Site updates

[Kylar]

Hey if you tried to set your birthday in your profile and it kept reverting to 0001-01-01, now you can do it.

[hung.part.timer]

I stumbled upon another forum which is using this same simple forums software except it was mobile friendly. This site renders at the desktop size when I'm on my phone and it's not the optimal experience. Is there a setting to make this forum render at mobile size when I'm on my phone?

[Kylar]

I stumbled upon another forum which is using this same simple forums software except it was mobile friendly. This site renders at the desktop size when I'm on my phone and it's not the optimal experience. Is there a setting to make this forum render at mobile size when I'm on my phone?

Not that I know of... other than updating to SMF 2.1, which however would make us lose the Gallery.  I personally don't mind that, but I'm sure a lot of people would miss it.
Or well, there are some other themes besides the default one that we use now, but most of what I encountered in the 2000s when running SMF were right garbage, so I never looked into that part with this site.

[Kylar]

Well there we go.  2.1 now, because things were too new for good old 2.0.  The Gallery is gone and I could not do anything about it...

I still have the gallery files, just not the plugin.  We'll have to make do with the forum itself (which is what matters anyway).

[burtonian]

The new forum layout is clean, crisp and modern but I have two issues:

1. I cannot see a 'log out ' button, am I missing it or do we now just wait for our chosen time period to expire?

2.  Most importantly, I now see that my personal email address is available on my profile that any member can access.  I have not consented to this and its publication is probably in breach of data protection legislation in my country.  Are other members aware of this change and how can personal emails be deleted from profiles?  Unless a prompt deletion facility is available I suspect the forum will lose many members, myself included.

[hung.part.timer]

1. In the top left corner, click on your screen name, and in the drop down you'll find the logout option

2. I couldn't find how to hide our emails being displayed. This may be an admin setting which can be turned on (and would also request be done so)

The new forum layout is clean, crisp and modern but I have two issues:

1. I cannot see a 'log out ' button, am I missing it or do we now just wait for our chosen time period to expire?

2.  Most importantly, I now see that my personal email address is available on my profile that any member can access.  I have not consented to this and its publication is probably in breach of data protection legislation in my country.  Are other members aware of this change and how can personal emails be deleted from profiles?  Unless a prompt deletion facility is available I suspect the forum will lose many members, myself included.

[scotsguy27]

I messaged Kylar about the email addresses being shown as I too was concerned and stated I would leave the site if my email was exposed to other members. I've clicked on both of your profiles and it isn't displayed. I think only we can see it when viewing our own profiles.

[raj]

I clicked on the users online profiles and their email id isn't displayed.I can view my email id when I clicked my own profile.

[burtonian]

Thanks hung.part.timer. I had actually found the log out option, it takes time to figure things out when you're clocking on in years and barely computer literate like me!

Thanks to Scotsguy27 and Raj too, I think you are right in your suppositions.  Looks like I'll be keeping my account then. 

[Kylar]

Yeah it's a terrible design decision from SMF and it caused me some distress too.  There was even a "send email" button on the side (desktop mode, when you're reading someone's post) and it showed you your own email address directly instead of a link to the old "send email form" page - for one, who would want to send an email to themselves, two, why remove that masking feature...  It's all really stupid.

However what they did change for the better is that the email address is - supposedly - hidden for everyone; in the past it was possible to enable others to see it, with a profile setting, now that has been removed entirely and is always off.  Only moderators and admins see members' email addresses.

In any case I edited the template files so they don't show the "send email" envelope icon under any circumstances.  If I as a moderator want to mail someone for whatever reason, I can just go to their profile anyway.  In the profiles I've checked that common users cannot see others' email addresses, you are just seeing your own. 

[Kylar]

Another thing they changed was the removal of the Karma system, the reason being that it was member and not post based - which is a valid reason   It supposedly also caused cliques to form, but I don't think that was really an issue here.

We have post likes now instead, which are however very simple and I wish we had downvotes too but I couldn't yet find an appropriate addon (there was one with a star rating system but I found it clumsy and Too Much).  And, well, there's no such marker next to the user that would show "Member posted 1234 posts and got 2 likes for them" or something like that - anything that could show any sort of reputation.  (Admittedly with so many posts on the forum we have an incredible backlog with no ratings or likes anyway - so any reputation is hard to measure)

I found an addon to resurrect the karma system so both Likes and Karma can still be used, at least on Desktop view.

[King Tuck]

Interesting set up . . . Unfortunately I don't think this site is user friendly at all and takes way to
Much time and effort to understand

[Kylar]

Interesting set up . . . Unfortunately I don't think this site is user friendly at all and takes way to
Much time and effort to understand

Although this is probably the wrong topic for that...

Well, the site's been around for over 10 years, and forums used to be more commonplace back then.  It is what it is.