Idea for the forums

A place for discussions and questions specifically about the UESP forums.

System information in forum accounts?

Yes
7
64%
No
4
36%
 
Total votes: 11

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Kestral
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Post by Kestral »

alowe wrote:
Dragour wrote:So... just wondering wether something is actually going to happen about this or not?
you're asking the wrong people. we can talk about it but we need input from someone who is in a position to do/yay/nay it. if that's daveh then that's the person who can take this forward. until then all we can do is continue talking about it
It's also Nephele. If you want it, ask her. I don't think Daveh should be bothered. If Nephele thinks it is necessary then she'll probably contact Daveh.
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Nephele
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Post by Nephele »

At the moment, I'm thinking that it may be time to upgrade the forums to phpBB3. In terms of this specific topic, custom user profile fields are listed as a built-int feature of phpBB3, so it seems somewhat unnecessary to install a mod that will become obsolete almost right away.

In terms of timing, it's likely to be a couple of weeks until a forum upgrade is possible (I'd like to stick to one major upgrade at a time, and a wiki upgrade is already in the works).
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Dark Lord Cam
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Post by Dark Lord Cam »

O.o

Nephele posted something!

is it the end of the world? >.>
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Kestral
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Post by Kestral »

Dark Lord wrote:O.o

Nephele posted something!

is it the end of the world? >.>
She posted something in the Announcements forum not long ago... >.>
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Josjie
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Post by Josjie »

Nephele wrote:At the moment, I'm thinking that it may be time to upgrade the forums to phpBB3. In terms of this specific topic, custom user profile fields are listed as a built-int feature of phpBB3, so it seems somewhat unnecessary to install a mod that will become obsolete almost right away.

In terms of timing, it's likely to be a couple of weeks until a forum upgrade is possible (I'd like to stick to one major upgrade at a time, and a wiki upgrade is already in the works).
PHPBB3 would be great... I just hope the forum theme will remain the same.
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Kestral
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Post by Kestral »

josjie wrote:
Nephele wrote:At the moment, I'm thinking that it may be time to upgrade the forums to phpBB3. In terms of this specific topic, custom user profile fields are listed as a built-int feature of phpBB3, so it seems somewhat unnecessary to install a mod that will become obsolete almost right away.

In terms of timing, it's likely to be a couple of weeks until a forum upgrade is possible (I'd like to stick to one major upgrade at a time, and a wiki upgrade is already in the works).
PHPBB3 would be great... I just hope the forum theme will remain the same.
There's phpbb2 to phpbb3 packages.
Meaning, the software will change, but the posts won't.
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Post by Josjie »

I meant the forum style :) PHPBB2 and PHPBB3 have different templates so this template probably has to be converted to PHPBB3.
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alowe
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Post by alowe »

not wanting to throw cold water on people's hopes for phpbb3, but this has been discussed at length already, just search for phpbb3 in these forums and you'll see. for example check this reply on the subject:
http://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?t=11373#152078

also it was talked about in the spoiler BBcode thread here:
http://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?t=10803#150305

an example of spoiler code being used in another forum:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... ht=spoiler

initially i thought they looked bulky and ugly but that post did have an unusually high number of spoiler gifs in it. what would be nice is if there was an option for each user to set spoilers off in the control console, thereby removing them. it could default to on to protect new people joining the forums.

anyway, as pertaining to phpbb3, the post at the top (152078) seemed to show there was a lot of work involved. i'm guessing it'll not happen any time soon and i like the format as it is. egosoft's forum may be more advanced but i personally find it easier on the eye to read the uesp forum. i guess it could be customisable for everyone anyway (so long as you remember not to clear your cookies), but improvement just for improvements sake is just bloatware
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Post by Nephele »

Ummm.... what exactly are your arguments against converting to phpBB3?

The points that I see in past posts are: (a) we want to keep the current appearance and (b) it's going to take some work. As the person who is volunteering to do the work, I'm fully aware of the work required -- but longterm I think it's less work than trying to retrofit no-longer-supported phpBB2.0 mods to work on the site, and less work than trying to alter the site's out-of-date code myself to fix problems that have already been fixed in phpBB3. I also intend to make sure that the site's appearance is not changed by the upgrade. Convincing Daveh to do the work is no longer an issue, because he has given me increased server access specifically so that I can help with site maintenance such as code upgrades.

Other than that, Vicious88's post is based on completely mistaken assumptions. Both Daveh and I have full login access to the server (far more powerful than just ftp access), and can modify the site's php code (there is no "base HTML" for the site, because all of the html is dynamically generated by php). Plus, I'm not inclined to put much faith in vague, unsubstantiated rumours that phpBB3 is less stable than phpBB2, especially when the latter can't even be downloaded any more. If you know of specific issues or sources of instability in phpBB3, I'd appreciate knowing about them, but vague rumours are not particularly helpful.
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Kestral
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Post by Kestral »

I sure miss Vicious88. :/
Nephele wrote:*Wall*
Agreed.

The normal PHPBB3 installation comes with both SubSilver, and ProSilver styles.
The forum's style is essentially modified SubSilver. The themes (color) are changed, background is added, and maybe a few more things.

When (assuming we will) convert to PHPBB3 mind that you'll have to cover an exploit; every single user's password made before the conversion will not be encrypted properly, and can be exploited. That is unless, the PHPBB team fixed it.
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Post by Nephele »

Kestral wrote: When (assuming we will) convert to PHPBB3 mind that you'll have to cover an exploit; every single user's password made before the conversion will not be encrypted properly, and can be exploited. That is unless, the PHPBB team fixed it.
Assuming you're referring to this incident, the exploited software used to gain access to protected information (e.g., encrypted passwords) was PHPList, not phpBB. PHPList is not installed on UESP.

As for password encryption, phpBB3 does not introduce any problems. The only weakly-encrypted passwords in phpBB3 are inherited from phpBB2. In other words, the passwords currently being used by our forums are the security issue. We are more vulnerable now than we will be after upgrading to phpBB3, at which point all active users will automatically be migrated to more securely-encrypted passwords.
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Post by Dogmantra »

So if we do move to PHPBB3, all the stuff that's on the forums now will be retained, right? I think so, but I'm just making sure.
BANG → !
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Nephele
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Post by Nephele »

Dogmantra wrote:So if we do move to PHPBB3, all the stuff that's on the forums now will be retained, right? I think so, but I'm just making sure.
Yes :)
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Post by Dogmantra »

Excellent.
I was worried for a moment.
BANG → !
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Kestral
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Post by Kestral »

Dogmantra wrote:Excellent.
I was worried for a moment.
Anyone who's installed a PhpBB forum software would know that.

Their on the same download page after all.
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Post by alowe »

fair enough nephele

i don't know much about phpbb3 (or 2) so read up on some previous posts to get a feel for it. the initial impressions i got was it could be more work than people realised and i wondered if the extra functionality was needed. but anyway, i'm out of my depth on this subject.

as for the layout, that's mostly colour choice. i think the reason why i find egosofts forum harder to read is cause all that black is a bit depressing :)
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Re: Idea for the forums

Post by Nephele »

For anyone who hasn't noticed it yet: in the User Control Panel (under Profile) you can now find entries for ES Games and Platform.

Another new entry on that page is Birthday which means, among other things, that your name will appear in the Birthdays box at the bottom of the forum's main page on your birthday.
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