Re: [libreoffice-website] choice of forum software

Hi Drew, *,

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 2:22 PM, drew <drew@baseanswers.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2011-11-30 at 12:05 +0100, Christian Lohmaier wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 5:11 AM, drew <drew@baseanswers.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2011-11-30 at 03:08 +0100, Christian Lohmaier wrote:
>
> > > Meter search frequency  - defense against the poor man's DOS attack -
> > > usually tied to new registrations again.
> >
> > It's using lucene as index - and lucene is seriously fast. So
> > requesting random (and thus non-cached pages) would more likely cause
> > a DOS probably.
>
> yes that would be the smart man's DOS attack - doesn't mean the other
> way isn't used.

Sure - but what is a reasonable value for abuse, and when is it still
legitimate? I think such kind of abuse is better tracked in the
firewall/network stack instead of at the applications' end.
We are talking about thousands of requests from the same IP in a short
time, not 5 searches in 30 seconds.. (and it it is irrelevant whether
the DOS is using search or requesting regular pages or doing a search)
So blocking at the firewall is better suited than attempting to limit
it in the forum. I as a user am annoyed when I cannot redo a search
right away just because I made a typo.
Any regular user sending requests as-fast-as-they can should never be
able to DOS the system. So I don't see a problem here.

Distributed DOS are another story, but if you're really under a DDOS -
you're helpless in any case and just have to endure it.

> > What could easily be done is to have new users be on moderation only,
> > but the promotion to "can post without moderation" has to be done
> > manually, so too much work unless the spam really is a problem.
>
> Post moderation will add a lot of unneeded overhead to your crew.

Yes, agreed. Both moderation as well as moving users to different
groups is considerable overhead.

> > > ======= You use what ==========
> > >
> > > Custom user profile fields - i.e. Version of the application and OS used
> > > - nice to be able to flag these fields as required during registration
> > > time
> > [...]
> my experience, and that of some others, says it is important - the aging
> issue can be a problem, but keep in mind that the majority of folks will
> come ask 1 or 2 questions and then never be seen again.

Having the info is helpful, no doubt. But I question the usefulness of
having it in the profile.
As written in the last post, I'd rather have a banner or something
similar on the posting page that reminds users to include the relevant
information.

> > > - custom fields display in public profile on posts
> > > -- cuts way down on the 'what are you using because you didn't tell me',
> > > pre-question, question exchange, quite a bit.
> >
> > This is what I hate most about forums. The unrelated information added
> > to each and every post that makes web-searches for a specific product
> > useless.
>
> Well, (WinXp vs Win7, LibreOffice 3.4 vs OO.o 3.1 vs NeoOffice x.y)
> hardly seems like unrelated information.

If users start listing everything they own in their signature or
whatever you want to call something that is added to all posts, you
make searching for any of those terms useless. As search will return
any of the posts, no matter whether the user is actually talking about
the term or not. This is one of the major reasons why I hate
forums/find forums useless when looking for a solution to my problem.

> > > [bumping - set delay when it is possible to bump]
> >
> > Hmm - as there is no special "bump" feature, a topic is "bumped" by
> > sending a reply. I don't want to limit people from providing
> > additional information that they found out about. And I don't want to
> > hinder people from posting a solution they found out themselves just
> > after hitting "send". (Often enough when explaining your problem to
> > others, you see "openings" for a solution). So I cannot think of a
> > sensible way to prevent this/make it useful.
>
> No on is limited from doing anything by this. Sorry I just don't follow
> your line of thought here at all.

bumping happens when someone replies to a topic, doesn't it? So when
you don't want users to bump their own topics, you don't allow users
to reply to their own posts.

If people are not allowed to reply to their own topic until
<bumptimelimit> passes, they are not allowed to post a solution they
found by themselves. They are not allowed to provide further details
to an answer they can answer now, but could not after they did receive
a reply when still in the <bumptimelimit>. Bother are
counter-productive.

> > If the time is short - it is likely in the new posts anyway, if much
> > time has passed, then bumping the topic is legitimate. Also I wouldn't
> > limit it to posts with no reply, there are enough forum posts with a
> > reply, but no answer. So it is not really feasible.
>
> Yes - a way to designate whether a question is actually [solved] would
> be a definite desire and if that is in place then extending the 'bump'
> to include zero reply OR not solved would make sense.

See above, I still cannot think of an algorithm that would actually
work and not hinder users.

> > [....]
> > If a user didn't get a reply/answer for two weeks, and doesn't provide
> > more info, asks for more details - what makes you think a bump will
> > change the situation?
>
> Well, IMO a group will form of responders, people that actively come
> looking to answer questions - they tend to do things like 'list
> un-answered questions' and then work their way down the list - most
> people tend to read from top to bottom and cherry pick if you will
> things of interest - as the original post slides down the list it's
> chances of getting an answer diminish.

OK, so it is only a matter of what jumps in your face will be
answered, everything else goes down the curb. If this is what the
OOo-Forums worked like?

JForum does lack a "show posts with no replies" (at least from the
current theme).
So probably habits would have to change then/users should be
encouraged to provide more details when they did not receive an answer
in <arbitrarily chosen # of days>

> > Honestly, instead of auto-bumping it should be
> > auto-moved-to-trashcan/the category for unanswered posts.
>
> Well, you can do that, I'm sure no one will mind if you delete their
> posts.

No, not delete, but move. To keep search powerful. Nothing is more
annoying than to only dig up unanswered posts asking the same thing,
but having no answer. (or only "solved, can be closed" without stating
how it was solved.

ciao
Christian

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