Posts by wild1145

  • Do we remove CoreProtect Data from the server from before April 2021?

    In an effort to fix some issues, and to allow us to ultimately create the additional game-modes we want to launch, we need to make space on the TF Network and reduce the stupid amount of disk space that we currently use.


    My current proposal which I'd like the community to provide input on, is if we remove any CoreProtect data from before April 2021 from the live server, and archive it off-site.


    This won't impact the maps or any builds, but means any actions done before April 2021 will no longer be tracked (So any damage done before this date will not be practical to roll-back in short).


    Based on the server size thread, I suspect this will free up a considerable amount of disk space in CoreProtect, and make it a lot more useable for admins. I'd like to get peoples thoughts before I go ahead and archive this data out though.


    Cheers.

  • Server Size

    I've updated with data as of today.


    The good news is the work we're doing to down-size the CoreProtect Database on Freedom-01 seems to be working. the bad news is we've still got a lot of data to delete before it'll be back at a manageable size.

  • Image Upload Sizing

    @StevenNL2000#16522 Yeah, that's true. I think at the moment attachments will be auto-deleted after 90 days so blocking them entirely might make more sense, at least for post ones as you say anyway.


    Especially given currently the only restriction on embedding external content is that it's on a secure end-point (Valid TLS Cert for https://) rather than enabling any sort of whitelisting, it shouldn't be too hard for folks to upload their stuff, hell just throw it in a Discord server, they never actually delete images when you delete them from the chat anyway!


    Size wise for profile pics and such I'll look at, we just need to strike a balance because I don't want the forum taking 20 mins to load for folks like me on shit internet because it's got to download 2GB in images or some nonsense!

  • New forum ideas

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    @Telesphoreo#16521 The dashboard functionality seems broken then. If you click on any of the tabs it will bring you back to the dashboard. However, if you're on the forums tab already and you click the logo, you will be taken to the list of boards.

    Okay, I'll take a look into that, the expectation is once you're on the /boards endpoint the logo will always take you back there. The logo will likely take you back to the dashboard from other sections because of how Woltlab works (And the boards are an "add-on") now to the core suite, but that's weird anyway.

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    @Telesphoreo#16521 Regardless, it seems as if you have a much more sane approach to the transition than Seth did. I was the one who initially setup Flarum in pure hatred to MyBB. I really like Flarum, but I was only trying to show how the forums could have theoretically looked. I never fully intended for Seth to use it, or for you to set it up again. I really just made a temporary beta, and of course that temporary beta became our permanent solution.

    Yeah, MyBB can be setup well, but again it's like all of this, you've got to do it right and take your time, I think the original move from Proboards was rushed and as highlighted by the fact we're on Flarum it clearly didn't go well! And as with all "prototypes" they somehow always become official / permanent so guess that's no real surprise either!

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    @Telesphoreo#16521 Would have tried Discourse except for the ridiculous requirements and prerequisites.

    (Yes this is off topic but eh) - It's okay software, I used it for another ATLAS project and have used it before, I found it to be a lot more polished and easier to work with than I have Flarum, but the big issue for me and this community is the lack of depth on boards, you could only have 2 layers, which is no better than the 2 layers of tagging here. It is a bastard to setup but once it's up and running it is quite nice to use, and I do prefer using it over Flarum but it's still not quite the right fit for TF that does need that more complex and lengthy hierarchy of boards.

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    @Telesphoreo#16521 Speaking of, we should probably take a page out of ProBoards and automatically only quote the previous two quotes on the third one and so on. When you let the quote go on and on you get this eyesore

    Yeah, I was playing with the quote depth settings, by default it only quotes a single post, I turned that off entirely because it does in theory collapse that down, but it still looks like a hot mess and as Steven has said on here or another thread, it will spiral in the deep discussion sections. I think that's now capped at 3, so you should still be able to get plenty of context but it won't end up as a really long hot mess like your screen shot there.

  • New forum ideas

    @Telesphoreo#16517 The thing is, 90% of what you describe is the result of the theming, Woltlab is very customizable, but that comes at a cost and it's about striking the right balance, so there's no reason we can't change these things, we just need to actually do it. As I say though, we had never originally planned to do anything about themes in the tech preview, this was more to play with the forums themselves.


    Articles may well get disabled, it's a native Woltlab feature, but as you say, the amount of use in our community they will get is possibly limited, because if I wanted to write blog's / similar relating to TF, they'd be posted on https://blog.atlas-media.co.uk and linked off of the forums, or it'd be an announcement. It's just a new feature since I last used Woltlab in anger, so didn't see the point in disabling it yet in case we felt there was a good use for it, but even then it's still not going to be as good as a proper Wiki tool as you illuded to in your post.


    The dashboard should only show if you go to the root URL, once you're in Woltlab clicking the logo should for example take you to the forum home and not the dashboard. The dashboard config will need tweaking to make it look how I want it to look, and as I said in reply to Steven's message here, it may end up making more sense to be the root page for totalfreedom.me like what Spigot do, as that was the sort of look I was really going for.


