Upcoming changes to the forum

[John Robinson]

I'm working on the following changes to the forum software:

Thread URLs will change.

Old links will be redirected to maintain bookmark compatibility. The new links will be more descriptive, offering the date of the article and perhaps a meaningful filename.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1510575/posts doesn't say much.
http://www.freerepublic.com/2005/10/27/freeptoon/p1 says so much more.

Time zone handled by browser.

The timestamps on threads will change to your computer's local time zone, but only if you have JavaScript enabled. Otherwise they will be in US/Eastern. Your FR preference will be ignored (and will be phased out in favor of browser-side time zone handling.) The beauty of this arrangement is that as long as your computer displays the time in your time zone, FR will "Do The Right Thing"(tm).

Fixed number of comments.

No more than 50 comments per page will be shown. Your preference of 20, 100 or 250 is going to be ignored. I know this is a bit of a heartbreak for some, I understand it is a sacrifice. There are very good and very strong reasons this is changing.

Article text.

Only the first page of the thread will show the article text, and will always show the article text. Subsequent pages will only ever show a summary. In the future, a little browser-side magic could make the article text appear when you click a link.

All for one and one for all.

Everybody logged in or not will see the same content and links. For example, in the existing software, if you're not logged in you won't see the "Report Abuse" links. This check is going away, everybody will now see the same row of buttons.

In exchange, we'll have cache-friendly forum pages. This means:

• Faster downloads. If nothing changed on the thread you won't have to download it again. Also, local caches can store the page and deliver it much quicker.

• Better response time. Our servers will have to do less processing. Better yet, the front-end server will probably already have a generated copy of a thread in cache memory. Your request will be served instantly.

Update 10/30/05

I've expanded the scope of changes. I'm cleaning up the information we present to search engines like Google and Yahoo. Our site will be more useful to third-party search engines and thus more useful to you. For the most part this will not directly impact our human visitors. There will be changes that could break bookmarks of certain types of pages, but the chances such bookmarks have ever been made are slim.

[deport]

Upcoming changes in case you missed them.

[RoadGumby]

John,
First off, Thankyou. Thank you for this forum. There is so much information, political or otherwise, that is posted by my fellow FReepers.
My question / request for improvement to Fr woulod be this: Could there be a button labelled "e-mail" where you could easily e-mail a particular thread to a friend who is not a member of FR?
Currently, it is necessary to create a Word document and attach it to an e-mail.
There is so much immenently shareable information posted here. Perhaps we shoul dhave an easier way to quickly send it on its way to those who could use it.
Just a thought. Take care. And again, Thank You

[John Robinson]

For what purpose, just curious? With the change to fixed-size pages, we'll probably move away from the comment # (first 1-50, 51-100, 101-150, 151-200 ... 3,051-3,074 next last) style pagination to a page # pagination.

[ChefKeith]

does this mean I'm off probation?

As long as you don't post ANYTHING to the nascar threads under my screen name...

Even if it is relevant to nascar info.

[razorback-bert]

Uh oh, my computer time clock is haywire, sometimes it thinks it is 2002.

Right now it 5:58 am.

I have replaced the battery.

[Woodman]

Please please please, let us have at least 100 replies per page, 50 is just too darn short, and even 250 can be a PIA on a busy thread. Man (if not most of us) have broad band these days. Also, even when I didn't, I had no problems loading up 500 reply plus threads under the old (good old days) software. I realize that you probably want to reduce overhead on your side, maybe you could just auto throttle when it gets too busy? I know in the past that you have shortened page length on a needed basis, maybe you could just have the forum do it automatically when you hit a certain threshold?

I think you might find that when you shorten the threads per page, that there will be many more page requests going on. Or maybe you could just offer two sizes to reduce the number of cached pages, but make one short and the other longer (like at least 100 replies). Please think about it.

[ladyinred]

Hey John! I almost understood this! That is pretty good for me! LOL

[John Robinson]

As soon as I can sort it out, I'd like to enable posters to be able to update their own articles (and comments for that matter.) And, at least for articles, to allow a select list of other people to be able to edit the article (i.e. some type of article with several authors.)

[TomGuy]

Please please please, let us have at least 100 replies per page,

I concur. 50 is just too short. On lengthy thread, to save to disk, the short pages are a nightmare.

[PROSOUTH]

I didn't see it listed but an EDIT button would be nice to correct errors or tempers.

[RJL]

The timestamps on threads will change to your computer's local time zone, but only if you have JavaScript enabled.

Can anyone tell me how to be sure my JavaScript is enabled in MS IE6?

[John Robinson]

I've considered something along those lines.

[The Phantom FReeper]

For example, in the existing software, if you're not logged in you won't see the "Report Abuse" links. This check is going away, everybody will now see the same row of buttons.

Does this mean that visitors to FR will be able to file complaints on posts?

[rdb3]

I usually do to but I find myself pausing at rdb3's logo on long threads.

Really? That was nice of you. Therefore, allow me to blow is up so you can get a closer look:

If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.

[John Robinson]

Your clock shouldn't matter, as long as your time zone is correctly configured.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Thanks, John!

Pinging "the guys" on an FYI.

[Ethrane]

Thanks for the update...much appreciated!!

[The Wizard]

as always, a first class leadership response that will be copied by others....

Bravo

[Albion Wilde]

Thanks, John Robinson ping!

[razorback-bert]

Thanks, but I was hoping you would tell me to replace my gizmo with a new thingabob.