Dirckman wrote:

The layout sucks, the blue color scheme looks crappy, it's the only message board I know of that all posters are trolls, half the postings are just cut and copied from Fark, and I usually feel just a little dirty after coming here.

There'll be many a dry eye here, when you leave.

orangeplus wrote:

I use the "sadness" template, profile -> display -> visual styles. I find it far less offensive to the eyes.

I just changed mine to "pink"...  It's purdy and has these little pink bubbles that flash on the screen real annoying like....

Whatever color scheme I'm using is built upon the color grey.

I finally decided on going with "sulfur"...  It has a real clean easy to read look to it....  I actually do appreciate the relatively small number of visitors to this site as well...  It allows for a bit more risque material and increases the anonymity of the individual posters somewhat...  If I were to post the shit I post here on Fark my reputation in the real world would already be destroyed...

choad wrote:

Besides, Dirck just made Choad's color scheme cry.

Choad talkin' 'bout hissef inna third person makes the restovus cry.

icangetyouatoe wrote:

And I fucking like the blue. So hunt me down in a convenience store parking lot and call me fat. :)

Reminds me of the C=64.

sofaking wrote:

Every time I consider pimping this place out, I think of Princess Biscuit, then put it off.

Say the word, and I'll go do it. But think long and hard first.

The word.

I strongly advocate a less dumbed-down interface. The color scheme/theme is immaterial. You shouldn't be avoiding doing on PB's sole account. This place clings to its low-tech interface as if it was still helping people take baby steps away from the linklist that was Cruel. Face it. It's a forum. It should have all the capabilities a forum does, including a post-1997 landing page. The resistance to the cutesiness that is avatars, sigs, and member titles is not making us the bitter afterbirth but the bastard stepchild.

PunBB is crap and always has been, and I say this from years of reviewing forum software for admins. Bite the bullet and migrate to vB or IPB already. The current versions of both are stable, supported, and eminently modifiable. And worth the investment. I'm not saying any of this because Dirckman's being crotchety, but because I've felt this way about the boardware since Day One.

pALEPHx wrote:

This place clings to its low-tech interface as if it was still helping people take baby steps away from the linklist that was Cruel. Face it. It's a forum. It should have all the capabilities a forum does, including a post-1997 landing page. The resistance to the cutesiness that is avatars, sigs, and member titles is not making us the bitter afterbirth but the bastard stepchild.

Success! Choad caveman cred intact.

pALEPHx wrote:

I'm not saying any of this because Dirckman's being crotchety, but because I've felt this way about the boardware since Day One.

So you said on day one, and periodically ever after.

I'll change it any way you like, Pale, if you get a consensus behind it.

As RangerX would say, discuss.

choad wrote:

So you said on day one, and periodically ever after. I'll change it any way you like, Pale, if you get a consensus behind it.

So, what, if I'm nothing if not consistent. Don't dangle an empty promise. It's not like I'm getting people to sign a petition when most of them don't even know there can be something better, or what the options are. The bottom line is as it always was, you shelling out for a license, which is something no amount of persuasion from me is going to get you to do. If I didn't find occasion to mention things could be improved, do you think I would keep harping on it separately?

Well, as I said - sent you a message to catch up.

Drama free? Well, that sounds boring.

Ok, here's a fucking easy one. You all can just go through the available visual style options and nominate the ones you like, we can vote on it and Choad can set that as the default style instead of "C64 Blinded Me As A Child Blue"

orangeplus wrote:

Ok, here's a fucking easy one. You all can just go through the available visual style options and nominate the ones you like, we can vote on it and Choad can set that as the default style instead of "C64 Blinded Me As A Child Blue"

I'm in, but assume you realize there are about 200, mostly unvetted styles listed here.

choad wrote:

about 200, mostly unvetted styles listed here.

Why I suggested favorites get nominated instead of voting on the entire list

choad wrote:

Pretend money isn't an issue. Show us what you mean.

Unless that's a veiled request for a cockshot, I can only presume you want me to aggressively defend the need for different PHP-based boardware. I can be quite eloquent on the matter, but what's the point? On the one hand, it's so great, I think everyone here will be happier to have added functionality, more entertaining and engaging mods/hacks, and a more user-friendly interface overall. On the other, it's pearls before swine.

