Bugs and Suggestions for Metabunk.org

Unfortunately there's no easy way of doing it.

Perhaps one should take the difficult in quoting as an indication that the discussion has diversified too far :)
 
One thing that I have noticed is that when I click on a thread and the forum software tries to take me to the "unread" link, it absolutely never works on my laptop. Never, ever. This doesn't happen on a newer W7 machine with a fast broadband connection, but on my laptop running windows XP in Chrome along with a very slow wifi connection, I cannot view a thread at all unless for some reason the link mysteriously changes to not try sending me to "unread".

I'm sure that the root of the problem is on my end, and if I really want to read the thread I can log out and once the site doesn't recognize me anymore I'll not be sent to "unread". There must be something about the "unread" URL that takes more time and so Chrome gives up. Folks like me with slow connections are finding that site designs are a greater and greater hindrance. You aren't really loading a stand-alone site anymore, a URL has to draw from perhaps a dozen other URL's to load a page completely, even the ubiquitous Facebook, Twitter and Googleplus stuff hangs us up frequently. It is a very big hassle and I often have to try reloading a single page 4-6 times before I get the full version.

I do really like your software feature which saves drafts, though, because I frequently try to "post reply" multiple times before my posting actually gets completed, sometimes not till the next day, and I don't lose the text I created.

This isn't a complaint, and I know I am a frequent enough poster so that maybe slowing me down is a good thing!
 
Mick West said:
People mostly get banned for spam. I don't really want to repost that spam.

He needs to do it like this guy, posting his user name and a copy of the post, so people can see why he was banned.
http://goo.gl/LHQC10
Click to expand...

(whistles), now that's some spam. Weirdly, I've come across that exact post on a number of occasions, once on a football forum. I reckon he has the whole lot saved to a file and just copies/pastes it where ever he can.
 
Jay Reynolds said:
One thing that I have noticed is that when I click on a thread and the forum software tries to take me to the "unread" link, it absolutely never works on my laptop. Never, ever. This doesn't happen on a newer W7 machine with a fast broadband connection, but on my laptop running windows XP in Chrome along with a very slow wifi connection, I cannot view a thread at all unless for some reason the link mysteriously changes to not try sending me to "unread".

I'm sure that the root of the problem is on my end, and if I really want to read the thread I can log out and once the site doesn't recognize me anymore I'll not be sent to "unread". There must be something about the "unread" URL that takes more time and so Chrome gives up. Folks like me with slow connections are finding that site designs are a greater and greater hindrance. You aren't really loading a stand-alone site anymore, a URL has to draw from perhaps a dozen other URL's to load a page completely, even the ubiquitous Facebook, Twitter and Googleplus stuff hangs us up frequently. It is a very big hassle and I often have to try reloading a single page 4-6 times before I get the full version
Click to expand...

You could try clicking on the date/time, which instead of linking you to the unread link (which is a redirect)
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/bugs-and-suggestions-for-metabunk-org.1959/unread

Will take you more directly to the last post in the thread:
https://www.metabunk.org/posts/75682/

However that's also still a redirect, so might have similar problems.

Do you get any kind of error message? Does the URL change in the address bar? Does anything show up on screen?
 
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Mick West said:
The problem there is that people reply twentyfold. It gets rather messy.
Click to expand...

I see, but it would be helpful if when you quoted a post it didn't just quote what THAT poster said, and not include what THEY quoted. If that makes sense.
 
JRBids said:
Can there be a "next thread" button? Or is there already and I'm missing it?
Click to expand...

You mean like "Next thread with unread posts", so you don't have to go back to the "Recent Threads" sidebar?

That's something I'd like too :) I might have to program it.
 
JRBids said:
I see, but it would be helpful if when you quoted a post it didn't just quote what THAT poster said, and not include what THEY quoted. If that makes sense.
Click to expand...

What you say describes the way things work now. Did you mean it should just include one additional level of quotes?

Then you'd have the problem of the sub-quotes then losing meaning.

I think it's rarely an issue - and then can be handled manually if needed. Multi-point threads tend to be pretty useless anyway, so in a way I like the forced focus.
 
Mick West said:
You mean like "Next thread with unread posts", so you don't have to go back to the "Recent Threads" sidebar?

That's something I'd like too :) I might have to program it.
Click to expand...

