a rethinking of the whole permissions system which is why it hasn't happened yet. that doesn't mean it won't though.

mike89

2010-11-17 01:59:44 pm

SEGA Junkie

lol, tooltips still says SDA Forum if you hover over the logo. That's bound to throw people for a loop.

Kryal

2010-11-17 02:06:52 pm

from red to blue

Quote from nate:

swapped the link targets. now let's see how many people complain. Wink

Well, I did prefer it how it was.

Flip

2010-11-17 02:41:14 pm

1-Up!

Quote from nate:

swapped the link targets. now let's see how many people complain. Wink

tbh it's more intuitive for me this way but really there is zero difficulty with just figuring out where the links lead and remembering it. I just doubt people are going to see celebrate relentlessness and go "zomg I have no idea where this link directs must not click!!"

ktwo

2010-11-17 03:12:21 pm

Quote from nate:

swapped the link targets.

About time if you ask me...

arkarian

2010-11-17 03:59:39 pm

gamelogs.org

the main reason the logo links to the forum index by default is because that's how the web works. usually a logo on a page is a link to the "home" of that site, in this case the forum. remember that not all forums have a "main site" associated with them (in fact i'd say most don't), so we can't assume there's going to be one.
so the forum logo is "supposed" to be a logo for the forum. it seems like most of the confusion was caused because sda's forum logo has always said "speed demos archive" rather than "sda forum" or something like that.

so then the forum subtitle is meant to be a link to "something else", whatever the admin wants (or not a link at all). for example, at m2k2 that's always been used for the m2k2 main site.

of course an admin might not want that behavior so they can change it.

Quote from mike89:

lol, tooltips still says SDA Forum if you hover over the logo. That's bound to throw people for a loop.

ah good catch. that's something i overlooked, thanks.

RandomEngy

2010-11-17 09:57:11 pm

A Crab

Quote from Flip:

Quote from nate:

swapped the link targets. now let's see how many people complain. Wink

tbh it's more intuitive for me this way but really there is zero difficulty with just figuring out where the links lead and remembering it. I just doubt people are going to see celebrate relentlessness and go "zomg I have no idea where this link directs must not click!!"

i am a crab

bpcookie

2010-11-18 12:53:53 am

I have no opinion. Do whataver, and I'll figure out how to navigate it. One thing sorta annoys me, though. It complains that I have IE 7 when I actually had 8 and now 9. Maybe this was already fixed.

PJ

2010-11-18 01:13:21 am

Is PJ

I clicked on the silly text for like 20 seconds, wondering why I wasn't going to the main page before I proceeded to close down the window. I manually typed in the address the next few times I tried to go to the main page, and then I remembered this discussion. Now I have to readjust to clicking stuffs.

Trekhaak

2010-11-18 02:26:54 am

Everybody's favorite monster

Quote from nate:

swapped the link targets. now let's see how many people complain. Wink

Switch it back please.

d_arnold07

2010-11-18 05:33:33 am

switch the hyperlink from the random text to the 'SDA Forum' word itself - ta da no more confusion.
...I know someone mentioned it before but Ill mention it again

mike89

2010-11-18 12:48:56 pm

SEGA Junkie

Something completely unrelated that Mike and I were discussing yesterday: I think that being able to add people to a private thread after it's already started would be a useful feature. The SDA use for this would be verification: people could be added to a game's verification private thread as they stated their desire to verify rather than waiting for three, which might result in whoever was first (who may have waited three or six months for more verifiers) being disinterested or worse, having left the site at that time (hi Enhasa!). I'm sure there would be other more general uses for this feature too.

arkarian

2010-11-18 12:50:07 pm

gamelogs.org

it's a feature that we just haven't had time to do yet. coming very soon though.

nate

2010-11-18 08:01:51 pm

Quote from bpcookie:

I have no opinion. Do whataver, and I'll figure out how to navigate it. One thing sorta annoys me, though. It complains that I have IE 7 when I actually had 8 and now 9. Maybe this was already fixed.

turn off compatibility mode if it's on.

adding/removing people from pms is highest priority right now.