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Upcoming changes to the forum
Posted on 10/27/2005 5:16:18 PM PDT by John Robinson
Edited on 10/30/2005 2:01:52 PM PST by John Robinson.
[history]
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.
TOPICS: Announcements; Technical
KEYWORDS: adminlectureseries; faq; fr; idontgetit; lexicon; youdaman
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To: John Robinson
To be perfectly honest, I construe this as a feature. I abhor puke-inducing cutesy smilies, avatars, and other images that add nothing to the discussion. That's just my personal opinion, however. Used to feel the same way. Then I got used to them on other forums and found that they can actually help to clarify some types of comments.
PS Pay no attention to the fellow on the left, he is not an avatar, he's a 'superhero' on a dedicated mission.
81
posted on
10/27/2005 6:20:18 PM PDT
by
Anthem
(The only 20th century advance in the science of government was to tax a little less to take more.)
To: John Robinson
82
posted on
10/27/2005 6:22:53 PM PDT
by
WasDougsLamb
(Just my opinion.Go easy on me........)
To: John Robinson
A word of thanks and praise for your work! My computer is fighting with my internet program and gradually all links fail, except for FreeRepublic. Whatever you do, you are the best!
83
posted on
10/27/2005 6:23:01 PM PDT
by
maica
(We are fighting the War for the Free World --Frank Gaffney)
To: Brad's Gramma
You did. Go back to sleep now. Nighty-night! ;) Thanks. Every once in awhile, I disrupt my sleep to check in.
It's been so long...that my decoder ring works as well as a WWII Enigma machine.
I'm busy taking down Corzine propaganda along the roadside.
84
posted on
10/27/2005 6:24:24 PM PDT
by
Focault's Pendulum
(I'm not a curmudgeon!!!! I've just been in a bad mood since '73)
To: John Robinson
Mr. Robinson, you have the best site on the web--none come close.
Whatever you do to make it better, we're with you!!!!
To: tongue-tied; Brad's Gramma
There's Java, a slow-loading resource hogging beast, and there's JavaScript, which is fairly light and enabled by default. They're different creatures. I'm talking about using the light and nimble JavaScript.
Yes, there are very good reasons to disable JavaScript. JavaScript is not itself dangerous, but bugs in JavaScript can be exceptionally dangerous if leveraged by a malicious website. Additionally, certain types of bugs in websites can become dangerous when JavaScript is enabled and exploited by malicious visitors. These are all good reasons to disable JavaScript. But, for the most part, JavaScript is enabled in the majority of browser installations.
Any use of JavaScript on this site will have a non-JavaScript fallback for those with it disabled, such as defaulting to the US/Eastern time zone. The sole point of JavaScript being to enhance functionality, not replace it. The benefit of shifting this enhanced functionality to client-side JavaScript far outweighs any negative implications.
To: perfect stranger
Funny tagline. Thanks for the laugh. You're welcome. Glad you like it. But answer the question! Does it? ;-)
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
87
posted on
10/27/2005 6:26:52 PM PDT
by
rdb3
(Does this wheelchair make me look fat?)
To: John Robinson
Thanks. The best gets better...
88
posted on
10/27/2005 6:27:51 PM PDT
by
185JHP
( "The thing thou purposest shall come to pass: And over all thy ways the light shall shine.")
To: rdb3
Show me a pic. I can hardly judge without evidence.
To: John Robinson
How about a simple
To: John Robinson
By: bobbyd
90
posted on
10/27/2005 6:31:25 PM PDT
by
bobbyd
(Damn, I've been tagged.....)
To: John Robinson
I Have a program that is basically a browser that only opens pages from your domain.
Once a thread is loaded into the browser, it will surf through all of the posts and extract out all of the individual posters, how many times they posted and to which posts they were replying to.
With this data set, I can do all sorts of neat stuff. I can create ping lists for the thread, I can save and name ping lists, I can sniff out trolls by looking at the tool tip etc etc etc...
Its a pet project written in C# .NET...I want to make it an IE tool bar add in for FR users.
