Welcome to AF 2.0

[ekket]

Regarding the site being somewhat broken on phones/tablets, I am looking for some feedback, since I'm not that much of a mobile user. (There are some obvious fixes to be made, e.g. the header not working well, but there probably are some less obvious things to fix as well.)

Edited October 28, 2018 by ekket
Use correct latin abbreviation (see edit history)

[Veyrdite]

This looks like the place to report problems.

(1) Frontpage: Blog feed broken

Nothing happens when you click on the RSS icon.  Hidden behind the scenes is the message:

    <img title="RSS feed has not yet been implemented, sorry!" ...

Suggestion: make the feed link work, but point it to a static page/feed with the above message so people can see it.

(2) Ross' old feed is still "up", so people using feedreaders think Accursed Farms is dead

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AccursedFarms

^ it still works, but only lists old content.  I assumed Ross was still down for the count due to his recent disruptions.

I won't be the only person that follows the web through a feed-reader.

Suggested solution: Don't take the feedburner feed down.  Instead add one more article/post to it telling people that this feed has been abandoned and where they can go.  That keeps everyone in the loop without having to burn too many thatch rooves.

 

(3) Forum: Unergonomic on small laptop screens (1366x768)

I can only see about 2-2.5 posts at a time:

Scrolling every few sentences makes it inconvenient to read the site.  1366x768 is a very common laptop resolution.

Suggestions

• Remove the spacing between posts (articles)
• Float the "Posted date" to the right of post content.
• Float the post actions (multiquote, quote, edit, like, etc) to the right of post content.
• Reduce signature font size slightly, so sigs look visually distinct.

Here's a quick hack together of these ideas using only CSS.  I wasn't able to properly float bits to the right due to the HTML layout, so I have temporarily hidden those items instead (imagine them on the right hand side):

I'm opinionated about websites: it come to them for their unique content, not their appearance.  Appearances are cheap, I can get them elsewhere.

You spend most of your time on a forum page caring about:

• Who is talking
• What they are saying

Only after reading this main content do you then sometimes spend a small amount of your time interacting with secondary information, such as:

• Post metadata (post date, ip, etc)
• Post actions (report, quote, multiquote, etc)

I don't think these latter items should be displayed as so large or important.  They should be easy to access, but not at the cost of making it harder to read and follow the primary information.

Just my 2c.  I find myself wrangling with site templates perhaps too often

(4) Forum: Mr data has lost power

On behalf of starfleet: BTG_Bullseye is an important member of the crew, his mobility is paramount for our continued safety and operations.  We feel threatened by his loss of animation and encourage all parties to resume the normal running of time.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Veyrdite (see edit history)

[Veyrdite]

(5) The post edit timer is much too short

A few minutes (3?) after posting I can't edit any more.  I'm on a remote Greek mountain villageside at the moment, I don't have reliable internet, and now I can't fix my typos

 

[ekket]

On 10/28/2018 at 3:31 PM, Veyrdite said:

(5) The post edit timer is much too short

The timer is unlimited now.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I do agree with most of the problems you raised, although I will still be keeping some margin between the comments. (I am also currently using a 1366x768 laptop, although those problems didn't jump out that much for me.)

[Veyrdite]

Thanks ekket, greatly appreciated.

[TB]

2 minutes ago, ekket said:

The timer is unlimited now.

Thanks for the feedback. I do agree with most of the problems you raised, although I will still be keeping some margin between the comments. (I am also currently using a 1366x768 laptop, although those problems didn't jump out that much for me.)

I suggest setting the timer to SOME number, as there are instances of people coming back much later and editing out all of their comments due to spite. Sometimes thousands of them. It's recommended to set this number to something.

[ekket]

2 minutes ago, The Britain said:

I suggest setting the timer to SOME number, as there are instances of people coming back much later and editing out all of their comments due to spite. Sometimes thousands of them. It's recommended to set this number to something.

Alright, a day should be enough time, then.

[Veyrdite]

Does this forum have support for a global "latest posts" and a user-specific "replies to topics you have posted in" pages?

The previous forum has a variant of the former by the name of 'active topics' that I used to see what was going on in the forums, rather than having to click through all of the subcategories.  Also useful for those not in the community (and therefore not logged in) to see what the forums are like.

[TB]

1 hour ago, Veyrdite said:

Does this forum have support for a global "latest posts" and a user-specific "replies to topics you have posted in" pages?

The previous forum has a variant of the former by the name of 'active topics' that I used to see what was going on in the forums, rather than having to click through all of the subcategories.  Also useful for those not in the community (and therefore not logged in) to see what the forums are like.

You can follow whatever content you would like including your own.

[jsachs]

Nice work on the site guys, I like it!
Also it's nice to see that it's now hosted on DigitalOcean, that's where I hosted some of the UT2004 sessions with fans a while back!

PD: I'm not too sure about RunCloud tho, also why is MySQL port open? (no users can login, but still a tiny bit insecure).
Try out CSF if DO' simple firewall isn't enough, it has a lot of security alerts and neat options like port knocking.
PD2: It's highly recommended to change the default port for SSH.

[TB]

8 hours ago, jsachs said:

Nice work on the site guys, I like it!
Also it's nice to see that it's now hosted on DigitalOcean, that's where I hosted some of the UT2004 sessions with fans a while back!

