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Author Topic: Comments on new site design  (Read 24793 times)

mguertin

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #20 on: August 13, 2010, 11:20:13 am »

Right now, I find the member's list a bit too accessible. Nothing prevents a quick script (running as guest) to collect the "public" information about all the users, their on-line (strictly speaking logged into board status), etc... Not too much of an issue for those of us who were relatively careful when providing their personal information, and I have no problem with sharing my ID/Age/URL with any member of the board, but I think this shouldn't be so visible and so accessbible to guest scripts.

Within a few minutes, the board being so fast, the database you have in mind can be created by anyone.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=37216
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=37216;sa=statPanel

Just loop on the uid and store the result. Not too bad, but still eventually very convenient for data collection and consolidation.

While delivering custom content to users in, in principle, a good idea, please make sure someone keeps an eye on security issues, especially if the plan is to evolve towards a more personalized experience.


Thanks for noting this, and I just wanted to let you know that we are being very security conscious with the new site software, and in fact this forum software (which is beyond our ultimate control code wise) gives out more information to a guest user than our own site code ever will.  Ultimately though, on a public forum (which this one is) you have to consider that (almost) all of the information you post and all of your actions are indeed public.  I have taken steps to prevent guests from seeing anyone's email address, and have taken it one step further, in that other members can no longer see your email address (the forum software defaults to allow members to see each other's email addresses and is not a selectable option!).  Any other profile information you share you should consider public, at least for the time being (age, urls, MSN, ICQ, etc etc).

Mark
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mguertin

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #21 on: August 13, 2010, 11:26:01 am »

I also want to post another quick note for the people commenting here.  Your suggestions are appreciated, but also I wanted to be clear that for people asking for functionality changes in the way "things work" that we are very limited in that regard, and even though we can technically make some changes in the low level code of the forum software it's rarely if ever a good idea to do so as it will come back to bite you when it's time to do upgrades and security updates.  For things like masking members' email addresses it simply has to be done, but beyond important security and privacy issues like that it's extremely unlikely that we will be doing any major editing of the low level code for the forum software to change the way "things work" in regards to features, etc.
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feppe

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #22 on: August 13, 2010, 12:02:44 pm »

This is a major issue, an order of magnitude more serious that the small details about lack of separation between posts.

A forum without threaded view really is next to unusable as it renders "conversations" within a thread impossible.

I also weren't aware there was a threaded view in the previous version. While it would be useful, the forum is far from unusable as it's clear I'm not the only one who didn't use threaded view in the past.

JeffKohn

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #23 on: August 13, 2010, 07:56:17 pm »

I personally dislike the threaded view in forums software (dp-review being the the one exception because their flat view is so horrible).

As long as people quite enough for context when not replying the the message immediately above, the flat mode isn't a problem. And I find it preferable because it means less clicking and waiting for pages to load.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #24 on: August 13, 2010, 10:12:39 pm »

I personally dislike the threaded view in forums software (dp-review being the the one exception because their flat view is so horrible).

As long as people quite enough for context when not replying the the message immediately above, the flat mode isn't a problem. And I find it preferable because it means less clicking and waiting for pages to load.

Unusable is probably too strong a word, but I still believe it is a lot less usable because it simply is very difficult without a threaded view to find all the answers that were provided to one's last comment.

Non threaded view is bound to cause misunderstandings because your never know who people are answering to if content is not quoted.

As soon as you have more than 2 people in a conversation it is a fact of life that several threads do emmerge every single time within a thread.

Looking at a threaded conversation without a threaded view is bit like looking at a 3D object in 2D. Or like looking at a picture of a footbal game instead of watching a motion picture. An important information is lost, or more accurately information that was initially differentiated is mixed up. Showing a threaded conversation as a one dimentional flow is an entropic operation similar to a switch from RGB to LAB space. The quote capability of forums is at best a  poor way to compensate for this.

Cheers,
Bernard

beamon

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #25 on: August 14, 2010, 12:19:11 pm »

I belong to another board using the exact same software, and the way they have chosen to differentiate between posts is to alternate white and, in their case, very pale blue backgrounds. This board could use very pale green in a similar way. That, plus the heavy line now used would further separate successive posts.
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jean1974

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #26 on: August 14, 2010, 04:03:07 pm »

I do like the smooth design.  On the bottom left when I hover over the buttons such as "reply" I see a line above (instead of line below).  I was thinking a background color for mouse over would be nice, like the buttons on the.

Mark Anderson

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #27 on: August 14, 2010, 11:16:25 pm »

Michael, thanks for the disclosure of what's coming in the next few months. I love LL, and visit the site at least once per day, and have done so for years.

