Changes to the forum - looking for proposals

[bitsapphire]

The BTSX ticker is now up on the forum and on Github. Should work now in all browsers now.

In the near future we will include all exchanges in the API and the last buy price will be saved temporarily on the server side to not overload the exchange servers. For now the price is based only off the https://poloniex.com/ API, as it is the only exchange providing public https APIs to our knowledge.

Not that it matters, but I believe just about all exchanges provide JSON feeds.  https://bter.com/api  etc

Of course, however bter etc don't provide public https feeds. As bitsharestalk is encrypted people would get security warnings if we added non-secure feeds. To solve this we are combining the feeds server side and communicating to the AJAX ticker on the forum via our own API. That should be ready this week.

[gamey]

The BTSX ticker is now up on the forum and on Github. Should work now in all browsers now.

In the near future we will include all exchanges in the API and the last buy price will be saved temporarily on the server side to not overload the exchange servers. For now the price is based only off the https://poloniex.com/ API, as it is the only exchange providing public https APIs to our knowledge.

Not that it matters, but I believe just about all exchanges provide JSON feeds.  https://bter.com/api  etc

[santaclause102]

maybe deleting posts of they are too equal without including a quote or something?

[bitsapphire]

Is there a chance for anti spam measures?
This guy nmtydjnfds  just spammed his one post 39 times across all boards.

We have just deleted all of his posts. There are other spamers too. This is happening because they see that our forum links are dofollow which is like a bait for SEO spammers.

Unfortunately the forum spam filters are insufficient to counter socketpupet accounts, especially if the person simply cycles their IP permanently.

We are looking into more automated solutions. Till then please keep the good work up and report these posts!

[onceuponatime]

Is there a chance for anti spam measures?
This guy nmtydjnfds  just spammed his one post 39 times across all boards.

And this is his third time spamming the same message under different names over the last few days.

[santaclause102]

Is there a chance for anti spam measures?
This guy nmtydjnfds  just spammed his one post 39 times across all boards.

[bitsapphire]

I have a suggestion:

I'd like to be able to start a poll where only participants with certain amount of forum posts could cast vote.
I'd like to use it for picking projects for angel fund funding.
I'd like everyone to be free to comment though.

Is this doable ?

https://www.loomio.org/ might be better suited for this. We just need to create a BTSX login for it. We would not implement this plugin for the current SMF as the plugin architecture is ancient.

[emski]

I have a suggestion:

I'd like to be able to start a poll where only participants with certain amount of forum posts could cast vote.
I'd like to use it for picking projects for angel fund funding.
I'd like everyone to be free to comment though.

Is this doable ?

[bitsapphire]

The BTSX ticker is now up on the forum and on Github. Should work now in all browsers now.

In the near future we will include all exchanges in the API and the last buy price will be saved temporarily on the server side to not overload the exchange servers. For now the price is based only off the https://poloniex.com/ API, as it is the only exchange providing public https APIs to our knowledge.

[LiquidStorm]

Stick to SMF please

[johncitizen]

There needs to be more focus on the chat! Im in there and its empty 

It would also be nice to have a price bot/feed top of the forum.

[emski]

I have a suggestion:

I'd like to be able to start a poll where only participants with certain amount of forum posts could cast vote.
I'd like to use it for picking projects for angel fund funding.
I'd like everyone to be free to comment though.

Is this doable ?

[emski]

Anyway there is no necessity to make the choice now.
Present the new functionality.
Educate users how to use it.
Show us why it is better (perhaps some functionality).
If you enable each of the new features (bitsharesx login, keyhotee, whatever the community desires) there and remove unwanted stuff you will convince majority of the users.
If it is as advertised users will flock to the new forum.
Just make it stable and at least as usable as this one.

[bitsapphire]

ethereum uses a "discourse" forum type, try it out! 
https://forum.ethereum.org/


PS Maybe I am to old and I like our approach better
 PS2     the traffic numbers are high NOT because the forum, it's because the forum is a subaccount of ethereum.org I guess...

