tuxduino:
At the risk of saying something silly, I'll throw in my 2 cents.Being no expert about forum software in general, and SMF in particular, I can only say modeller's comments look reasonable to me, from a technical point of view. The fact that there's a mismatch between actual responsibilities and SMF "slot" assignments is indeed something that should be fixed, as the "expired document" problem reported before.
OTOH, I don't see this place being plagued with spam or a high number of misbehaving posters, name calling or things like that. IOW, my (limited, I admit) experience here tells me there's nothing (so) wrong that prevents experts and newcomers to do here what they come for. I.e. asking questions, providing answers, discussing about programming, microcontrollers and electronics in general.
So could the forum be better managed from a technical point of view ? It seems so. Is there a compelling need for this improvement ? It seems not. Or at least, I haven't seen those in charge of moderation and administration complain about technical shortcomings that make their life hard (at least in public).
Thank you for a logical and rational response tuxduino. I really appreciate that.
As a user, the only real technical concern I have is about forum performance. Maybe an SMF ugprade would bring benefits in this area. But then again, I can live with the occasional performance problem, and I think it's reasonable that a (frightening) task such as an upgrade of a huge forum like this is subjected to the time constraints of the admins' agenda.
They should really consider upgrading to SMF 2.0.4, because this version will not be supported in the coming months and it will not be receiving any more security updates after that time. I've personally done the upgrade from SMF 1.x.x to SMF 2.x.x and it isn't really a big deal.
You know what really concerns me though?
I've posted two topics on the "Website & Forum" board out of concern for an error message that should not come up, and contributing suggestions my years of experience with this forum software as a forum owner and administrator.
These topics were explicitly posted in the correct board. One can only assume that this board was created for a reason. I would also assume that the reason would be for the admins and owner to read and respond to concerns for the forum from it's users.
What are we to make of a lack of response to these topics? What are we to make of a lack of response to a concerned member's PM to Admins? The least they can do is acknowledge member's suggestions, I would think?
If they aren't willing to do this, then why does this board even exist?