New Message Board Software

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-03 10:22:47

Some interesting stats for NewMars.

July was our busiest month since February. There was a nice spike the day I moved the forums (and the day after) which I attribute to my own activity (there were hundreds of megs of stuff flying around). But even with all the problems activity seemed consistent, if not slightly higher on average at the end of July than the beginning (ie, after the forums moved activity went up just a wee bit). The wiki, overall, has probably added to the hitcount, but I do think the forums have seen more activity than before in any case.

One other thing to note is that our hits went up a little, but the "size of pages served" has went down, which testifies to the fact that phpBB is more efficient at creating HTML than IkonBoard was. This is going to be really good for any future users we get.

Rxke · 2005-08-20 08:32:45

Functionality request...

I asked about this already, but I guess it's gotten buried in other posts, so I'll re-ask again (that's Engrish for 'nagging', heehee)

When I go to 'unread posts' I would like that page to have the option 'mark all topics read' because some of the posts do not really interest me, and there's no simple way to mark those topics as read, w/o actually going there... Now I have a list of unread posts, that I do not want to read, because not interested, so they stay there unless I get my lazy ass over there in order to mark them as read... Which I do not want to...

(Am I making myself clear or is this -again- too chaotic to make sense?)

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-20 11:11:56

Ahh, I understand what you mean this time. Yeah, that's dooable, probably, but the "View unread posts" page is actually just the search results page.

No, hmm, it's not that easy, just looked, I'll have to hack at it deeper. Might not be possible Rxke.

BWhite · 2005-08-22 22:24:13

[tex:7078b1e3ac] \unitlength{.6} \picture(100) {
(50,50){\circle(99)} %%head%%
(20,55;50,0;2){\fs{+1}\hat\bullet} %%eyes%%
(50,40){\bullet} %%nose%%
(50,35){\circle(50,25;34)} %%upper lip%%
(50,35){\circle(50,45;34)} %%lower lip%% }[/tex:7078b1e3ac]
Okay, it works.
ROCK ON!!

I like this one better:

wink

Sorry.

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-27 15:54:29

Does anyone else notice a delay on the images of the forum showing up? Like icons, post buttons, etc? This seems to happen when you view a post, and when you view the main index, but not when you view the subforums. I think the images are cached from the subforums, but not the main index and posts. I hope this makes sense.

Basically does the page load before the images load?

Rxke · 2005-08-27 16:11:26

Yup.

i thought it was my Firefox Adblock extension doing that, heh.

The icons, when connection is slow, even initially show up 'inflated' ie twice the normal size...
And now that you mention it, this happens too with the emoticons in the reply window...

Josh Cryer · 2005-08-27 16:20:23

It has to be some kind of caching issue, as I can't think of any other reason... I'll look in to it, but it's quite annoying.

Josh Cryer · 2005-09-03 14:20:53

Saw that the SQL server was rebooted, has that been happening often today?

Josh Cryer · 2005-09-06 10:31:35

Anyone else but me notice a significant drop in activity lately? Labor Day Weekend?

Palomar · 2005-09-06 11:34:56

Anyone else but me notice a significant drop in activity lately? Labor Day Weekend?

*Hopefully that's it and the seeming lethargy will soon be replaced with brisk discussion. So far no one's mentioned being directly or indirectly affected by the recent tragedy (Katrina).

There's plenty to talk about: Active missions (Mars and otherwise -- including new troubles with MGS), new discoveries (both on Mars and Solar System/galactic/extragalactic), free chat, etc. How could anyone be bored or "talked out"?

--Cindy

Josh Cryer · 2005-09-08 09:18:58

BTW, the "images reloading" issue hasn't been resolved yet, as you might notice, but you can keep it from happening simply by clicking on the NewMars logo, and just browsing back to whereever you want WITHOUT pressing "refresh." I don't unnderstand it, myself. But it seems the server clears the MIME cache (complicated stuff) every time a browser refreshes. It makes NO SENSE. I put in an htaccess file to extend the lifetime of image files used by the forum but it doesn't seem we have the module that it needs, I'll write some emails after today.

Josh Cryer · 2005-09-19 15:31:37

Rxke, aaaaah, after spending several million eternities trying to figure out how to add "mark all forums read" functionality to the board, I notice that it was already there! Look in the bottom left, above "Who is online" and you'll see it! Geez! Shoot me already!

