Dandello wrote on Jul 21^st, 2012 at 2:38pm:

I like your thinking! What a concept! Once again, YaBB would be a leader in the community of forums; a YaBB-lite, and a tricked out YaBB kitchen sink version.

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Dandello wrote on Jul 21^st, 2012 at 2:38pm:

I realized this a while back after thinking that I thought of something brilliantly simple; to use a stable version of YaBB for this forum so that it can be showcased as it's meant to be; a great forum!
Excuse me ... almost swallowed a hair in my coffee! TMI?  

Okay, it's out now, but it still feels like it's there. Back to regular programming ...  

So yes, I've seen discussions elsewhere about using a stable version of YaBB here. I hope it happens so that this forum can run the way that it should.

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Dandello wrote on Jul 21^st, 2012 at 2:38pm:

I get that about the incompatibility issues of using/marrying BoardMod with YaBB ... for the reasons you mentioned. Valid points!

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I guess what I'm trying to say not so well is that it would be great for YaBB to have at its core a solid foundation on which to add mods, i.e., so that modders could rely on YaBB's basics, and develop mods that would be truly compatible.

Maybe a "standard" could be decided upon, and made available as a base/core/foundation for modders so that mods could work independently from one another no matter if there are 2 mods installed, or 100.

As I understand it about BoardMod, that place was basically created because of frustrations with the direction YaBB was taking; the "lack" of apparent leadership, etc. So in practice, BoardMod forked off on its own. At least that's the perception of it all.

Edited:

Carsten's forum evidently became independent of YaBB, and broke away from it because of these same frustrations (as I read about it here in his forum).

So evidently what's happened is that the YaBB community kind of split up in different directions; ironically by people who love YaBB; so that YaBB can be better.

My hope is that with this renewed effort to cooperate, and further develop YaBB, some of those who broke away will once again join "the team" to work together again; but this time, really work together.

Of course, a real unity will be difficult to achieve if in fact this forum continues to operate as it is. But my "YaBB for Dummies" mind tells me that fixing the small things that are wrong will go a long way in making this a comprehensive community again.

So one small step that will seem like a huge move to make things better would be to operate this forum with a stable version of YaBB.

At the very least, for the majority of people who come here for a variety of reasons, "they" will see how well YaBB actually works, and YaBB will once again grow exponentially in the way that it otherwise deserves.

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If it's any consolation to those of you are "afraid" to speak out, or publicly support any of us who do tell the truth about what's going on, don't sweat being attacked for it. Human nature will be at work, so it's not a big deal.

Please remember, ideally this is the place to improve YaBB, and to build upon its great software. But if all else fails, and the truth doesn't win out here, these truths will win out someplace else even if in the end that means other forum software is used ... or YaBB is simply developed, and supported elsewhere.

To an obvious extent, YaBB has already been split up, and that was done with good intentions. All that's needed now is a little YaBB glue to put the pieces back together, and we'll all be like gold.

Okay, back to my coffee, and preferably without any more hair in it.

Edited:


Edited:

I totally agree with batchman as my same views on page one of this thread. YaBB is still a flat file system and I would tread carefully as we do not wish to revisit past issues with server loads. Not everyone can afford VPS etc.

There's the other side of this (sorry, playing Devil's Advocate).

Which is the fear of making the software too large, clunky, and difficult to figure out by throwing in every feature in creation, when a lot of people may not need them, and may not want to go to the trouble of figuring them out ... which is why, in the past, so many mods were never added to the main software.

So to try and keep things 'slim' we had the active mod community at Boardmod.

Now as I was saying, I am playing Devil's Advocate here, since my forums usually have at least 98% of the mods that have ever been released, including 20% that I have installed, even though I don't ever plan to use them.

Personally, I'd like to see two versions of YaBB, probably one hosted at YaBB, and the other at BoardMod ... the still lean and mean main version on YaBB, and the Kitchen Sink version on BoardMod, which includes every mod that has been created and tested for the software, already ready to go.

And then I have to ask, because I don't see on the list one of the largest mods that has always been among the more difficult to install simply because its 100+ install steps can so easily conflict with something else ... has YaMS/Member Map already been added to the main package without my registering it? And if not, as one of the more popular long-time mods, should it not be added as an option?

