Forum quality

Is anyone else concerned by the relevance of this forum to RISC OS being eroded. The signal to noise ratio is just getting worse can worse.

An increasing amount of off topic drivel is getting into the main line. Aldershot still exists, if one really has to discuss Sanskrit for example.

The downside to Aldershot is that it appears in ‘Recent posts’ so if one wants a quick look at the latest ROOL happenings there is all that clutter to wade through.

I used to enjoy this forum, but no longer, and am reluctant to post with the pedant ever lurking to nit-pick.

Is this ROOL’s forum or is it the domain of a few frequent posters? Does this forum as it now is encourage or discourage any new users? It has been said before, this forum is ROOL’s public face, how do we want RISC OS to be presented, seriously or not?

This forum is really useful. It’s one of my go-to places for technical information and problem solving. Often there are people who’ve tried the same thing as me before then posted here, and reading those threads gives me clues how to proceed; there are knowledgeable people who have given in-depth explanations about the OS, and detailed plans for the future.

Please bear in mind when posting off-topic, that the thread might not be read just today, but also in months, or years time by others looking for the answer to their question. When you move things to Aldershot you do user and programmer alike a favour, making it easier for them to sift through information.

I also feel that there is a worse signal-to-noise ratio these days (not so much because of an absolute increase in noise, but a reduction in signal, mostly because Jeffrey is posting much less frequently, which is probably a good idea to help him concentrate on his huge TODO list).

Unfortunately, I also feel that I am more often part of the noise than of the signal :-(

I’m trying a little experiment. It’s a place where all the off-topic stuff is welcome… wait, if it’s on-topic it can’t be off-… oh, never mind. ;-)

My domain is heyrick.eu (use SSL!) and the magic path is the /aldershot

Amazingly, it even appears to work with NetSurf!

Have fun.

All aboard the Aldershot Express!

I’m utterly failing to log in on the Aldershot Express 8~( – I’ve requested a new password several times, but the new passwords don’t let me in. Also “activation codes.”

What am I doing wrong? Other folks seem to have managed to get in.

What browser? If Netsurf, do you have access to anything more modern? I ask because the Caoimhe test account doesn’t like to let me in with Netsurf, but Firefox no problem. The heyrick account works on both. Hmm…?

I think user names might be case sensitive too.

Firefox on Mac (High Sierra).

When I first applied I was on the other Mac (Mojave iirc), but by the time you approved me I’d come onto this laptop. I can try from the Mojave again later.

Or of course I could try from NetSurf – but would I then be able to use the same username and password from the Mac?

Just signed up fine and logged in with FF89 on Win10. Nice work Rick!

Just noticed, Clive, your username has a space in it. Try creating a user without the space. It’s a long shot, but….?

Ah – will do!

Another possible issue – after I clicked on the activation link in the email, a message saying something about approval by an administrator appeared, but I didn’t have time to read it before it was replaced by the MyBB screen. I never even noticed it before! Did I need to read it & act on it in any way?

Enlisted using NetSurf (3.11 #5265).
No problems registering -even with a captcha.

something about approval by an administrator appeared,

Yup. Until I have approved the account, you can only post (with very limited abilities) to the playpen.
It seems strange to me that the approval notification flashes by, whilst the “post submitted” hangs around forever. Some time I’ll need to look at the code to see if this can be tweaked.

Did you guys get a “security question” and how did you get on with it? I tried to anticipate possible responses…

Did you guys get a “security question”

What’s 2 + 2? I had to rack my brains to think what that might be.

The captchas (I lost count of them) were easier.

2+2 here and the first captcha was unusable – I couldn’t interpret one character correctly (not 1 or l, not sure what it was), but the refreshed one was fine.

first captcha was unusable

Yeah, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between 1, l, and I (depending on font), as well as 0 and O.

That’s one, ell, capital ai; and zero, capital oh. ;-)

The standard captcha isn’t very good (fairly easy to defeat), but using something more complicated would likely put it out of Netsurf’s abilities.
Plus, taxis and school buses aren’t yellow and I’m sick (sick, I tell you, sick) of being asked to choose the squares showing “crosswalks”.

On the other hand, asides from various automated anti spam measures (time taken to fill out sign up page, anti flood posting measures), there’s also a useful little admin button called “Purge spammer” that will nuke all messages (public and private) as well as new threads by that user; then blank user fields that could be used for spam (such as bio and website), then push the entire user to the ban list. In one click. Well, two, I’m guessing it asks for confirmation first. ;-)

2+2 huh? You got the boring default question. There are more exciting ones that I’ve added.

There’s a calendar too. Feel free to add events (any shows coming up?). The calendar adder thingy looks like the message posting (subject, content) so you can include descriptions, links, etc.

Oh, I’ve also added a British English language set (rated experimental for some reason, let me know if there are issues and I’ll look into making my own translation into the Queen’s proper English) et aussi française. British is default, you can choose your own in the profile settings or a little widget at the bottom of each page.

I’ve also hacked the “Portal” to become “Recent posts” that displays a backwards list like this forum. It’s a very basic version (no formatting at all) but it appears to work. And, whoo, I’ve not managed to break it…yet… ;-)

rated experimental for some reason

Hmm, it doesn’t appear to have date values for “yesterday” and “today”. How weird, given they’re the same in both dialects.

I’m thinking I might be better off tossing the British English messages set and rolling my own from the default (American) messages.

This isn’t even in ROOL Aldershot, never mind Rick Aldershot.

But I can’t resist mentioning the fact that Yesterday and Tomorrow are the same word in Hindi…

Yesterday and Tomorrow are the same word in Hindi…

@Clive. See Anatoly Liberman’s article The future is in the past in https://blog.oup.com . This appears to be a not unusual feature of Indo-European languages. Gothic gistra-dagis apparently meant tomorrow as well as yesterday , just next day in either direction.

Is anyone else concerned by the relevance of this forum to RISC OS being eroded. The signal to noise ratio is just getting worse can worse.

Are they trying to wind you up, David? After the first few posts the usual culprits are out in force again!

Hands up who needs a good drucking?

All aboard the Aldershot Express!

Well, that didn’t last long, did it? This place is still unusable for its intended purpose.