ES is looking for volunteers to move threads into new categories.

[neptronix]

No, worries was reading that you did not have anybody and no one would help. I'm here is you ever need help, don't have much interest in power. Just want to help support ES it has been a wealth of info.

Would you be interested in being a knowledgebase curator?
Xenforo will allow us some interesting opportunities in that aspect

[ZeroEm]

If that is what you need, I would give it a try and you can see how I do!

[neptronix]

Cool, let's talk about that in a later thread.

Okay i still don't have amberwolf's approval on the plan; i'd like to hear any feedback he has, since i think he'll end up doing a decent chunk of the work, and he is also a stickler for details.

I'm slammed with my business this week, but plan to announce the 'road construction' over the weekend and begin the project.

[ZeroEm]

I'm not going anywhere, will be around.

[nicobie]

Nice to see the volunteers.

[amberwolf]

Same as I noted before, I can move stuff when I'm not working or too wiped out or helping someone, etc., so it won't be a whole lot / often, but I'll do what I can.

[neptronix]

Cool.

I've created the new sections ahead of the lockout this weekend.. and anyone with current moderator permissions is free to begin moving things. I particularly recommend moving old threads first.

Awaiting authorization to add kauaicycler to the mod team for this purpose.

[neptronix]

I was looking over the amount of RC motor rear wheel drive threads out there and noticed this drive mechanism is falling out of popularity.
Some members have suggestions on new subforums in the ebike category, and the category could easily end up way too long.

I'd like to propose altering the deal, but i'd like feedback first.
I'm thinking we eliminate the 'rear wheel chain drive' section and merge that activity into 'other' to make space for new subforums.

Seem reasonable?

[neptronix]

No feedback so i just did it.

RC motor / rear chain drives and such are still a minority on our forum. At the end of this plan, at least they get their own section collectively

[neptronix]

The new post lockout is now in place.
kauaicycler is a mod ( without the visible title so he can't be bugged )

'move topic' in our UI has been temporarily moved to the bottom of the moderation options list for quicker finding.
I have also added an additional moderator tools icon at the top for quicker location to speed up the process.

I attempted to add a quick moderator tools feature on a per post basis, but it's a nightmare to do. Damn.

There's an insane amount of miscategorized posts including build threads in this category. Make your best judgement. Apparently this doesn't matter much to members, so we may see some 'why is that there', but this can be fixed in a second pass if needed.

I've moved a few big posts already but will do a big round tomorrow.

[amberwolf]

'move topic' in our UI has been temporarily moved to the bottom of the moderation options list for quicker finding.

For some wierd reason, this forces it to be at the bottom of a scrolling list (never had a scrollbar on the list before?) so now to use it it's slower, requires opening the tool menu then scrolling down, instead of just opening the menu and picking it from the list. Maybe put it at the top of that list instead? Or just above "View logs", which would put it just inside the visible part of the scrolling menu.

Alternately, perhaps just take out the "Merge Topic" option, since that's not really useful in the form it's been in for a version or two. Then it should put the bottom menu option (whatever it is) just inside the visible part of the scrollbar, or perhaps even eliminate the bar. "Delete Topic" would also be ok to remove, since it's "dangerous" and shouldn't need to be used anyway.

Note that the new scrollbar list only happens in the firefox I have to use for using the forum, not in chrome. (but moving it to the top of the list would still fix it...though it is not as fast to access, as the bottom of the list puts it next to where the cursor is from clicking the dropdown so is fastest location, so the other options of taking out Merge Topic and/or Delete Topic would be better for all cases).

I have also added an additional moderator tools icon at the top for quicker location to speed up the process.

This doesn't show up for me in any browser. I just get the regular topic tools like subscribe/etc.

There's an insane amount of miscategorized posts including build threads in this category.

In every category, becuase at least some posters don't appear to care much where they put their stuff (and/or don't even look to see if there is a better place, and in some cases deliberately (as they themselves state) put it in the wrong place to draw attention to it. )

I wish it was practical to have an AI of sorts that looked at the post and/or title when the post is submitted, and suggested a better place to put it if it appears to be a mismatch.

I've moved a few big posts already but will do a big round tomorrow.

Yesterday I did a few in the oldest threads, but didnt' get very far, as expected.

[neptronix]

I'm not surprised things broke for you, with the level of browser customzation you have.
Are you using my custom amberwolf high visibility theme? this may be why you are not seeing the additional moderator actions box. I can fix that, if so.

I removed the 'make global/sticky'announce' features since this isn't done often, and can be done by editing the first post anyway. This hopefully eliminates the scrolling issue.

I've also temporarily moved the chat sections downwards so that there's no scrolling needed in the 'to forum' selector.
This is about as fast as i can make things without serious hacking of questionable phpbb code, which usually goes badly, lol.

As for members posting things in the wrong section, the right section has never been very clear for a real long time, so they've been in a bad habit for.. hm.. 16 years? gonna take a while for that to change.


kauaicycler; have you figured out the process of moving threads?