Ethereum's forum is not Discourse, it is based on http://vanillaforums.org/. Completely different platform. Ethereum's forum is definitely worse in every respect than the current bitsharestalk SMF forum.

Ahh yes a forum with 6 years of developed plugins has to be worse than a 1 year old  forum software.

SMF has a less frequent and erratic github community compared to Discourse's. Here's a good blog post, we have a similar reasoning.

we need a btsx login .. not Facebook login

Agreed. We plan to implement btsx login in the not too distant future!

The interesting thing is if you start trolling the internet and find the forums with the smart guys, they usually tend to not be on social media reddit replacement mimicking sites.   Granted they're all established but I'm not convinced of the magic conversion rate.  Kids who won't use the forum because it is "2007" aren't likely going to be types with money either.  shrug

I wonder if the firm taking over the software just has a lot more experience in Discourse?

Those point systems mimick the wisdom of the crowd (and no, not concisely and quantitatively).  If the wisdom of the crowd is sub par then it just hurts the quality of the posters.

If we want to make Bitshares DACs mainstream we need a mainstream-compatible platform. I you really want something super exclusive we might at some point create a forum sub-board where only BTSX loggedin users can post. That would solve the potential "eternal September" issue.

If we wanted to go with something we are very familiar with we would have proposed a Node.js forum, but the one's available right now are not ideal for the Bitshares Community.

As pointed out, the point system is from the vanillaforums, discourse does not have that by default, and we would not implement it.

Support that.
is it possible for the developers to build a synchronization mechanism ? Just the posts, not the achievements and badges.

Yes. We won't switch anything until the database bridging is done first. In all likelihood both the SMF and Discourse forum will exist in parallel for 2-3 months before fading out the old forum software.

[gamey]

Oh I see that product is a pay per month solution.  Darn.  Still, I find it suspect complaining how far SMF is behind just because something else has a 1 year old codebase.  There are other facebook login plugins etc it appears. 

[gamey]

we need a btsx login .. not Facebook login

The fact that it has the Facebook login im sure it will be much easier to implement BTSX login in to new one

also its possible if people vote to remove other logins like facebook or other social media we can remove it with no problem

Social Login allows your users to connect with one click to your Simple Machines Forum (SMF) by using their social network account. Over twenty different social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Yahoo, GitHub, Windows Live and others supported.

https://docs.oneall.com/plugins/guide/social-login-smf/

The weird thing is this might make my plugin far easier to write if I opt to continue with it.  Thanks for the bs giving me direction !

[vlmhz]

I don't mean to continuously nitpick but I think this looks sloppy. 
and not very descriptive.  What is the price representing? 

BitShares represents a great number of things, each with different prices.
Do you mean PTS, AGS, BTSX, DNS, VOTE, MUSIC?

I can deduce that it represents PTS. I think it could be made more clear.

spacing/centering aesthetics etc??

I wonder if the firm taking over the software just has a lot more experience in Discourse?

That would be my guess.

Thank you for feed back.

Actually i don't know how you saw it because its hidden, maybe your browsers cache didn't get the new style.

I just fixed it and will wait till we finish some more tests on it to publish

PS: force refresh it with: ctrl + shift + R

[vlmhz]

we need a btsx login .. not Facebook login

The fact that it has the Facebook login im sure it will be much easier to implement BTSX login in to new one

also its possible if people vote to remove other logins like facebook or other social media we can remove it with no problem

[Xeldal]

I don't mean to continuously nitpick but I think this looks sloppy. 
and not very descriptive.  What is the price representing? 

BitShares represents a great number of things, each with different prices.
Do you mean PTS, AGS, BTSX, DNS, VOTE, MUSIC?

I can deduce that it represents PTS. I think it could be made more clear.

spacing/centering aesthetics etc??

I wonder if the firm taking over the software just has a lot more experience in Discourse?

That would be my guess.

[vlmhz]

The interesting thing is if you start trolling the internet and find the forums with the smart guys, they usually tend to not be on social media reddit replacement mimicking sites.   Granted they're all established but I'm not convinced of the magic conversion rate.  Kids who won't use the forum because it is "2007" aren't likely going to be types with money either.  shrug

I wonder if the firm taking over the software just has a lot more experience in Discourse?

