This new SMF forum

[Seren]

I Like the back and black too, just changed it over

[jkn]

I have to admit - I find the current default theme the easiest of about 6 I just flipped through.   White text on black is too hard to read for me.   Glad we can select different themes.

[mgriffin]

Some people prefer light-on-dark, some prefer dark-on-light, some people like wacky novelty themes, some don't care.  I definitely do want to make sure to include multiple options for everybody, and it costs nothing extra to do so.  There are definitely some themes available that are poorly designed, and I'll probably narrow down the choices to just those that don't get in the way of the basic functionality of the forum.

[mgriffin]

Some of you may have noticed a brief total outage of the Forum, just minutes ago.  It appears this was a database problem at the web host, and not a problem with this installation.   

[jkn]

The ERP system I used to run (it won't be turned off for many years so I guess I'll be the admin for years, odd thought...)

Anyway...   one of our users loved to have their gui (which was a glorified telnet session) look like the old 'hotdog stand' Windows colors...  we're talking hot pink, neon orange, and lime green.   Holy cow was it irritating to work on their computer...

[mgriffin]

Regarding web hosting... I've received a handful of PMs and emails recommending various web hosts, and I appreciate the suggestions, but the Hypnos site (including main site, forum, and online store) has specific needs (enormous storage space, very large mySQL databases, Miva Merchant license, up to date installlations of PHP and mySQL and Ruby on Rails, SSL support, good webmail options, and an excellent reputation for supporting business hosting) which can't be met by 99% of web hosts. 

It looks like we'll be going with westhost.com and I should be making this switch in the next 7-10 days, though it should be transparent to users.

[jkn]

Good luck on the move!

It's been awhile since I've migrated a domain (either for home or work...) - it used to take from 12 to 48+ hours for all the DNS tables around the net to update - so a site could disappear for a few people and be up and switched for others.    Since you'll likely still have the old domain up - most people shouldn't notice - but there's always that outside 'flaky factor'...

[mgriffin]

Right, when this happens, there will actually be two servers on the internet with the full setup for hypnos.com and during the transition, some people will see the old one and some people will see the new one, and then gradually all the DNS records will be updated and everyone will see the new one.  Only at that point will the old one be shut down, but doing it this way, there is little risk that the site will be totally unavailable for any period of time, and we won't lose any orders. 

I might need to shut down the Forum at some set time, and move it all the way over to the new server, and disable the old one, so we don't have a time when there are two separate Forums receiving separate posts, no longer in sync. But with the Hypnos store and the rest of the web site, it won't actually hurt anything if there are two separate version for a few hours.  We'll just make sure that all orders placed at both sites, are recorded and processed.

[jim brenholts]

This Forum includes an optional feature called "Karma" which allows users (at least somewhat established users, who have registered and posted a few times) to give positive or negative karma points to users who contribute something positive or negative to the Forum.

So...

Someone who creates an interesting topic, or who posts an insightful post, or a good CD review, might receive positive karma. 

Someone who breaks a Forum rule, or posts something inappropriate, or even who posts a "waste of space" comment, might receive negative karma.

I've turned on the karma option so we can experiment with it a bit.  If it's used frivolously or spitefully, I'll just disable it, but if it can be used for a sort of "peer review" to encourage people to contribute, and discourage people from acting like fools, then we'll keep it.

The karma points show up under your name & avatar, each time you post.

is there a way to tell who gave us karma ratings?

[einstein36]

I guess no one likes little ol me then:)

This Forum includes an optional feature called "Karma" which allows users (at least somewhat established users, who have registered and posted a few times) to give positive or negative karma points to users who contribute something positive or negative to the Forum.

So...

Someone who creates an interesting topic, or who posts an insightful post, or a good CD review, might receive positive karma. 

Someone who breaks a Forum rule, or posts something inappropriate, or even who posts a "waste of space" comment, might receive negative karma.

I've turned on the karma option so we can experiment with it a bit.  If it's used frivolously or spitefully, I'll just disable it, but if it can be used for a sort of "peer review" to encourage people to contribute, and discourage people from acting like fools, then we'll keep it.

The karma points show up under your name & avatar, each time you post.

is there a way to tell who gave us karma ratings?

[mgriffin]

This Forum includes an optional feature called "Karma" which allows users (at least somewhat established users, who have registered and posted a few times) to give positive or negative karma points to users who contribute something positive or negative to the Forum.

