Print Page - best Inkscape forum ever!

Community Stuff => Inkscape News and Announcements => Topic started by: brynn on June 05, 2016, 06:43:26 PM

Title: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 05, 2016, 06:43:26 PM

Hi Friends,
As many of you know, it's been decided (by the Inkscape Board) there will be a new "official" Inkscape forum (https://inkscape.org/en/news/2016/06/06/inkscape-forums/), for the first time in the history of the project. A committee will be formed (https://sourceforge.net/p/inkscape/mailman/message/35137071/)to investigate all the possibilities and options, and to report back to the Board. I was asked to recruit the committee and to chair it, and I accepted.

As I began thinking of what general kind of approach to take, I thought we should find the best kind of software first -- software that's the most compatible with the Inkscape website and server, and the most feature-rich and flexible software we could afford (which probably means free....but not necessarily). And then we would decide the best way to use that software, as the forum grows and matures.

But now I'm thinking, that before we start looking at software, maybe we should have a good idea what kind of features the community would like to have. If we get to build the new forum from the ground up (within reasonable limitations) we might as well have it full of all the features we want, right? So here's your chance!

In the most ideal Inkscape forum you could imagine, what features would it have?

If you don't know what a feature is called, describe it -- what it looks like and how it works. Or show us the feature in a forum that has it.

Note that this is not a place to say what you don't want. This is for building the new forum.

For example, someone mentioned something to me about having featured artist images on the front page. Or most viewed or most popular images on the front page. Or, of course, you all know me -- I'm going to want contests and/or drawing challenges. I would also want at least 50 mb per member for attachments (same as IF), although unlimited would be ideal for me.

Ok, so let hear your ideas!

Thanks,
brynn

Edit
If you don't want to register an account here, you can use the Contact form. (Click "Contact" tab in the navigation menu above.)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Moini on June 06, 2016, 09:43:49 AM

Thank you, Brynn, for starting this discussion.

This is the list of features I would like to see in a forum:

- basic text formatting (bold, italics, links, images insertion, not necessarily the smilies - those animated ones here at the top start making me itchy...)
- ability to upload files and images and to insert them into the text
- ability to receive mails upon posts, to subscribe and to unsubscribe to topics and forums
- ability to see which posts one hasn't read yet
- ability to hide/moderate posts
- ability to make posts sticky
- ability to lock topics
- ability to search the forum
- maybe: quotes
- not slow

I do not need any extra stuff (who is online, birthday, pms, animated smilies, font size, calendar, signatures, chat, theme changer, statistics, friends list,...) as I only find that distracting. I'd prefer to be able to concentrate on the contents and to get to the real info part as quickly and effortlessly as possible (which is one reason why I have not been frequenting this forum before).

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Lazur on June 07, 2016, 04:07:48 AM

+1 for not slow...

Like http://typophile.com/ was a great site with alot of knowledge but could hardly even post there of timing out.
If the forum would provide a gallery it is even more welcomed.
I'd prefer openclipart way of hosting and displaying svg-s.
Generated thumbnails instead of separate uploads or forcing to display it as svg -renders slow usually.

Ability to organize posts/topics in a directory and
making sticky topics.
Probably using a decent tag collection.
How many times it has been looking for like one-line fonts/creating Hershey text... and each time you would need to perform a search over the phrases you remember and go through all of the posts.

Maybe a way to change the time ordering of posts to tag ordering, like channels.
#text tool, #calligraphy etc.
Ability subscribing to a channel.

Features like quoting or the ability of using other bbcodes seems reasonable.

A way to host group projects.
#smc for example at blenderartists.
Maybe somekind of pastebin/other rapid/temporary file sharing option.

Way to display all attachments next to eachother.
Maybe the ability of organizing topics based on users attachments too.

Such details could make an effective forum on the technical level.

But the strategy of the forum, the direction it would go is more important in my humble opinion.
Like It would be good if a help section of those "hit and run" people wouldn't take separate topics, all over different threads/sections.
Instead there would be one only, where you could mark parts of the topic you are interested in.
Like a "highlighter".
Thinking of it such a highlighter could also be useful many times.

Then it could be also used as a tag/channel category that you could search for.
"#my pick", "#mod pick" and such.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 07, 2016, 05:54:40 AM

Oh awesome! Let me ask a couple of questions, to clarify, that I don't understand.