    And I know a lot of the broken Proboards stuff is the result of Seth's tantrum and deleting the forums, and Proboards certainly I think is a better fit for the community than Flarum (For the same reason I wouldn't move to Discourse, it moves away from the "Board" structure which I think we actually do need), but I've found Woltlab to be an excellent bit of software, and there will be some getting used to it, but I'm keen that we make it as painless a migration as possible, I've no intention of just up and shifting everyone over like Seth had done, which is why I'm taking my time and we're in no rush. We'll move when I feel it's ready and the community are generally happy with things on the proposed new setup.

  • New forum ideas

    @StevenNL2000#16488 The dashboard will (When I've got it working exactly how I want it to) serve as a "Latest News" type thing, a little bit like https://www.spigotmc.org where it's a home page of the latest updates and announcements.


    It may make more sense in the longer term to converge and have totalfreedom.me show as that dashboard / landing page, and then /boards be the forum, but for now at least I have split it like this because it just makes more sense, especially for the technical testing side of things we're currently doing.

  • Excellentgamer1 admin application

    @Erin#16473 I don't disagree, just trying to get progress one step at a time, and people seem to be happy to object quite often without reading the OP / suggestion / app at all, so trying to remove that first, then we can start to deal with people vouching without a reason :)

  • Excellentgamer1 admin application

    Could I ask here and as a general rule of thumb that if individuals wish to object, could they please include some sort of reason why.


    It's of no value to me as an owner, the eao or the candidate if everyone just says object without any reasoning why.

  • New forum ideas

    All of the styling is still a wip. It wasn't something we originally planned to do yet but everyone moaned about there only being a light theme. I know it's not perfect especially on mobile. For some reason it seems to be slightly worse on mobile but we're working through it as we go.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 Also it's really hard to tell if a thread is selected. You have to click on the title of the thread as well. On Flarum, you can click anywhere on the line of the thread and it'll bring you there. I think that's a genuine functionality improvement that should be implemented on WoltLab.

    Not sure how much control we have over this especially on desktop, but I also suspect this is the results of the custom themes not making it as obvious that the titles are linked. I never knew flarum let you select a thread from anywhere on the row because it looks like the title is the link, so as I say the themes should make this better, but otherwise I suspect we can not change this behaviour realistically.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 Other improvements are to put the sidebar at the top of the page with the user info and fix the padding

    This is theme dependant. We've had it at the top on some themes and on the left for others. Again the styling is being worked through in slow time.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 What's the point of a dashboard if you can't customize it? Shouldn't you be able to add or remove what you want to your dashboard? Seems kind of useless if not and in my opinion the boards should be at the homepage of the forum.

    The dashboard is designed to show the latest announcements or other things that I want the community to know about. It's not intended to be customized and that is by design. The dashboard is only shown if you go to the forums for the first time, or if you then click back to the dashboard. It shouldn't be something that ends up really getting in the way once you start using the forum.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 I also don't understand why the categories tab on the articles page has to take it up and then there be dead space under it. The comment section feels crammed

    This section hasn't had a lot of time looking at it yet as the boards themselves have been the priority. Will look into this.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 Also, I think the padding for discussions is pretty big. If there was a normal theme instead of a blur on an image, we could have lines to separate threads.



    I think the backgrou

    The padding I think is more or less the default and it's just the way woltlab tends to make itself look. Again nothing stopping us trying to change it if we want to. This is something we can look at as we mature the styles.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 Also, what's up with uploading images? Why do we need to put a source and a link? Isn't that the same thing?

    I suspect source is the image itself and link is a link to go to when you click it, but will check.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 The final two things are I think there should be an option to let us have a smaller profile picture sidebar view. Feels like the avatar is too big which makes the rest of the sidebar too big.

    This is linked to the theme so its a theme specific change we'd need to make fwiw. See previous comments here on the style.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 And finally, I think that the logo is too big. On a laptop, the logo seems to take up most of the screen. On Flarum, the title is small enough that you can still get a glimpse if a lot has happened since you last saw the forum. I mean, just look at how much space is being used on WoltLab compared to Flarum

    Yep that's fair. I think that's the default sizing for that theme, but we need to do some tweaks, it looks okay on larger monitors but clearly not on smaller ones.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 I personally don't like the new forums. I feel like Flarum had a really good design, but doesn't have a great suite of features or permission system

    Flarum has a lot more wrong with it than permissions, and tbh the design isn't great imo either. Speaking to one of the folks that work on flarum about why we're moving off, they agreed with me that flarum isn't fit for our community.

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    @Telesphoreo#16425 ProBoards had both a great design and a lot of features,

    That's the only bit there I disagree with. The design was only bareable due to masses of work to create custom themes, but it especially in its current state is exceptionally buggy and feature lacking. All the users on our old forum on proboards are broken due to weird orphan groups and all sorts like that... Not to mention the design has been crap out the box for years!

  • Recent Posts

    @StevenNL2000#16457 ahh awesome. I just refreshed this morning and it seems to be be fixed for me so must have just been timing.