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Items removed in SMF 2.1

Started by noquiexis, August 11, 2018, 11:56:24 AM

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noquiexis

     I do thank the SMF development team for the hard work that they put into each stable release. If all of the user-perceptible changes are not included in the changelog, those of us who administer these forums will have to discover those changes along with our forum users.

Arantor,

     I do realize that user input was considered for the changes enacted. Administrators will know of these changes, and it is up to us to explain those changes to the forum users. Most forum users do not know where the SMF download page is, nor will they read the changelog. Users may interpret the changes as errors.

Kindred,

     Categorizing users based on what avatar they use is not necessary to the discussion of the software. Perhaps I worded that confinement request poorly.

:) :) :)
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

    William Wordsworth

Arantor

Jeesh, you don't get it, do you?

Gwenwyfar

Quote from: noquiexis on August 17, 2018, 02:10:44 PM
     I do thank the SMF development team for the hard work that they put into each stable release. If all of the user-perceptible changes are not included in the changelog, those of us who administer these forums will have to discover those changes along with our forum users.

Arantor,

     I do realize that user input was considered for the changes enacted. Administrators will know of these changes, and it is up to us to explain those changes to the forum users. Most forum users do not know where the SMF download page is, nor will they read the changelog. Users may interpret the changes as errors.
That's a good point.
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

Arantor

Which part of it? The part where everything is immediately considered a bug just because it's different?

(Admins are no better or worse than regular users about this. If one starts from the position that change is inherently bad, there's no reason to even consider the upgrade in the first place.)

Also, for the changes I mentioned, I didn't exactly ask for user input, I mostly just did them for reasons that were valid at the time, even if the intervening years saw me reconsider my stance on some of them.

noquiexis

Arantor wrote,

     "Jeesh, you don't get it, do you?"

     Apparently not. What am I missing here? I am not being rude, just confused. Are you talking about the perception of errors? Maybe I should just quit while I am behind.

:-\ ??? :-\
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

    William Wordsworth

Arantor

Here's a question for you.

Likes were added, karma was removed. By your definition, how are these not errors? Karma was working as intended in 2.0.15 and the need for likes was considered not important (and for years after 2.0 came out, it was fought against).

Just because something behaved a certain way in 2.0 does not, under any circumstances, dictate that in 2.1 it will work the same way. If behaviour of all things from version to version was ever mandated to be kept, it curtails development of anything.

You're also trying to assert that 'the relative value of forum users' is not relevant to the changes of the software behaviour. It absolutely does: the relative value of forum users was precisely WHY some of the decisions were made.

And that's where my frustration meter kicks in, this sounds to me awfully like someone telling me how I made a decision - without actually checking with me how I made that decision, and believe me, some of the things in this thread are things I personally made the decision over.

True, I didn't make the changes over the bbcode - though I fully support the removal of things like the move bbc. Though I seem to recall that the original plan was to remove them unilaterally and make them available as addons for people who still wanted/used them, rather than what has actually been done. (I'm not sure how I feel about what has been done with things like the move bbc. But that's another matter, those who came after me made that decision, and the consequences of that decision are theirs to deal with.)

But things like removing karma, that was on me - and yet by your very definition, this is now an error. I assert that it is not an error, it is simply the product of change.

Gwenwyfar

This looks to me like a simple misunderstanding. He's saying we should have a changelog for the admins to know what has changed and be able to tell users about the changes, because for users they may think it's an error/bug if they see something "stopped working like it always did". Which they really would :P

Or maybe noquiexis could clarify that for us if that's not it :)
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

Arantor

There's no misunderstanding here - I'm just refusing to treat 'forum admins' differently from 'users', because forum admins are also users. The same views of 'this doesn't work how it used to, therefore it is broken' will apply, changelog or no changelog.

Gwenwyfar

Sure, some will. How does that change anything? The only difference will be we're going to be the ones to have to tell those admins "stuff changed, you'll need mods to get that back in 2.1"
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

Arantor

Some? Most.

The only difference is the volume of abuse.

Bear in mind I've already had this argument on and off for the last five years since I actually removed the things I talked about removing. Like the charming emails I got after talking about redoing the admin panel and how I must be such a retardo idiot (actual quote) for doing what I did, and the people asking if the entire dev team was as stupid as I was. Oh, and the number of people suggesting I should be fired for incompetence. Though no actual threats, which was an improvement, and no-one was saying I was trying to actually kill SMF, which is also a nice improvement on previous times.

I'm also waiting for people to complain that it no longer says 'child boards' and now says 'sub-boards', but that's another story for another day.

You'll excuse me for not believing this community is filled with wonderful people, and you'll excuse me for not differentiating between types of complainers.

Just remember: I'm one of the people who caused this topic. I'm literally one of the reasons the OP is concerned, because the majority of things removed in 2.1 were down to me. The majority of changes of behaviour and improvements is other people.

noquiexis

Arantor,

     Perhaps I was incomplete in expressing my concern. I personally will not see changes as errors, but the forum users who are not aware of these changes may perceive them as such. I never used "Karma" and probably will not use "Likes". My forum users will not see this change.

