On 3/13/2014 11:04 AM, bossfong wrote:
> Although it might sound very much like a Facebook fanboy, I would really like to
> have a way to agree to a post/someones opinion without having to go through the
> (to me tedious) process of writing a reply.
> I also think this would get rid of the "+1" posts, which I find to be annoying.
> Another reason why I think a Like/Thanks/Upvote/whateveryouwanttocallit feature
> would be helpfully is the following:

I would also like a voting system, much like what reddit has. The downside is such a system can easily be gamed. I know reddit has stuff in place to blunt gaming, and such may be beyond our resources to do (it requires constant attention).

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:31:44 -0400, bossfong <bossfong@posteo.de> wrote:

> On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 12:34:10 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> You can use NNTP and a competent newsreader, I suggest opera mail.
>>
> Having to install a new program on my computer just to read D news is not really an option to me and possibly many newcomers.

I'm not suggesting you do, what I'm saying is, the mailing-list interface is not the only non-web one, and it's a very good interface. What my quote was in reply to was when you said "I'm really baffled by by [sic] how much discussion in the developers scene is done in mailing lists." NNTP is most definitely not a mailing list (and in fact, it was NNTP before it was a ML).

In any case, I don't have a problem with D forums providing web access, just as long as it doesn't remove my NNTP interface.

>> The only thing extra it provides is voting. We could potentially add voting to the forum software, but I won't use it, since I use NNTP.
>
> That would be great, but as you said, people like you won't be able to see it, which somewhat defeats its purpose.

Why? If I don't care who votes for what, why should that make any difference to someone who does care and uses the web interface?

Note that I use the web interface from time to time for posting links to old discussions and for reading old discussions others have posted.

-Steve

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:36:24 -0400, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:

> On 3/13/2014 11:04 AM, bossfong wrote:
>> Although it might sound very much like a Facebook fanboy, I would really like to
>> have a way to agree to a post/someones opinion without having to go through the
>> (to me tedious) process of writing a reply.
>> I also think this would get rid of the "+1" posts, which I find to be annoying.
>> Another reason why I think a Like/Thanks/Upvote/whateveryouwanttocallit feature
>> would be helpfully is the following:
>
> I would also like a voting system, much like what reddit has. The downside is such a system can easily be gamed. I know reddit has stuff in place to blunt gaming, and such may be beyond our resources to do (it requires constant attention).

That may be one reason to use a pre-existing forum software.

My opinion is that we can put in a voting system, but require the person to have an account on forum.dlang.org to vote once. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Note that a voting system does not need to be tied to any kind of moderation. It can be simply informational.

-Steve

On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 06:17:27PM +0000, bossfong wrote:
> On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:30:37 UTC, Jesse Phillips wrote:
> >
> >I don't see anything from that which would make it better for heated discussion. A discussion is just a thread of replies.
> 
> "A discussion is just a thread of replies" is wrong I believe. Discussions often evolve and diverge, whilst threads have a static title and topic.

That's not true. That's only the limitation of the web interface. NNTP threads can have a new subject in every reply, should the need arise. AND it keeps track of the parent post, so that if you want to, you can actually trace the thread back to the parent thread! Show me a web-based forum that can do that, and I might reconsider.


> I see sometimes people split discussions by starting a new thread, which is a really good step, but it happens too seldomly.

Proper threading support requires only a change of subject line. Any software that can't handle that properly is fundamentally broken and unfit for such use.


[...]
> >Votes are probably the only thing missing because they eliminate the need for "+1" posts.
> 
> I agree. (see, how again some button would have been nice)

Frankly, I rather see voting as a waste of time. Either you say something substantial, or don't say it. Getting rid voting *and* +1 posts will be a good thing (though I'm guilty of +1 posts myself :P).

If voting is needed, say to build a consensus, one of the various online voting services should be used instead. A random +1 here and a random +1 there to the odd forum post carries no meaning to me -- it doesn't add substance to the discussion.


T

-- 
This is a tpyo.

