BitShares Forum
Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: Chris4210 on January 14, 2017, 05:09:12 pm
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Following the discussions in the last mumbles and the old threads by Bitsapphire (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=6951.0) I created a short summary of potential software we could use.
The idea is to streamline communication and improve the exchange between the different communities around the world. One of the goals was the to find a translation plugin, that will help us to talk better with the Chinese community. Further upgrading the forum software will send a strong signal that BitShares is active and improving.
What is wrong with the current forum?
Since Bitshapphire is not active anymore in the BitShares Community anymore, it would be better to have an active community member hosting the forum and be in charge of the maintenance. The goal is so to keep the forum 99% online.
Who could host it?
An active member of the BitShares community, let us discuss who could be suitable.
What are the current hosting costs?
50-60 Euro per month according to Bitsapphire
What happens with the current posts, ranks, and the old forum?
I found this guide for Discourse How to import Simple Machine to Discourse (https://meta.discourse.org/t/importer-for-simple-machines-2-forums/17656/13)
We can probably import everything to the new forum and put the old posts in an archive.
Why now?
If not now, then never.
The two forums that would suit us the best:
1. Discourse http://www.discourse.org/
Demo: https://meta.discourse.org/
Plug-ins:
- Translation plug in: https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-translator/32630
- Chat/Trollbox plug in: https://meta.discourse.org/t/babble-a-chat-plugin/31753
- Meetup Plugin: https://meta.discourse.org/t/local-meetup-events-plugin/24430
Very cool, Discourse also has a google translate plugin, which could help us to talk better with China.
2. NodeBB https://nodebb.org/
Demo: http://forum.expii.com/
Plug-ins:
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/nodebb-plugin-meetup
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/nodebb-plugin-newsletter
3. Simple Machines Forum (currently used) www.simplemachines.org
3. Phpbb (currently used) https://www.phpbb.com
Demo: https://www.phpbb.com/community/index.php?sid=a6cdaea5cf2d304369d71e6952e76746
Happy voting and a good discussion!
ps.: My favorite is discourse
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Discourse very good. All those annoying +5% becomes "like" and then no clutter. +5%
Is there a cost for the software itself?
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Discourse very good. All those annoying +5% becomes "like" and then no clutter. +5%
Is there a cost for the software itself?
Both software's and the plug-ins are free. The only costs would be the time to move the forum to the new platform and the monthly server cost for hosting.
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That, and the maintenance for any problems that might arise. I've used Discourse before, and been pleased with it.
Looks like the migration might be pretty hairy, though.
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That, and the maintenance for any problems that might arise. I've used Discourse before, and been pleased with it.
Looks like the migration might be pretty hairy, though.
Yeah, I was looking for the best tools how to do that. I found the following scripts https://meta.discourse.org/t/importer-for-simple-machines-2-forums/17656/13
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Following the discussions in the last mumbles and the old threads by Bitsapphire (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=6951.0) I created a short summary of potential software we could use.
The idea is to streamline communication and improve the exchange between the different communities around the world. One of the goals was the to find a translation plugin, that will help us to talk better with the Chinese community. Further upgrading the forum software will send a strong signal that BitShares is active and improving.
What is wrong with the current forum?
Since Bitshapphire is not active anymore in the BitShares Community anymore, it would be better to have an active community member hosting the forum and be in charge of the maintenance. The goal is so to keep the forum 99% online.
Who could host it?
An active member of the BitShares community, let us discuss who could be suitable.
What are the current hosting costs?
50-60 Euro per month according to Bitsapphire
What happens with the current posts, ranks, and the old forum?
I found this guide for Discourse How to import Simple Machine to Discourse (https://meta.discourse.org/t/importer-for-simple-machines-2-forums/17656/13)
We can probably import everything to the new forum and put the old posts in an archive.
Why now?
If not now, then never.
The two forums that would suit us the best:
1. Discourse http://www.discourse.org/
Demo: https://meta.discourse.org/
Plug-ins:
- Translation plug in: https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-translator/32630
- Chat/Trollbox plug in: https://meta.discourse.org/t/babble-a-chat-plugin/31753
- Meetup Plugin: https://meta.discourse.org/t/local-meetup-events-plugin/24430
Very cool, Discourse also has a google translate plugin, which could help us to talk better with China.
2. NodeBB https://nodebb.org/
Demo: http://forum.expii.com/
Plug-ins:
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/nodebb-plugin-meetup
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/nodebb-plugin-newsletter
3. Simple Machines Forum (currently used) www.simplemachines.org
Happy voting and a good discussion!
ps.: My favorite is discourse
Seem to have missed phpbb forums i added. Can we please add it? It is not the prettiest forum bit has the most tools for community growth and development out of all of them.
