As you may have noticed we have made a major change on LAShTAL. Forums were migrated to new software that we think is a superior solution to what we've had before. During the process I did some database tweaking so the site ought to be much faster now. We will also get rid of plugins that aren't used that much. However, the biggest speed up change was removal of bbPress, our previous forum software.
That said, if you notice anything missing or not working let me know so that I can look into it.
One new feature we've added to user profiles is Two factor authentication. If you want you can enable it in your profile. If you get stuck let me know and I'll explain how to do it, though it should be pretty simple. 🙂
But, man, it's been the Three Day withdrawal, with the 3rd day usually the hardest one.
Then, on the 4th day one goes out, drinks a beer, looks at the Full Moon, hangs a bit with friends, including Mary Jane, listens to a jazz concert, and so on.
I can hardly believe it. File Attachment function with an allowance of 10 MB. My first perusal finds everything (I've seen) clean and bright. Now, we have a big decision: Do we hold a service for bbPress ... or do we let it depart in peace (causing no harm to people or the environment)?
I am glad that you like the changes we've made. 🙂 We'll do more tweaking in the coming days but I think that we now have a proper forum software that integrates well into the site. About those 10M, Shiva, we might lower that if people abuse it too much. I really don't see any good reason to upload something bigger that 1Mb. If someone really has to then use file hosting service and link here. 🙂
Solid pick for new software. It's working well with windows. Has much better functions for posting. Friendly and familiar. 🤗Â
The new layout of the forums page makes it easier to follow active threads/sections.
The sidebar ordering the recent activity by thread is better.Â
With things being tinkered with my only request at this time is for Hide tags so only participants of a thread can read a post behind them. It's a seldom needed yet on occasion well needed option. Email exchanges and such particulars.
Embedding appears unavailable. Not a big deal as the option to hotlink is there but does navigate user away from the page ofc.
Post count 'member ranking' is a blast from the past. Unless it's particularly needed to dangle, disabling that display in the left bar would clean that bit of glitter up. Leaving admin/member tags and post count/join date would be helpful though if possible. Whatever works.
Forums are just so much easier to use than they have been since the Great Conversion a few years back. Thank you so much eol and Paul!
Will our new bells and whistles include revival of PMs? I think this would be a really useful thing to have back. Back when we had them, i had many interesting interactions with other members, including one death threat by a very angry German "Left Hand Path" practitioner (who, in threatening to shoot me, had in my opinion really not thought through the implications for firearms proficiency of American vs. European gun laws, or the costs of airfare).
I believe PMs were eliminated after abuse by drive-by spammers- this could be avoided by requiring 100 posts or whatever before allowing PM-ing.
I don't think many bereft Russian would-be brides, or Viagra sellers, will be able to make 100 coherent posts about relevant topics to earn the right to PM us with proposals of marriage and LOW PRICES
@eol migrating a forum of this size and various origins is no easy task. the embedded images look to have survived the move well. any info on how many links/images etc will be allowed in a post? good work!
Will our new bells and whistles include revival of PMs? I think this would be a really useful thing to have back. Back when we had them, i had many interesting interactions with other members, including one death threat by a very angry German "Left Hand Path" practitioner (who, in threatening to shoot me, had in my opinion really not thought through the implications for firearms proficiency of American vs. European gun laws, or the costs of airfare).
I believe PMs were eliminated after abuse by drive-by spammers- this could be avoided by requiring 100 posts or whatever before allowing PM-ing.
I don't think many bereft Russian would-be brides, or Viagra sellers, will be able to make 100 coherent posts about relevant topics to earn the right to PM us with proposals of marriage and LOW PRICES
I will not be reintroducing PMs on this site. Moderation and management of abuse is simply not practical. Sorry.
Post count 'member ranking' is a blast from the past. Unless it's particularly needed to dangle, disabling that display in the left bar would clean that bit of glitter up. Leaving admin/member tags and post count/join date would be helpful though if possible. Whatever works.
I tend to agree and have switched off display of 'member rankings'.
@eol migrating a forum of this size and various origins is no easy task. the embedded images look to have survived the move well. any info on how many links/images etc will be allowed in a post? good work!
It was a massive job that took ~30h to perform, migrating batches of data so as not to kill the server. But it's done and nothing is lost. So yey! 😀 As for image embedding, that is a "pro" feature that requires purchasing a plugin. I will leave it to @lashtal do decide whether we add it or not.
Not sure what "image embedding" is or why/how to use it, but the other huge improvements to the forums had reminded me already that i haven't donated in a couple years, and your, um, tactful hint was enough to get me to send £93 your way.
Thank you as always for providing this site, Paul.
Not sure what "image embedding" is or why/how to use it, but the other huge improvements to the forums had reminded me already that i haven't donated in a couple years, and your, um, tactful hint was enough to get me to send £93 your way.
Very generous of you Travis..the above image is embedded in the post meaning its viewable...the alternative is it posts as a link which u click on to view.
(not sure what the letter P is doing at the bottom left of the field ...I could not delete it)
the P is for paragraph which is the default option when u are typing text. if you choose another command from the toolbar it will change to DIV or SPAN or one of many other commands depending on what you are doing.
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@eol Every piece of software is different so it will take some learning but it looks good and lots of options in the toolbar to do pretty much anything including choosing larger or smaller text or embedding html code among them. I can't imagine the task of migrating such a huge forum i know it is very tricky.
It was worth the hustle seeing you so active on the forums. 🙂 And I am personally very happy with site's speed now. We've got some more work to do to optimize it even more but from my professional point of view this is very good improvement. 😀
@eol - I notice that now, when i am mentioned with an "@", i get an email- is there a way turn this off, as there often is at other forums? i don't see any new options in my account/profile pages.
