IRON HEART FORUM MIGRATION - Help Us Make the New Forum Even Better

[Aetas]

Looking forward to this upcoming change.

Please take care, that everything comes along!

[Paul9221]

@Alex:

Because this place is a community, it's only right to run this as a community-driven project. We want your feedback, good and bad, on the forum in it's current guise, and your suggestions on what new features would make this place better both for you guys, but also more appealing to bring new people into the fold.

And not to blow smoke, but I'm pleasantly surprised, time and time again, at how well Iron Heart gets customer service.  You guys could've just rolled out some change and ignored the complaints until the people either accepted them or moved on.  Instead, you're asking for suggestions and being open about the process.  Kudos, IHUK!  Kudos!

[mclaincausey]

I don’t know these specifically but I have thoughts in general.

I think I would opt for the open source option with the best security record and most reliable components in its supported architectures. I’d be really careful about anything with a Log4J dependency at this point (which might mean eschewing Java-based options in general) and would want a much simpler less exploitable component for logging, as an example. If you absolutely must have Log4J make sure it is a patched version, but the product design decisions that went into the recent vulnerabilities in the component have shaken my faith in the whole project, and there have been more flaws uncovered since the first one.

Good luck and thanks for the approach taken here!

[neph93]

@Paul9221:

you're asking for suggestions and being open about the process.

This is the thing: We have to change. Those of us who have been here for a long time have learned to live with the format. It isn't a problem for us. However if this community is going to continue it needs a regular stream of new people. The dated desktop format combined with the lack of utility on mobile are almost certainly a put-off.

So while new blood is important to avoid stagnation, we also value everyone here enormously. We don't want to lose anyone when we update. This is the "your" place as much as anyones, so it would be rude not to ask input from everyone.

So, any ideas at all on content, structure, features, appearance. Things you can live without, things that must remain, anything. Please let us know.

[Matt]

I haven’t seen any mention of holograms.  Where are the holograms?  It’s 2022 for Christ’s sake.

[mclaincausey]

On that front, being able to find and navigate to specific threads more easily would be great. Traversing the hierarchy takes time and sometimes a thread you’re searching for could be in multiple different places. The search function isn’t great (though I assume the new option would inherently improve that).

I think the most common sense way to do that might be to index all the board names and thread titles and include them in type-ahead search as options that pop up when you’re typing search criteria. So I start typing “waywt” and options for that board and threads in that board come up so I can click into them right away. Either a carriage return or a click can take me to paged  search results. This search box should present on all pages in the same place, perhaps embedded in the header.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this is native to some of these board solutions. If it isn’t , it should be.

[popvulture]

As I mentioned last week in the random questions thread, I'd love to see an improvement in the messaging in the desktop version. Nothing fancy, just would like to click on a message and it opens up that conversation, vs the weird thing it does now. I also would like to maybe see most recent posts at the top when viewing the forum's front page, vs at the bottom like they are now. That one's less important to me, just a thought.

At one point I liked some forums that had a "like" feature, but as social media continues to just get shittier and shittier, I'm becoming more averse to that concept. So, just something to toss out there in case that feature is a potential new one.

[chrisjohnnick]

I only browse and post from my desktop using Chrome, so I've never really had any issues. I've been slowly breaking up with my phone for the last year or so, so phone functionality isn't really a concern or issue for me (sending this from my desktop, so don't worry my phone won't see this.)

I tried using tapatalk for a guitar forum maybe 10 or so years ago and really couldn't stand it at all, so have never tried it with this forum.

I guess my only thing that I'd really find useful would be a feature where I could "save" a post or a thread? Like if I was going through buy/sell/trade threads and wanted to save some for viewing and purchasing later? Or maybe favoriting some other threads to have a customized forum with the sections I would mostly want to see. Maybe those things already exist, I've just never really jumped in too much to find out.

[goosehd]

NFT’s, blockchains, crypto currency’s, and more apps than a person can count…The world is moving ahead and I don’t understand it (nor want to).

Not apprehensive about the future, just really happy at my point and place in time.

The migration will turn out great and I hope that it works wonderfully.

Keep up the good work.

[henry_david]

Idk what I'd have to contribute here in experience/knowledge (happy to try out the new system and provide feedback) but, then again, a shortage of either hasn't ever stopped me from sharing my opinion. 

[Weft 4 Dead]

Haven’t a Scooby about all the jargon you techno-wizards are on about, but I do have an idea for a feature of sorts…

How about some sort of “Wardrobe” field in a user’s forum bio, which that person can update, should they fancy? A place where we can record every Iron Heart item we own, categorised into Shirts, Jackets etc., and folks can have a stalk if they’re interested.
Not everybody would use it, but I’m sure enough would to warrant its implementation, and, selfishly… I just nerd out for such things.

Could even look at integrating such a feature into the classifieds, making it more of a marketplace-style interface, as opposed to formatted posts.

[Kasi]

That means adding 9 years…..

I pass

[sabergirl]

There’s a thread for that [mention]Weft 4 Dead [/mention] here:

https://www.ironheart.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=49.0

I think you’re imagining something more in depth, but if you want to stalk some of us, by all means [emoji6]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[neph93]

@Weft:

Could even look at integrating such a feature into the classifieds, making it more of a marketplace-style interface, as opposed to formatted posts.

That is a very interesting idea and worth thinking more about.

[deanclean]

[mention]Fadez [/mention] you just blew my mind! That was my biggest beef with Tapatalk I couldn’t @ someone. Your post of the picture is life changing! Thanks man.

[deanclean]

I don’t have much to contribute about a new forum. I only speak English, but perhaps sections for chats in other languages? I of course have no clue how easy or difficult that is.

[Giles]

Bloody difficult to moderate 

[neph93]

@Giles:

Bloody difficult to moderate 

We could add Norwegian. We could also cover anything conducted in restaurant Spanglish.

[Giles]

I bragged to a friend once that I could ask for 2 beers in almost any language.  He very quickly replied, that's fuck all use, I can do, "Two beers please, and my friend will pay"….

One of the best quick-fire responses I've heard.....

[deanclean]

Oh I’m sorry [mention]neph93 [/mention] and [mention]Giles [/mention] you don’t have time to copy and paste every single post into google translate? [emoji2]