I can get the info now by looking at the number of posts listed at the top of the page, so its no big deal.
An example would be a regular FR user who has posted a thread and it now has oh say 225 posts. He wants to update all of those who posted on his thread with an update of information via a new message post.
Instead of tediously going through the thread and cutting and pasting names, he would simply invoke the tool from any page of the post, and the device then gets each page internally, parses the source strings, and extracts a single instance of each user who posted to the thread. The info is copied to the clip board properly formatted to do a ping post.
The user might also only want to ping the regulars of a lengthy thread. He would then set a filter threshhold for users who have posted >X posts...
It would really be great to be able to pull a stream of all of the posts for a thread...then it wouldn't have to open multiple pages virtually speaking...Stuff like that...
Cheers
To: John Robinson
The tool might also have all of the common html tags as macros...and allow for a context sensative menu on web images that allow right clicking and being able to copy the image location appended with the html tags for quick posting of the image...
Just ideas...
To: rdb3; GraniteStateConservative
Okay, now youse guys have me paranoid. MuHaHaHa!
I like Chris's anime avatar as well and Saber-tooth's tiger (he's gone now right?) too.
The theory is that if we all had avatar/logos, they would become too noisy in the replies. I'd like to test that theory out though. The only places I've seen it implemented is in the sites that use standard Bulletin Board software and it's just not pretty.
It would be a quick way to filter some of the random comments out and look for the replies with substance. Not that I'm trying to pay you a compliment or anything rdb!
93
posted on
10/27/2005 6:35:07 PM PDT
by
Incorrigible
(If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
To: John Robinson
Spell check in freep mail would be nice..
94
posted on
10/27/2005 6:36:19 PM PDT
by
hosepipe
(This Propaganda has been edited to include not a small amount of Hyperbole..)
To: Anthem
Used to feel the same way. Then I got used to them on other forums and found that they can actually help to clarify some types of comments. They also help to clarify to the boss when he walks by what you are up to ...
95
posted on
10/27/2005 6:36:51 PM PDT
by
WildTurkey
(True Creationism makes intelligent design actually seem intelligent)
To: queenkathy; John Robinson
Now if someone could change it so it's easier to post pics and smiles and stuff. It takes me too long so I don't do it. But I do love to play around with such things when I have the time.PLEASE NO!!! Sadly, I've seen a couple of decent sites taken over by smilies, not to mention the DUmp with rows of puke and green, slimy bouncing things. Please, not here.
96
posted on
10/27/2005 6:36:52 PM PDT
by
Krodg
To: John Robinson
To: John Robinson
Almost any of the URLs that end in "browse" have an alternate "browse.rss" for the feed. I'd like to do this for threads too, but I don't know if it is kosher to dump raw HTML into an RSS feed, and if not, I'll have a bit more work to do. My comments would be great as well but is a bit more work, having to implement some type of authentication scheme beyond the cookie (unless RSS aggregators can now borrow the MSIE cookie, etc.)
One of the things really holding back my involvement with RSS is the lack of a decent aggregator. I haven't really looked, but my cursory attempts to find something decent leave me wanting. I definately want to implement an API for the site. It will primarily be used for Ajax-style client-side programming, but could be used for external access as well. Good grief John, have mercy on us poor ignoramouses who don't speak the language. I break out in hives every time you start talking about (gasp) changing something. It takes me six months to figure out how to work the new system. We've been through this a dozen times during my tenure here. Do we "old-timers" get some sort of medal for perseverence in the face of ignorance?
98
posted on
10/27/2005 6:40:24 PM PDT
by
WVNan
To: Lauretij2
Ignore feature ignore feature.... Scroll bar scroll bar...
99
posted on
10/27/2005 6:40:52 PM PDT
by
Krodg
To: John Robinson
100
posted on
10/27/2005 6:42:12 PM PDT
by
TXBSAFH
("I would rather be a free man in my grave then living as a puppet or a slave." - Jimmy Cliff)
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