How do you get comfortable with Dlang.org's Forum?

[Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)]

On 02/23/2018 08:47 AM, biocyberman wrote:
> 
>  From my experience with forum platforms like vBulletin, phpBB, Invision 
> Power, and even interfaces of Google group, and Github Issues, I still 
> find it very difficult to understand the logics of using dlang's forum. 

I really don't see what there is to not understand, for the most part. 
The only real tricky point, really, is just that it's a threaded format 
and the web interface (unfortunately, and mistakenly IMO) insists on 
defaulting to an unthreaded view of an inherently threaded system.

Aside from that though, it's just like any other email or message board 
system:

1. Read the posts in the threads (topics).

2. Hit "reply" on a post.

3. Type your reply.

4. Send.

That's all there is to it: It's nothing fundamentally different from 
anything else that's ever existed (except maybe Google Wave, but, 
well...umm, yea...that was that ;) )

> So, how do you guys 
> overcome these problems:
> 
> =====
> 1. No post editting. After clicking send, and found out that you made 
> mistakes in the post, but you can't edit the post anymore.

1. Proofread *before* sending. (Just like any letter or email.)

2. Follow-up post if there's any important corrections (hardly a big deal)

3. Don't be a perfectionist (it's just a forum, not a doctorial thesis.)

> 2. Old-day quoting presentation. I always feel reluctant to read texts 
> that stays after two levels of quotes, like this:
>   >First post quoted
>   >>Second post quoted
>   >>>Third post quoted
>   >>Second post quoted
> ....
> 

If you mean the angle-bracket syntax: What's the big deal? Surely not 
just that it *isn't* something brand-new, I would hope?

If you mean reading *all* the quoted text: Don't bother. Just skim 
enough to know what it is that's being replied to, then move on the 
actual message.


> 3. No Rich-text format support. No minimal bold/italic support. Some 
> tools to emphasize important points will make it easier to let the 
> readers know what the posters want to say.

Anything beyond *doing this* for emphasis is just wasting your time 
futzing with trivialities that don't matter. You probably have better 
things to be doing. It's just a forum, not a journal article.

> 4.  No code formatting. Same feeling here. I am reluctant to post more 
> than 5 lines of code.

Just mark it like anyone else does:

---
code here
---

Or post a link.

> 5. No image support. In many cases a screenshots will be helpful to 
> communicate problems.

Just post a link.

> 6. Last but not least, a trendy feature: tags, keywords for threads so 
> we can locate related threads easily.

That's would be like adding tags to your emails. Waste of bother. This 
is for discussions, it's not really meant as a database.

> If I may say it honestly, and despite the useful 'save unsent draft' 
> feature, the forum is by far the most user-unfriendly forum platform 
> ever (by appearance).

You don't like its appearance? I think the web interface is WAY 
nicer-looking than any phpbb forum or the latest versions of the popular 
webmail clients, but I guess to each his own. But that's one of the nice 
things about it being a newsgroup instead of a web message board: You 
can use whatever interface you want. Personally, I use thunderbird (I 
even get to use a dark theme that way.)

Aside from maybe code formatting, these are all very trivial, 
unimportant features, and I strongly beleive the second half of the 
following is appropriate here (ie, the "Fire and Motion" aka "Covering 
Fire" stuff):
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/