I also have been in contact with taulant. He said he has received many requests to be the new owner of the forums, but he and the team decided they would prefer to give to me (I never asked him to own the forums, instead approaching him for the community at large, which is probably why). After rceiving the forum from taulant I stated out loud to you chris that I am not comfortable with any one entity (no matter how much I personally trust them) to have ownership. Please dont forget this as we move forward.
The reason is actually simple. I also believe this is why taulant and team decided this route. I am interested in opening community discussion about this further when im ready in the coming days. For now please co sider talking amongst yourselves about the best way to give OWNERSHIP to bitshares community as a whole.
(P.S. I trust you to run them personally)
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voted for discourse, same as last time. majority could end up at "no change" again though
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Seem to have missed phpbb forums i added. Can we please add it? It is notnthebprettiest forum bit has tge most tools forncommubity growth and development out of all of them.
added
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voted for discourse, same as last time. majority could end up at "no change" again though
We will discuss it on the mumble again and make a decision by the end of January 2017.
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voted for discourse, same as last time. majority could end up at "no change" again though
We will discuss it on the mumble again and make a decision by the end of January 2017.
mumble is by no means an indicator for consent (even less so than the forum).
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voted for discourse, same as last time. majority could end up at "no change" again though
We will discuss it on the mumble again and make a decision by the end of January 2017.
mumble is by no means an indicator for consent (even less so than the forum).
Partially true. But remember that about 10x people listen to the mumble as those who attend so it is a good place to catch a very large % of the people who really are the true bts community.
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Following the discussions in the last mumbles and the old threads by Bitsapphire (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=6951.0) I created a short summary of potential software we could use.
The idea is to streamline communication and improve the exchange between the different communities around the world. One of the goals was the to find a translation plugin, that will help us to talk better with the Chinese community. Further upgrading the forum software will send a strong signal that BitShares is active and improving.
What is wrong with the current forum?
Since Bitshapphire is not active anymore in the BitShares Community anymore, it would be better to have an active community member hosting the forum and be in charge of the maintenance. The goal is so to keep the forum 99% online.
Who could host it?
An active member of the BitShares community, let us discuss who could be suitable.
What are the current hosting costs?
50-60 Euro per month according to Bitsapphire
What happens with the current posts, ranks, and the old forum?
I found this guide for Discourse How to import Simple Machine to Discourse (https://meta.discourse.org/t/importer-for-simple-machines-2-forums/17656/13)
We can probably import everything to the new forum and put the old posts in an archive.
Why now?
If not now, then never.
The two forums that would suit us the best:
1. Discourse http://www.discourse.org/
Demo: https://meta.discourse.org/
Plug-ins:
- Translation plug in: https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-translator/32630
- Chat/Trollbox plug in: https://meta.discourse.org/t/babble-a-chat-plugin/31753
- Meetup Plugin: https://meta.discourse.org/t/local-meetup-events-plugin/24430
Very cool, Discourse also has a google translate plugin, which could help us to talk better with China.
2. NodeBB https://nodebb.org/
Demo: http://forum.expii.com/
Plug-ins:
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/nodebb-plugin-meetup
- https://www.npmjs.com/package/nodebb-plugin-newsletter
3. Simple Machines Forum (currently used) www.simplemachines.org
Happy voting and a good discussion!
ps.: My favorite is discourse
Seem to have missed phpbb forums i added. Can we please add it? It is not the prettiest forum bit has the most tools for community growth and development out of all of them.
I also have been in contact with taulant. He said he has received many requests to be the new owner of the forums, but he and the team decided they would prefer to give to me (I never asked him to own the forums, instead approaching him for the community at large, which is probably why). After rceiving the forum from taulant I stated out loud to you chris that I am not comfortable with any one entity (no matter how much I personally trust them) to have ownership. Please dont forget this as we move forward.
The reason is actually simple. I also believe this is why taulant and team decided this route. I am interested in opening community discussion about this further when im ready in the coming days. For now please co sider talking amongst yourselves about the best way to give OWNERSHIP to bitshares community as a whole.
(P.S. I trust you to run them personally)
Fuzzy, when you speak of Ownership, do you refer to the ownership of the domain bitsharestalk.org? If not what else?
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Domain + forums xferred to hosting I chose.
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I Think discourses translation feature could be a huge benefit to our community!! i also like the solved answer plugin allowing people to find accepted answers to issues easily without trawling the whole tread; also if the meetup plugin would allow use to schedule our mumble hangouts for extra visibility i think that is also cool feature.
My only concern about this integration with sharebits that @fuzzy is working on. i think the requirements are simple i.e ability to send pm via api, post via api and receive pages (@username) via api.
