It's that great getting up morning: The new site is nearly ready for you.

[Fiendish_Astronaut]

Will the new site still make you wait 15 seconds between searches or clicking on New Posts?

What about the much debated edit window?
BTW, I haven’t had a single loading error since this was announced…

[rowrrbazzle]

@TreacherousCretin

Mercy, schmercy. I say we burn it at midnight in a huge bonfire while we dance naked around it. Hooting and whooping, brandishing totems.

Nuke it from …

[thorny_locust]

@TubaDiva

[ . . . ]
It should be readily apparent to someone who has missed all this news upon their return to the SDMB that Things Have Changed.

You’ll see a box that invites you to change your password. Once you navigate that you’re good to go and the board is accessible.

For those that have problems doing this, we’ll work with them to resolve their issues, whatever that issue might be. Probably the fastest way to go is to send me an email. TubaDiva@aol.com

I can’t stress this enough: If you find you can’t get on the board when the switch comes, DO NOT MAKE A NEW ACCOUNT.

Contact me, or a mod, or send up a smoke signal. Hit me up on Facebook. I post there regularly and there is a Doper group page as well.

**Also in response to similar concerns from thorny locust. [ . . . ]

Thanks!

May I suggest a sticky on the new site with the above info? Including the email for us non-facebookers (though I’ve saved the address already.)

@engineer_comp_geek

On the test site, a long thread will have a scroll bar on the side. Things above and below where you are viewing are unloaded.

So if you get knocked offline the only thing visible will be the bit that was on your screen at the time?

So much for loading pages while I’ve got the chance, and still being able to read them if the connection goes down.

On the other hand, at least presumably now the pages will load on the first try, as long as I am online.

[Dung_Beetle]

Remember when the message board was yellow? And then it turned blue? That was hard.

[engineer_comp_geek]

@thorny_locust

So if you get knocked offline the only thing visible will be the bit that was on your screen at the time?

I have no idea how much is cached in your browser. You might still be able to scroll through the entire thread, or might not. I have no idea. If I get some time later I’ll try it and see what happens.

[Spiderman]

@engineer_comp_geek

On the test site, a long thread will have a scroll bar on the side. Things above and below where you are viewing are unloaded.

CTRL-F wouldn’t work on that type of page, so Discourse does as you’ve described. CTRL-F brings up a search box which gives you search results for all instances of whatever you are searching for in that thread.

I personally wouldn’t call it an upgrade or a downgrade. It’s just different.

Does the new site have a working “go to first new post” button? Because the existing one works so poorly I’ll frequently do something like go to page 3 & then search on “today” or “yesterday” or “<Date>” to find a close proximity for a starting point for new posts after I went to be the previous night. That won’t work if posts fall off the currently viewed section of a page. If not, is there another workaround?

[GreysonCarlisle]

Quick warning–if the conversion software works the same way as the others I’m familiar with, user names can be a problem.

If you change your name over there then want to change back, you may be blocked from doing so. You’d have to change your name here (requires mod intervention on this board), then change it on the Discourse board, then come back here and change it back to the original.

So careful with that.

[GreysonCarlisle]

@Spiderman

Does the new site have a working “go to first new post” button? Because the existing one works so poorly I’ll frequently do something like go to page 3 & then search on “today” or “yesterday” or “<Date>” to find a close proximity for a starting point for new posts after I went to be the previous night. That won’t work if posts fall off the currently viewed section of a page. If not, is there another workaround?

Discourse should automatically take you to the last post you read, but there are ways to get to any post. Discourse is also continuous scroll. The only way to paginate is with an add-on that sometimes breaks other functions. Been about a year since I looked into it, though, so that might’ve changed.

[Ludovic]

@Dewey_Finn

BTW, I’ll be curious to see how the new software handles nested quotes. Those are a real pain the way the board is configured now.

I haven’t played with it very much but it does appear that threads are both nested like Reddit and in sequential, flat order, like here. So replies will appear twice. If you’ve expanded the replies to the original post, rather than scrolled down to read the reply itself as part of the larger thread, you will get to see the nested context.