     I do apologize if my ignorance is seen as a complaint. That was never my intent. My only goal was to prepare my forum users for the changes that will occur.

     Gwenwyfar hit the nail on the head (Reply #26). That is exactly what I mean. I never intended to claim that any change is an error. Upgrades are bound to include changes that may surprise some users.

Quote from: GigaWattmembers that use the default avatars are usually ones that have little to no interest in joining the community

Quote from: GigaWattI haven't seen an active member that either didn't have an avatar (their personal choice) or didn't have a custom avatar.

     That was what I argued against. Some of our most prolific posters use the default avatars. To belittle those users is an affront. I chose not to use an avatar for this forum because I did not want one.

??? ??? ???
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

    William Wordsworth

Arantor

I'm sorry, you were getting some of the results of me drunk posting and letting loose some frustration - though some of the points I made still stand, you would be the rare exception who doesn't see an upgrade as 'breaking things', and a lot of people will argue that changing behaviour is a bug because they liked the old behaviour, see https://xkcd.com/1172/ for an absurdist example of the phenomenon.

The point about avatars was not meant as an insult, though. It's an example of an observation we've noticed across a *very* large number of (not just) SMF installs, that users who don't bother to customise their profile with their own picture do correlate pretty well to users who don't contribute a large amount of posts.

The one circumstance we've seen where there isn't as much of a correlation (but there's still a correlation, just not as strong) is if the uploadable avatar size is still set to 65x65, the same size as the preset images so that uploading an image doesn't give you anything over using one of the presets.

Just as in the same way with newer forums where you get the letter-on-a-coloured-square default avatar when you register, users who don't customise from that tend to not be good contributors - because an avatar choice is often linked with creating a sort of identity on a site beyond the username, and there has been a lot of work over the years showing that people often identify a poster by the avatar before they identify by the username.

Gwenwyfar

Quote from: Dictionarysome
adjective
quantifier; used with either mass nouns or plural count nouns to indicate an unspecified number or quantity

1: being an unknown, undetermined, or unspecified unit or thing
2: a : being one, a part, or an unspecified number of something (such as a class or group) named or implied
    b : being of an unspecified amount or number
We don't know how many, and I think it is irrelevant to what is being said.

I'm going to assume everything else was among the frustration ramblings, because it has no relation to what I have said.
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

Arantor

Ah, so what you're saying is that nothing I've said was actually of any use, thanks for the confirmation.

Gwenwyfar

Maybe, maybe not. I frankly don't know. But if that's what you want to assume from what I have not said, go ahead.
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

Arantor

Seems fairly hard to interpret it any other way.

I would finish the job and remove my nonsense posts but all that happens when I try to do that in the past is that my account gets added to a group where the permissions are removed.

Gwenwyfar

Maybe "connection" or "relevance" would have been a better word than "relation" there. I have merely agreed that a changelog is a good idea and that unknown changes would indeed cause problems with some users/admins. Everything else you've said does not change this fact, it doesn't have a direct relevance or connection. You're changing the subject to something else and I'm simply not going to any other separate discussion because I'm not interested, and it's not what I was commenting about. Whether any of this side discussion is useful or not would be an entirely different matter.

If you meant to say your side discussion is not useful to my comments specifically, then you'd be correct. Useful to something else? I don't know, could be. Maybe on how to deal with said admins it would be useful, for one.
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

noquiexis

Arantor,

     After reading of the flak that you got from others (Reply #29), I can see how you may be defensive when some Newbie like me asks a 'dumb' question. Again, my apologies for not framing my thoughts better. In my 67 years, I never acquired some of the social graces that most humans expect.

     There are two major reasons why I seldom post on this forum. First: SMF is so well written that I do not have a lot of questions. Like riding a bicycle or operating a motor vehicle, all it takes is some education and practice. Second: Although I do have access to the raw files of my SMF installation, there is very little that I understand about the operations of the software. Thus, I seldom have anything helpful to contribute to others.

     My only thoughts about the default avatars is that, why offer them at all if you don't expect people to use them? Admittedly, my experience is very limited. There are only three other forums of any kind that I visit. Long time users of SMF forums may not know that the avatar size is not always the same. They may be perfectly happy with the 65 x 65 pixel size.

Arantor and Gwenwyfar,

     Please do not allow this discussion to cause a rift between you. I have seen this happen too many times in too many other places. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but those opinions should be tempered with some measure of respect.

     My original request should have been: "What should I tell my membership about the changes in SMF 2.1?" Loosing a few avatars is only one of those changes.

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

    William Wordsworth

SychO

Was the profile edits log also removed ?
That was very useful to be honest
Checkout My Themes:
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Potato  •  Ackerman  •  SunRise  •  NightBreeze

Gwenwyfar

Quote from: SychO on August 19, 2018, 05:52:58 PM
Was the profile edits log also removed ?
That was very useful to be honest
It's still there, it was just moved to "Track user" menu.
"It is impossible to communicate with one that does not wish to communicate"

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