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What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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starhawk
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#321 Post by starhawk »

A shame about aarf. He was quite helpful. (I guess "was" is indeed the appropriate term here.)

Any guess as to what made him try to pull a l0wt3ch?

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#322 Post by nooby »

darkcity wrote:Thanks for the information. People have the right to remove post no? But I have to agree it is very annoying. . .
I did not know about that rule either until lowtech
happen to do it and Flash and John? decided it
where not allowed.

Did aarf know? I don't remember what he wrote there.
what made him so upset that he started to pull his own
texts?

Should we not try to find other ways to deal with such
than to ban them? I don't criticize I suggest we find other ways.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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mahaju
Posts: 487
Joined: Mon 11 Oct 2010, 07:11
Location: between the keyboard and the chair

#323 Post by mahaju »

nooby wrote:
darkcity wrote:Thanks for the information. People have the right to remove post no? But I have to agree it is very annoying. . .
I did not know about that rule either until lowtech
happen to do it and Flash and John? decided it
where not allowed.

Did aarf know? I don't remember what he wrote there.
what made him so upset that he started to pull his own
texts?

Should we not try to find other ways to deal with such
than to ban them? I don't criticize I suggest we find other ways.
One way would be to quote every message we reply to

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mahaju
Posts: 487
Joined: Mon 11 Oct 2010, 07:11
Location: between the keyboard and the chair

#324 Post by mahaju »

mahaju wrote:
nooby wrote:
darkcity wrote:Thanks for the information. People have the right to remove post no? But I have to agree it is very annoying. . .
I did not know about that rule either until lowtech
happen to do it and Flash and John? decided it
where not allowed.

Did aarf know? I don't remember what he wrote there.
what made him so upset that he started to pull his own
texts?

Should we not try to find other ways to deal with such
than to ban them? I don't criticize I suggest we find other ways.
One way would be to quote every message we reply to
I've seen implementations in other forums, which do not allow editing or deleting of posts after they are a certain number of days (or hours may be (?)) old

Jasper

#325 Post by Jasper »

HI nooby,

Purely as an example. You delete all the content of your 8000+ posts so that many times that number of responses (and countless hours) are rendered meaningless rubbish.

If you were to do that you would be disgraced by applying modern rights instead of old-fashioned duties and you should be banned forever and, at minimum, given six of the best.

My regards

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Flash
Official Dog Handler
Posts: 13071
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 16:04
Location: Arizona USA

#326 Post by Flash »

Aarf has been a member of this forum for years. He knew better. That's why I banned him. If he had seemed to be new to forums, I'd have explained why he shouldn't do what he did and given him a second chance.

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#327 Post by nooby »

Yes Flash I don't disapprove of your right to follow
what is the norms at all. But this way we lost the good
input he gave us too. AFAIK he disliked me very much
and I felt sad when he talked me down but what to expect
I am very confusing and naive so I do get that it is tempting.

What I try to say is that there where some tech way to
preserve behind the scene if somebody act like what
you describe aarf did and lowtech before him did
and that it only deleted from the visible but not from
the Admin but made the Admin aware of that somebody
starting to do that on many posts deliberally.

mahaju, yes that would be one way but unfortunately
it would make the forum archive very big and poor John
has to pay for size and not only traffic intensity.

What about Google cache can one retrieve some
of the good posts that way`or Wayback machine?
or similar facilities.

it is sad if we lose a good advice just because somebody
get emotionally upset and want to delete everything.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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L18L
Posts: 3479
Joined: Sat 19 Jun 2010, 18:56
Location: www.eussenheim.de/

aarf

#328 Post by L18L »

a search engine has brought up this:
aarf wrote:someone/something has changed the password i was using. as they changed the avatar, perhaps they also changed the email address which was inactive/non existent. not going to try a recovery.
quoted from http://puppylinux.info/topic/main-forum ... -about-you
:roll:

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Flash
Official Dog Handler
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Location: Arizona USA

#329 Post by Flash »

I didn't change anything, I just disabled the aarf account.

Jasper

#330 Post by Jasper »

Flash,

Did you have any communication at all with aarf about this issue?

If not, surely you should email him to learn his side of the story if he claims he did not make the deletions?

Perhaps he's a member of the alternative forum if you need fresh contact details.

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russoodle
Posts: 707
Joined: Fri 12 Sep 2008, 17:36
Location: Down-Under in South Oz

#331 Post by russoodle »

Smells like an account-hacking job to me :? :twisted:

I PM'd aarf about it but i guess if his account is frozen, he wouldn't have received the message....i've had to delete his account from my server, for obvious security reasons, (as has Smokey01), but his directory contents are intact and still accessible.

I'm sorry for him that this has happened, as i don't believe he's the culprit at all and, in spite of his sometimes (imo) peculiar posts, we have lost a valuable contributor :(
[i][color=Green][size=92]The mud-elephant, wading thru the sea, leaves no tracks..[/size][/color][/i]

Dewbie

#332 Post by Dewbie »

Has anyone ever figured out why stu90 and bugman's forum accounts were broken?
They had to re-register with different member names (stu91 and bugman-2.0).

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#333 Post by nooby »

If aarf is active on Raffy forum we can talk to him there
and what russoodle and Dewbie take up show that it can be
worthy to do it? in case it is something else going on.

Flash do you still ahve the logs so you can see if the IP
for the one that deleted aarf texts are the same IP range
as aarf use for to post in our forum?