PD: I'm not too sure about RunCloud tho, also why is MySQL port open? (no users can login, but still a tiny bit insecure).
Try out CSF if DO' simple firewall isn't enough, it has a lot of security alerts and neat options like port knocking.
PD2: It's highly recommended to change the default port for SSH.

Hi there, RunCloud is a pretty great service, and I love DO, I'm glad someone else does as well. The MySQL port is actually open for security reasons believe it or not. PHPMYADMIN is horribly outdated, and we have our own solution to connect which requires MySql to be open. I'm not super worried about the SSH as we use other methods of authentication along with a strict jailing system. The firewall is also not default. I may change the SSH port though it depends if RunCloud needs it. Thanks for the tips!

[BTGBullseye]

1 hour ago, The Britain said:

strict jailing system

You heard it here first people... We're all going to strict jail!

[Veyrdite]

23 hours ago, The Britain said:

Quote

Does this forum have support for a global "latest posts" and a user-specific "replies to topics you have posted in" pages? 

[...]

[...]

You can follow whatever content you would like including your own.

Apologies, I have explained myself poorly.

A global "latest posts" page is the more useful page.  Useful for both non-users gauging the community as well as existing members looking for action.

SMF (a different forum engine) has a variant of this called "Show unread posts since your last visit".  The old Accursed Farms form had a variant called "Active topics".

Does this forum engine have a similar feature?

 

2 hours ago, The Britain said:

The MySQL port is actually open for security reasons believe it or not. [...] we have our own solution to connect which requires MySql to be open.

Eek. 

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/security-against-attack.html

^ do you have MySQL's internal encryption support turned on?  If not then everything but the handshake is done in the clear.

Largest and first issue: this allows third parties to sniff potentially private user data.  Forum user passhashes, birthdates, emails, ips, etc, anything entered into the forum DB that you access.  It also might put you on the bad side of recent EU legislation regarding information handling.

I do not recommend trusting MySQL facing the web.  Even if you plug the default security issues it's still a potential DOS target.

General suggestion/option: bind mysql to local and use an SSH tunnel to get at it.

(Happy to talk in private if you want to continue this elsewhere)

Edited October 29, 2018 by Veyrdite (see edit history)

[jsachs]

2 hours ago, The Britain said:

Hi there, RunCloud is a pretty great service, and I love DO, I'm glad someone else does as well. The MySQL port is actually open for security reasons believe it or not. PHPMYADMIN is horribly outdated, and we have our own solution to connect which requires MySql to be open. I'm not super worried about the SSH as we use other methods of authentication along with a strict jailing system. The firewall is also not default. I may change the SSH port though it depends if RunCloud needs it. Thanks for the tips!

You're welcome!

I'd recommend something like MySQL Workbench or Navicat and connect trough ssh tunneling as Peregrinator suggested, that way you don't need to have any port open, most support SSH Tunneling and it's very secure (if used with ssh keys).

[Kaiosama TLJ]

Liking the new site so far. Only problem is that I can't edit my older posts. And I want to do that because I noticed some of them are extremely broken, thanks to how the new layout changed how it handles Youtube videos.

[ekket]

57 minutes ago, Kaiosama TLJ said:

And I want to do that because I noticed some of them are extremely broken, thanks to how the new layout changed how it handles Youtube videos.

Yeah, that's been annoying me a lot as well, I might end up just having it do an inline link for every embed from that time, since there's really no way of getting the data back. I'll probably set the edit timer back to unlimited.

[ekket]

https://www.accursedfarms.com/forums/topic/3854-rosss-game-dungeon-life-is-strange-demo/ probably has the worst case of that, I'll see what I can do to get that resolved.

[BTGBullseye]

I can't help but notice that the line spacing in the editor, and just in general is far larger than the height of a single line...

It's like it adds a full line in between each line. Really messes with me when everything everywhere else is only 0.5 line spacing.

[ekket]

7 hours ago, BTGBullseye said:

I can't help but notice that the line spacing in the editor, and just in general is far larger than the height of a single line...

It's like it adds a full line in between each line. Really messes with me when everything everywhere else is only 0.5 line spacing.

That's because the default behavious for <Enter> is to insert a new paragraph. You can do <Shift>-<Enter> to just do a line break.

I did add a message to the editor informing people of this, but you might not have noticed it.

[Woah_G!]

On 10/28/2018 at 6:21 AM, Veyrdite said:

This looks like the place to report problems.

(1) Frontpage: Blog feed broken

Nothing happens when you click on the RSS icon.  Hidden behind the scenes is the message:

    <img title="RSS feed has not yet been implemented, sorry!" ...

Suggestion: make the feed link work, but point it to a static page/feed with the above message so people can see it.

(2) Ross' old feed is still "up", so people using feedreaders think Accursed Farms is dead

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AccursedFarms

^ it still works, but only lists old content.  I assumed Ross was still down for the count due to his recent disruptions.

I won't be the only person that follows the web through a feed-reader.

Suggested solution: Don't take the feedburner feed down.  Instead add one more article/post to it telling people that this feed has been abandoned and where they can go.  That keeps everyone in the loop without having to burn too many thatch rooves.

 

Came in here to ask about the RSS feed as well, it appears it's not currently implemented on this version of the forum software yet.  Will be waiting for the next update to (if) automatic feed availability will become a thing.

 

Edited November 1, 2018 by Woah_G! (see edit history)