Yes, exactly! :)

Mick West said:
What you say describes the way things work now. Did you mean it should just include one additional level of quotes?

Then you'd have the problem of the sub-quotes then losing meaning.

I think it's rarely an issue - and then can be handled manually if needed. Multi-point threads tend to be pretty useless anyway, so in a way I like the forced focus.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm just not using the features correctly. In your quote just above this, you say "What you say describes....." If I see this quote far away from what I described, someone else doesn't know what you are talking about. My quote is not there. But I do understand it would be complicated and handled manually.
 
You're using it correctly, I think you just had a double negative and misplaced comma there:
it would be helpful if when you quoted a post it didn't ..., and not include what THEY quoted. If that makes sense.
Click to expand...

:)

Note you can go back to the previous post, click on Reply, and then the next post and click on reply, and both posts will be quoted.
 
qed said:
Please may we have HTTPS access.

It's the scout thing to do.
Click to expand...

I don't do it because A) it costs money. B) it could slow the site down. C) My NSA spymasters forbid it.

The initial problem is that my free CDN (Cloudflare) does not support it unless I pay them $20 per month.
https://www.cloudflare.com/plans

I could possibly do it for free just on a subdomain (ssl.metabunk.org) that bypasses the CDN, and use that just for logins/posting. But that's a little fiddly, and still costs for static IP and the certificate.
 
What would https change, what's the benefit? I know the s stands for secure, but it's a forum, what becomes 'secure'?
 
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Pete Tar said:
What would https change, what's the benefit? I know the s stands for secure, but it's a forum, what becomes 'secure'?
Click to expand...

There is some confidential information that could be intercepted. Specifically your password. Https would prevent anyone other than (possibly) NSA/GCHQ from being able to intercept it.
 
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The communication is encrypted end-to-end.

Personally, my concern is only on my side and from my "colleagues".

I am not concerned with someone reading my browsing!

I am concerned with third parties tampering with my browsing and injecting malicious nonsense.

I do trust Metabunk:), I just don't trust some folk closer to my end:mad:.

This is why I often use TOR‎.
 
There's about five users who use TOR.

I'll think a bit more about SSL, I'd have to see some more demand, or advantages for it. I'd kind of like it for my own browsing. But I'd have to drop Cloudflare (which I'm not sure is actually doing anything anyway...).
 
Mick West said:
There's about five users who use TOR.
Click to expand...

If you continue to allow TOR then I am content given that this is my problem.

I have just been a bit embarrassed that I use it.

If you had HTTPS I would use that instead (it is the polite thing to do).
 
Jay Reynolds said:
One thing that I have noticed is that when I click on a thread and the forum software tries to take me to the "unread" link, it absolutely never works on my laptop. Never, ever. This doesn't happen on a newer W7 machine with a fast broadband connection, but on my laptop running windows XP in Chrome along with a very slow wifi connection, I cannot view a thread at all unless for some reason the link mysteriously changes to not try sending me to "unread".

I'm sure that the root of the problem is on my end, and if I really want to read the thread I can log out and once the site doesn't recognize me anymore I'll not be sent to "unread". There must be something about the "unread" URL that takes more time and so Chrome gives up. Folks like me with slow connections are finding that site designs are a greater and greater hindrance. You aren't really loading a stand-alone site anymore, a URL has to draw from perhaps a dozen other URL's to load a page completely, even the ubiquitous Facebook, Twitter and Googleplus stuff hangs us up frequently. It is a very big hassle and I often have to try reloading a single page 4-6 times before I get the full version.

I do really like your software feature which saves drafts, though, because I frequently try to "post reply" multiple times before my posting actually gets completed, sometimes not till the next day, and I don't lose the text I created.

This isn't a complaint, and I know I am a frequent enough poster so that maybe slowing me down is a good thing!
Click to expand...

Jay, let me know if this is still an issue. The "unread" link should just take you to a redirect. I've made quite a few changes to the server software, which might have accidentally fixed the problem. But there's really no go reason it would not work.

Something else you could try is using Firefox, and changing the the timeout. Although the default of 90 seconds should really be enough:
upload_2013-11-20_17-36-28.png
 
There appears to be a little bug with the Members In Chat summary on the home page.

  1. It sometimes lists members who are not logged in (for quite some time).
  2. It used to list me before I had even discovered chat.
 
