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.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Any thought to enabling avatars?

[The Mayor]

Excellent move John! Bravo!

[rdb3]

Could you add a feature to FReepmail where all messages can be chosen at once?

I'm thinking a small Perl code addition should do the trick.

If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Oh that's easy. Just remember that it's either earlier or later than where you are!

Always!

Without fail!

[Exit148]

I'll have to see what you are talking about when I see what you are talking about.

And the visual appearance? Are we going to have to go thru all that again??

[John Robinson]

We've had that feature in the past and it was a mess. You think people troll the public side? You should see what crap they post to abuse.

[Brad’s Gramma]

You did.

Go back to sleep now.

Nighty-night! ;)

[GraniteStateConservative]

Some day, way off, maybe we could consider a policy here whereby each new article will have two labled comments immediately added to it? The first would be labled "Commentary", and it is what you would reply to to add commentary to an article, and the second would be labled "updates", and it would be what you would reply to to add an update?

A simple "edit post" feature would take care of some of that.

[Woodman]

I'll go even further, On 9/11, it would have been 9/12 before I found out what was going on with 50 reply pages. I was in NJ, without phone service to the City and no way to get home, but I had FR and could sort out what was really happening from the chatter with the long pages.

[GraniteStateConservative]

I usually do to but I find myself pausing at rdb3's logo on long threads.

Exactly. It's a quick way to find a certain poster's comments.

[indianrightwinger]

Jim, We are just glad that this forum exists.

Thanks so much for everything, and especially a great opportunity to learn and debate the *right* ideas.

[Hebrews 11:6]

John, John, John. The whole point of conservatism is to conserve things, to keep them the same, to resist change, to fight progress, to abhor a vacuum, to praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, to vote early and often, to take two and hit to right, to fake left at the green Chevy and go long, to...

Well, maybe I'll try it, just to humor you.

[rdb3]

Okay, now youse guys have me paranoid.

If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.

[Txsleuth]

Whew...I feel better now...I knew you could help!!!

LOL

How are you...I haven't "seen" you around lately...since the Freepathon actually.

I guess you have to recharge your batteries, huh???

[tongue-tied]

Everything sounds good except Java. Maybe I'm not so 'puter literate, but isn't java an evil way for folks to take control of your computer when you don't want them to?

Hell, for all I know java is enabled anyway, I just remember reading somewhere it was bad. In that case, it all sounds good.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Yes John...good question. I always thought Java was "bad".

[perfect stranger]

Funny tagline. Thanks for the laugh.

[manwiththehands]

[Palladin]

Sounds good to me.

Thanks a lot, John, for using your expertise to continually update and improve the forum.

[Jackie]

Hi, John. Glad you asked.

I think taglines could be dispensed with.

Thanks for the best message board on the www.