If the above is possible i would vote for discourse; hopefully there is another theme also that would make better use of a wide screen monitor
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I Think discourses translation feature could be a huge benefit to our community!! i
you can do it with 1 click in chrome already by the way
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Seem to have missed phpbb forums i added. Can we please add it? It is not the prettiest forum bit has the most tools for community growth and development out of all of them.
I also have been in contact with taulant. He said he has received many requests to be the new owner of the forums, but he and the team decided they would prefer to give to me (I never asked him to own the forums, instead approaching him for the community at large, which is probably why). After rceiving the forum from taulant I stated out loud to you chris that I am not comfortable with any one entity (no matter how much I personally trust them) to have ownership. Please dont forget this as we move forward.
The reason is actually simple. I also believe this is why taulant and team decided this route. I am interested in opening community discussion about this further when im ready in the coming days. For now please co sider talking amongst yourselves about the best way to give OWNERSHIP to bitshares community as a whole.
(P.S. I trust you to run them personally)
Thank you for bringing up this important point fuzzy. This proposal is not only about changing the forum software, but also about who will host and maintain it in the future.
My proposal is to bring it back to an active entity within the community. We can think about different models:
- Forum is hosted by voluntary first
- Forum is managed by trusted representative / Proxy, one person has exclusive access
- Forum is managed by trusted representatives / Proxy, multiple people have access at same time
- Forum is managed by trusted representatives / Proxy, one person at a time is having access
Optional condition:
Hosting is paid via worker
As discussed with Fuzzy, I personally think a group solution for hosting the forum is making the subject unnecessary complex. I would prefer that one trusted active community member is in charge of the forum. That would make it easy in terms of the responsibilities, who to contact and also who is in charge to fix something in case of a problem. I prefer to keep things simple.
How we compensate the hosting cost is a different discussion.
Do we have other opinions? For all those who are happy with the current forum, any reason why?
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Data Security Node, [16.01.17 05:25]
@ChristophHering I know you been looking at other forum solutions.. during the last hangout where this was discussed I brought up the fact that busy.org was soon to be released.. its a very different interface from steemit.. we know that steemit format was not condusive to community.. but busy.org might.. they JUST released an update a few hours ago about public release in 2 weeks.. benefits include:
1. discussions are on a graphene chain.. yes please
2. potential to reach larger audience (ie. 100k of steem users)
3. Earn steem to sell and put into bitshares
4. No need for admins cleaning up spam all the time.. @favdesu has better things to do
Now I can't say this will work for certain until we get to take it for a spin.. but it's worth considering.
Data Security Node, [16.01.17 05:26]
whups.. forgot the link to the update —- https://steemit.com/busy/@busy.org/busy-january-news-alpha-release-updates-2-weeks-before-public-beta-release-donation-report-what-s-next
Just adding it to the conversation.
My POV, busy.org is a very interesting project but still too young to run a full community like us on it. We need to make important decisions based on in-depth discussions where a chronological discussion style from a forum can help us. I stay with my favorite discourse :)
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As discussed with Fuzzy, I personally think a group solution for hosting the forum is making the subject unnecessary complex. I would prefer that one trusted active community member is in charge of the forum. That would make it easy in terms of the responsibilities, who to contact and also who is in charge to fix something in case of a problem. I prefer to keep things simple.
How simple will it be if that person can't fulfill their responsibility due to unforeseen circumstances?
No, I think the best model is worker for hosting / server costs, several trusted community members with admin rights. If one admin can't do the job or heaven forbid gets hit by a bus, there are 1 or 2 more that can pick up the slack. I would prefer a primary admin and 2 backup admins.
I do agree with you tho that we probably shouldn't count on buy.org. I like the idea of a blockchain based forum but it may be too much to ask of it to meed our needs upon launch.
I also think that anything we can do to improve communications with the east should be given priority.
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A very important feature of our current forum (SMF) is something called "Show unread posts since last visit". Most people using the forum should be aware of this. If not, there's a good chance you're missing posts.
For some reason this feature was not working properly for several months until recently (knock on wood). This was one of the 3 primary reasons for the decline in use of the forum, in addition of course to the steemit experiment, and the rising popularity of the Telegram chat.
My point is, we really need to make sure any new forum we're considering has this feature, and that it works as expected (similar features on different forums each work a little differently, sometimes with undesirable results). Without this feature working properly, I can guarantee people will miss posts and the level of engagement will suffer, perhaps dramatically (again).
By the way, I don't think I've seen a list of requirements for the new forum. Here's my attempt:
o open source
o customizable
o show unread posts (with expected behavior)
o import/migration supports SMF 2
o chat component
o translation plug-in (good to have)
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A very important feature of our current forum (SMF) is something called "Show unread posts since last visit". Most people using the forum should be aware of this. If not, there's a good chance you're missing posts.