But that might just be the way the discourse test site works and I might be misinterpreting the behavior I saw.

[Omar_Little]

Will “warnings” be carried over? There will be a lot of rejoicing amongst the teeming millions if this turned out to be international expungment day.

[GreysonCarlisle]

@Omar_Little

Will “warnings” be carried over? There will be a lot of rejoicing amongst the teeming millions if this turned out to be international expungment day.

I don’t know about that, but if you mute or ignore someone, you can only do so for up to 4 months. I believe that’s one of those things hard-wired in so that the Discourse philosophy can be maintained.

Just for s&g, an SD thread that slightly predates Discourse: Can we build better forum software?

[TubaDiva]

@Monty

What about those of us who already have an account at Discourse? Is the new incarnation of the Straight Dope Message Board going to be separate from that, by which I mean can I have a different user name and password than what I already have on Discourse?

Two other issues I’ve encountered with Discourse over my years in China is that it rarely works here without a VPN, and with a VPN it’s spotty.

It’s a separate site from Discourse, with our URL. Your Discourse password will not work here.

@cmyk

Very welcome news, I can’t wait.

Will there be pages for threads, or is it continuous scroll? If it’s the latter, how do threads like the Trump Clusterfuck thread in the Pit feel? That one’s been going on for almost 4 years now, and has well over 44,000 posts.

But, yay! I wouldn’t mind if we could use some of this momentum to test out posting in-line pics.

I believe you have a choice in how you view this content, including just a perpetual scrolling of threads and posts as well as by forum area, etc.

We may not allow inline pics, especially at the beginning. Let’s see how this works over time.

@RTFirefly

I’m filled with trepidation, of course, but the 502s and 504s have been a royal PITA. So thanks to TPTB for making this happen, and I won’t expect everything to be running perfectly a week from Friday. Anything like this usually has some things that don’t work right off the bat because it was next to impossible to anticipate the reason why they wouldn’t.

One question: will the in-board search function still exist, or will we have to use Google? And will there be any changes (hopefully upgrades!) if it’s still there?
I’d normally be up to that. But given the extent to which this board’s membership skews old, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to see most of my fellow Dopers naked. :eek:

There is built in search at the top of every page and it’s fast and efficient.

Since the site is hosted on Discourse I would think they would keep it fresh and up to date.

@Balthisar

TubaDiva said upthread:

I’d really, really like to get confirmation of that. Infinite scrolling is pure ducking evil:

[ul]
[li]Is Discourse going to highjack my Cmd-F/Ctrl-F keyboard shortcut?[/li][li]When the whole page isn’t loaded, you can’t search for content in that page.[/li][li]I don’t want Discord to search; I want to use my own, built-in search.[/li][li]Google is broken, because you no longer link to a page.[/li][/ul]

I use Discourse boards quite a lot for technical support, and they all implement infinite scrolling, and they all ducking suck. I hate using them, and they’re a necessary evil.

The SDMB isn’t necessary, and I won’t stand for a website highjacking my operating system shortcut keys and breaking something as basic as a freaking search.

Every site on Discourse is different and utilizes the available functions differently.

We have chosen to make our site as close to the original look and feel we have always have (minus the 504 errors). Of course it’s not exactly as the vBulletin site we’re leaving behind but it is similar enough that we think you’ll quickly adjust.

Discourse, not Discord. Perhaps that is part of your problem here; Discord is a whole 'nother something, no relation.

