Forum Software

[Tex_Lawrence]

To further the discussion from the previous postings here: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=40876

I'm not optimistic that there can be a valuable discussion without Administrative activity, but I've tried. I'm fully aware that there will be at least one "if it ain't broke" post, but that's not exactly part of an open discussion. (Ever notice how many posts are viewed without participation?)

[Adrian]

You can bookmark topics on this forum as well.

[adze_cnc]

…and subscribe to a topic for e-mail notifications of a post.

For Vectric migrating to a new platform while maintaining something like 18 years or past posts would be a not insignficant task.

open-source, free and modern

phpBB is the first two and the third is subjective. My blender is over 60 years old and I’d put it up against the cheaply made modern garbage I see in the home appliance section of my local big-box stores.

Open-source is not a panacea.

[TReischl]

.......I'm fully aware that there will be at least one "if it ain't broke" post, but that's not exactly part of an open discussion. (Ever notice how many posts are viewed without participation?)

Then there are always the: "It isn't broke, but I want to fix it anyway" posts.

Edit: You mention "open discussion" several times in your posts. Curious, I have been here for ages and have not seen a "closed discussion". Am I missing some secret feature?

I have been watching the words I use for a few years now. I kept hearing all over the place "We need to have a --dialog__. . ." about whatever. I finally figured out that "dialog" translates to "We keep yammering until YOU do what we want". So I do not use that word.

Sort of like anyone who has been married more than ten minutes: "We need to have a discussion, honey. . ." Translation: YOU are going to listen to what I have to say, and then there will be no more "discussion".

[Tex_Lawrence]

…

It would be great to hear something about the topic of this post. Perhaps that would convince someone who is normally a “lurker” to post their opinion.

[dealguy11]

I personally have no issues with the forum. There is nothing that I want it to do that it doesn't do. It hasn't stopped me from posting anything I need to post. I can generally find posts I need, though there is so much stuff on the forum that sometimes it's hard to pick out the particular one I want, but that's more of a matter of my finding the right search terms. The issue with the gallery is a small annoyance, and I do wish it would go back to the way it was before the last forum upgrade, where I could see posts in the same format as the rest of the forum rather than just pictures (I pretty much stopped looking at the gallery when the titles went away), but honestly I don't really care enough to make something of it. Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but for me, changing it for a few new features would not be helpful.

[adze_cnc]

The gallery issue went away once I started using Quick Links > Unread Posts

One thing that would be nice to have in the 'Gadgets - User Submissions' forum is a read-only sub forum called 'List of Available Gadgets'. That sub-forum would have a "sticky post" or Announcement for each of the user-submitted gadgets in the parent 'Gadgets - User Submissions' forum. This would allow new users to find gadgets posted well before they joined the forum and not have to wait until the appropriate thread has a new post.

I also wonder if any of the changes in phpBB version 3.3.9 are worth updating from the existing 3.3.0 version.

[Adrian]

For me any issues with the forum are how the sections are laid out rather than anything to do with the software it runs on. Everything I need to do the forum software does for me.

[Tex_Lawrence]

I have similar items that I would like to see changed. There just doesn’t seem to be a way to get those changes made.

There doesn’t seem to be any visible moderators to keep threads on topic for one thing. I’ve had posts deleted without a stated reason, so someone is moderating.

Other forums have ways for a mod to split threads into separate topics.

I’m glad to see these suggestions show up here.

[Tex_Lawrence]

Here’s a couple of statistics from public data:

There are less than 0.1 posts per member.

There are about 25 recognizable members with post counts greater than 500.

PS. From a quick survey.

[Adrian]

My personal view is that there isn't a need for heavy hand moderating. The major reason this is the only CNC forum I still frequent is because the users are very good in the main in keeping things on topic and being civil to each other. Yes threads do wander off a bit every now and again but it's nothing major. Certainly not compared to other forums that I gave up on where 3 out of 5 threads had to be closed due to political discussions.

In all my years here I can only remember 3 or 4 times where a thread was closed by a moderator. People can moderate themselves to an extent by using the report thread button. I've done that many times when someone has posted a file made with pirated software and the thread is removed pretty quickly.