For some reason this feature was not working properly for several months until recently (knock on wood). This was one of the 3 primary reasons for the decline in use of the forum, in addition of course to the steemit experiment, and the rising popularity of the Telegram chat.
My point is, we really need to make sure any new forum we're considering has this feature, and that it works as expected (similar features on different forums each work a little differently, sometimes with undesirable results). Without this feature working properly, I can guarantee people will miss posts and the level of engagement will suffer, perhaps dramatically (again).
By the way, I don't think I've seen a list of requirements for the new forum. Here's my attempt:
o open source
o customizable
o show unread posts (with expected behavior)
o import/migration supports SMF 2
o chat component
o translation plug-in (good to have)
very good point: show unread posts (with expected behavior)
Discourse has several ways of doing that:
1. Latest topics
Welcome to our community! These are the most popular recent topics.
Here you have all latest forum activities
2. Unread topics
Your unread topics appear here.
By default, topics are considered unread and will show unread counts 1 if you:
Created the topic
Replied to the topic
Read the topic for more than 4 minutes
Or if you have explicitly set the topic to Tracked or Watched via the notification control at the bottom of each topic.
Visit your preferences to change this.
You have no unread topics. Browse all categories or view latest topics
3. New topics
Your new topics appear here.
By default, topics are considered new and will show a new indicator if they were created in the last 2 days.
Visit your preferences to change this.
You have no new topics. Browse all categories or view latest topics
4. Top topics
Here you can select the most active topics for a specific timeframe . January 1th - January 18th etc.
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My forum (http://datorissten.clanz.co/) uses phpbb, it's ok but i fail to see any good reasons to switch to it becuase prophpbb offeres free hosting for that software.
I will not caste a dunning-kruger vote for this poll.
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Thanks Chris for the detailed info about Discourse.
Although @tbone ranked translation functionality as a lower priority on his list, I believe it should be given more weight. It may be a moot point since the consensus appears to be converging on Discourse, but we should be doing all we can to be inclusive.
We're all very aware of how strong the eastern contingent of users is, so let's make sure we do everything we can to be inclusive of their input.
On that note, have we considered the weechat or whatever they're finding popular? According to my limited research Discuz! is the market leader for forum software in China. The language barrier is a big deal. We need to bridge the gap, and it almost seems unfathomable that solutions don't exist to solve that problem. They may be I guess, but perhaps not a price we can afford.
After searching around and not finding much, I posted a question to the IMUG facebook page:
'm looking for a different forum for our international user group. There are quite a few multilingual versions of various social platforms, however the multilingual support on those I've looked into doesn't provide translation of messages / posts / articles. Ideally I would like a forum similar to Discuz! (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php)) where ALL of the content, not just the user interface or input laguage is translated by clicking on the little nationality flags at the top of the website.
Does such software exist? If so are any open source versions available? If not what level of costs are involved?
Thank you for all the work you do at IMUG. If you can't answer these questions I'm not sure anyone can.
Hopefully I'll get a reply and we can factor that into this discussion.
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Thanks Chris for the detailed info about Discourse.
Although @tbone ranked translation functionality as a lower priority on his list, I believe it should be given more weight. It may be a moot point since the consensus appears to be converging on Discourse, but we should be doing all we can to be inclusive.
We're all very aware of how strong the eastern contingent of users is, so let's make sure we do everything we can to be inclusive of their input.
On that note, have we considered the weechat or whatever they're finding popular? According to my limited research Discuz! is the market leader for forum software in China. The language barrier is a big deal. We need to bridge the gap, and it almost seems unfathomable that solutions don't exist to solve that problem. They may be I guess, but perhaps not a price we can afford.
After searching around and not finding much, I posted a question to the IMUG facebook page:
'm looking for a different forum for our international user group. There are quite a few multilingual versions of various social platforms, however the multilingual support on those I've looked into doesn't provide translation of messages / posts / articles. Ideally I would like a forum similar to Discuz! (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php)) where ALL of the content, not just the user interface or input laguage is translated by clicking on the little nationality flags at the top of the website.
Does such software exist? If so are any open source versions available? If not what level of costs are involved?
Thank you for all the work you do at IMUG. If you can't answer these questions I'm not sure anyone can.
Hopefully I'll get a reply and we can factor that into this discussion.
@Thom, I'm in total agreement about the importance of communication with the Chinese community. I've been pushing that idea heavily in Telegram, trying to be diplomatic in heated conversations with @alt and @bitcrab, etc. And I put translation on a list of must haves, but in last position with the "good to have" qualifier because an existing plug-in isn't necessarily a total requirement since the other requirements include open source and customizable, so it should be possible to create our own translation plugin if necessary. But yeah, it would be better if we didn't have to!