[nicobie]

I'm afraid to try. Don't want to screw things up.

[neptronix]

.. it's one of the parts of phpbb that's actually easy to use now that i've made these modifications
If you stick to the default options, i've never seen anything go wrong.

I'm working on moving as we speak. I'm working backwards from the last pages. Going to do at least 400 moves today.

[neptronix]

Here's a speed hack for the job. Do this search for Sur-ron to find all threads with that title.

2021-03-21 15_04_13-(39) Endless Sphere - Search.png (22.85 KiB) Viewed 626 times

I've deleted the 'google search' option from that page and expanded the amount of subcategories that show at once for easy subforum pickings.

Open all of them in a new tab and hit 'move' on each one after making a decision.

[neptronix]

Ok i'm realizing that a lot of older posts cross reference other threads, and we cannot maintain inter-thread links which makes this older content way harder to navigate.

I don't like this effect and have decided to stop what work i've done and revert it in the name of preserving old content.

Please stop work immediately while i revert.

I'll come up with another way to do this in the future... but we can't break the old stuff this much.

[amberwolf]

I'm not surprised things broke for you, with the level of browser customzation you have.
Are you using my custom amberwolf high visibility theme? this may be why you are not seeing the additional moderator actions box. I can fix that, if so.

Even when I turn off all the browser plugins/etc it still behaved the same, unfortunately. But removing those menu options makes the bottom menu work now, so it doesnt' matter.

FWIW, I'm using SE Square Left for the forum theme, so if the tools weren't added at the top for all themes then maybe that is why i don't see it?

[amberwolf]

Ok i'm realizing that a lot of older posts cross reference other threads, and we cannot maintain inter-thread links which makes this older content way harder to navigate.

I don't like this effect and have decided to stop what work i've done and revert it in the name of preserving old content.

Please stop work immediately while i revert.

I'll come up with another way to do this in the future... but we can't break the old stuff this much.

The way phpbb makes links and reads them, it doesn't break a link unless the link specifies the forum number itself, and a thread is moved out of that forum. I don't know if really old posts did this or not, but nothing I've looked at so far does that--they all are in the format of viewtopic.php?p=1626567#p1626671 which references the post number, and that won't change regardless of where the post is located.

EDIT: so I did a search on that nonhub forum for *viewtopic* to find any posts with links in them, and went to the last page (206) and there is one that links with the subforum number in it as well http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/vi ... f=2&t=2744 ; this one still works because it points to ebike technical.

Now...here's one for you to ponder. This link
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewto ... ker#p75857
still correctly goes to the post it was meant to, even though the forum the thread is in now is new (ebike build threads) but the post containing the link is very old:
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=4625&p=85657&hilit ... %2A#p85657

A couple of posts here by Matt and Gary on price vs quality of RC motors:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewto ... ker#p75857

Even if you trim the link to just go to the thread
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewto ... f=6&t=3904
and not the post, it still works.

[neptronix]

Yeah, my modification was made to se square left NX, the theme that 99.9% of users are using.

You've got an interesting observation about forum IDs there. Apparently you can leave it out or change it and phpbb
What confused me is that phpbb has a feature to leave a shadow topic to preserve forum ID linkage. I just assumed it needed this. Apparently totally unnecessary.

Well, this is much better news.
The question is whether xenforo works the same way with ignoring forum IDs.

Let's revisit this once i've poked and prodded at xenforo. How xenforo's redirector works will determine if the recategorization happens before or after the move.

[neptronix]

I tested topic moving from one subforum to another in xenforo.
It is much better and eliminates one step.

It also allows a mass move:

2021-03-22 10_14_07-mysql commands.txt - Notepad.png (19.46 KiB) Viewed 590 times

Much faster and clearer!! I certainly want you guys using the fastest and least tedious process.

In general, i've seen that xenforo appears to share some workflow similarities to phpbb, eliminating a lot of the pain points. I can nearly guarantee moderators and users will not find it as jarring of a difference as i expected.

Let's put a pin in this idea until i investigate how link preservation works on exported forums. That's my next task.

[nicobie]

Just so everything will get transfered to xenfero maybe we might wait until the move to resort the threads to the proper section? Sounds like it might be easier then.

Just a random thought...

[neptronix]

A logical thought.
My next task is to test whether redirection works as designed or not.
That means i have to install xenforo and do a test conversion.

I have a decent % of my hiring done this week and one client promoted me from programmer to manager.. i also have one big web design project 85% complete. My schedule is about to get freed up to work on ES and i am very, very happy about that.

[nicobie]

^congratulations!^

[thepronghorn]

Neptronix, would you remove the note that the non hub motor drives subforum shouldn't be posted in? Thanks!

[neptronix]

^congratulations!^

Thank you

Neptronix, would you remove the note that the non hub motor drives subforum shouldn't be posted in? Thanks!

Oh gosh, my bad.. this is corrected.