Without naming names, you're going to have people fall into one of two camps. The Don't Change Anything, I'm Allergic to Anything New contingent, and the rest who--whether they know it or not--would greatly enjoy the capabilities of something other than the PunBB crapware. I've been against this software, SMF, Burning Board, phpBB, and a bunch of others for years. If it weren't for the present company, I wouldn't lower myself to type into these miserable little boxes. You can't see who's online, you can't interact in more than a time-delayed fashion, and more than one thread in recent memory has ended up looking like an IM transcript, a sure indication that people want HS to be something more. The boardware is holding us back.

It's not familiar to as many people, and while it may be hackable from the standpoint of Opie or Square's capable hands, so are the licensed board types. I'm not asking for something too pretty, or with too many bells and whistles, just the basics. You KNOW I use IPB for my own board, but I'd be fine with that or vBulletin. Swapping out color schemes doesn't float my boat, but it's always such a pain to do the BBcode raw because the interface isn't truly WYSIWYG. Other boardware would allow more of people's personalities to show, new members would be able to see locations, faces, and whatnot. People who covet their privacy don't have to comply with that, but how well does this crapware do for SEO, for instance? The front page/local is a poorly maintained scrollfest of nondescriptive links. There needs to be more information, more user-friendliness.

Sorry. I have a hangover, or I'd be more diplomatically persuasive. If there's a migration or converter tool for IPB or vB, then look into it before getting a license, so that all the current content can be preserved. On the admin side, there's a lot more management capabilities, and for moderators, the abilities to do our jobs is greatly enhanced. Not to mention better polls, improved usergroups, and even rep or ranking systems I think would go over better. You could even have a Joomla bridge or some in-built CMS for the automatic control of the front page, so that's ultimately less work for somebody. Furthermore, you could finally pop in some ads or affiliate links in a discreet location, and actually start getting some coin off the hopefully increased membership.

Even though some members seem to have nominated themselves as Scarecrows-in-Chief for driving off n00bs, this place will die if we keep alternating between Old Home Week/Look Who's Back, and sheer cannibalism. A fresh change of software would encourage so much more, and put the power back into the hands of the members. I can't imagine why anyone would stick with software that was limiting user functionality unless that was the goal in the first place.

Woody wrote:

Wait. This isn't a goal? Isn't this how we got nosferatu? Court...bait. Same difference.

I'd forgotten Nosferatu.  Hell, I'd forgotten Woody.  Even my memory of RT is starting to fade.

Hi Woody, how's things?!  It's good to see a lost cruel soul.

Hi RT, we need to get together for some weekday after work alcohol.  I'm in Bata Land and get off about 3:15. Locate us a bar that's close, not up to your standardsand probably too classy for mine. I'll buy, and I'll even bring portabar shots of Stroh 80 if you're man enough.  I have stories to tell.  Oh, wait, did you change you email address because of me...

Pale, thank you for fixing my goat.  Be aware that Opie don' know nothin' 'bout no codin' no mo. I'm just a cog in an enterprise.   WooHOO!

Dirckman, it's always entertaining to see the cage match between your id, ego and superego.

Choad, hey man I wa... oh shit, you're asleep?  Sorry.

Tojo, when you post at 3:30 AM, do you call it late or early?  I'm just curious because I call it early lately.

Zook relax, your kids are going to wind up at high-street eventually anyway.

Wilbur, thank you for new words that I'll never use outside of posts on the internet.

Scotty, there are plenty of conservatives here.  Just few Republicans.

Actually, I have greeting card sentiments for at least another dozen of you but that would get tedious.  You know who you are.  All of you.

Do carry on.

pALEPHx wrote:

choad wrote:

Pretend money isn't an issue. Show us what you mean.

Without naming names, you're going to have people fall into one of two camps. The Don't Change Anything, I'm Allergic to Anything New contingent, and the rest who--whether they know it or not--would greatly enjoy the capabilities of something other than the PunBB crapware. I've been against this software, SMF, Burning Board, phpBB, and a bunch of others for years. If it weren't for the present company, I wouldn't lower myself to type into these miserable little boxes. You can't see who's online, you can't interact in more than a time-delayed fashion, and more than one thread in recent memory has ended up looking like an IM transcript, a sure indication that people want HS to be something more. The boardware is holding us back.

Agreed. This place looks like donkey crap and it doesn't matter which display profile you choose. The front page is a piece of menstrual clot and should be taken behind the outhouse and shot. On the other hand, it doesn't look ghey, which is a good thing. Let's stay utilitarian.

pALEPHx wrote:

People who covet their privacy

Paramount. Without lots and lots of privacy, some of us will disappear.

pALEPHx wrote:

Sorry. I have a hangover

Haha.

pALEPHx wrote:

Furthermore, you could finally pop in some ads or affiliate links in a discreet location, and actually start getting some coin off the hopefully increased membership.

