December 06, 2012
On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 18:55:19 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 12/6/12 1:47 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> This one isn't. Neither is Vibe.d's: http://news.rejectedsoftware.com
>
> What do they use?
>
> Andrei

Vibenews, kinda like this forum:

http://registry.vibed.org/view_package/vibenews

It is both an HTTP and NNTP server.

NMS
December 06, 2012
On Wed, 05 Dec 2012 21:47:25 -0800
Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg@gmx.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, December 06, 2012 05:41:53 timotheecour wrote:
> > enhancing forum features: 1click upvote, sorting, 1click
> > duplicate etc (eg: userecho use case)
> 
> What's the voting supposed to do? What are you voting on? Whatever it is, it can't have any effect beyond those who use the web interface, so unless it's specifically something that only affects you account, I don't see how it could really work.
> 

It sounds pointless, and it mostly is, but what it *is* useful for is
a community-moderated way to help separate out, and discourage,
the useless troll posts. (And also help the *really* good ones stand
out, which also provides good feedback from the author: Are there no
replies because everyone agrees and has nothing to add, or is
indifferent or didn't read it?)

If my *ahem* "not-a-blog" site was getting a lot of comment traffic, I would probably add in a comment voting feature so that it could self-moderate better without sucking up too much of my time, without generating as many flames[1], and I wouldn't need to so carefully balance post-deletion with overuse-of-power.

[1] Why be tempted to flame a troll when he's just getting downvoted and greyed-out anyway? A greyed-out troll is easier to ignore.

December 06, 2012
On 12/7/2012 5:01 AM, deed wrote:
> If all posts at D Learn could have been tagged by subject and easily
> looked up in a structured subject tree, as in the language reference, I
> belive it could complement the documentation in a useful manner.

There is immense value in these ng postings, but absent a human curator for it, the best that can be done is use google to search them.
December 06, 2012
On 12/7/2012 6:20 AM, 1100110 wrote:
> On 12/05/2012 09:38 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 12/6/2012 1:09 PM, Rob T wrote:
>>> On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 00:33:23 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Take a look at this forum. No spam.
>>>
>>> Well not exactly ...
>>> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/k8afao$b29$2@digitalmars.com
>>
>> Those posts do not appear if you're using an NNTP reader. It's not a
>> fault with using NNTP.
>
>
> Not true.  They do appear on NNTP as well.

Direct your newsreader at them. They won't be there. They don't exist on the NNTP server, because I removed them.


> As well as the thread breakage

That's the fault of the mailman software, not NNTP.

December 06, 2012
On 12/7/2012 6:49 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> In Claws-mail, they didn't disappear from my client when you deleted
> them from the server. But that's the fault of Claws-mail being a piece
> of shit. Even the much-hated Outlook Express on XP actually obeyed the
> deletion properly. This Claws-mail crashes when you paste/undo/redo.

They don't appear in the archives pages, either, because I do an rsync on the NNTP database before generating the pages.

With Thunderbird's newsreader, even if you already downloaded and read those troll posts, after a while TB will remove your local copy as well.

There's been so little interest in our forum by spammers and trolls that manually dealing with the occasional one has been of little significance.

December 06, 2012
On 12/7/2012 6:49 AM, js.mdnq wrote:
> This is probably the difficult part but probably be pretty easy.

And I live for the easy difficult parts!

December 06, 2012
On Wed, 5 Dec 2012 16:41:35 -0800
"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> 
> I alluded to protocol over application earlier, and perhaps it's worth belaboring the point. The reason the Internet even exists today is because somebody had the sense to realize that relying on a specific software application simply will not cut it. It's not scalable, not interoperable, and not practical on any non-trivial scale. Instead of forcing everything and everyone to conform to a single software application and a single way of doing things, a set of powerful generic protocols were designed. By standardizing on the protocol rather than the software, an entire field was opened up: it doesn't matter what OS or software you're using and what OS or software I'm using, as long as they speak the same protocol, they're automatically compatible. You can have a hundred completely different OSes, twelve hundred completely different software applications all by different vendors, but by virtue of their speaking the same protocol, they can interoperate. And they will continue to interoperate with *future* OSes and software that haven't even been dreamed of yet, as long as the same protocol continues to be used.
> 
> Had the designers of the internet back in its embryonic stages decided to standardize instead on a specific set of software programs from a single vendor that can only communicate amongst themselves, the internet wouldn't even *exist* today. Version incompatibilities, program bugs that become depended on (and therefore unfixable), non-interoperability with anything but software developed by that one vendor, etc., would have killed off the internet years before it became the internet.
> 
[...]
> 
> It's the protocols that matter. It's the protocols that build infrastructure. Walled-garden web forums are just an anachronism to the pre-internet days of gratuitous system incompatibilities, inability of interoperating, and pointless turf wars over which program is "better" (hint: they *all* suck).

