Forum quality

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

That’s the first post on this thread in nearly four weeks. Which thread is still making the place unusable?

Which thread is still making the place unusable?

The fact that over 50% of “recent posts” (at least this weekend) is still way off-topic, and the useful stuff gets lost in the noise? Go away for even a day, and useful, relevant things can be several pages back and gone forever.

It looks to me as though that’s almost entirely in Aldershot, yes? There’s perhaps an argument for Recent Posts not to include Aldershot.

It’s an effect I don’t notice, because I don’t use Recent Posts, I look at Forum and only go to the sections I’m interested in. If you’re not interested in Aldershot, ignore it. Were there irrelevant posts in other sections?

The thing that frustrates me about this forum is the thread drift. Somebody starts a thread about some aspect of RISC OS, and by the bottom of the first page it’s diverted onto something else (quite possibly certain posters’ personal hobby horses). There’s then three pages of irrelevance. Eventually that thread dies out having not made much progress. Then a few months later somebody comes back to post about the topic of the thread and this starts again.

This would be less of a problem if the forum was threaded, where you could just ignore the tangential subthreads, but it isn’t. It also isn’t (really) moderated, so the mods can’t encourage people to stay on topic, or split threads or move things to Aldershot when they drift off.

I also think the topics are confusing. When should people post in ‘Community support’ and when in ‘General’? Is ‘Announcements’ just for people to announce things, or is it for discussion of relevant topics in the news? ‘Aldershot’ is an in-joke that outsiders won’t get. Where’s the best place to ask development questions (which aren’t ‘porting’ or ‘code review’ or ‘bugs’)? For this reason you kinda have to read all the sections of the forum otherwise you might miss things – not a big problem given the volume isn’t large if you read regularly, but if you drop in once a month there’s a lot of noise you have to wade through.

Then there are the limitations of the software. How do you search just one forum? How can I get notifications of relevant activity to my posts? How can I comfortably read it on a phone? Can I set it to not show me posts from chosen people? I think there may be solutions to these, but they aren’t very obvious. This means it’s harder to be a peripheral user of the forum, and possibly means the occasional posters with signal are outposted by regular posters with less relevant to say.

Perhaps one way forward would be to have some areas which are tightly focused on particular areas, with off-topic diversions strongly discouraged, and less focused things encouraged in General or somewhere similar, with Aldershot remaining for non-RISC OS things. But that would need people willing to be mods for that (and risk of the usual problem where the mods get too overzealous and upsetting some posters) – and I don’t even know what the software allows.

Is there a way of searching the ‘Forum’ for two things – ie

Search using AND/OR

programming AND C

Theo, every single forum on the internet suffers from thread drift, this one is far better than most. The only way to prevent it is very heavy handed moderation, splitting topics and moving posts to where they are more appropriate, including the bin. Unfortunately people on the receiving end of this invariably disagree with the moderators decisions, leading to simmering resentment and eventually outright civil war.

It looks to me as though that’s almost entirely in Aldershot, yes?

Yes.

There’s perhaps an argument for Recent Posts not to include Aldershot.

Yes, that’s been suggested, but is presumably a lot of hassle for the person who would have to implement it.

It’s an effect I don’t notice, because I don’t use Recent Posts, I look at Forum and only go to the sections I’m interested in.

That sounds suspiciously like “I’m all right, Jack…”

I’ve used the recent posts page since I started here (a decade ago?). It was far easier to find new posts, because they were there on the page. Elsewhere, I either have to remember which forums and threads they’re in, read every thread just in case, or log in to have unread posts shown to me. Several devices that I read this forum on don’t even have my login details on them, and the interface is also decidedly unfriendly on a mobile phone (whereas recent posts is usable whilst on a bus).

If you’re not interested in Aldershot, ignore it.

It’s a bit tricky when it’s clogging up recent posts, isn’t it?

Were there irrelevant posts in other sections?

No, but that’s not the point. Why not use the new Aldershot forum for your off-topic discussions?

Aside from anything else, I’ve long been of the view that RISC OS should be apolitical and anational (if that’s a word), else we risk making it unwelcoming to newcomers who don’t share “our” views or come from “our” country. Many posts in Aldershot do not meet that criteria, and I don’t feel they’re helpful appearing in the Recent Posts page of the website of the RISC OS platform’s “hub”. Arguably they don’t have a place on the ROOL site full-stop, but that’s a separate issue.