Those point systems mimick the wisdom of the crowd (and no, not concisely and quantitatively).  If the wisdom of the crowd is sub par then it just hurts the quality of the posters.

The management system of this forum and the structure of code is relay hard to maintain and takes to much time to maintain in which results in slower updates and respond on forum

We tested the http://try.discourse.org/?ascending=true to manage posts updates also the code to
its easier to maintain than this one.

I'm here to find a solution to make the community grow faster and help Bitshares 

for anything that discourse annoyed you or want to change something on it its easier to remove than to try to add it here or to modify this one

in the and of the day its all about the community that we want to grow

[vlmhz]

A new forum like "discourse" its relay step forward for Bitshares community.

Actual forum is build on 2007, maybe some of us adapted here but for new comers is like stone age thingy
especially if we compare with daily use networks like Facebook or Twitter which those are relay RELAY very advanced.

I would vote to change the forum, the earlier we change the faster we grow.

Ahh yes a forum with 6 years of developed plugins has to be worse than a 1 year old  forum software.

There really isn't much difference.  Discourse seems to have badges and point systems.  Not a big fan of that.

We are not facebook or twitter.  The biggest thing discourse has going for it is that the point system can lead to a "best of" page and you have all that support for social media login.  Yay faces ?

Actually the fact that is newer than this one it is build in more advanced technology and has better performance also is new way of forum.

About logins we where talking about how to attract new people here so we can grow faster, isn't it the easier to gain more people so we can benefit all from it ?

[emski]

The interesting thing is if you start trolling the internet and find the forums with the smart guys, they usually tend to not be on social media reddit replacement mimicking sites.   Granted they're all established but I'm not convinced of the magic conversion rate.  Kids who won't use the forum because it is "2007" aren't likely going to be types with money either.  shrug

I wonder if the firm taking over the software just has a lot more experience in Discourse?

Those point systems mimick the wisdom of the crowd (and no, not concisely and quantitatively).  If the wisdom of the crowd is sub par then it just hurts the quality of the posters.

Support that.
is it possible for the developers to build a synchronization mechanism ? Just the posts, not the achievements and badges.

[gamey]

The interesting thing is if you start trolling the internet and find the forums with the smart guys, they usually tend to not be on social media reddit replacement mimicking sites.   Granted they're all established but I'm not convinced of the magic conversion rate.  Kids who won't use the forum because it is "2007" aren't likely going to be types with money either.  shrug

I wonder if the firm taking over the software just has a lot more experience in Discourse?

Those point systems mimick the wisdom of the crowd (and no, not concisely and quantitatively).  If the wisdom of the crowd is sub par then it just hurts the quality of the posters.

[bitbro]

The biggest thing is interface and layout.  Discourse is vastly superior as it retains newcomers at a higher rate due  to its aesthetics in layout and interface


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[xeroc]

we need a btsx login .. not Facebook login

[gamey]

A new forum like "discourse" its relay step forward for Bitshares community.

Actual forum is build on 2007, maybe some of us adapted here but for new comers is like stone age thingy
especially if we compare with daily use networks like Facebook or Twitter which those are relay RELAY very advanced.

I would vote to change the forum, the earlier we change the faster we grow.

Ahh yes a forum with 6 years of developed plugins has to be worse than a 1 year old  forum software.

There really isn't much difference.  Discourse seems to have badges and point systems.  Not a big fan of that.

We are not facebook or twitter.  The biggest thing discourse has going for it is that the point system can lead to a "best of" page and you have all that support for social media login.  Yay faces ?

[liondani]

ethereum uses a "discourse" forum type, try it out! 
https://forum.ethereum.org/


PS Maybe I am to old and I like our approach better
 PS2     the traffic numbers are high NOT because the forum, it's because the forum is a subaccount of ethereum.org I guess...

[vlmhz]

A new forum like "discourse" its relay step forward for Bitshares community.