At Raffy forum we did have someone that tried to pose
as other users and also tried to guess our log in to take over
our accounts. Maybe Raffy can share what IP ranges that person used?
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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01micko
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#334 Post by 01micko »

aarf has been actively posting on Barry's Blog since the last 14 hours.

Kinda miss his (is aarf a 'him?') often dry sarcastic and often informative posts.

Hope the situation is resolved one way or another. Perhaps a review of forum (server side) security is in order?
Puppy Linux Blog - contact me for access

gcmartin

#335 Post by gcmartin »

Our forum, though extremely functional, is really kinda behind the times.

That is NOT to say or suggest that a newer version wouldn't have presented the same kind of target, but, often times, vendors make positive changes to reduce the attack surface and holes that exist.

Maybe its time to review if this forum can achieve an upgrade that would make it not only easier to achieve certains, but also to expand its functionality to the community.

Just thoughts to consider.

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Q5sys
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#336 Post by Q5sys »

gcmartin wrote:Our forum, though extremely functional, is really kinda behind the times.

That is NOT to say or suggest that a newer version wouldn't have presented the same kind of target, but, often times, vendors make positive changes to reduce the attack surface and holes that exist.

Maybe its time to review if this forum can achieve an upgrade that would make it not only easier to achieve certains, but also to expand its functionality to the community.

Just thoughts to consider.
Here is the problem. Doing so takes time. And from what I've gathered in my sporatic talks with John... he simply doesnt have it. He hasnt had time in the past month to add a 64 bit forum. If he doesnt have the time to create new forums which would take around 10 minutes, you can be sure he doesnt have time to backup the dbase, install a new forum, import the dbase; and then work with trying to smooth over any issues that come from upgrading from a phpbb2 to phpbb3 forum.
Then of course he'd have the constant task of upgrading the phpbb3 forum everytime a new release comes out (which is every few months).
If he doesnt have time, the only way this would get done is if he would appoint another admin to do it for him. And I can completely understand why he might not want to do that.

I commend the John and the Mods (flash, ian, barry), for all the work they have done and that they have a hands off approach at letting us do our own thing; but it would be nice if there was a bit more pro-active progress going on. But I realize that with the sheer size of this forum, its hard to do that with just two people managing it (John and Flash)

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Flash
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#337 Post by Flash »

There are a few things about the forum that could be improved from my point of view, but whatever kind of forum software is used, preventing spam would require a policy change that would make the forum less inviting for newcomers, or would require mod and admins to do more work. So far, despite the clunky old forum software, It hasn't been too much trouble to keep up with the worst the spammers have thrown at us, due to the help of members like Makoto ( a few days ago a spammer posted something like 56 spam messages while I was asleep!). The worst attack on the forum that I've had to deal with did not come from a spammer but from some kid who had nothing better to do than try to vandalize the forum. :?

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Q5sys
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#338 Post by Q5sys »

Flash wrote:There are a few things about the forum that could be improved from my point of view, but whatever kind of forum software is used, preventing spam would require a policy change that would make the forum less inviting for newcomers, or would require mod and admins to do more work. So far, despite the clunky old forum software, It hasn't been too much trouble to keep up with the worst the spammers have thrown at us, due to the help of members like Makoto ( a few days ago a spammer posted something like 56 spam messages while I was asleep!). The worst attack on the forum that I've had to deal with did not come from a spammer but from some kid who had nothing better to do than try to vandalize the forum. :?
There are some pretty simple and elegant anti-spam solutions for phpbb3, but yea they do require some initial setup time/effort. And no anti-spam solution will work against a real person sitting at their computer wanting to get in and post nonsense.
Spam is less my concern honestly. Not knowing the exact version thats running, I wonder if some of the exploits that are available have been patched for. I realize we are a low target, but as the past has shown, this forum does have people out there that want it to fail. I dont put anything past those people to try to 'defeat' this forum as they have stated is their goal. It's the intentional attack from certain people that worry me.

BTW Flash, you do a great job dealing with the spammers when they do get in. :)

gcmartin

#339 Post by gcmartin »

Is 2013 the year to bring the forum backbone modernization forward? If so, can a small team organize to accomplish the necessary items to reasonably achieve this without taxing a single individual with this upgrade task.

In an effort to achieve such, it would mean that a Shadow (really a test site) be setup where the latest version can be installed providing a home for the movement/conversion of the DB to its new home.

Then some concerted testing to review that the checks and balances are in place.

And finally a site exchange or index movement to the newest after initial tests and shakedown is completed.

Can this be done in a team effort? I have never set up a forum, but believe that for those who understand its structure and have a reasonable understanding of the product, this can be accomplished such that it mimics what we already have and addresses @Flash and other moderator needs.

Is this reasonable? If so, I volunteer to assist in whatever way I can.

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Smithy
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#340 Post by Smithy »

Can I respectfully suggest that you don't start adding lots of java and javascript c**p, cookies and flash things.

This is my fave site on t'internet for ease of use (bam..you're logged in!).
The next easiest is rockbox.org
The worst seem to be those airline booking sites, I bet they do that to make you phone them at premium prices, or they employ some real ***ks who think it needs to be glam, it's not clever and they should keep it simple.

If a site is built as a big flash page I just ignore it, and my goodness there are many of those sites that are barely navigable, anyone remember that big piece of rubbish myspace?

Rant over, java turned temporarily on to allow... :mrgreen: :wink:

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