Given that the recent “problem threads” were not drift but were started from scratch, why not start them in the “other” Aldershot?

That sounds suspiciously like “I’m all right, Jack…”

Sorry, I understand how it can come across like that.

or log in to have unread posts shown to me.

Ah. That’s the bit I was missing. Is logging in a problem? I log in as soon as I come to the site, and just stay logged in for the rest of the day.

It’s a bit tricky when it’s clogging up recent posts, isn’t it?

I’ve never understood the point of “recent posts” when the main Forum page shows you where the unread posts are – but I’d not thought about the fact that anyone might not be logged in. Fair enough, point taken.

But as a matter of interest, is logging in a hassle for some reason?

we risk making it unwelcoming to newcomers who don’t share “our” views or come from “our” country. Many posts in Aldershot do not meet that criteria, and I don’t feel they’re helpful appearing in the Recent Posts page of the website of the RISC OS platform’s “hub”. Arguably they don’t have a place on the ROOL site full-stop, but that’s a separate issue.

Given that the recent “problem threads” were not drift but were started from scratch, why not start them in the “other” Aldershot?

Point also taken. I hope others take these points too. Arguably the other Aldershot may not want some of them either, and perhaps they don’t belong anywhere.

Well, that didn’t last long, did it?

Well, a month goes by and this thread (in “Community Support”) gets resurrected to complain about stuff that doesn’t belong.

The thing that frustrates me about this forum is the thread drift. […] or split threads or move things to Aldershot when they drift off.

Nothing that can be done. Drift is a normal part of discussion, and the management “features” of this forum are deplorable due to Beast’s proud selling point being a functional forum in the least amount of code.
Witness the days when there was a lot of spam, and poor Dave had to delete the messages one by one. Any competent forum would have an option to purge the user and all of their content in one go…

When should people post in ‘Community support’ and when in ‘General’?

Yes, these basically seem to be the same thing in different words. I suppose Community Support is for asking for help, but there’s so much overlap with General.

Is ‘Announcements’ just for people to announce things, or is it for discussion of relevant topics in the news?

Caption: Announce and discuss new hardware and software releases.

‘Aldershot’ is an in-joke that outsiders won’t get.

True, but the caption is Everything with nothing particularly or remotely to do with ROOL. and the calls to “Take it to Aldershot” kind of make it clear that non-RISC OS stuff goes there.

How do you search just one forum?

You can’t.

How can I get notifications of relevant activity to my posts?

You can’t.

How can I comfortably read it on a phone?

Use Chrome so it’ll mess with the text sizes to enlarge the message content.

Can I set it to not show me posts from chosen people?

You can’t.

I think there may be solutions to these, but they aren’t very obvious.

The Beast software is extremely simple, and it is also a dead project.

beast.caboo.se (and it’s redirect to ww2.caboo.se) seems to have disappeared around 2016 or so.
There was, briefly, a repo for “altered beast” on GitHub (user Courtenay), but that appears to have been deleted. There may be clones?

and I don’t even know what the software allows.

Looking briefly at it: Editing titles and messages. Deleting messages. Deleting threads. Making a thread ‘sticky’. And, um, I think that’s about it.
Did I mention Beast was intended to have a working forum in the smallest amount of code possible?

Yes, that’s been suggested, but is presumably a lot of hassle for the person who would have to implement it.

Depending on how the underlying stuff works, it could just be a tweaked SQL command. That said, it’s written in Ruby which is either a dying language or a growing one, depending upon which website you read. At least the internet agrees with one thing – it’s generally slower than PHP. ;-)

I’ve used the recent posts page since I started here (a decade ago?).

Me too. Seeing an overview of what’s available without having to log in is useful. It’s why I hacked my forum’s “Portal” to provide a similar sort of function (as, for some reason, MyBB doesn’t already do this).

Why not use the new Aldershot forum for your off-topic discussions?

You’re welcome: https:// heyrick.eu / aldershot

why not start them in the “other” Aldershot?

Still waiting for AuthenticSteve to sign up. ;-)

But as a matter of interest, is logging in a hassle for some reason?

Yes. There’s not really any point in taking the time to log in if there’s nothing new or nothing you feel the need to reply to.
Thus, an accessible Recent Posts can let you see what’s new globally, and then you can log in if there’s something to contribute to.

It’s the same sort of argument that I have with PlingStore – one shouldn’t need to log in (especially when the free software is available without logging in) simply in order to see when something has been updated.