Quote

Ability to organize posts/topics in a directory and
making sticky topics.
Probably using a decent tag collection.
How many times it has been looking for like one-line fonts/creating Hershey text... and each time you would need to perform a search over the phrases you remember and go through all of the posts.

Do you mean like how the gallery on inkscape.org has filters (the links on the right)? Do you mean the forum would display topics sequentially, as it's done traditionally (everywhere afaik), but then have some links where individual users can display for themselves a certain category or tag? Have you ever seen a forum that does that? Not that I'm super familiar with all kinds of forum software, but I've never seen that. Although seems pretty awesome! (After I post this, I'll search SMF mods, just out of curiosity.)

Or is this a moderator abililty?

Oh! Do you mean like the mod that I had installed here for a while (called Similar Topics, I think), where at the bottom of a topic, it showed other topics with similar search terms - and as you typed a title for a new topic, it showed you search results for similar topics?

Quote

Maybe somekind of pastebin/other rapid/temporary file sharing option.

There's already a pastebin in your member profile on inkscape.org. Do you mean you would want in a forum profile?

Quote

Like It would be good if a help section of those "hit and run" people wouldn't take separate topics, all over different threads/sections.
Instead there would be one only, where you could mark parts of the topic you are interested in.

Surely you don't mean all in one topic. You mean all in one board, right?

Quote

Like a "highlighter".
Thinking of it such a highlighter could also be useful many times

I can't quite imagine this. Do you mean you would highlight different things every day? Or do you mean once you highlight something, it stays that way until you change it? And I'm imagining highlighting on the index page. Is that what you mean, or is it in topics?

And you're thinking the highlighting and the tag/filtering would be working together?? Or it would be one or the other?

Thanks again :)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Moini on June 07, 2016, 06:01:30 AM

This sounds interesting, Lazur, cool!

Many of the features you are suggesting are actually already available on the Inkscape website (but they are not well known, and they will certainly need some usability improvements and - the Inkscape website currently definitely has a speed problem (but no timeouts, AFAIK)).

I'll try to give you the list that corresponds:

Quote

but could hardly even post there of timing out.

The CMS pages are slow at inkscape.org. Others are a bit faster. Definitely a point that would need improvement, if we would like to make use of the other features.

Quote

Generated thumbnails instead of separate uploads or forcing to display it as svg -renders slow usually

The inkscape.org gallery does it the svg way, currently (and it is not very fast). The problem could be that running the conversion on the server could pose a security risk. The scripts openclipart uses to automatically create their thumbnails are freely available, though. The risks and benefits would need careful consideration (by someone who knows more about those).

Quote

Ability to organize posts/topics in a directory

Can you explain this? You mean, change their order? Or just to have forum categories, as (hopefully) all forum software has?

Quote

Probably using a decent tag collection.

Interesting. I've never seen this anywhere, but it sounds like a good idea. Tags are available on the website, but they are currently not linked to comments or forum threads, only to images.

Quote

Maybe a way to change the time ordering of posts to tag ordering, like channels

Should be possible, but would need to be implemented, of course.

Quote

Ability subscribing to a channel.

Quote

A way to host group projects

What we have at inkscape.org are 'group galleries'. Those can contain images uploaded or curated by members of a group (membership can be: closed, admin-regulated, group-member-regulated, open to anyone (self-register)). You can subscribe to the galleries and / or activities of a group.
To use this feature, we'd only need to add the groups to the database and fix a few correlated bugs (like missing mailing functionality).

Quote

quoting or the ability of using other bbcodes

The currently available forum app does not support this. But it could, I think.

Quote

Maybe somekind of pastebin/other rapid/temporary file sharing option

We've got that. It's available directly from the small 'image' icon at the top of every page.

Quote

Way to display all attachments next to eachother

Galleries exist. They'd need to be hooked up to work this way for a forum thread (if I understand this correctly).

Quote

organizing topics based on users attachments

I'm not sure I understand this fully. Organizing / sorting by attachment type? So if someone attaches something they categorize as extension, you can look for all posts / threads that contain an extension? If this is what you mean, it should be posssible.

I don't know of any standard forum software that would bring all these features by default - many ideas seem to be really new and original. Did you ever come across something that does this?

Can you describe the 'highlighter' functionality a bit more? Would those tags you suggested above do it? Something like personal tags (or allow anyone to add a tag to a topic)?