If it has already been added, then please ignore the preceeding paragraph.

Hotlinks by Carsten was another great mod I used  

Just looking at Carstens forum and 2.4 version seems to work with 2.5

depablo wrote on Jul 20^th, 2012 at 8:48pm:


I looked through BoardMod for this one and it looks like Jet Li was given first dibs on taking care of it when astropilot 'retired' and the links to the Yabb2+ version are gone.

Maybe Jet Li has this one on a back burner somewhere?

There are only 15 spots on the Poll and they're all filled.  
But Barnstorm's RSS on Board Index is another one to look at. As well as TopicDetails.

Dandello wrote on Jul 20^th, 2012 at 6:58pm:

I agree. This is pretty much why I'll support any mod even though I may not want to use it myself. After all, as you and others have more or less stated before, anything that can be helpful to an admin is a good thing.

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Dandello wrote on Jul 20^th, 2012 at 6:58pm:

I've always had this problem of images suddenly disappearing. Or more accurately, I long ago solved that problem by maintaining our own full inventory of images that have been published on our site since 1997. So when an image disappears, I can simply make it reappear with a direct link from our inventory.

Ironically, our most popular site where our YaBB forum resides came to be specifically because images from contributors kept disappearing whenever third party linked sites were shuttered. In those days back in 1996 (and with BBS groups circa the mid 80's for me personally), we shared stories and photos with one another. And because this was more of a local phenomenon than anything else, we actually met in person from time to time.

It's a long story, but in short our group ended up relying on me to centralize our data, which eventually went online in 1997 (ending up with a domain in 1998).

Our images, stories, and video clips are only referenced in our forum; they do not reside there. A really cool mod would be one that could identify a broken link, and notify the member that an email has been sent to fix this problem.

Edited:

First off, and most importantly, I'm very thrilled to see this activity of cooperation, and involvement here in this forum regarding the next generation of YaBB; outstanding!

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Dandello wrote on Jul 20^th, 2012 at 1:33pm:

Presuming that I enable a "Self Delete Lock" mod, I'm impressed with your thinking about what to do with deleted members; I hadn't thought of your solution, which I think is pretty clever.

I'm guessing a deleted member's posts could be identified with them again after they've reactivated their membership with me, which could be a nice benefit to this alternative method of actually deleting an account altogether.

Generally speaking, my position or "policy" is to always allow members to have full use of their membership; full use. I would otherwise feel awkward or immoral about having any kind of control over their online persona. This is why I'm currently against enabling a "Self Delete Lock" option if it was made available for an admin's use.

On the other hand, enabling "Self Delete Lock" would benefit members who've inadvertently deleted their memberships. And those who change their minds after having me delete their memberships could have the benefit of me being able to reactivate their old accounts if I managed them accordingly.

In any case, I've always allowed members to modify or delete their own posts, and naturally if they wish, they've always been allowed to delete their membership altogether. This is without any time limits.

In practice on our site when I've noticed it, it hasn't been uncommon for a member who has deleted their membership to sign up again. What would be really cool would be to have the ability to "delete" a membership by "ghosting" it from public view altogether, but without the purpose of deception or fraud.

Obviously if I wasn't so libertarian in my views, on my own I could ghost members who have chosen to otherwise delete their memberships.

Sometimes I think I get in my own way. 

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Dandello wrote on Jul 20^th, 2012 at 1:33pm:

Regarding spammers, that's no longer a concern in our forum thanks to an anti-spam mod that's been installed (with a backup anti-spam mod in place for activation as needed). Ironically however, the suggestions you made regarding deleted members are actions I've previously taken with spammers, i.e., I've essentially disabled their accounts, and removed any real identifiers (before the spam-bot hits became so prevalent). I sometimes still do this with hu-bots whenever they manage to register.

As you might imagine, spammers don't complain to me about their accounts having been disabled. What?! 

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Dandello wrote on Jul 20^th, 2012 at 5:15pm:

I agree. And again, I'm very thrilled to see everyone working together in this forum to improve YaBB, which for us users, we already know is a really terrific forum.