@Tibby

That’s all good and well, but what if between now and then, a burglar invades a member’s house, steals his computer and pistol whips the member. The member sustains a concussion which causes severe amnesia. After months in the hospital, the member gets discharged home, buys a new computer, longs to reconnect with the only message board he’s ever interacted with (in fact his only social contact of any kind), but only vaguely remembers the site name. *Was it the Squiggly Dumbass Message Board? *He recalls only scrambled bits and pieces of Doper names, like “Trumpet Famous Opera Singer”, “Quagmire the Mercurochrome”, “Snowblower Jo”, “It’s Miller Time”, “Two Many Crocodiles” and “Nice Mr. Condiment.” The neurologist tells the member, *“I’m afraid if you don’t reconnect with this strange message board you keep droning on about, your amnesia will worsen and your brain will turn to jelly.”
*
How are you going to deal with these kind of cases?!?

We’ve lived many situations in our nearly 25 years of being a message board. I’m pretty sure short of tapping into the Straight Dope Message Board in the parallel universe to ours (where everyone will have a goatee and Be Evil instead of just some of our members), we can cope with most anything that presents itself.

@elmwood

Question: why Discourse, and not a move to XenForo or IPB/Invision Power Board? Discourse seems like a bigger shift away from the traditional vBulletin/UBB format, there’s a steeper learning curve for maintenance, and if Discourse hosts it, it’s much more expensive.

I was not the decider on this so I cannot tell you exactly why they made this choice but it is my understanding that they spent months looking at what was available to them (and I do mean everything) and ultimately they chose the one they thought best served not only the interests of SunTimes Media but also this board and the associated board culture. They found Discourse to be the best fit for what they needed going forward.

This included having Discourse host the board instead of doing it in-house, where they’d have to hire someone dedicated to it. In these days of shrinking headcount everywhere, especially in the media business, that’s an important consideration. I should point out that after the Chicago Reader went away STM no longer had anyone on the staff who knew anything about vBulletin, so they were already disposed towards an outside solution. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, considering.

Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

[TubaDiva]

@Omar_Little

Will “warnings” be carried over? There will be a lot of rejoicing amongst the teeming millions if this turned out to be international expungment day.

Everything is carried over.

Just as in life, you have A Permanent Record.

Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

[ThelmaLou]

@TubaDiva

…(where everyone will have a goatee and Be Evil instead of just some of our members)…

Goatee okay. Goatse NOTNOTNOT okay. :eek:

[Omar_Little]

@TubaDiva

Everything is carried over.

Just as in life, you have A Permanent Record.

Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

[GreysonCarlisle]

If you want to get a head start on the general board functionality under Discourse, check out my tutorial on the NaNoWriMo site.

You should be able to view it without needing to make an account.

[Senegoid]

Just in case anyone here hasn’t yet noticed the other thread on this subject, or hasn’t looked at it yet:

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=897929

Some users there (mostly me) are posting remarks about their observations of Discourse. I played with their demo site for a while last night and made some remarks. I’ll repost some of them in this here thread that I think are important.

A few posts above, Do Not Taunt remarks:

@Do_Not_Taunt

There is no setting in discourse to disable infinite scroll. I would be curious how the site works as a whole with javascript disabled, though. That might be a workaround.

Discourse is built very extensively around JavaScript to do all kinds of elaborate stuff on the client side. I expect the site will be exactly 0% functional with JS disabled.

[Chronos]

While this might be a big enough deal to justify a mass-email, it wouldn’t be useful to do so. The people who need to be notified right now are the ones who don’t have a current valid email address on file… who are therefore exactly the ones who wouldn’t get it.

[AlsoNamedBort]

@Chronos

While this might be a big enough deal to justify a mass-email, it wouldn’t be useful to do so. The people who need to be notified right now are the ones who don’t have a current valid email address on file… who are therefore exactly the ones who wouldn’t get it.

Can admins send out mass PMs? I rarely notice stickied threads but I’m more likely to notice a new PM.

[Do_Not_Taunt]

@Senegoid

Discourse is built very extensively around JavaScript to do all kinds of elaborate stuff on the client side. I expect the site will be exactly 0% functional with JS disabled.

Maybe. I’m not really inclined to go play around with existing Discourse boards, but when SDMB does do the switchover, I’ll definitely test this out. There was also a browser plugin mentioned somewhere upthread to convert to paginated mode that’ll be on my test-out list.