Ads suck. Really. I'd rather see Reverend Choad pass the plate.

pALEPHx wrote:

Even though some members seem to have nominated themselves as Scarecrows-in-Chief for driving off n00bs, this place will die if we keep alternating between Old Home Week/Look Who's Back, and sheer cannibalism.

And if there are too many nOObs, the board will turn into a dripping whore's cunt. A trickle is better than a roar.

pALEPHx wrote:

WilberCuntLicker wrote:

Ads suck. Really. I'd rather see Reverend Choad pass the plate.

Well, I don't like ads much either but, f'rinstance, a vBulletin owned license is $180 (Invision is comparable). Divide that by the number of active posters who actually have money, and you begin to see the problem. Choad's implied it would be worth the investment, but the refit would almost assuredly require the ministrations of Opie, Square, Choad, and whoever else happens to be handy. We would probably lose things, at least at first, like the banner thread. The recode for that shouldn't be too complicated, but it will take time. Someone will need to have reasonable facility with converters, table dumps, and possibly a few manual queries. Members need to be merged, posts need to retain their data, etc. I never implied it would be a walk in the park, but with sufficient preparation, HS could be back in business within a few hours.

Well for fux' sake, surely there are 6 of us willing to pony up $30...or 9X$20...or DirckmanX$180?
I've heard numerous among us brag about their financial status. Let's see them walk de walk....

opsec wrote:

pALEPHx wrote:

require the ministrations of Opie,

WTF.  Why do you keep volunteering my phantom services?  I don't nor will I probably every write PHP, ASP, .net, VB, C+ or even perl when I can avoid it.   I'm currently avoiding it quite successfully at 50-60 hours a week.  God bless the MS Enterprise.

There - you see? Ops will front the whole transition as long as pENIx quits pestering him for active participation.

Last time I worked on this site I felt, wrongly or rightly, that I was accused of overstepping myself and misappropriating funds from ads. This was after putting in quite a bit of work. I have no interest in repeating the exercise.

I'm willing to throw in a little money, but I want a freakin' banner, a freakin' banner with my dick on it and a funny comment....  I was thinkin' a good one would be "catch a little somethin' at Highstreet.org"......

Cockshot! Cockshot! Cockshot!

pALEPHx wrote:

On the one hand, it's so great, I think everyone here will be happier to have added functionality, more entertaining and engaging mods/hacks, and a more user-friendly interface overall. On the other, it's pearls before swine.

Care to provide some examples?  I just took a brief swing by XM, and honestly don't see how it is that superior (though as a guest, not a member, these things may not be visible).  There's a little more eye candy, but I don't see the vast improvement in functionality.  Then again, I generally fall into the "fossil" category, so to me flashier isn't better.

pALEPHx wrote:

You can't see who's online, you can't interact in more than a time-delayed fashion, and more than one thread in recent memory has ended up looking like an IM transcript, a sure indication that people want HS to be something more. The boardware is holding us back.

At the end of every post there's an online/offline display.  The normal PunBB main page lists online users, but that function has apparently been hacked out here.  I'm not sure what you mean by non-time-delayed interaction - can you elaborate?

pALEPHx wrote:

Swapping out color schemes doesn't float my boat, but it's always such a pain to do the BBcode raw because the interface isn't truly WYSIWYG.

Well I don't mind typing BBCode, but then again, fossil.  The Easy Visual BBCode seems, well, easy.  It isn't WYSIWYG, but the preview works fine.  I assume that you know of decent WYSIWYG editors; as an example, I've read plenty of complaining about TinyMCE on  another forum.

pALEPHx wrote:

Other boardware would allow more of people's personalities to show, new members would be able to see locations, faces, and whatnot.

Stock PunBB includes avatars, signatures, locations, and titles.  They've been disabled here, in some cases through configuration settings, in others by modifying the code itself, from what I can tell.  I'm assuming there is a reason for this.  (Honestly, I prefer the minimalist approach, so I'm not complaining.  Just pointing out that implementing such things is possible.)

pALEPHx wrote:

The front page/local is a poorly maintained scrollfest of nondescriptive links. There needs to be more information, more user-friendliness.

At Cruel, the front page was the raison d'etre and the message board was an afterthought.  Here, it seems like the reverse.  In the long run, someone has to be motivated to maintain the front page content for it to be an attraction.  I'm not sure we have that.

pALEPHx wrote:

I can't imagine why anyone would stick with software that was limiting user functionality unless that was the goal in the first place.

