Linux-Informix Forum

Feedback on web-based forums

Posted By: Pete Perez
Date: Friday, 20 September 2002, at 2:35 p.m.

Hi Larry and Sean,

I really appreciate your both taking the time to help with this and
provide feedback. I'm sending this to the forum so others can give
their opinions if they want to.

About the message numbering, each message does have a unique number
that is needed to order messages correctly within a thread. For example
if there were multiple responses to a particuliar posting, then each
response get's it's own number and is listed directly below the
original message in the thread. Subsequent responses to those messages
would be displayed directly below those individual messages in the
thread.

If Larry could see the web based forums, it's easy to see what I'm
talking about, but only if the "List Style" under "Set Preferences"
is "simple list", which puts the messages in date order. (I'm hoping to
get the requestors at IIUG to go along with my changing the default to
threaded.)

The message number can appear anywhere on the subject line, so moving
it to the end would work, but there is another option. That is to
remove the message number from the subject line altogether. If we do
that, however, then it becomes the users responsibility to add the
message number in the subject line if they reply to a posting.
Otherwise, the message will not be added to the thread.

I've tried to hide the message number in "X-Headers" within the message
headers, but in testing I found that many email servers strip X-headers
out of the headers when processing a reply. I also tried putting it in
the message text, but there were problems in testing where the user may
not include the original text in their reply. So all in all, if the
most important thing is to get the message added to the right location
within a thread, I think keeping the message number in the subject line
is the best approach since no email server messes with the subject line
and it's 100% reliable. So I vote for moving it to the end of the
subject.

Larry, I don't know why you can't see the forums online. Is it just the
forums you can't see or is it the entire iiug.org site? Also, the site
does require javascript and cookies enabled. I can investigate if you
can tell me what O/S and browser version you're using.

Thanks,

Pete

> Larry,
>
> Thanks for the input! We are the test group for the forum software and
> e-mail integration. I am forwarding your opinions to the folks who
> operate the lists/forum.
>
> On Fri, 2002-09-20 at 12:05, Larry Olin Horn wrote:
> > I'm a relatively new subscriber (and IIUG member), so I don't have
any
> > historical context regarding the lists and forums ...
> >
> > I generally read lists offline (mail download during the day, read
at
> > night on my laptop), so the email list is my preferred interface.
> >
> > I find these "[nnn]" tags highly annoying in the email subjects.
I've
> > never seen anything like this before (and I've been on lots of
lists,
> > some gatewayed to news or forum-like software).
> >
> > My email client can pseudo-thread messages by subject (ignoring
> > prefixes like "Re:" and "Fwd:"), but these numbers make sorting by
> > subject totally useless (after all, I could just sort by date if I
> > needed the sequence of the postings).
> >
> > Since all the messages I've seen have just been sequentially and
> > uniquely numbered, I don't see where this is accomplishing any kind
of
> > threading at all, as the trailer seems to indicate; for example,
what I
> > receive is:
> >
> > [7] Installing IDS 9.30 on Red Hat
> > [12] Re: Installing IDS 9.30 on Red Hat
> >
> > but I would have expected this for threading
> >
> > [7] Installing IDS 9.30 on Red Hat
> > [7] Re: Installing IDS 9.30 on Red Hat
> >
> > Could these markers at least be moved to the *end* of the subject
text,
> > so that they are 1) out of the way, 2) don't interfere with subject
> > sorts?
> >
> > PS: Just after completing this message, but before sending it, I
> > thought I'd access the forum site -- at the moment I have an
infinitely
> > spinning IE globe, and no content; so, at least for now, the forum
is
> > inaccessible to me. I can't even peruse the site to see if the
forum
> > is worthwhile to me. Great.
> >
> > loh
> --
> Sean R. Durity
> Moderator
>
>

Messages In This Thread

• Feedback on web-based forums
  Pete Perez -- Friday, 20 September 2002, at 2:35 p.m.
  • Changes to web-based forums due to feedback
    Pete Perez -- Saturday, 21 September 2002, at 5:42 p.m.
    • More Changes to web-based forums due to feedback
      PETE PEREZ -- Monday, 23 September 2002, at 12:59 a.m.
  • Re: Feedback on web-based forums
    DAVID SMITH -- Saturday, 21 September 2002, at 6:22 p.m.

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