Actual forum is build on 2007, maybe some of us adapted here but for new comers is like stone age thingy
especially if we compare with daily use networks like Facebook or Twitter which those are relay RELAY very advanced.

I would vote to change the forum, the earlier we change the faster we grow.

[bitbro]

Literally dreamed about a new forum last night.  We need to switch.  I can see how this forum doesn't draw others in.  If we're going to be worldclass, we need to upgrade and not see be like bitcoin talk


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cass]

LOL - how the hell you find this memes all the day

[liondani]

[Shentist]

maybe it is only me, but i really didn't know one forum with - discourse.

i followed the sample link and my first thought was "oh my god, it looks really complicated". i didn't know anything, but as a user it looks confusing. i don't understand the structure etc. maybe it is just the problem with new stuff. You has to learn, but it feels not right to me.

[Xeldal]

indeed .. and pls polish your bitsapphire delegate buttons/links  ^^ right next BTS logo - thx

So far you haven't provided quality service and visible improvements to the forum yet you publish support links with questionable quality on the top of the page.
I wonder how you'll get enough approval for adding adds like that?

And sorry if my choice of words is too harsh. Consider it as constructive criticism meaning "Try to create stylish add and place it somewhere more discrete. And let it not be the first thing you do.".

It looks trashy, and terribly unprofessional.  If this is any indication of the quality we can expect from the new forum management, I don't have very high hopes for any 'improvements' .

[ripplexiaoshan]

indeed .. and pls polish your bitsapphire delegate buttons/links  ^^ right next BTS logo - thx

So far you haven't provided quality service and visible improvements to the forum yet you publish support links with questionable quality on the top of the page.
I wonder how you'll get enough approval for adding adds like that?

And sorry if my choice of words is too harsh. Consider it as constructive criticism meaning "Try to create stylish add and place it somewhere more discrete. And let it not be the first thing you do.".

Strongly agree with this

update: it seems bitsapphire accepted your suggestion, good for him

[emski]

indeed .. and pls polish your bitsapphire delegate buttons/links  ^^ right next BTS logo - thx

So far you haven't provided quality service and visible improvements to the forum yet you publish support links with questionable quality on the top of the page.
I wonder how you'll get enough approval for adding adds like that?

And sorry if my choice of words is too harsh. Consider it as constructive criticism meaning "Try to create stylish add and place it somewhere more discrete. And let it not be the first thing you do.".

[mint chocolate chip]

indeed .. and pls polish your bitsapphire delegate buttons/links  ^^ right next BTS logo - thx

I was about to say the same thing, looks like amateur hour at the top of the forum right now

[cass]

indeed .. and pls polish your bitsapphire delegate buttons/links  ^^ right next BTS logo - thx

[lucky331]

IMO we should just polish and clean up smf theme a bit

yes please.  making the forum look bitshares-esque will be great. 

[lucky331]

• Add a PTS and BTSX price ticker to the header of the forum
• Make all outgoing links on the forum nofollow. This way we won't be as attractive to spammers and Google most likely ranks us better.
• Change the current URL structure to something human readable (the current links would redirect to the new links, nothing gets lost). This is for both legibility and better search ranking.

I like it ..

any chance for a tipping bot? ;-)

yes!  a tip bot would be the coolest!

[gamey]

Bitssaphire  puts forth a convincing argument.  If they decide to change it won't matter that much.  I still question though the value of users who don't want to do a basic signup.  In crypto world not everyone wants their id tied into some social media account somewhere.  (If thats what Discourse tries to do...)

If there is a bridge to run them in parallel then just keep up old bitsharestalk indefinitely.

[liondani]

whatever changes will help for bitshares mass adoption I am in !  You know better guys       

[cass]

whatever works best for the community 
for me it doesn't matter which software is used for forum purposes ^^

But pls don't hesitate to contact me anytime if i could assist on anything forum design related
It would be a great pleasure to assist …

[xeroc]

It seems that there are two personas interested in Bitshares:

• 90s techies with old school forum and IRC experience
• 2000s techies and semi-techies with social media and real-time web experience

The latter don't sign up or don't come back to the forum due to the UI/UX rather than the content.