Arguably the other Aldershot may not want some of them either,

Perhaps, but that’s Cthulhu’s problem, isn’t it? ;-)

The only way to prevent it is very heavy handed moderation, splitting topics and moving posts to where they are more appropriate, including the bin.

There’s a name for that, isn’t there? Let me see… we used to use it on the csa.* groups… oh, yes — “drucking”, wasn’t it?

You can’t really do much on newsgroup once someone has posted apart from a drucking, but with a forum there is a lot of scope to tidy things up and keep topics in order, so people can find the relevant things, and not be swamped with irrelevant chatter. That’s what I did very successfully on a forum I ran for many years, but eventually too many people joined who objected to any form of moderation and staged a rebellion, after which I walked off with all my toys.

There’s not really any point in taking the time to log in

It takes time? How long? Maybe that depends on your connection and your set up, but for me it’s possibly a couple of seconds, probably less. But I take Steve Fryatt’s point that newcomers who haven’t registered yet can (I presume) use Recent Posts whereas of course the main forum page doesn’t know what they’ve seen before, or what’s new. The date and time of the most recent post in each section is there for all to see, mind…

Still waiting for AuthenticSteve to sign up. ;-)

I can’t see why the presence or absence of any person should be a determining factor in where something is first posted.

Me too. Seeing an overview of what’s available without having to log in is useful.

I’m not sure why a post like the original ever appeared anywhere except Aldershot, but it is here. To answer the question¹.

How do you search just one forum?

You can’t.

Actually you can:

On a PC, you can run Firefox and use the “Update Scanner” or “Distill Web Monitor” add-on to scan the individual forum pages to check for updates and thus simulate the “logged in” experience. For Chrome that would probably be “Distill Web Monitor”

On a RO machine – well, one of the denizens of these forums wrote a utility to show or hide posts on specific forums and/or posts by specific people.
That might suit some people more than having to manually scroll past items or threads, as a matter of personal preference for each.

You can’t really do much on newsgroup once someone has posted apart from a drucking,

Did you never use the filters in NewsHound Mr. Ruck?
Although I do take the point that the content remains even if you personally filter it out.

¹ I see a certain ironic possibility here.

Theo, every single forum on the internet suffers from thread drift, this one is far better than most. The only way to prevent it is very heavy handed moderation, splitting topics and moving posts to where they are more appropriate, including the bin. Unfortunately people on the receiving end of this invariably disagree with the moderators decisions, leading to simmering resentment and eventually outright civil war.

I think there’s scope for having more and less focused areas. Like you’d go to a meeting with a seminar room and a bar. The seminar has a chair who aims to guide the discussion along helpful directions, while in the bar anything goes. The seminar or the formal meeting is good for making progress on focused things. Some people prefer the focus of the seminar and skip the bar, that’s fine. Some people just want to chat to like-minded people and the bar is good for that.

You can’t really do much on newsgroup once someone has posted apart from a drucking, but with a forum there is a lot of scope to tidy things up and keep topics in order, so people can find the relevant things, and not be swamped with irrelevant chatter.

Newsgroups have reader-driven filtering – it’s up to users to maintain their own killfiles, which address some of the issues (I decide X is a troll, so I’ll block any subthread they post in; I’m not interested in seeing threads about Y so I’ll filter those), and the view you get without a killfile can be quite toxic. Forums are typically centrally moderated so the reader doesn’t have to do the work and the initial view is more welcoming. It seems like this forum is neither, which means it’s up to users to police themselves. This tends not to go well.

Aside from anything else, I’ve long been of the view that RISC OS should be apolitical and anational (if that’s a word), else we risk making it unwelcoming to newcomers who don’t share “our” views or come from “our” country. Many posts in Aldershot do not meet that criteria, and I don’t feel they’re helpful appearing in the Recent Posts page of the website of the RISC OS platform’s “hub”. Arguably they don’t have a place on the ROOL site full-stop, but that’s a separate issue.

+1. There’s quite a lot of ‘culture’ which is subtle cues telling newcomers ‘you don’t fit here’. I’m sure you can imagine a situation where you’re there for some specific purpose but feel like a fish out of water because everyone is different to you. The more cliquey a place becomes, the more unwelcome newcomers might feel.

I can’t see why the presence or absence of any person

It was more a “subtle” invitation. ;)

It takes time? How long?

About as long as it takes to fetch the recent posts page and read it.