Is it time for a change? As the chief architect and content provider for the site lo these past 11 years (do I have that right?), if in Michael's judgement it is time for a change, or a transition, to a site that strikes me, top to bottom, as having the potential to be more dynamic, and more integrated in how it provides pertinent information and discussion on as wide a range of photographic topics as might be imagined, well, let's just say I'm really looking forward to what we're going to see in the next six months.
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Mike Louw

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #28 on: August 15, 2010, 07:12:55 am »

I like it overall and I'm looking forward to the new features. One thing I do miss is the "remember me" check box. I now have to log in every time I visit the site.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #29 on: August 15, 2010, 09:35:40 am »

I like it overall and I'm looking forward to the new features. One thing I do miss is the "remember me" check box. I now have to log in every time I visit the site.
Mike,
I managed to get that one after several tries. The trick is that you must login from the "Login" button just to the right of "Members" (near the upper right), and NOT from the Username and Password boxes in the upper right. After you click "Login" you will see boxes with places for Username and Password as well as the check-box for something like "Keep me logged in forever" (the default is something like 60 minutes.)

It took me about three tries, but it finally seemed to work.

Good luck!

-Eric
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Mike Louw

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #30 on: August 15, 2010, 11:38:45 am »

The trick is that you must login from the "Login" button just to the right of "Members" (near the upper right), and NOT from the Username and Password boxes in the upper right.

Aha! Thanks Eric, that works for me too.

Mike
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Kirk Gittings

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #31 on: August 15, 2010, 01:12:44 pm »

Another issue I'm having on a Windows Vista/Firefox setup. 9 times out of ten, when I go to account settings it crashes Firefox.
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Thanks,
Kirk Gittings

mguertin

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #32 on: August 15, 2010, 01:53:32 pm »

Another issue I'm having on a Windows Vista/Firefox setup. 9 times out of ten, when I go to account settings it crashes Firefox.

Try clearing your cache in Firefox, that might help.
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kpmedia

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #33 on: August 15, 2010, 11:18:56 pm »

I've been coming here for a couple of years now, and disliked the 1990s-style forums, so generally stayed out of them. Being on SMF now, an easy-to-use and -read forum, I see reason to register and participate.

Good job.  :)
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darr

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #34 on: August 15, 2010, 11:28:31 pm »

A big improvement!  Thank you for think about us lurkers!  :) ;) :D ;D
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Chris_T

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #35 on: August 16, 2010, 08:55:22 am »

Upper-right:  "Luminous Landscape Home"

Dave

I stand corrected. But the link did move and is much less obvious.
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Chris_T

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #36 on: August 16, 2010, 09:09:18 am »

I've added a custom modification to perform 301 redirects for any of the old forum links (direct topic links only).  Worth noting, this was not just a new "design", it's completely different forum software.  Luckily it seems the the conversion preserved the topic ID's from the old site so this mod I did should perform well (in theory!).  If anyone sees it loading pages that they didn't expect from bookmarks please let me know.

One key and basic factor to consider when trivially updating a site or overhauling one is to decide whether to seamlessly support old urls linking into the old site. For a site like LL with a lengthy history of mountains of information, the decision ought to be obvious. Hope the old links were only broken for the forum, and not elsewhere, such as the articles, etc.

One of the most challenging site design tasks is to beta testing it *prior* to launching. Finding a wide range of users with different platforms, browsers, usage, etc. who also happen to be insightful, opinionated and vocal is easier said than done. Here at LL, you have the luxury of plenty of them, for free.
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michael

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #37 on: August 16, 2010, 09:25:25 am »

One key and basic factor to consider when trivially updating a site or overhauling one is to decide whether to seamlessly support old urls linking into the old site. For a site like LL with a lengthy history of mountains of information, the decision ought to be obvious. Hope the old links were only broken for the forum, and not elsewhere, such as the articles, etc.

One of the most challenging site design tasks is to beta testing it *prior* to launching. Finding a wide range of users with different platforms, browsers, usage, etc. who also happen to be insightful, opinionated and vocal is easier said than done. Here at LL, you have the luxury of plenty of them, for free.

We have been, we are, and we will.

Michael
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mguertin

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #38 on: August 16, 2010, 11:18:31 am »

One key and basic factor to consider when trivially updating a site or overhauling one is to decide whether to seamlessly support old urls linking into the old site. For a site like LL with a lengthy history of mountains of information, the decision ought to be obvious. Hope the old links were only broken for the forum, and not elsewhere, such as the articles, etc.

One of the most challenging site design tasks is to beta testing it *prior* to launching. Finding a wide range of users with different platforms, browsers, usage, etc. who also happen to be insightful, opinionated and vocal is easier said than done. Here at LL, you have the luxury of plenty of them, for free.

No worries on that front.  The forum legacy links were less of a concern due to the way most people use the forums and the way forums function, but it worked out that it was easy enough after the fact to do a little fancy redirecting -- which only works with actual topic links that were bookmarked and nudges google to re-cache the new URL's as it encounters them.
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AndyF

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Re: Comments on new site design
« Reply #39 on: August 16, 2010, 10:00:33 pm »

A tiny suggestion on a tiny but frequently used feature - is there a way to make the page links larger?  I refer to the next page numeric links at the bottom left for longer discussions, and the "next" link.  Relative to the size of a display these are only a few pixels in size.

Looking forward to the new features
Andy
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