Decisions.....

Discussion of general topics related to the new version and its place in the world. Don't discuss new features, report bugs, ask for support, et cetera. Don't use this to spam for other boards or attack those boards!
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Discussion of general topics related to the new release and its place in the world. Don't discuss new features, report bugs, ask for support, et cetera. Don't use this to spam for other boards or attack those boards!
grrrlromeo
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by grrrlromeo »

I just modded my 2.0.8 board with the Profile Control Panel mod. I really couldn't wait as I needed the Ignore feature. I also have Attachment mod. Here are three things I consider before adding a mod at this point:

2.2 has the features I'm adding to 2.0.8. Members won't understand when a feature they had goes away. If you tell them it's because you're upgrading, well that won't make sense to them since generally upgrading means adding features, not taking away.

The mod is easy to uninstall. (At least for me as I know enough SQL to change tables back that mods have changed.)

2.0.8 mod authors said there will be a 2.2 version of their mod, or a way to upgrade.
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kersti
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by kersti »


I think that at the moment I'm leaning towards a pre-modded install package as a time saver until the new version is stable.


MoonBuggy
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by MoonBuggy »

I'd say that's a bad idea - a hand-modded forum could cause upgrade problems, but a pre-modded one where you don't even know what went in sounds like it could be a real issue.
"that's why I lie in ponds wrapped in my sleeping bag going 'bloop' all night long" - Pit, on IRC

gweilo8888
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by gweilo8888 »

kersti wrote:OK, being a developer in a large organisation myself I LOVE the no release date...

However, that said... I'm about to set up two new boards and have a dilema to consider... do I mod these up to get lovely features and then have to go through the pain of trying to upgrade when 2.2 is officially released or should I sit tight and wait.

I guess what I'd like to see is a vague ballpark - I really don't care about exact dates etc, but I'd love some indication about whether or not it's worth modding existing/new oards now or not...
I had been holding off on modding my boards anyway, because it makes upgrades a pain in the neck, and I like to get security updates in ASAP after they're released. With that said, I certainly wouldn't be modding with 2.2 on the way.

Thing is, I'm now facing a decision, because with the karma system being dumped, I'm now having to consider moving to another board that includes this feature by default, even if I have to pay for it. I see karma as the equivalent of spam filtering in the email world, and with my boards gradually getting more and more filled with arguments, off-topic posts and the suchlike, the ability for users to ignore that kind of thing without having to manually ignore specific users is now a must, to me. (I really wish that somebody would make a forum with a good plugin/addon system that negates the need to edit files, such as is done with most other complex software such as Photoshop, etc., so upgrades would be a clean, easy process regardless of the plugins / addons you chose to use.)

To go back to your question though, if I end up not finding another board that meets my needs and has karma by default, I will not be modding my phpBB2.0 installs before 2.2 comes out.

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psoTFX
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by psoTFX »

As I've stated, Karma is not an easy thing to implement ... do a search for "karma implementation" or some such, you'll soon realise what I mean. If your base decision is one in which karma is essential for spam filtering you may end up disappointed. Unless you use an entirely different solution tailored for that specific purpose.

The system we were intending to implement would've (more than likely) resulted in a situation where users were driven to low or high karma (or sat at neutral) and been unable to effectively move away from those positions. Alternatively no users would've made use of it thus rendering it useless.

If you want proper "spam" control of your forums the most effective solution is good moderation. What 2.2 does provide are new moderation tools to help. Personally I think that's more important.

gweilo8888
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by gweilo8888 »

psoTFX wrote:As I've stated, Karma is not an easy thing to implement ... do a search for "karma implementation" or some such, you'll soon realise what I mean. If your base decision is one in which karma is essential for spam filtering you may end up disappointed. Unless you use an entirely different solution tailored for that specific purpose.

The system we were intending to implement would've (more than likely) resulted in a situation where users were driven to low or high karma (or sat at neutral) and been unable to effectively move away from those positions. Alternatively no users would've made use of it thus rendering it useless.

If you want proper "spam" control of your forums the most effective solution is good moderation. What 2.2 does provide are new moderation tools to help. Personally I think that's more important.
Thanks for the reply, it is much appreciated. Don't get me wrong, I do understand it is a hard thing to implement, but I just personally feel that in the boards I run, it would be better to let the users themselves control what content they feel is appropriate and worth reading, and what isn't - both by rating posts they like or don't like, and then setting a threshold below which they're not interested in seeing posts. Moderators tend to get a very polarised view of things, and power trips come into play, or they tend to take a very hands-off approach and only step in during extreme circumstances.

If you feel you couldn't implement karma well in phpBB, then obviously you're right not to include it, although I feel it is a great shame. I really don't like installing mods / hacks, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that, because it potentially causes problems when upgrading later, and you can't always predict those problems. Hence if karma isn't in the phpBB core, it essentially won't be available to me at all.

Like I said, if somebody could make a forum system that had a proper plugin system rather than having people edit files to get things changed, this wouldn't be an issue. I'm not aware of any forum that has a plugin system like that, though, and nobody seems to be working on one...

Graham
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by Graham »

To a point, 2.2 is modular in the areas where it is sensible to do it (ie the ones which will be most likely to have new bits added to them), so in the case of the User Control Panel, the Moderator Control Panel and the Admin Control Panel you can add extra pages just by dropping in the files (and adding a few database entries in from some of them).

The trouble is in other areas of the system, this is not so practical to do.
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gwkampfengerl
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by gwkampfengerl »

i was looking in cvs for the actual formula with which the developers calculated the karma of the users. however it seems that the it was removed completely from cvs. my question. as a statistician i'd like to play a bit around with it, trying to implement some bayes methods on this stuff. so has anybody still older snapshots at with karma still in cvs or at least the formula?

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psoTFX
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by psoTFX »

You'll need to examine winCVS for an older version of viewtopic ...

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/* ... &rev=1.328" target="_blank

If you can propose something which is meaningful and implementable (and won't eat into performance) I'll happily take a look at it.

gwkampfengerl
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Re: Decisions.....

Post by gwkampfengerl »

psoTFX wrote:You'll need to examine winCVS for an older version of viewtopic ...

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/* ... &rev=1.328" target="_blank

If you can propose something which is meaningful and implementable (and won't eat into performance) I'll happily take a look at it.
mea culpa. i didn't find this. i'll look at it, can't promise anything though, because as you mentioned it probably a lot better to to implement further moderating tools because even if you have a good method on calculating this stuff, you still have to deal with the problem that this mehtod of calculating the karma rating should be somewhat changable because each and every community is different,...

anyway, we'll see :)

thanks again psotfx.

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