Actually you can:

Well, using that logic, there’s Acorn’s URL fetcher and there’s BASIC and a bit of page scraping ought to allow you to filter the stuff you’re interested in. Maybe even output page description script for Impression or OvationPro? ;-)

and the view you get without a killfile can be quite toxic.

Simplest way to handle that is not creating a killfile, but by deleting the newsreader app.
Usenet was good, back in the late ’90s.

I’m sure you can imagine a situation where you’re there for some specific purpose but feel like a fish out of water because everyone is different to you.

You’ve just described my entire life.

About as long as it takes to fetch the recent posts page and read it.

Crikey. Why? Even with a slow connection I don’t understand that, but that might be because I don’t know what happens between the local machine and the server when one logs on. Whatever happens happens almost instantaneously here, no different from downloading the Recent Posts page (which I’d never done before this conversation).

You’ve just described my entire life.

And mine. Until recently I’d rather assumed that would be the case for almost everyone on this forum, which is surely quite a niche one.

This forum has become a general place to discuss RISC OS, replacing much of the activity on the comp.sys.acorn.* newsgroups. The newsgroups were reasonably well-arranged into apps, games, hardware, networking, programmer, the catch-all of misc, and a few like advocacy and extra-cpu to cut down on the annoyance for the mainstream users. In contrast the ROOL Forum was initially set up for discussing RISC OS development, and the sections were added over time because they seemed like a good idea, rather than there being a coherent plan.

The following are mainly about OS development

• Wish lists
• Bounties
• Code review
• Bugs
• Porting RISC OS

That leaves Announcements (which was probably created by analogy with comp.sys.acorn.announce but doesn’t really work very well because replies are allowed and discussion can continue for weeks in some cases), Community Support and General. I think Community Support was created with the idea that people could help new RISC OS users there, but really its purpose is so close to that of General that the distinction is almost pointless.

I’m very appreciative of the time that the ROOL folk put into running the site, so I don’t make a fuss about it. But in case anyone is thinking of a reorganisation, you could do a lot worse than start with the comp.sys.acorn newsgroup structure and adapt that.

I wonder: would a developer-only area, where ability to post is restricted to registered individuals, but everyone is free to read, be helpful? As to the criteria for registration, the object would be to exclude the inexpert (like me!), but how expert status could be established would be a question for ROOL, probably.

would a developer-only area

You’d probably need two, one for developing the OS, the other for apps for the OS…

…but I keep on mentioning that Beast (the forum software) was intended to be a functioning forum in the least amount of code. It has a very basic feature set.

…but I keep on mentioning that Beast (the forum software) was intended to be a functioning forum in the least amount of code. It has a very basic feature set.

Haven’t some people present in these forums offered previously to set up a replacement using alternate software?
A specific name comes to mind, but he hasn’t contributed to this specific thread. There have been others as I recall.
The question is whether that alternate fits with what ROOL want to do and feel they can maintain.
There’s also the question of continuity.

How do you search just one forum?

You can’t

You can! See this
Adding your search words on the end

11 is Community Support
1 Announcements
2 Wish Lists
3 Code Review
4 Bugs
5 General
6 Tests
8 Bounties
9 Porting RISC OS
10 RPCEmu
12 Aldershot

If someone wants to create a webpage that would let users enter thier search into a field and have tick boxes for each forum. I’d be willing to host it.
If it works for people maybe ROOL would integrated it into the site.

You can! See this
Adding your search words on the end

That link shows me the community support forum? I tried adding the forum name to a search but it didn’t work.

The fact that over 50% of “recent posts” (at least this weekend) is still way off-topic, and the useful stuff gets lost in the noise? Go away for even a day, and useful, relevant things can be several pages back and gone forever.

Including this thread.

It looks to me as though that’s almost entirely in Aldershot, yes? There’s perhaps an argument for Recent Posts not to include Aldershot.

Yes Clive, it’s not only a good idea, it’s obvious.

That link shows me the community support forum? I tried adding the forum name to a search but it didn’t work.

Sorry if I didn’t explain it well, you change the 11 for the number in my table for the forum you want to search and add your search term ¹ e.g. Softload raspberry pi

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/11/topics/

¹ The other big advantage is ROOL’s site search will look for the exact phrase “Softload raspberry pi”. ROOL’s search rarely finds what I want!
Whereas the google based one does its normal thing. The biggest problem I have is that currently it only searches one forum and I often find I need to search two or three, hence my suggestions of a dedicated web page with tick boxes for which forums you want to search!