Reading this makes me
a) feel old although I am not even 30
b) feel proud because I know the power of IRC and see no power in fancy UIs

* xeroc is a young oldschool terminal guy

[emski]

If you switch to Discourse is it possible to still use old style BB for up to 90 days( for example) while members get used to to new forum software.

So esentially have a choice to use either forum for up to 90 days, then switch everyone to Discourse when 90 days expire

That's the plan actually.

There might be resistance to this.
Perhaps it would help to make a list of thing that can be done with "Discourse" that cannot be done with current setup.

[gamey]

The forum replaces any url scheme that isn't  http:// or ftp:// with http. Would be nice to use btsx: scheme. I think gamey started work on this, but might not be easy with this software.

Yes I started.  It might or might not be that hard, the problem is packaging it into a proper package to install on other sites.  Hacking something up on a single site is a lot easier.  I have a site I'd like to test it on, but if this site is going to change soon I've been on the fence about starting it back up since I really haven't made any progress and don't know the SMF learning curve I will encounter.  So when done, it would basically be aimed at me and the off chance we get theymos to accept... and maybe some other SMF sites.  My site is just sorta meh, but if someone knows theymos and he is agreeable to the thought then it could add a lot of value to the project.

Actually if theymos agreed it'd be huge, but the plugin would have to be well written etc, and who knows if I can even hook into it system at a deep enough level without basically forking SMF.

edit - Although there is a SMF forum with some really helpful dude with 50k posts.  Once I understand the btsx: protocol completely from the php prototype then I would start looking into SMF and those guys could be helpful in ascertaining the difficulty.

[bitsapphire]

If you switch to Discourse is it possible to still use old style BB for up to 90 days( for example) while members get used to to new forum software.

So esentially have a choice to use either forum for up to 90 days, then switch everyone to Discourse when 90 days expire

That's the plan.

#1 Login via BTSX accounts.

Do not go to discourse... Simple Machines is known, familiar, and such a massive change would surely drive off people.

We can keep SMF on in parallel and just make it the old forum non-crawlable. This way we won;t get penalized by Google. Messages and users from both platforms can be in sync.

The current forum is terrible for SEO and user conversion. The Google analytics data is abysmal in terms of bounce rate and signup rate.

Essentially people who already use the forum are hardcore users and get online every day. New visitors form social media and organic search rarely convert. We have managed other forums before and this is among the strangest conversion dynamics we have ever seen.

It seems that there are two personas interested in Bitshares:

• 90s techies with old school forum and IRC experience
• 2000s techies and semi-techies with social media and real-time web experience

The latter don't sign up or don't come back to the forum due to the UI/UX rather than the content.

This also means that there would be little to no added value for us starting a social media or SEO campaign for the forum or Bitshares content because the conversion rate of the forum would be the bottleneck. This is the primary reason why we would switch to Discourse. However, depending on our test results we might use something else too.

Furthermore it turns out that it's super difficult to do the readable link conversion on SMF without losing "link juice", while Discourse has that by default.

All that said, we are still in the research phase.

[gamey]

Can somebody please explain how or in what way Discourse is to be an improvement over Simple Machines?

I'm trying out different sites that are using it and it feels like it only trades organization and content for color and pop.

I think there is a tried and trued format for conversing.  It isn't like SMF doesn't have plug-ins to do a lot.  Not sure what they're looking for ?

I'm a fan of simple machines from a user's perspective just because it is simple and straight forward.  The same could be said for a lot of forums that are all quite similar and thats likely for a good reason.

We're not near big enough to need upvoting/downvoting.  I think that feature is most important on sites with a ton of traffic for a variety of reasons.  None of which fit since bitsharestalk isn't that large.

However, maybe if they switch to discourse I can steal away users with btsxtalk.  lol

[liondani]

to be honest I am hooked to the present forum...
little changes every time is best, and only for proposal that have the majority of members accepted...

[xeroc]

the only improvement i can see is that you can upvote topics so that 'hot' topics are on the top .. not sure if that is what the community needs

[bobmaloney]

Can somebody please explain how or in what way Discourse is to be an improvement over Simple Machines?