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Thanks Chris for the detailed info about Discourse.
Although @tbone ranked translation functionality as a lower priority on his list, I believe it should be given more weight. It may be a moot point since the consensus appears to be converging on Discourse, but we should be doing all we can to be inclusive.
We're all very aware of how strong the eastern contingent of users is, so let's make sure we do everything we can to be inclusive of their input.
On that note, have we considered the weechat or whatever they're finding popular? According to my limited research Discuz! is the market leader for forum software in China. The language barrier is a big deal. We need to bridge the gap, and it almost seems unfathomable that solutions don't exist to solve that problem. They may be I guess, but perhaps not a price we can afford.
After searching around and not finding much, I posted a question to the IMUG facebook page:
'm looking for a different forum for our international user group. There are quite a few multilingual versions of various social platforms, however the multilingual support on those I've looked into doesn't provide translation of messages / posts / articles. Ideally I would like a forum similar to Discuz! (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php)) where ALL of the content, not just the user interface or input laguage is translated by clicking on the little nationality flags at the top of the website.
Does such software exist? If so are any open source versions available? If not what level of costs are involved?
Thank you for all the work you do at IMUG. If you can't answer these questions I'm not sure anyone can.
Hopefully I'll get a reply and we can factor that into this discussion.
@Thom, I'm in total agreement about the importance of communication with the Chinese community. I've been pushing that idea heavily in Telegram, trying to be diplomatic in heated conversations with @alt and @bitcrab, etc. And I put translation on a list of must haves, but in last position with the "good to have" qualifier because an existing plug-in isn't necessarily a total requirement since the other requirements include open source and customizable, so it should be possible to create our own translation plugin if necessary. But yeah, it would be better if we didn't have to!
anyone with a modern browser can download a google translation plugin and use it in 1 click. I don't see this anywhere near as needed on forum basis
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IMO steem is the way to go.
sure steemit.com (http://steemit.com) is not a forum frontend but it is just a matter of time until suitable frontends will appear.
and finally steem offers the ability for everyone to choose her own frontend...
it's decentral and it's free
edit: https://steemdb.com/forums (https://steemdb.com/forums)
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Thanks Chris for the detailed info about Discourse.
Although @tbone ranked translation functionality as a lower priority on his list, I believe it should be given more weight. It may be a moot point since the consensus appears to be converging on Discourse, but we should be doing all we can to be inclusive.
We're all very aware of how strong the eastern contingent of users is, so let's make sure we do everything we can to be inclusive of their input.
On that note, have we considered the weechat or whatever they're finding popular? According to my limited research Discuz! is the market leader for forum software in China. The language barrier is a big deal. We need to bridge the gap, and it almost seems unfathomable that solutions don't exist to solve that problem. They may be I guess, but perhaps not a price we can afford.
After searching around and not finding much, I posted a question to the IMUG facebook page:
'm looking for a different forum for our international user group. There are quite a few multilingual versions of various social platforms, however the multilingual support on those I've looked into doesn't provide translation of messages / posts / articles. Ideally I would like a forum similar to Discuz! (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php)) where ALL of the content, not just the user interface or input laguage is translated by clicking on the little nationality flags at the top of the website.
Does such software exist? If so are any open source versions available? If not what level of costs are involved?
Thank you for all the work you do at IMUG. If you can't answer these questions I'm not sure anyone can.
Hopefully I'll get a reply and we can factor that into this discussion.
@Thom, I'm in total agreement about the importance of communication with the Chinese community. I've been pushing that idea heavily in Telegram, trying to be diplomatic in heated conversations with @alt and @bitcrab, etc. And I put translation on a list of must haves, but in last position with the "good to have" qualifier because an existing plug-in isn't necessarily a total requirement since the other requirements include open source and customizable, so it should be possible to create our own translation plugin if necessary. But yeah, it would be better if we didn't have to!
anyone with a modern browser can download a google translation plugin and use it in 1 click. I don't see this anywhere near as needed on forum basis
That's good to know @fav. It would be great if you would post a link to where that can be downloaded. Thanks.
It's not a matter of being lazy; in this sea of info it's often not trivial to find info or it takes more time than many may have to invest. If you know of such a plugin please enlighten us.
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Thanks Chris for the detailed info about Discourse.
Although @tbone ranked translation functionality as a lower priority on his list, I believe it should be given more weight. It may be a moot point since the consensus appears to be converging on Discourse, but we should be doing all we can to be inclusive.
We're all very aware of how strong the eastern contingent of users is, so let's make sure we do everything we can to be inclusive of their input.
On that note, have we considered the weechat or whatever they're finding popular? According to my limited research Discuz! is the market leader for forum software in China. The language barrier is a big deal. We need to bridge the gap, and it almost seems unfathomable that solutions don't exist to solve that problem. They may be I guess, but perhaps not a price we can afford.