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: dimumurray on June 07, 2016, 06:59:25 AM

This is a good place to start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software

I personally like Discourse (http://www.discourse.org/)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Lazur on June 07, 2016, 07:15:02 AM

Didn't see any other forum or took a search.
I have posted a few times to blenderartists, and to typophile.
Other than that, had been part of mindgem's forum that got extinct and puregraffiti's forum years ago.

Yes, I meant to have ONE section only for that kind of helping, sort-of like the live chat logged and uploads preserved for a few days/downloads for that part of the forum.
There are repeatedly asked same questions by noobs, so by somekind of tagging those could be organized in a single bunch.

Highlighter as in like yahoo mail where you can mark messages as read/unread.
An option to mark selected messages and an option of reorganizing the displaying order of posts/topics.

"I do remember I had posted in a topic with an example of pattern fills/clipping and attached an svg with a pattern fill made of a clone of a clipped group of objects, where would that be?
Oh it needs to be searched for keywords like pattern fill?
Or looking up my attachments and reverse search them with google where they were originally embedded?
When actually I just want to show the same example file in another recent topic...
Why can't I just have a viewmode where all those posts I had attached something pop up first?
Or even better, why not those come first in the list that I have marked important? "
-for example.

Haven't looked much into inkscape.org's gallery.
Since "filter packs" cannot be uploaded in a pleasant way -rendering time kills it- I'd say displaying svg-s as per se is a no go.
On the other hand that is a huge security risk too, since you can embed other html inside an svg...
Only security risk at ocal is a ddos attack if the rasterization size is set too large and the svg is render heavy. It can be limited down to a certain size, they do it too. (Not sure about the max px width they handle though.)

Pastebin right boundled in the reply options. Instead of attaching files, ability to attach a bunch of codes.
phpbb's code tag is similar but there you cannot close the view, it is always expanded.
Could come handy for a clean uncluttered conversation, but maybe more of a "developer's board" kind of feature.

And as well in the same attachment system.
Blenderartists has a quite good example on handling attachments well, worth checking it out.
Though it seems to have some flaws too.

Most of the reorganizing option ideas came from the chaotic help section at inkscapeforum.
Cannot effectively look up and point to related topics, needs a decent memory of keywords.
Well if the relation between one poster problems and original content would be mirrored, 75-80% original content and random posts the remaining part, then such feature wouldn't be that necessary.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Grobe on June 07, 2016, 10:04:02 AM

Well, I'm not into programming webpages so I can't spoke for that.

I've thaught about using pastebin - isn't it so that pastebin doesn't store the text "forever" - so there may be a risk of looking back to the topic a couple of years later just to discover the code (or whatever text dumped at pastebin) is gone?

I've seen from time to time in different forums around, you'll find users that try uploading a 5++ MB BMP image file, and sure enough it takes the time it takes to get it down. So a little notice (dialog box) notifying the user about alternative formats could be an idea.

Just to have it said - the most important about any forums isn't about the layout and upload restriction, but the users of the forum :ur:

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Moini on June 07, 2016, 02:37:41 PM

@Grobe: at inkscape.org, Martin has written a pastebin that will keep your data for as long as you like (a user can delete it again, and actually they might, as the disk space per user is limited.)

@dimumurray: I've taken a look at the discourse website. It seems to be very feature-complete, and it also allows to use plugins for the features that do not yet exist.

Advantages: modern, mobile-friendly, tagging exists (don't know about sorting), easy to install for any non-dev, can make use of the site-wide login, tons of features. And the 'SVG upload impossible' bug was fixed today... It seems even possible to integrate this with github (where the Inkscape project's code will presumably go soon).

Disadvantages: It can't be installed like a normal application (they do not recommend that), but requires a container (docker) to run, it will not automatically integrate with all the other website functions we already have (galleries etc.). You'd need to know programming in Ruby to write plugins that *could* *maybe* integrate with galleries etc., updates are done via the interface (that's both an advantage and a disadvantage - when something goes wrong, you'll have a hard time fixing it - if it works, it's really easy). Lazur's customization requests would probably be difficult to put in.

@Lazur: Thank you for the clarifications!

The sections in any forum can be done as the community decides, so that will work with any forum software, only we need to remember when we actually set the forum up.

So the highlighter is some kind of personal bookmark, did I get that right now?

Would it be enough if your attachments show up in your user gallery and from there, you can get to a list of posts where they are referenced? You can make subgalleries for further categorization and add tags to images.

