Upcoming changes to the forum

[John Robinson]

I'm working on the following changes to the forum software:

Thread URLs will change.

Old links will be redirected to maintain bookmark compatibility. The new links will be more descriptive, offering the date of the article and perhaps a meaningful filename.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1510575/posts doesn't say much.
http://www.freerepublic.com/2005/10/27/freeptoon/p1 says so much more.

Time zone handled by browser.

The timestamps on threads will change to your computer's local time zone, but only if you have JavaScript enabled. Otherwise they will be in US/Eastern. Your FR preference will be ignored (and will be phased out in favor of browser-side time zone handling.) The beauty of this arrangement is that as long as your computer displays the time in your time zone, FR will "Do The Right Thing"(tm).

Fixed number of comments.

No more than 50 comments per page will be shown. Your preference of 20, 100 or 250 is going to be ignored. I know this is a bit of a heartbreak for some, I understand it is a sacrifice. There are very good and very strong reasons this is changing.

Article text.

Only the first page of the thread will show the article text, and will always show the article text. Subsequent pages will only ever show a summary. In the future, a little browser-side magic could make the article text appear when you click a link.

All for one and one for all.

Everybody logged in or not will see the same content and links. For example, in the existing software, if you're not logged in you won't see the "Report Abuse" links. This check is going away, everybody will now see the same row of buttons.

In exchange, we'll have cache-friendly forum pages. This means:

• Faster downloads. If nothing changed on the thread you won't have to download it again. Also, local caches can store the page and deliver it much quicker.

• Better response time. Our servers will have to do less processing. Better yet, the front-end server will probably already have a generated copy of a thread in cache memory. Your request will be served instantly.

Update 10/30/05

I've expanded the scope of changes. I'm cleaning up the information we present to search engines like Google and Yahoo. Our site will be more useful to third-party search engines and thus more useful to you. For the most part this will not directly impact our human visitors. There will be changes that could break bookmarks of certain types of pages, but the chances such bookmarks have ever been made are slim.

[evilC]

I agree. They are fun for the first minute or two, then they get real old, real fast.

Perhaps help forming the correct tags for external images would be useful (e.g. BB Code used by the likes of Invision, phpBB etc.). That would forestall some of the How do I post an image vanities.

[queenkathy]

Ok Ok...I've been corrected. I guess there will be no smileys in the new format. I've been outvoted. Not that I had any say in it anyway.
This is all pretty much Greek to me.

[AnimalLover]

Thanks John for all you do.

I second that!!!

[Syncro]

Or an easier way is to click on "pings" at the top of any thread or the latest post page.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Sure, we can scroll back in time through our posts, but if I want to search for something I'd posted a year and a half ago, I'd be scrolling back all night. It would be easier to click back to March 2003 and see all of the threads I'd posted to.

Unless I'm missing something?

[concretebob]

Those aren't nerves, they're withdrawl tremors..I have them too..

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Right. That's how I do it now.

[Syncro]

OIC what you mean

That would be a good feature.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

:)

[xzins]

faster load is good. Thanks.

For the future.

I'd still like to have 2 kinds of excerpt that must be chosen:

(1) Excerpt

(2) Excerpt, registration required.

[rdb3]

Only when you're doing wheelies.

Wheelies? Are you kidding? This motorized wheelchair is hooked up! I got the wetbar on the back, it has 24" wheels with spinners, and it has a swimming pool. I was doing some laps with it yesterday at the Texas Motor Speedway. Okay, so a golfcart beat me. So what?

Yep. It's a wheelchair in style. Nevermind the wife saying "shut up" when I tell her about my imaginary rims. This fantasy won't be taken away. Now I'll pour me some Pepsi out of my wetbar that's, well, dry.

If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.

[evilC]

“You used to be able to address a post to "all" to ping everybody on the thread.”

I presume that does not happen now. I use "all" when I am making a generic reply to a thread and don't want it to appear that my comments are directed at the original poster only.

Regarding an RSS feed for My Comments, I wonder if Firefox's "Live Bookmarks" can use the domain cookie, so that a FF "Live Bookmark" would work for My Comments.

[lunarbicep]

Thanks for the update, John

I too have always liked the 250 comments per page feature. I have also learned that FR just keeps improving, so I have no reason to doubt your wisdom in these matters.

Thank you for all the work you do in helping make FreeRepublic the best

[FreedomPoster]

Sounds cool to me. Full speed ahead!

I remain a satisified monthly supporter.

[Billthedrill]

Outstanding work as always, John! Some time when you want to mess with people's heads try de-activating the automatic "close tags" code so folks can see what FR was like in the old days.

On second thought, don't. Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad, bad idea...

[B Knotts]

Have you looked at akregator?

[evilC]

We could do that now by adopting the convention that the original poster (new article) creates two extra replies one marked "Commentary" and one marked "Updates". The a user could click on the replies link of the relevant post.

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Updates
posted on 10/27/2005 8:16:18 PM EDT by User Name

[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

---

To: User Name

Commentary

2 posted on 10/27/2005 8:18:02 PM EDT by User Name

[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

PS: Hope my HTML trickery works!

Commentary

[Krodg]

Good grief!! I have joked about an ignore feature in the past (probably to Howlin, if you need to check) but I knew how to use my scroll bar and 'move on'.

If I see a thread that doesn't interest me, I 'move on', if I click on a thread and then find that most posters are being childish, I 'move on' and if I find a poster that I don't want to argue with...I 'move on'. Why do you have a problem with that??

[Krodg]

Or an easier way is to click on "pings" at the top of any thread or the latest post page.

I thought the poster wanted to view his/her posts. I agree, clicking on "pings" is the easiest way, if you don't post much.