I know you have a lot to do with rolling this out and perhaps this is an item on your list that you just haven't gotten to yet.
I have noticed that too. There is a reason behind that, I've finally fixed integration between WP and mail server so now we get notifications. And yes, that is a bit annoying so it went up my TODO list. 😀 I will look into it.
The fonts under Recent Topics & Recent Posts seem (this morning) to be lighter, smaller or fuzzier. That is, last night I could ready the words, neat and clear. This morning they are either grayer, smaller or something I cannot quite catch that makes them hard to read.
a: What were you up to last night that seemingly has caused this effect?
Spatial Relationship and Time Line:
Whatever I was up to last night does not matter, since everything appeared clear and readily readable. As a footnote, I was running through various sites before retiring. As an after-footnote, I note that I was the only poster for almost a day ... except for lashtal who posted change agent notices. So, obviously, any change in view-ability is either my fault or lashtal's.
More important and pertinent is what I was up to this morning. I was up to me. That is, I was getting up, all bleary from fighting dragons on the astral plane, all night. Maybe I had the wrong set of eyeglasses in place. Maybe this is all subjective confusion of the planes. I dunno. Last night I could read clearly. this morn the "Recent" column looks fuzzy & hazy. If no changes have been made, the problem is all in my court(room).
Just a heads up - I will be removing old forum software this weekend and I will have to put site under maintenance in order to do that. 🙂 In case you come to LAShTAL and are greeted with our maintenance page. 😎Â
The "let him live" and "kill him" doo-dads are popular on other sites because those folks are living in a popularity contest. That's the basis of vulgar social media.
The up/down buttons were once active here on LAShTAL, and then they were removed. They should stay removed. This is not a vulgar popularity contest site.
mal's new "New Age Swastika" avatar image is a tad, um, concerning.
I know he is mostly here to troll, but still there are some standards of decorum to be observed, and surely not displaying swastikas is not too much to ask?
mal's new "New Age Swastika" avatar image is a tad, um, concerning.
I know he is mostly here to troll, but still there are some standards of decorum to be observed, and surely not displaying swastikas is not too much to ask?
LAShTAL is an international forum and some may not be familiar with North American indigenous culture. The Medicine Wheel has been around for awhile and there are many representations of it. And yes, indigenous culture is alive and still developing despite the attempts of the representatives of bigotry and ignorance to suppress.
Also, the featherless version you display in your avatar is going clockwise, like the Nazi swastika, and unlike your example.
My avatar isn't anything to do with Nazi-ism. You're seeing a quality that isn't there. As your post history shows you've been a recurring defamatory poster regarding me and makes it seem that your outrage isn't entirely genuine. Â
The site does have to be moderated according to law. British law?
You would know this? I don't care who you are and still don't which makes that fact you could make this statement with such confidence somewhat offputting.
If you're just guessing you're right I'm not Native American because I'm not from the USA. That doesn't mean I'm not Indigenous, registered as such, participate in the culture and endured the ordeals in a neighbouring nation.
How can I change my name and disappear, yet have all my work survive?
(Nothing sarcastic or offensive intended. I am impressed with how smoothly you slip and slide through the symbols, obviously far more familiar with Borg mechanics than I.
Okay, so here you are putting on a light show, using the barbarous symbols of evocation, hitting most of the threads with participation ... while all this merriment is going on, do you have a central message? A point-of-view would suffice. RTC over on that other thread has a particular and unique point-of-view. I have a particular notion that I am espousing rather continuously, in cycles, in different threads (and in person). I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours. (That's a tricky trick and of no real value, because I've already committed myself by constantly returning to my central point in my series of postings. I wonder if anyone knows exactly what I am referring to?).
The above paragraph, in all its aspects, should be considered as an expression
I hereby claim authority for this post under the obvious software change that is easily available. I think it best to catch up with me on some other thread, Xon, about the "central message" thing. I mean, Kee-rist, this is the official software tweak thread, probably administrative no less, and if the Borg catches us whispering, we might get sent to Australia.
All done. bbPress has been removed and our database can now breathe much easier. Downtime was also much shorter than I had expected, but then again, deleting is much easier on the resources than creating. 🙂Â
How can I change my name and disappear, yet have all my work survive?
(Nothing sarcastic or offensive intended. I am impressed with how smoothly you slip and slide through the symbols, obviously far more familiar with Borg mechanics than I.
Spoiler
Okay, so here you are putting on a light show, using the barbarous symbols of evocation, hitting most of the threads with participation ... while all this merriment is going on, do you have a central message? A point-of-view would suffice. RTC over on that other thread has a particular and unique point-of-view. I have a particular notion that I am espousing rather continuously, in cycles, in different threads (and in person). I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours. (That's a tricky trick and of no real value, because I've already committed myself by constantly returning to my central point in my series of postings. I wonder if anyone knows exactly what I am referring to?).
The above paragraph, in all its aspects, should be considered as an expression
I hereby claim authority for this post under the obvious software change that is easily available. I think it best to catch up with me on some other thread, Xon, about the "central message" thing. I mean, Kee-rist, this is the official software tweak thread, probably administrative no less, and if the Borg catches us whispering, we might get sent to Australia.
When logged into your account you'll see an Account tab. All the new forum options are there. For the name change I only changed Display Name and kept the URL ID display the same to minimize confusion during the changeover. Not sure if changing the URL ID would cause a problem with post connection and didn't know that could even happen. Opinion: These setting seem specific to the forum and might not have a global disconnect on the account. It took about 5-10 minutes to update completely.
A general advisement to go along with this post not directed at you Shiva : Name, Title & Signature might display images or emotes, I didn't test. Whatever the case I advise robust discretion.