So...

Someone who creates an interesting topic, or who posts an insightful post, or a good CD review, might receive positive karma. 

Someone who breaks a Forum rule, or posts something inappropriate, or even who posts a "waste of space" comment, might receive negative karma.

I've turned on the karma option so we can experiment with it a bit.  If it's used frivolously or spitefully, I'll just disable it, but if it can be used for a sort of "peer review" to encourage people to contribute, and discourage people from acting like fools, then we'll keep it.

The karma points show up under your name & avatar, each time you post.

is there a way to tell who gave us karma ratings?

No, in fact I don't think the information is even available to Administrators or Moderators.  It's meant to be anonymous feedback to keep people from getting out of line, mainly on Forums where flame wars and the like are more common.  I hoped the "karma" system would encourage people to be well-behaved, and to be constructive contributors to the site, and that's how I've doled out karma points myself (only positive ones, so far), but I suppose it could be used for anything.

Does anyone have any feelings about the karma system so far?  Is it useful at all, or would people rather see it go away?

[mgriffin]

I've gone ahead and disabled the forum's karma feature, at least temporarily -- it'll be re-enabled (with everyone's karma as of right this minute restored) if people speak up that they want to have it, or I'll leave it off if nobody cares, or if everyone thinks it's more divisive than constructive.

[Joe R]

I have no problem with the karma feature, even though it seems that only the administrator/moderators receive the karma votes (hmmm...).

I only used the karma feature once -Jim, and everyone else who posted on the "my best freind" thread received a + karma.

[Seren]

I have no problem with the karma feature, even though it seems that only the administrator/moderators receive the karma votes (hmmm...).

I only used the karma feature once -Jim, and everyone else who posted on the "my best freind" thread received a + karma.

I don't use it much, on anothe rforum i do like giving karma when pleased about something - but it's hard to avoid counting your own and wondering.....

[jblock]

I've used it a few times, but I have a bad karma so I'm not sure it helps anyone. 

[jkn]

I think in our forum the karma is probably ok to leave turned off.   I gave out several positive comments to people that posted nifty things.    Although, it is kind of easy to post something "cool" and then wonder why no one recognized it - or why you suddenly ended up with a negative point.   The karma might ruffle more feathers than it's really worth.

The positive side of the karma is over time ( a few weeks isn't really enough ) - the points will sort of even out and the people with a lot of points are the ones that contribute the most (not necessarily the ones with the most posts).   Those points are then potentially helpful to someone new exploring the forum - knowing who contributes the most etc...   Then again - this is a very small community - it doesn't take long to recognize the people that post the really nice reviews of releases or the ones that answer questions about gear and techniques and such.  And then frankly -there are a few of us that only visit from time to time and post minimally - but their posts are always good to read... anyway...


Of course - I'm applying retroactive negative karma to Joe R for that crack about only the admins/mods getting positive karma...       All kidding aside - I think that's sort of a natural fallout from Mike and Lena (and to a lesser extent me and APK...) running the forum and helping people a lot - sometimes behind the scenes.   

[modulator_esp]

I have a small forum which features a similar sort of karma system and mostly it works OK

Generally people don't use the negative karma much, but use positive karma as a way of saying thanks for positive contributions, or to provide 'karmic' support for those in need

[Bill Binkelman]

I don't have an opinion one way or the other. Everyone likes to get strokes, no doubt, so getting karma points was nice. But if we do away with it, it's fine with me as well.

[mgriffin]

The karma deal was supposed to encourage cool contributions or extra-insightful posts, and to discourage acting up, breaking forum rules or flaming unreasonably.

I was afraid it would be used for things like "you gave my CD a bad review so I'm giving you negative karma" or "I disagree with your political views so I'm giving you negative karma."  I'm not sure whether it has been or not... there haven't been many negative karmas that I've seen, but to be honest I haven't paid much attention.  It was only after Jim's last message that I looked around and saw that a few people had received negatives.

I'm not sure to what extent this was a problem.  I mean, a negative karma here or there isn't enough reason to scrap the whole thing.  But maybe the positive benefit wasn't really there, either.  I don't hear a lot of people saying, "keep the karma system, it helps reward people for making the forum a better place."

[modulator_esp]

this board has a different karma system to mine, on mine you have total that goes up or down as you are given positive/negative karma respectively, and as admin I can see who has done so.

I would let it run for a while and see how it goes, as it will probably take time to bed in