League Office => Announcements => Topic started by: David Johnson on December 28, 2023, 07:51:51 AM
Title: State of the Forums
Post by: David Johnson on December 28, 2023, 07:51:51 AM
Some of you may have noticed some problems with the website and forums yesterday; I tried to get things working in the forums using an https protocol and it first killed the forums then caused additional problems where the website itself became unworkable. Basically the website starting redirecting in on itself and became completely unusable. Took me 6-7 hours just to get things back to where they are now.
Based on that experience, I do not think that there is a solution that will (i) bring the forums current AND (ii) preserve the existing structure, threads, members, etc... As I view it, we have a couple of options:
We can also remain on this forum and deal with whatever issues creep up. Personally this doesn't bother me at all; I never have issues on Firefox because it doesn't force https on its users like Chrome and sometimes Edge do. If we do this, my suggestion to others is that if you experience a problem, check your URL bar to make sure you haven't been forced into https. If you have, just switch back to http.
I can create a new forum. I've tested that and everything seems to work totally fine on the https protocol. I cannot bring our history over to the new forum though; I've tried processing an import, but it fails; the only import software made by ElkArte works when you are moving to/from ElkArte but not moving to and from ElkArte. That said, we could retain the forum for posterity and just include a link to it on the new forums.
We move over to a discord server. There are obviously apps for everyone's phone that will allow more flexibility and access in terms of what what we can do. Matt and I played around with this last night and seems pretty cool. From a workload perspective, this would be best for me as I don't have to manage or maintain forum infrastructure that occasionally breaks. Downside is that this doesn't maintain us in the same forum and everyone would have to learn something new (albeit a fairly simple app).
I would appreciate everyone’s thoughts.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Walla Walla on December 28, 2023, 11:17:02 AM
Whatever is best for you, David. I am astounded at the complexity of this spreadsheet and forum.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on December 28, 2023, 01:14:27 PM
I concur with Butch. Whatever is best for you, David. And if I can help in anyway, I’m happy to. Especially if you put me to work between now and January 7. I start school back up on the eighth so timing will be less flexible.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: thebuland on December 28, 2023, 02:30:45 PM
I'm leaning towards Discord. I hadn't used my account until yesterday and found it pretty straightforward.
Pluses and minuses I observed. Once you have the app on your phone, it's great to receive notifications and it made communicating with David super easy. We used text, but I believe you have use it for audio/video as well if you so choose. The ease in checking in and communicating through my phone sold it on it's own.
However, I've read that there are apps and bots you can add to aid the function of your site. I'm intrigued by what might be out there to help us run things such as free agency and the draft. I did read they have some auction apps which I think would be interesting to test out.
On the minus, beyond having to learn a new site (again, I found it pretty easy), the main issue I see is losing the historical communication and data. However, David keeps up our spreadsheet and it sounds as if we can keep this site for reference.
FYI, I believe I found a solution to the http issues with chrome. I sent an email to all with screenshots. Hope that makes it easy to apply the work around.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Bob Miller on December 28, 2023, 02:54:47 PM
I heard of Discord but I don't know what it is. How do most folks get to this web page I wonder ? Thru a desktop computer, a laptop or the smart phone ??? I use desktop computers at work and a cheap laptop at home both with Firefox as the browser. I am NOT a tech person at all and this web page has worked for me flawlessly for me from both computers. I'll agree with whatever the commissioners have to do but please don't limit access only thru a smart phone. My eyes are bad and looking at those small screens I can't see crap.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: bcbarnes on December 28, 2023, 02:58:19 PM
1. Whatever is easiest for you. 2. I've heard of discord but have not used it, but I'm willing to learn it.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: thebuland on December 28, 2023, 03:49:54 PM
To clarify, accessing through the phone is a feature, but you can access it through the web as well if you prefer. You can also install the app on a tablet if you use those. You have lots of options.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on December 28, 2023, 04:10:41 PM
Matt, your pic tutorial worked!
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: tigersfancj on December 30, 2023, 06:24:21 AM
I would stick with option 1.
However, Discord is great and I use it a lot for other groups that started there. For groups that start on a forum It has been hard to move people over despite its simplicity (change is scary for the elders). I think starting an optional discord channel to see how much it increases communication is a good idea. You can slowly add functionality as people use it.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Mike Loar on December 30, 2023, 07:32:15 AM
I would opt for whatever is easiest for David as long as I can access the site with my PC. I'm not a Smartphone kinda guy.
On another front, have we been updating each year to the DMB encyclopaedia app?
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: profjason on December 30, 2023, 12:48:53 PM
I'm good with whatever is easiest, although getting to keep the historical data and information would be a bonus to staying.
I have used Discord for a local Pokemon Go group, and I don't recall seeing all of the functionality we have here. I like having the folders for signings, promotions, trades, etc., and I don't know if Discord would allow for individual postings like we have. You can make the posting, but they just blend together. However, that experience might be because it is Pokemon Go with a bunch of college students, who are just organizing raids and things like that. Again though, I have not heavily used Discord in a while, so that could have also changed.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: profjason on December 30, 2023, 12:50:14 PM
Also, I will say that I have noticed on the forums here, it can be very laggy, so I don't know if Discord would be better for speed.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: David Johnson on December 30, 2023, 06:24:30 PM
I'm good with whatever is easiest, although getting to keep the historical data and information would be a bonus to staying.
I have used Discord for a local Pokemon Go group, and I don't recall seeing all of the functionality we have here. I like having the folders for signings, promotions, trades, etc., and I don't know if Discord would allow for individual postings like we have. You can make the posting, but they just blend together. However, that experience might be because it is Pokemon Go with a bunch of college students, who are just organizing raids and things like that. Again though, I have not heavily used Discord in a while, so that could have also changed.