I'm trying out different sites that are using it and it feels like it only trades organization and content for color and pop.

[cass]

Do not go to discourse... Simple Machines is known, familiar, and such a massive change would surely drive off people.

I tend to agree!

I prefer Discourse. Discourse is a better long term decision.

Maybe yes - but when looking back  .. every small adjustment was heavy to get accepted by community.
If the new forum doesn't have a real benefit and USP for users IMO it's could hurts more then healing.

[tonyk]

3.something like LTB coins for the active forum members using maybe "burned" BTSXs for example?

[liondani]

1.count down ticker for announced snapshots and links to them (example to bitshars DNS page)
2.links to all centralized exhanges that have BTSX included
3.something like LTB coins for the active forum members using maybe "burned" BTSXs for example?
4.let us post video URLS with a player (not only images)
5.up/down votes for posts (and for members)
6.BTSX block explorer link
7.101 active delegate + standby page and vote option available (give coins when we vote)
8.count down ticker for the next mumble session !

I will come back for more suggestions 

[luckybit]

Do not go to discourse... Simple Machines is known, familiar, and such a massive change would surely drive off people.

I tend to agree!

I prefer Discourse. Discourse is a better long term decision.

[cass]

IMO we should just polish and clean up smf theme a bit

[cass]

Do not go to discourse... Simple Machines is known, familiar, and such a massive change would surely drive off people.

I tend to agree!

[santaclause102]

Do not go to discourse... Simple Machines is known, familiar, and such a massive change would surely drive off people.

I tend to agree!

[xeroc]

Do not go to discourse... Simple Machines is known, familiar, and such a massive change would surely drive off people.

I tend to agree!

[bytemaster]

#1 Login via BTSX accounts.

Do not go to discourse... Simple Machines is known, familiar, and such a massive change would surely drive off people.

[speedy]

How about having a ticker at the top with the current dividend APR ?

[soniq]

If you switch to Discourse is it possible to still use old style BB for up to 90 days( for example) while members get used to to new forum software.

So esentially have a choice to use either forum for up to 90 days, then switch everyone to Discourse when 90 days expire

[toast]

The forum replaces any url scheme that isn't  http:// or ftp:// with http. Would be nice to use btsx: scheme. I think gamey started work on this, but might not be easy with this software.

[santaclause102]

I dont know whether this is possible but it would be cool to have type of thread where people can vote posts up and down. Application: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=6901.0

[cass]

i would love to see a :btsx url button left on editor for getting delegate voting buttons into signature etc. 

[bitsapphire]

• Add a PTS and BTSX price ticker to the header of the forum
• Make all outgoing links on the forum nofollow. This way we won't be as attractive to spammers and Google most likely ranks us better.
• Change the current URL structure to something human readable (the current links would redirect to the new links, nothing gets lost). This is for both legibility and better search ranking.

I like it ..

any chance for a tipping bot? ;-)

Mmh. I doubt we can pull that off in this old forum software. Should be relatively simple with Discourse though.

Great idea!

[cass]

[xeroc]

• Add a PTS and BTSX price ticker to the header of the forum
• Make all outgoing links on the forum nofollow. This way we won't be as attractive to spammers and Google most likely ranks us better.
• Change the current URL structure to something human readable (the current links would redirect to the new links, nothing gets lost). This is for both legibility and better search ranking.

I like it ..

any chance for a tipping bot? ;-)

[bitsapphire]

Bitsapphire is currently looking to add certain small features to the current forum.

The following three are planned to happen within the next 1-2 weeks:

• Add a PTS and BTSX price ticker to the header of the forum
• Make all outgoing links on the forum nofollow. This way we won't be as attractive to spammers and Google most likely ranks us better.
• Change the current URL structure to something human readable (the current links would redirect to the new links, nothing gets lost). This is for both legibility and better search ranking.

We also plan to have unobtrusive bitsapphire delegate voting buttons instead of advertisements on the forum.

Let us know what you would like to change on the forum!