On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:20:05 UTC, Justin Whear wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:11:50 +0000, bossfong wrote:
>
>> As a "new kid", I'm really baffled by by how much discussion in the
>> developers scene is done in mailing lists.
>> I strongly believe that mailing-lists are not suited for heated
>> discussions on very specific issues. I even belive it's
>> counter-productive when comparing the discussion flow with modern forum
>> software.
>> By modern forum software I mean discussion centric software like
>> disqus[1].
>> 
>> My appeal is it to switch to a more modern forum software (even though I
>> value really much, that the current webforum is implemented in D).
>> 
>> Is there anything specific holding us back?
>> 
>> [1] http://disqus.com
>
> I think most of us use email or newsreader software to participate, while
> the forum frontend caters primarily to the more casual users.  I'm
> curious why you think that mailing-lists are a counterproductive way of
> handling this type of discussion, particularly when much of the OSS
> developed in the last twenty years has been managed and coordinated using
> mailing-lists.
>
> Justin

Funny thing: I, another somewhat "new kid," didn't actually realize that the web forum was the "second-class" citizen here.  I could see some vestiges of NNTP heritage from e.g. the message URLs, but I'd subconsciously ignored that as simply a historical carry-over.  I'd have used a proper reader from the beginning had I known there was an actual newsgroup behind it.  The existence (and quality) of the web forum actually prevented me from knowing about the superior interfaces available!

(Yes, it's embarrassingly obvious in hindsight, of course.)


--jjs

On Thu, 13 Mar 2014 21:16:43 +0000, John Stahara wrote:

> 
> Funny thing: I, another somewhat "new kid," didn't actually realize that the web forum was the "second-class" citizen here. I could see some vestiges of NNTP heritage from e.g. the message URLs, but I'd subconsciously ignored that as simply a historical carry-over.  I'd have used a proper reader from the beginning had I known there was an actual newsgroup behind it.  The existence (and quality) of the web forum actually prevented me from knowing about the superior interfaces available!
> 
> (Yes, it's embarrassingly obvious in hindsight, of course.)
> 
> 
> --jjs

Yeah, we should probably advertise the NNTP server better.

On 3/13/2014 11:42 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> That may be one reason to use a pre-existing forum software.

It still requires constant attention.

We are not moving away from Vladimir's forum software. It is very fast, it integrates seamlessly with netnews while providing common forum behaviors, etc. And, it provides a premium example of kick-ass software written in D.

I've never used any forum software that is better (including Reddit). Reddit blows because there's no indication of which comments have been read and which have not, making it very tedious to monitor one thread over a period of time.

On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 06:46:06 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> I've never used any forum software that is better (including Reddit). Reddit blows because there's no indication of which comments have been read and which have not, making it very tedious to monitor one thread over a period of time.

If you have Reddit Gold you can highlight new posts since a previous viewing of that thread. RES then allows you to navigate to new posts.

Obviously not a great solution though, but it does work to an extent.

On 3/14/14, Kapps <opantm2+spam@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you have Reddit Gold you can highlight new posts since a previous viewing of that thread. RES then allows you to navigate to new posts.

I don't think you need gold for that, afaik RES has that feature as is.

On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 18:04:09 UTC, bossfong wrote:
> On Wednesday, 12 March 2014 at 18:15:33 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
>> Which Disqus features would you like to see in the forum interface?
>
> Although it might sound very much like a Facebook fanboy, I would really like to have a way to agree to a post/someones opinion without having to go through the (to me tedious) process of writing a reply.
> I also think this would get rid of the "+1" posts, which I find to be annoying.

It's probably the most requested webforum-like feature.

I think if we do want to implement it, it has to be done in a way that doesn't deprive NNTP users of information. Maybe something like the following would work nicely:

Every time a reply uses +1 on its own line somewhere in the post (fuzzy match), add the replier's email address to a list of "likes" (or whatever) to the parent post. In the web interface, we could have an expandable drop-down box showing all the email addresses (and/or their display names?) who "liked" the post, probably in chronological order. Duplicate "likes" are not recorded. At a glance you would be able to see how many "likes" a post has, and if you want to see exactly who "liked" it, you could expand the list. Meanwhile, NNTP users are not deprived of this information (because it's gleaned from NNTP reply bodies) although it's harder for them to see the tally at a glance. The number of "likes" is limited to the number of replies a post has, so it's extremely unlikely to grow out of hand, and it's not subject to falsified information without overtly spamming the NNTP server.

This still doesn't let you vote without replying, but I don't see how that would work without effectively leaving NNTP users in the dark.