I'm not sure whether posts per user is a good or bad metric. If it were a discussion forum then it would probably be bad but this is a user to user technical support (primarily) forum for a specific set of products. I would like to think that most of the people who come here find their answer in the wealth of information here so have no need to post anything.

[Leo]

I have been on many user forums. I have logged into many forums for one or two years. Forums with up to date software and forums with outdated forums.

I have been in heavily moderated forums and lots of flame wars.

Personally I do not see this forum software or any other forum software as any sort of issue at all. It's not about software.

How the indian get his buffalo has little to do with the arrows - but everything to do with the indian.

I like this forum and I am with Adrian - this is the only CNC forum I stick with. I cannot explain why that is, but I don't post on other forums for one reason or another. I like this one. Please do not make it like the ones I don't like.

I have one other forum that I frequent as much as I do on this one. Familywoodworking.org That forum has "uptodate" software. Sure it's a little easier to post stuff and it's moderated a little differently. However, that stuff is not what makes it a great forum. The founding members came away from one of those forum I tried but didn't like.

Also - it is NOT just because I am used to it. I have been around a lot of forums.

So - I am in the ----- It Ain't - Don't fix it. Group.

[wilkigr]

I am on far too many forums and moderate one. I have no issues with this forum. It may be very selfish of me, as I can very, very seldom help anyone. However, I have never some on here with a question or request for help and come away empty handed. In fact, I have recommended people come here who post on Facebook with Vectric product issues. To me, the strength of this place is the depth of knowledge and the willingness of people to help people like me who are early in the learning phase. The makeup of the forum software is a very much secondary consideration.

[martin54]

It may be very selfish of me, as I can very, very seldom help anyone

I don't think that is selfish at all, you come here to learn & in the fullness of time may well become one of the people who spends time helping those who are not as far along on their journey.

Personally I don't see any reason for a change, I am not against change but I don't believe in change just because you can, I would have to see some advantage to it & at the moment I think the forum does everything I need it to. I say think because I don't know what advantages there would be if things did change.

I started using forums back when 56k modems were a thing & like Leo have used a lot of different forums & think it is more about the people than the actual software running the forum, some I was very active on & others I could probably have been classed as a lurker, the actual software used had never crossed my mind until this post
As others have said I have left a lot of forums for one reason or another, I look in on this one every day & try to be a part of the community. By the time I got a CNC machine I had already started to leave some of the forums I had used & when looking at different CAM software the friendliness of this forum was definitely a part of my decision to purchase a Vectric product, I have never regretted that decision.

I can't offer any facts & figures but my own personal experience tells me that people join forums for different reasons & there has always been a relatively small percentage of the membership that posts on a mature forum with a lot of members, have no idea where the figures posted were worked out but I would not be surprised if they were fairly typical of a forum that had been around any length of time & the membership had grown over the years.

How old are the 2 forums linked above? Did they both start out with older forum software & then upgrade or change to something more up-to-date or did they both start out with more up-to-date software?

[Tex_Lawrence]

... there has always been a relatively small percentage of the membership that posts on a mature forum with a lot of members, have no idea where the figures posted were worked out but I would not be surprised if they were fairly typical of a forum that had been around any length of time & the membership had grown over the years.

How old are the 2 forums linked above? Did they both start out with older forum software & then upgrade or change to something more up-to-date or did they both start out with more up-to-date software?

Another forum that I use looks like it was started in 2014. It has about 18K members. In the last 30 days it had 3K active users. There was a previous forum, but I wasn't around.

Another forum is fairly new and has about 2.2K members. In the last 30 days it had about 400 active users.

The figures I posted were from the members listing, but I'm not able to access more complete data such as how many of the 27K members are actually active any more. Here's more:

• Out of 26,827 members, there are about 500 with a post count greater than 100. That's roughly 2%.

• This thread, so far, has about 13 replies and 362 views. That's roughly 3.6%.

PS. No one, especially myself, has stated anything about moderating flaming posts or needing that. As others have related their experiences, I've been the beneficiary of many instances of help, too.