Mick and/or mods: When an otherwise useful thread starts to get sidetracked and cluttered with back and forth between members (no offense intended to those members engaged in the back and forth) it is not only annoying, but negatively impacts the effectiveness of exposing the bunk out there. Is there a mechanism in place to have the situation addressed?

Case in point: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/useful-chemtrail-debunking-images-and-infographics.1007/ posts 162 - 173 are just a back and forth discussion without any images/infographics, which is the purpose of that thread. There are other areas in Metabunk which would be more relevant to those discussions.... some which might belong in the rambles section.
 
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Usually that stuff is deleted as off-topic, I'm sure it will be soon. It's more enforced in a sticky thread where the purpose is easily defined.
 
Mick. I follow conspiracy sites regularly to keep watch on them. It's part of my illuminati duties, as you know :) Would it be possible to create a news section? News related to CTs or CT news sites. I think it would be very helpful if we had a go to place to on the forum where we can keep track of everything happening in that world that does not fit into your other more specific categories, like debunking a whole theory for instance. Let's say a major CT is found dead, or one gets thrown in jail, or one announces his run for president lolz.
 
moderateGOP said:
Mick. I follow conspiracy sites regularly to keep watch on them. It's part of my illuminati duties, as you know :) Would it be possible to create a news section? News related to CTs or CT news sites. I think it would be very helpful if we had a go to place to on the forum where we can keep track of everything happening in that world that does not fit into your other more specific categories, like debunking a whole theory for instance. Let's say a major CT is found dead, or one gets thrown in jail, or one announces his run for president lolz.
Click to expand...

I did have a news section for a while, the problem was that the posts generally fitted better in other sections. There's always the "General Discussion" for topics without a clear description.

https://www.metabunk.org/forums/general-discussion.2/
 
qed said:
What is the difference between login and login with stay logged in checked?
Click to expand...

If you stay logged in, then you won't be logged out when you close the browser window (assuming your cookies are working normally). Next time you visit, you will still be logged in.
 
The personal Signature is only visible for users, who are loged in. Not for guests from "outside"

For me this is important, because i´m apologizing myself for my baat englisch Skills ;)

My Signature: "(Sorry for bad english, including spelling-faults and bad grammar. I´m German, please forgive the Kraut on this Forum)"

...and i think every guest should read this under my postings!
 
FreiZeitGeist said:
The personal Signature is only visible for users, who are loged in. Not for guests from "outside"

For me this is important, because i´m apologizing myself for my baat englisch Skills ;)

My Signature: "(Sorry for bad english, including spelling-faults and bad grammar. I´m German, please forgive the Kraut on this Forum)"

...and i think every guest should read this under my postings!
Click to expand...

I'm afraid it's that way to avoid confusing the search engines. Signatures are unrelated to the actual thread content, but the search engines see them as part of the thread, so it gets indexed incorrectly.

I don't think you have anything to worry about though, your English is fine.
 
Mick West said:
Please post any problems you find with the site in this sticky thread. I'll try to get to them, and I'll mark them as fixed as I go.

I'll edit this list as I go
  • Chat and Activity Stream use a lot of bandwidth
  • Menu structure is inconsistent between Home and Forum
  • Dark themes need appropriate colors for EX/BUNK tags, and chat (BlackEnd lacks colors for chat, but Black Abyss does not
  • Changing Avatars does not take effect for a while
  • Need indication of post being edited
When version 1.2 of Xenforo is released:
  • Readable font size for mobile devices.
Fixed:
  • Double posts in Conversations (fixed for Posts)
Click to expand...

Jeepers, I should get on some of these......
 
Is there any way to improve the search engine? I have trouble finding a phrase that will easily get to the thread I am looking for. Sometimes I have to just go through all 31 pages in the chemtrails forum to find the thread I want. If you could put all of the threads titles on one compact page, that would help. I suppose I could save a few of what I consider the most significant threads on my favorites individually.
 
Steve Funk said:
Is there any way to improve the search engine? I have trouble finding a phrase that will easily get to the thread I am looking for. Sometimes I have to just go through all 31 pages in the chemtrails forum to find the thread I want. If you could put all of the threads titles on one compact page, that would help. I suppose I could save a few of what I consider the most significant threads on my favorites individually.
Click to expand...
addin g on. or maybe 'tags'? I remember with the demon possession thread 'ammons' didn't work and possess didn't work. I kept forgetting if it was possessed or possession.
 
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