Forum will probaby never get fixed

Trying to keep a positive slant on things: if you notice forum bugs please ensure they are posted to the arduino/forum-issues/issues/ part of Github ( Issues · arduino/forum-assets · GitHub ). Check if problems already exist. If not, add them.

Sorry. It's just frustrating that most of these issues were raised on github a very long time ago
and are still not fixed.

As the Americans say "Tell me about it"

...R

I have just looked up one of the "bugs" that bugs me the most: not being able to see the unread posts across the forums (#54, opened 29 October 2014) and I see the following:

  • it is marked as "bug" and "critical" which is good
  • it is also marked as "Work in progress", added on 5th November 2014, which is encouraging
  • finally under the "Assignee" heading is "No one assigned"!!!!!
    So it is "work in progress" by no one.
    "Go figure"
    Susan

I have forked the forum code and am planning to do some coding of my own (if I can get a test server up) with a view to trying to progress this a bit.

You have my full support but I am not competent to assist.

HOWEVER ... if when you are successful I forsee the situation where the entire Arduino Forum system will be run without any input from the Arduino "management" who clearly benefit from our contributions but show scant regard for their customers.

...R

We are making progress on the problem of spam. This of course does not directly affect ordinary users, so then hopefully we can concentrate on some of the other issues.

Nick, if you get stuck finding server resources I can help. It wouldn't be much trouble to spin up a VM with whatever environment you need and provide you with full access. Just drop me an email.

Thanks for the offer. I managed to get a SMF forum going here on my home PC. It doesn't have the "skin" that the Arduino one does, but I got some testing done on it.

It looks like we are making progress on the spam banning.

Just a thought from outside the box ...

Would it be an option to use some other off-the-shelf forum software (eg phpBB) and get it to work with the existing database of Forum posts. Maybe it would be necessary to take the Forum offline for 24 hrs while the database was converted - but that would hardly be an obstacle.

By the way I only mention phpBB as an illustration - I know nothing about its capabilities.

...R

No doubt anything is possible, and I once converted my own forum to use phpBB, but then I found its limitations and abandoned the idea.

Well, maybe the stuff you use would be suitable.
I just mentioned phpBB because it was a name I had heard of. I didn't mean my idea to be set aside just because phpBB is not the right alternative.

...R

I'm not setting your idea aside personally. I think it has merit.

I find myself using the Arduino forum less and less
and in fact it reduces my overall interest in Arduino in general.

I interact with close to 60 forums on many different topics and
I've not seen anything like what is happening on this forum.

It is crazy that something as basic as "search" is missing on this forum.
(Using Google is not the same as having a forum search.)

What I'm seeing with respect to the current Arduino
forum reminds me of so much that seems to be happening all over the place
these days with respect to s/w.

Someone decides that a particular want/need/feature is important enough to change
"everything" for a new implementation.
While often that narrow want/need/feature is obtained, it comes with a high cost.

The cost is that not only is there a large engineering effort to make the changes
(which are often larger than anticipated), but there is also
a major disruption for the existing user base.
Often many other capabilities and features are sacrificed, lost or broken,
and in many cases the final net result is a less functional less stable product
than what existed originally.

i.e. one set of problems was exchanged for another and yet
some of the original functionality was lost in the process.

I know everybody likes to watch a train wreck, but it's not so fun when you
are a passenger.

--- bill

You know what the weird thing is? I get the impression a lot of reworking was done to incorporate a shopping cart, so you have a seamless integration between the forum and buying stuff (although they seem like unrelated functions to me).

As far as I can see, AvrFreaks doesn't have a shopping cart.

They've gone to all this trouble to integrate a shop, and have a "seamless shopping experience", with all the hassle and confusion and then what?

They don't have stock in the shop!

I think that is very telling and points out a large part of the problem.
When the actual moderators don't know what is going on and don't have
a close enough relationship with the Arduino Team, to be part of the decision
making process, something is very very wrong.

Maybe if all the volunteer moderators got together and just stopped moderating,
it could get enough attention to be brought into the loop.

--- bill

[quote author=Nick Gammon date=1425418374 link=msg=2122011]
You know what the weird thing is? I get the impression a lot of reworking was done to incorporate a shopping cart, [/quote]
That was certainly in my mind when I wondered if there could be a complete change to another Forum software - a simple (?) way to extract us from the mess.

...R

Why not just use frames? i.e. use some "normal" working forum software for the forum
and then do any add ons by adding stuff into a area around the frame.

like a navigation bar, shopping cart, etc...

This way it is independent, can be developed and debugged independently and
if it ever breaks the forum still could be used by using a different address that
doesn't use the frame.

--- bill

bperrybap:
Why not just use frames?

Stop expecting common sense.

...R

My notifications are still some weird mix of HTLM and italics. I reported that a while ago (like the start of this year) I think.