Send me your username and I will add you to the discord channel and you can see the framework that Matt and I worked on. Whether it will be as usable after we add hundreds of posts is another story, but it is possible to set it up in a forum-based structure.
If we moved to a new forum structure with a prominent link to the 2023 and earlier threads, I believe that would speed up the forums significantly and bring it current with https and everything else That said, I would hate to do that then realize after a year we are having the same issues. I agree though that we absolutely need to retain the history. We've lost a lot of past years and it's just unfortunate.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: bshirt7 on December 31, 2023, 07:44:31 AM
I am down with whatever is easiest.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on January 08, 2024, 06:20:13 PM
Just an update on my end for the state of the forum. I use Safari now, and have been for a couple weeks exclusively. However, it is taking more than a minute to load pages for me. With Free Agent Auctions coming up, what's the possibility we might have another solution? It's a first-world problem, I know. Just communicating what I'm experiencing.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: profjason on January 09, 2024, 08:26:36 PM
Just an update on my end for the state of the forum. I use Safari now, and have been for a couple weeks exclusively. However, it is taking more than a minute to load pages for me. With Free Agent Auctions coming up, what's the possibility we might have another solution? It's a first-world problem, I know. Just communicating what I'm experiencing.
I did notice at times that the forums could be slow to update. I'm not sure if that's the load on the servers or whatnot, but I have noticed the same types of problems at times. It is like one moment it works great, and the next it is like I'm back in 1993 and on Prodigy for my Baseball Manager fix.
I will also say that David got me access to the Discord server for the league and it looked very nice. I think it might be a very workable option, and in general, my experience with Discord is that there aren't a lot of problems with slowness.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: David Johnson on January 10, 2024, 09:28:13 AM
Just an update on my end for the state of the forum. I use Safari now, and have been for a couple weeks exclusively. However, it is taking more than a minute to load pages for me. With Free Agent Auctions coming up, what's the possibility we might have another solution? It's a first-world problem, I know. Just communicating what I'm experiencing.
Kyle and everyone else,
Might make sense for me to start a poll on this one.
Ultimately this is a question of convenience for others (as well as workload for me). New forums are located at http://www.mutinybaseball.com/msbforums/. I haven't fixed images all over but that page runs in https and seems a lot faster to me.
Likewise, if anyone has discord, I can show you that as an option. Alternatively, see the image below which shows a preliminary thread structure as well as giving you a sense of the easy access to emojis, gifs, and the fact that we have voice channels where we could host actual meetings. Heck, at a minimum, it would be a lot easier to add these screenshots - on the forums, I have to host the pictures somewhere so I have a link that I can direct a URL to. On discord, you just click a button.
Additionally there is the option of using apps to add additional functionality. For example, we could use MLB Game Feed Viewer in specific channels to show game feeds while chatting about the game with other MSB members. Perhaps won't ever be used but who knows:
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on January 10, 2024, 12:55:51 PM
Very cool! However, it won't let me log in. On Chrome, anyway. Let me try Safari...
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: scubadan on January 10, 2024, 01:40:57 PM
I haven't had any problems since accessing through Firefox. I just have to remember to go out here since it isn't staring me in the face on an open Chrome tab. Whatever works for everyone else is fine with me.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: David Johnson on January 10, 2024, 02:14:42 PM
Very cool! However, it won't let me log in. On Chrome, anyway. Let me try Safari...
You mean log in to the new forum structure? It would require everyone to make an account there. Doesn’t carry over.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Scurvy Dogs on January 21, 2024, 12:22:39 PM
Thanks to Matt - here are screen shots for the fix for Chrome
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Scurvy Dogs on January 21, 2024, 12:26:57 PM
Hope this helps!
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on January 22, 2024, 06:36:58 AM
The fixes worked for me to see the forum (in Chrome), but I can't reply. To anyone or anything. It brings up an error message. So I'm just using Safari. But it still literally takes 50-60 seconds to load each page.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Scurvy Dogs on January 22, 2024, 07:23:01 AM
@Kyle Brandon had something similar this weekend. He cleared his internet cache and it worked afterwards.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on January 23, 2024, 02:05:27 PM
It worked! Only took 40 seconds to load, but it worked...
If it's really that bad for people, I think we should move over to the new forums for free agency. I can get everything ready to go over the next 2-3 days so that everything looks nice and clean. Though it will require everyone to re-register on the new forum.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on January 24, 2024, 03:03:17 PM
It worked! Only took 40 seconds to load, but it worked...
If it's really that bad for people, I think we should move over to the new forums for free agency. I can get everything ready to go over the next 2-3 days so that everything looks nice and clean. Though it will require everyone to re-register on the new forum.
I fully agree with this IF you have the time, David, and if we think all 20 of us can make the move by then.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: scubadan on January 26, 2024, 07:52:40 AM
Firefox works just fine for me. My problem is only remembering to open Firefox to look at it. I keep the sites I look at regularly open in tabs in Chrome. It's my daily reminder of things I want to look at. I just have to train myself to think a little differently.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on January 27, 2024, 08:40:36 AM
Testing
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on January 27, 2024, 08:41:17 AM
Testing #2
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: Kyle on January 27, 2024, 08:41:29 AM
Testing #3
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: scubadan on January 27, 2024, 09:38:59 AM
If this is the old forum you wanted us to look at, it worked for me in Chrome today.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: thebuland on January 27, 2024, 10:41:07 AM
Seems to be working.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: thebuland on January 27, 2024, 10:42:21 AM
Trying again as the posting was a bit slow.
Better this time. Probably more to do with my internet.
Title: Re: State of the Forums
Post by: scubadan on January 27, 2024, 11:38:28 AM
Posting was slow on my first post today and I have really good internet here at the office.