I don't know how PunBB compares to other options, but I think you're selling its capabilities a bit short.  As noted above, there is functionality that's not being used, and I have to assume this is intentional.

I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just not clear to me what new wonders different board software would offer.

Last edited by square (2008-07-18 02:45:36)

pALEPHx wrote:

But by all means, shout your disinterest from the rafters.

I was trumpeting my incompetence.  Get it right.

square wrote:

Care to provide some examples? I just took a brief swing by XM, and honestly don't see how it is that superior (though as a guest, not a member, these things may not be visible). There's a little more eye candy, but I don't see the vast improvement in functionality. Then again, I generally fall into the "fossil" category, so to me flashier isn't better.

I wasn't positing or positioning my site as a better version of the product, but it IS considered to be an above-average deployment of the software (if nothing else). You are welcome to join in order that you may test some of the features, the posting interface, etc. I recommend Firefox, if you're going to give it a whirl. This is not required, but simply announcing you're a fossil and refusing to experiment doesn't lend much credence to your anti-argument.

square wrote:

At the end of every post there's an online/offline display. The normal PunBB main page lists online users, but that function has apparently been hacked out here. I'm not sure what you mean by non-time-delayed interaction - can you elaborate?

So many things were removed, I believe, in order to dumb down the interface, possibly to ease the transition from the linklist that was Cruel. Treating members as if they're too stupid to use better tools is never a good way to go, but I do understand the original motivation. This is not Cruel. Cruel is dead, and its spirit is being slowly pureed by a visual paucity that no longer serves the purpose it was intended to fulfill. The solution is not to go overboard in the other direction, graphically--which is what XM may represent--but I've never really said I was looking for more graphics, just the features and functions that SHOULD be here, but have been blocked out for some reason that no longer remains salient.

square wrote:

Well I don't mind typing BBCode, but then again, fossil. The Easy Visual BBCode seems, well, easy.  It isn't WYSIWYG, but the preview works fine. I assume that you know of decent WYSIWYG editors; as an example, I've read plenty of complaining about TinyMCE on another forum.

I've never even heard of TinyMCE. It looks like crap. Perhaps, something between the current, stripped bare HS and my own personal adventures in techinicolor vomit. We'd want to keep the banners, the ability to post videos, but allowing raw HTML on other boards is often asking for trouble. Most recognized, licensed boardware has prefab mods for allowing vids, making image posting easier, the embedding of links, etc. We may not be dealing with a highly technical crowd here (from the sporadic use of BBcode, I would say that's clear), but ease of use might encourage more creativity.

square wrote:

Stock PunBB includes avatars, signatures, locations, and titles. They've been disabled here, in some cases through configuration settings, in others by modifying the code itself, from what I can tell. I'm assuming there is a reason for this. (Honestly, I prefer the minimalist approach, so I'm not complaining. Just pointing out that implementing such things is possible.)

Well, if my prior guesses are off, then feel free to ask Choad directly, "Why does this board remain neutered?"

square wrote:

At Cruel, the front page was the raison d'etre and the message board was an afterthought. Here, it seems like the reverse. In the long run, someone has to be motivated to maintain the front page content for it to be an attraction. I'm not sure we have that.

You've hit the nail on the head. It is the reverse. This is a forum.

square wrote:

I don't know how PunBB compares to other options, but I think you're selling its capabilities a bit short.  As noted above, there is functionality that's not being used, and I have to assume this is intentional.
Capabilities that aren't used are irrelevant. What is the sense debating what could be here but isn't being used?

I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just not clear to me what new wonders different board software would offer.

Perhaps you could spend some time looking over a board for forum admins. I don't review for them anymore, but The Admin Zone is a fair start. I had a couple of years with them and I know for a fact that people who don't want to change can't be persuaded. It was a small wonder, then, that they asked for help to improve membership, revenues, or general appearance, and then didn't like what they were being told, especially when it was intended to put money in their pockets. That may not be the goal here, but if it weren't for the Cruel emigres, the interface would be unremarkable, impenetrable, and difficult to navigate. We have no idea how many new people we're potentially losing (barring those who are actively driven off).

HS seems to be in a holding pattern for membership, the interface is clunky, text-based, and visually unappetizing. Different boardware may, indeed, not be the solution. Perhaps, unlocking the capability of the extant software would be a half measure. If nothing else, look at other boards. Look at who uses them and how. Ease of communication is paramount. Some may prefer looking at this flat, dark thing and thinking "Yay, I'm back on an old listserv!" but there's a lot more in package to enjoy.