Females in the community.

Thu Mar 24 09:34:22 PDT 2016

On 24/03/2016 09:16, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 3/24/2016 1:41 AM, Mike Parker wrote:
>> I'm not knocking Vladimir's software. I ditched my newsreader some
>> time ago and
>> use the web interface exclusively now. Much more convenient. We can
>> debate the
>> usefulness of specific forum features that are out there in the wild
>> these days,
>> but the main issue is that the most basic features (like editing and
>> deleting
>> posts) are not practical when the central database belongs to the NNTP
>> server.
>
> Ironically, I've used various "modern" forum software that didn't allow
> post editing, either. Post editing has its downside, as well. Replies to
> a post may no longer make sense if it was altered.
>
 > One possibility is to have the forum software delay actually posting it
 > for 5 minutes, and you can have second thoughts.

Post editing can also be restricted by a time limit in web forum 
software. In any case, in a community like this, you'd expect that 
nearly all edits would be minor edits, that would not change the meaning 
of the original post, but just clarify it (or fix errors).

Alternatively, some software allows seeing the edit history of a post, 
so there is always that as a fallback if someone where to edit 
inappropriately. In particular Discourse supports that (which is the 
forum software used by Rust, and also an alternative Go forum - 
https://forum.golangbridge.org/ )

>
>> I'm not coming at this from a personal perspective, but from that of a
>> new D
>> user who wasn't necessarily around during the height of the newsgroup
>> craze.
>> More than once I've seen people post here looking for a way to edit or
>> delete
>> their posts. We recently had a suggestion her for a means of marking
>> threads as
>> important or useful. These are the sorts of thing that people *expect*
>> today,
>> whether everyone finds them beneficial or not. It's just one more
>> thing about
>> the D community that doesn't jibe with expectations, like the way the
>> web site
>> looked before the revamp. It's not a major issue in and of itself,
>> just an
>> annoyance and a lack of convenience, but taken together as a part of
>> the whole
>> it's one more point of complaint. One that could be easily resolved.
>
> I've used a lot of other forum software on the web, and most of them
> have maddening gaps in their feature set, and have the look/feel of
> being written by dilettantes as their first project.
>

I don't care about how many crap web forum software is out there, I only 
care about the good ones. The point of using modern forum software is 
not to just *any* software out there that just happened to be written 
recently.

In particular, have you tried Discourse?

> For example, take a look at the comments for this article:
>
>
> http://mynorthwest.com/813/2938339/Should-President-Obama-have-come-right-home-after-the-attacks-in-Brussels
>
>
> Note the lack of tree threading, and the very low information density.
>
> BTW, the distributed nature of NNTP I regard as a major asset. The
> aggregate of the forum posts are an immense resource for D, and having
> it in a central location in a proprietary format is pretty risky.

Discourse is free & open: http://www.discourse.org/ , so there are none 
of those issues.

>
> Also, the C++ illuminati communicate via a mailing list
> (lists.isocpp.org), pretty much equivalent to NNTP. So does Linux. We
> aren't really out of step with serious developers. Are they old codgers,
> or are they on to something overlooked by others? Another thing I like
> about this approach is that posts are restricted to text rather than
> emoji and pictures and pretty styling - i.e. actual content.
>

Are they old codgers? Y...yes?
Let me rephrase that, are you really asking if the C++ community can be 
taken *face-value* as example of modern practices? No, they can't. That 
is not to say there aren't brilliant developers there, there sure are. 
That isn't to say either that there aren't individual C++ coders who 
understand modern practices quite well. But to take the ideology of the 
community and C++ as examples of modern technology and practices... 
hell, no.

But more importantly, you have to take legacy considerations into 
account. There's massive history in the newsgroups, people are used to 
it, people are used to their NNTP clients, people have workflows around 
it, etc.

It's a very different question to ask if one should use NNTP or a forum 
software for a *new* community, than to change an existing community to 
a different forum system. And C++ is all about legacy, compatibility, 
dinosaurs...

> It's hard to find any actual content buried in all the noise:
>
>    http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=112797.0
>

*sigh* You can't compare a forum community (and a forum software) for 
essentially an *entertainment* hobby, to a forum community (and a forum 
software) built for *technical*, *professional* discussion.

In particular there are no post signatures in Discourse (or they are 
disabled in the Discourse forums I visit). There are emojis, though.💖

>  no threading,
>
>

Of all these, I agree (tree) threading can be an issue (see my OP). 
However, ultimately if there are shortcomings in web forum software 
these *can* be addressed, eventually.

But most shortcomings of NNTP are innate and cannot be addressed, not in 
a proper way.
-- 
Bruno Medeiros
https://twitter.com/brunodomedeiros