After searching around and not finding much, I posted a question to the IMUG facebook page:
'm looking for a different forum for our international user group. There are quite a few multilingual versions of various social platforms, however the multilingual support on those I've looked into doesn't provide translation of messages / posts / articles. Ideally I would like a forum similar to Discuz! (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php (http://www.msg2me.com/portal.php)) where ALL of the content, not just the user interface or input laguage is translated by clicking on the little nationality flags at the top of the website.
Does such software exist? If so are any open source versions available? If not what level of costs are involved?
Thank you for all the work you do at IMUG. If you can't answer these questions I'm not sure anyone can.
Hopefully I'll get a reply and we can factor that into this discussion.
@Thom, I'm in total agreement about the importance of communication with the Chinese community. I've been pushing that idea heavily in Telegram, trying to be diplomatic in heated conversations with @alt and @bitcrab, etc. And I put translation on a list of must haves, but in last position with the "good to have" qualifier because an existing plug-in isn't necessarily a total requirement since the other requirements include open source and customizable, so it should be possible to create our own translation plugin if necessary. But yeah, it would be better if we didn't have to!
anyone with a modern browser can download a google translation plugin and use it in 1 click. I don't see this anywhere near as needed on forum basis
That's good to know @fav. It would be great if you would post a link to where that can be downloaded. Thanks.
It's not a matter of being lazy; in this sea of info it's often not trivial to find info or it takes more time than many may have to invest. If you know of such a plugin please enlighten us.
if you got chrome: left click > translate - no need to install anything
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if you got chrome: left click > translate - no need to install anything
And if you don't? Sounds like at a minimum you need chrome. Not much freedom of choice.
Is there a plugin for Firefox or IE (I myself don't care for IE).
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bump
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As discussed with Fuzzy, I personally think a group solution for hosting the forum is making the subject unnecessary complex. I would prefer that one trusted active community member is in charge of the forum. That would make it easy in terms of the responsibilities, who to contact and also who is in charge to fix something in case of a problem. I prefer to keep things simple.
How simple will it be if that person can't fulfill their responsibility due to unforeseen circumstances?
No, I think the best model is worker for hosting / server costs, several trusted community members with admin rights. If one admin can't do the job or heaven forbid gets hit by a bus, there are 1 or 2 more that can pick up the slack. I would prefer a primary admin and 2 backup admins.
I do agree with you tho that we probably shouldn't count on buy.org. I like the idea of a blockchain based forum but it may be too much to ask of it to meed our needs upon launch.
I also think that anything we can do to improve communications with the east should be given priority.
I tend to agree along these lines--and my vote is for either stick with SMF or migrate all current content to Discourse--as decided by whomever takes over management and their skills/preferences for managing and maintaining the website operations.
I am not a fan of less established or experimental software (i.e. anything blockchain based) for something as important as the forum. I am also not a fan of anything that has any more friction than necessary for lurking/participating (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,23705.msg302021.html#msg302021).
To be clear, I am assuming whoever takes over will have full control over the domain name, the forum server software + database, and any additional software like an SMTP server for sending emails.
If sticking with SMF, it's important that it be kept up to date for security purposes (we are currently several versions behind). This is also the least surprising path since there is unlikely to be any outcry for keeping things as-is.
If moving to Discourse, I think it is important that all threads and user accounts be migrated. If everyone had to re-register, then that could kill the forum. Performing such a migration manually seems non-trivial though: here it says https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-to-discourse-from-another-forum-software/16616 it requires manual review and editing of the migration script, which is a complex script (https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/script/import_scripts/smf2.rb). The best bet for a migration (and possibly ongoing operations/maintenance) may be a managed hosting solution (https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-are-some-reputable-managed-discourse-hosting-providers-out-there/54702) like https://www.discoursehosting.com/pricing/ or https://payments.discourse.org/buy/ which also will do the migration for you (eg https://meta.discourse.org/t/discoursehosting-migration-service-for-your-existing-forum/12201). Self-hosting could be done on something like Digital Ocean (https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-the-discourse-one-click-application-on-digitalocean) but it would still require a complex manual migration and at least an SMTP server for sending emails.
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I tend to agree along these lines--and my vote is for either stick with SMF or migrate all current content to Discourse--as decided by whomever takes over management and their skills/preferences for managing and maintaining the website operations.
I am not a fan of less established or experimental software (i.e. anything blockchain based) for something as important as the forum. I am also not a fan of anything that has any more friction than necessary for lurking/participating (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,23705.msg302021.html#msg302021).
To be clear, I am assuming whoever takes over will have full control over the domain name, the forum server software + database, and any additional software like an SMTP server for sending emails.