Rxke · 2005-09-20 04:06:05

Sorry, just had to laugh.

But seriously, what is it doing *there* ??? Strange layout-decisions from the kind php people... (Like some seriously weird stuff going on in the Profile section, some stuff is placed in very unintuitive places, IMHO....)

Errr...Thanks for discovering that misplaced thingy Josh!

(I could of course pretend I knew about it all along, saying I was only testing you, heehee, but that'd be too cruel...)

Rxke · 2005-09-20 04:08:26

Rxke, aaaaah!

Oh, BTW, Talk Like a Pirate Day was yesterday!

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html

Josh Cryer · 2005-10-06 13:56:12

Sept. was our slowest month ever, going back as far as the stats will go. Why?

I think it was a huge drop in political discussion toward the end of the month.

Comments?

Rxke · 2005-10-06 15:49:30

Fuck political internet discussions.

Seriously. If those fsking political discussions are supposed to be the main piece of the New Mars cake, there's something seriously wrong.
for me it's a reason to visit less. For me it's a reason to become rude. All this utterly, senseless bickering over a keyboard, seesh.

Josh Cryer · 2005-10-06 16:14:58

Yeah, I think, in the end, it's a good thing. Manned Missions has been the primary motivator of hits on NewMars, which is good, in my humblest of opinions. But it would be nice if we had our hits back up to the "political debate" era, only without the politics there to hurt us.

The political thread was locked for a week there, and since then no one has touched it very much. I'm glad that it was locked.

We only dropped by about 1/3rd our hits, so political discussion, if the cause, wasn't the primary contributor to NewMars traffic, but certainly it sucked up a lot of bandwidth. 10-20 posts a day, easily, probably regular refreshing by the main contributors to see the "latest update" and so on. The political thread was a constantly moving target, and I never, quite frankly, kept up with it.

From now on I would consider political discussion a slight privledge, not a right in any way, and certainly not guaranteed.

Rxke · 2005-10-06 16:25:34

From now on I would consider political discussion a slight privledge, not a right in any way, and certainly not guaranteed.

...Enter the 'China'comments....

Josh Cryer · 2005-10-06 16:31:42

What comments? ::holds his hand over the delete button:: :twisted:

BWhite · 2005-10-06 22:30:11

What about new books?

I've been trying to write - - not argue. Well at least not here.

Josh Cryer · 2005-12-12 14:46:57

Just want you guys to know I'm semi-out-of-commission here, holidays are upon us and yeah. Plus I've been having some minor health issues (toothache, migraines, etc; haven't been sleeping well at all), so I'm just relaxing back.

I'm still here and listening, though. Any big emergencies, I'll be here. Well, assuming someone tells me.

SpaceNut · 2005-12-12 15:35:12

Give a heating pad a try on the back of the neck and on the forehead as well as for where the tooth hurts it just might be an ear infection. I had a simular even a couple of weeks ago where my teeth were hurting but I noticed only a very light pain to the ear.
Good luck an hope you feel better soon.

Rxke · 2005-12-28 08:04:47

[tex:7e1db5f823] \unitlength{.6} \picture(100) {
(50,50){\circle(99)} %%head%%
(20,55;50,0;2){\fs{+1}\hat\bullet} %%eyes%%
(50,40){\bullet} %%nose%%
(50,35){\circle(50,25;34)} %%upper lip%%
(50,35){\circle(50,45;34)} %%lower lip%% }[/tex:7e1db5f823]
Okay, it works.
ROCK ON!!

I finally got around writing a howto of sorts up at the wiki re: TeX usage for the 'boards...
http://www.newmars.com/wiki/index.php/Tex

I tried my best to make it sound fun, I hope it's not completely retarded...

Josh Cryer · 2005-12-28 12:49:33

Cool Rxke.

BTW, I'm not ignoring your Usergroup request, just crazy around here lately. My health is really messed up, so, yeah. I'll get to it. If I can remember how, heh. Keep it up Rxke, you rock dude!

Rxke · 2005-12-28 12:54:54

Don't exert yourself because of a mean, demanding no-life Belgian, heehee.

Seriously, get better soon, Josh.

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