Amen! (If I were a religious man I would print that out and tape it into a bible as The Gospel According To Teoh and then go missionary-ing with it. Ok, maybe not, but you get the point ;) )

I often feel like the Web-2.0/Cloud crowd is dragging us all back to
an equivalent of the DOS days where every program included its own set
of video/sound/printer drivers and every program's UI worked
completely differently. And worse, it's all claimed to be, and accepted
as, being amazing ingenious new technology and nothing short of
"better". Ridiculous. All these Web-2.0/Cloud jokers have done is
reinvent the 286: Except the 286 responded to user input much faster
than my 64-bit dual-core does when using their web-based so-called
"software". And the 286 didn't spit out tracebacks every goddamn
time I tried to run (or even install) Python-written crapware, because
mercifully there was no Python.


> All web forums assume (1) you're using a browser, (2) your browser is GUI-based, (3) your browser is configured with certain minimal features like Javascript, cookies, etc.. There is (1) no way to use anything *other* than a browser (and a *graphical* one to boot -- it's so painful to use with a text browser you might as well be talking HTTP with a magnet, a pair of tweezers, and a really steady hand holding a cat5 cable) to use the forum, even though forums themselves have no inherent need for the bloated monstrosities that today's browsers have mutated into, (2) no way to access the forum data directly -- it's walled behind the guises of a graphical UI-centric paged interface designed for GUI users' consumption, and therefore inconvenient or just plain impossible for programs to work with directly, which results in (3) you *have* to use that interface to access that data, and if that interface is hard to use or buggy, well, life just sucks, deal with it.  IOW, (4) you cannot easily archive posts, sort them by thread, navigate them programmatically, back them up en masse in your personal archives.

The newer and really Web 2.0-ified forums probably offer REST APIs. But even then you still have all the HTTP bloat and, much worse: each BB server software package is still going to have its own unique, non-standard API that's incompatible with every other BB system. So...umm...yay for "progress"...


> Just ask Nick about github sometime. :-P :-P
> 

Hee heh heh :)

I swear I'm going to have to make that github/bitbucket-commoditizing tool sometime. But then some asshole will find someway to undo that newly-created compatibility in the supposed name of "progress", and we'll be right back to square one. Still, I swear I have to at least attempt it sometime.


December 06, 2012
On Thu, 06 Dec 2012 20:49:47 +0100
"js.mdnq" <js_adddot+mdng@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 19:39:07 UTC, DypthroposTheImposter wrote:
> >
> >  It isn't the worst nor the best,
> >
> > I see many times where a thread gets split up -- eww
> > can't edit anything -- eww
> > At least I can view it as a forum not a mailing list - happy
> 
> 
> 
> Why can's a BBS be modified to integrate with the current forum?
> 
> After all, nntp and BBS's are basically databases with user interfaces. (nntp through it's protocol and BBS's through web browsers)
> 
> It seems that if D's forum works and is able to interface between web based nd nntp then it wouldn't be hard to integrate or modify a BBS to work with nntp. This way we get the best of both worlds(or everyone can be happy).
> 
> To me, this is the best option and it shouldn't be difficult to do.
> 

??? We *already* have both NNTP and BB interfaces accessing the same common (NNTP) datastore. Why are you so insistent that the BB needs to be the datastore?

December 06, 2012
On 2012-12-06, 20:49, js.mdnq wrote:

> Why can's a BBS be modified to integrate with the current forum?
>
> After all, nntp and BBS's are basically databases with user interfaces. (nntp through it's protocol and BBS's through web browsers)
>
> It seems that if D's forum works and is able to interface between web based nd nntp then it wouldn't be hard to integrate or modify a BBS to work with nntp. This way we get the best of both worlds(or everyone can be happy).
>
> To me, this is the best option and it shouldn't be difficult to do.

So basically your argument boils down to "I lubs myBB, Y U no use it?"?
Are you perhaps working for them? If so, you've chosen your audience
poorly.


You are here describing what we already have. We have a web based forum
on an NNTP backend - just as you descibe. The only difference is it is
not your favorite forum software. Boo friggin' hoo.

As long as NNTP is the backend, there will be no editing of posts,
regardless of what you put on top of it (unless of course you think
giving different users different data is OK). Even if this were
possible, it seems most users here think it's a bad idea anyway.

As long as email exists, there will be no private messaging (hint:
'cause it's the same fecking thing).

Inserting images... You can do that already. It's called attachments.

Formatting of text... If ever I meet the person who decided HTML in
email was a good idea, I'll make sure he will stay away from computers
until long after he's dead.

Customization we have. Use whatever newsreader you want, or a blazing
fast forum if you only know how to use a browser. Bloating the forum
with customization options would be possible, but I don't see how
that would be a good thing. If you really need to, use a custom css
for it.

Votes are useless for a discussion forum. Votes may be good for a
what's hot-type of site (which this is not), and for answers to
questions where there is no clear-cut 'best' answer.

-- 
Simen
December 06, 2012
On 2012-12-06, 19:01, deed wrote:

> If all posts at D Learn could have been tagged by subject and easily looked up in a structured subject tree, as in the language reference, I belive it could complement the documentation in a useful manner.

One possibility I see here is for documentation to include links to
relevant forum posts, chosen by simple search. If you want to be fancy,
this is where voting fits in.

-- 
Simen