If sticking with SMF, it's important that it be kept up to date for security purposes (we are currently several versions behind). This is also the least surprising path since there is unlikely to be any outcry for keeping things as-is.
If moving to Discourse, I think it is important that all threads and user accounts be migrated. If everyone had to re-register, then that could kill the forum. Performing such a migration manually seems non-trivial though: here it says https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-to-discourse-from-another-forum-software/16616 it requires manual review and editing of the migration script, which is a complex script (https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/script/import_scripts/smf2.rb). The best bet for a migration (and possibly ongoing operations/maintenance) may be a managed hosting solution (https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-are-some-reputable-managed-discourse-hosting-providers-out-there/54702) like https://www.discoursehosting.com/pricing/ or https://payments.discourse.org/buy/ which also will do the migration for you (eg https://meta.discourse.org/t/discoursehosting-migration-service-for-your-existing-forum/12201). Self-hosting could be done on something like Digital Ocean (https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-the-discourse-one-click-application-on-digitalocean) but it would still require a complex manual migration and at least an SMTP server for sending emails.
Perhaps you didn't see it, but if you have what is your objection to keeping the current SMF forum, locking it down into a read only state, and moving ONLY the user accounts over to Discourse? This was DataSecurityNode's suggestion and I believe it has great merit. I agree that re-registration should not be required. Migrating user accounts will be far easier (tho issues could arise) than then entire forum content.
I think a managed host path should be investigated as well. Even if the costs were not prohibitive I still think we should ONLY migrate user accounts and lock down this SMF forum in a read only state. Although the user base is much larger, I manage an SMF forum myself, and it is not a heavy resource intensive application. It would be worth checking into whether the Discourse hosting might also include hosting for this SMF forum as well. If not I still believe it should be preserved as is in a read only state.
A read only state also reduces the maintenance requirements. As long as a full backup is preserved, and that could be done by several trusted users, should the forum be corrupted or compromised it could be restored from a backup fairly quickly, and speed wouldn't really be an issue in doing so anyway, given it is only a reference library.
Migrating the SMF threads will be wrought with problems and take a significant effort. There are likely to be complications and incompatibilities. All of that can be avoided by just providing access to this SMF from Discourse as a reference.
As to who should be responsible or how to manage the servers and domain, I don't think we should be thinking that a centralized, single point of failure approach is best. I also don't think a group or committee makes sense either. We just need to have more than one person with admin access in case the primary admin can't act for any number of reasons. There is a very small risk that one of the admins could change passwords and lockout the others, but I believe the chances of that occurring are extremely slim if the people are chosen well.
Perhaps we should consider control of the domain separately. That will require far less interaction, almost none after initial setup, and thereafter only to renew the it periodically. That could possibly even be automated to be paid directly via the blockchain.
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Perhaps you didn't see it, but if you have what is your objection to keeping the current SMF forum, locking it down into a read only state, and moving ONLY the user accounts over to Discourse? This was DataSecurityNode's suggestion and I believe it has great merit. I agree that re-registration should not be required. Migrating user accounts will be far easier (tho issues could arise) than then entire forum content.
I think a managed host path should be investigated as well. Even if the costs were not prohibitive I still think we should ONLY migrate user accounts and lock down this SMF forum in a read only state. Although the user base is much larger, I manage an SMF forum myself, and it is not a heavy resource intensive application. It would be worth checking into whether the Discourse hosting might also include hosting for this SMF forum as well. If not I still believe it should be preserved as is in a read only state.
A read only state also reduces the maintenance requirements. As long as a full backup is preserved, and that could be done by several trusted users, should the forum be corrupted or compromised it could be restored from a backup fairly quickly, and speed wouldn't really be an issue in doing so anyway, given it is only a reference library.
Migrating the SMF threads will be wrought with problems and take a significant effort. There are likely to be complications and incompatibilities. All of that can be avoided by just providing access to this SMF from Discourse as a reference.
I don't have a strong objection, I guess I just have a preference to minimize discontinuity if feasible. For example, I like to look at people's post history on here, but that chain gets broken if not migrated.
I'm willing to leave it up to whomever ends up in charge though. As long as a read-only version remains reliably accessible and searchable then I think that could be okay. I agree it's important that at least the user accounts be migrated (I wonder how smoothly that can be done--would it require a password reset?) The old forum would also need to be clearly marked that it has been deprecated so that anyone looking will know to move to the new forum for discussion.
I'm no expert in forum software (and related) maintenance and operations nor do I want to be, so if it were me I would go with managed hosting--but again I think this can also be at the discretion of whoever is in charge and their skillset.
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I tend to agree along these lines--and my vote is for either stick with SMF or migrate all current content to Discourse--as decided by whomever takes over management and their skills/preferences for managing and maintaining the website operations.
I am not a fan of less established or experimental software (i.e. anything blockchain based) for something as important as the forum. I am also not a fan of anything that has any more friction than necessary for lurking/participating (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,23705.msg302021.html#msg302021).
To be clear, I am assuming whoever takes over will have full control over the domain name, the forum server software + database, and any additional software like an SMTP server for sending emails.
If sticking with SMF, it's important that it be kept up to date for security purposes (we are currently several versions behind). This is also the least surprising path since there is unlikely to be any outcry for keeping things as-is.
If moving to Discourse, I think it is important that all threads and user accounts be migrated. If everyone had to re-register, then that could kill the forum. Performing such a migration manually seems non-trivial though: here it says https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-to-discourse-from-another-forum-software/16616 it requires manual review and editing of the migration script, which is a complex script (https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/script/import_scripts/smf2.rb). The best bet for a migration (and possibly ongoing operations/maintenance) may be a managed hosting solution (https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-are-some-reputable-managed-discourse-hosting-providers-out-there/54702) like https://www.discoursehosting.com/pricing/ or https://payments.discourse.org/buy/ which also will do the migration for you (eg https://meta.discourse.org/t/discoursehosting-migration-service-for-your-existing-forum/12201). Self-hosting could be done on something like Digital Ocean (https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-the-discourse-one-click-application-on-digitalocean) but it would still require a complex manual migration and at least an SMTP server for sending emails.
Perhaps you didn't see it, but if you have what is your objection to keeping the current SMF forum, locking it down into a read only state, and moving ONLY the user accounts over to Discourse? This was DataSecurityNode's suggestion and I believe it has great merit. I agree that re-registration should not be required. Migrating user accounts will be far easier (tho issues could arise) than then entire forum content.
I think a managed host path should be investigated as well. Even if the costs were not prohibitive I still think we should ONLY migrate user accounts and lock down this SMF forum in a read only state. Although the user base is much larger, I manage an SMF forum myself, and it is not a heavy resource intensive application. It would be worth checking into whether the Discourse hosting might also include hosting for this SMF forum as well. If not I still believe it should be preserved as is in a read only state.
A read only state also reduces the maintenance requirements. As long as a full backup is preserved, and that could be done by several trusted users, should the forum be corrupted or compromised it could be restored from a backup fairly quickly, and speed wouldn't really be an issue in doing so anyway, given it is only a reference library.
Migrating the SMF threads will be wrought with problems and take a significant effort. There are likely to be complications and incompatibilities. All of that can be avoided by just providing access to this SMF from Discourse as a reference.
As to who should be responsible or how to manage the servers and domain, I don't think we should be thinking that a centralized, single point of failure approach is best. I also don't think a group or committee makes sense either. We just need to have more than one person with admin access in case the primary admin can't act for any number of reasons. There is a very small risk that one of the admins could change passwords and lockout the others, but I believe the chances of that occurring are extremely slim if the people are chosen well.
Perhaps we should consider control of the domain separately. That will require far less interaction, almost none after initial setup, and thereafter only to renew the it periodically. That could possibly even be automated to be paid directly via the blockchain.
Whatever we do, lets not break all the links to 4 years of posts referenced from everywhere else.
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That's an extremely important point @Stan, thanks for raising it. That actually makes a strong case for preserving the existing SMF forum, and if we want to move forward and improve communication using other forum software like Discourse we should leave the domain as is and put plenty of links to the new forum here in SMF.
That way all external references remain intact and coming here people would be referred to the new forum while this one is locked down in read only mode. That gives us great flexibility to move forward while preserving past history.
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That's an extremely important point @Stan, thanks for raising it. That actually makes a strong case for preserving the existing SMF forum, and if we want to move forward and improve communication using other forum software like Discourse we should leave the domain as is and put plenty of links to the new forum here in SMF.
That way all external references remain intact and coming here people would be referred to the new forum while this one is locked down in read only mode. That gives us great flexibility to move forward while preserving past history.
agreed, this one should put in lock mode, new forum should run under forum.bitsharestalk.org
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forum.bitshares.org ...
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That's an extremely important point @Stan, thanks for raising it. That actually makes a strong case for preserving the existing SMF forum, and if we want to move forward and improve communication using other forum software like Discourse we should leave the domain as is and put plenty of links to the new forum here in SMF.
That way all external references remain intact and coming here people would be referred to the new forum while this one is locked down in read only mode. That gives us great flexibility to move forward while preserving past history.
agreed, this one should put in lock mode, new forum should run under forum.bitsharestalk.org
Perfect!
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forum.bitshares.org ...
this
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We could just upgrade our current forum software (simple machines) from 2.0.9 to 2.0.13