Quote

Pastebin right boundled in the reply options. Instead of attaching files, ability to attach a bunch of codes

Cool idea :) - especially for quick development discussions. This would probably be the easiest of your feature requests to implement into Martin's forum over at inkscape.org. Having some devs at the forum could make the perceived 'boundary' between users and devs smaller, even if they are just there, but don't interact too much with the users.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Lazur on June 07, 2016, 03:14:57 PM

Bookmark? Matter of view.
More of an ability of saving the book layout on the self.
But yes, as a bookmark which would direct to the set layout.

The ability of having different ordering than date with sticky topics on top.
Maybe like the current threads on the main page.
But on the subboards.
But with the ability of reorganizing them as they were filter primitives in a filter chain in inkscape's filter editor...
Or like with the mentioned "highlighter" option, you could mark topics and have the option to organize by each marker.
Technically as it was a saved search, sort of.
The ability of making more of this kind of grouping.
"These topics contains good vector content, they go to the top; these had an interesting conversation, put them right below; these had lots of useful links but slightly off topic, let's make them third" etc.

Again I'd say these are just technical details that could fulfill a very handy information source but it is the content and users who really make it worthwhile.
I'd say it would be more important seeking interested people than waiting for anyone from a quick google search over a simple problem.
Helpdesking doesn't really worth the effort to build something new, which can also be done via the live #inkscape channnnel. Which doesn't really have any features.
Laying down the basic strategy.

Like the about screen contest could gain some of the productive people, why not making more official contests?
Maybe would need focusing on the funding part more.
Having more decent showcasing options. Blenderartists do that great with their forum, "stafff pick" section.
Gallery at inkscapeforum doesn't look conveying at all.
Images are random, contrast is too large.
Yami body next to San Marino and Santa -that looks ridiculous.
Just as bad looking as ocal's newest clipart section most of the time.
If not "ALL" was the default category but a staff selection it would be more appealing.
Maybe then a more legible counter would be better. Current one with rounded edges may look fancy but doesn't really help the function.
Oh those are not diagrams growing by numbers directly. Then why all the different widths?

Just some recent thoughts.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: dimumurray on June 08, 2016, 05:10:12 AM

Quote from: Moini on June 07, 2016, 02:37:41 PM

You'd need to know programming in Ruby to write plugins that *could* *maybe* integrate with galleries etc., updates are done via the interface (that's both an advantage and a disadvantage - when something goes wrong, you'll have a hard time fixing it - if it works, it's really easy)

I'm told that a good chunk of the codebase is javascript, not just Ruby. So that my mitigate some of those issues.

Here's a real far out idea. How about building our own forum software from the ground up. I happen to be a programmer so I can chip in if you chose to go that route.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Moini on June 08, 2016, 06:44:39 AM

@dimumurray: Martin Owens had already made a forum prototype for the Inkscape website (of which I had thought we wouldn't need it, but it seems there are so many really Inkscape-specific feature requests, which cannot be easily fulfilled by any external software, that using it now starts to make sense to me - beware: to *me*, we're only exploring options here, we're far from any decision).

The website is in Django 1.8 / Python 2.7, and the development version best runs on Linux (we never got it to work on OS/X, and I don't think anyone ever tried on Windows).

Is that a thing you'd be willing to help with if it would be decided upon?

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: z3z on June 08, 2016, 11:14:24 AM

I'm a serial lurker and very infrequent poster (well, infrequent at InkscapeForum - think this is my first post here). I'm also a community leader at cartographersguild.com so I've been interested in your discussions about forum software and the desire to build a community, rather than just a helpdesk.

We use vBulletin (v4.23 I think) at the Guild and I think it does most of the stuff you're talking about, but it's reeeally not cheap. I guess that might be a dealbreaker? That would be too bad, as it's got some great features that would work well with what you're trying to do. For example, you can create albums of your art for others to browse. It's also got a blogging feature that members can use (not many Guild members use it tbh, but I could see it being useful for writing tutorials and the like. You can also attach files to your posts (e.g. images, zip files, PDFs etc). I don't want to sound like I'm shilling for vBulletin (I have no connection at all with them) but I'm a keen Inkscape user and I felt your pain as InkscapeForum started to go down the toilet.

I wish I had more time to participate in the forums, but I'm not as knowledgeable as most of the regulars. However I keep up with posts in the hope of learning some new tricks and I suspect there are quite a number of people like me. I wish you guys nothing but the best in what you're trying to do, and I'd happily chip in a few quid if you were having a fund raiser towards the new site. You all do great work. I think you may not hear that enough (especially lately) but people notice and appreciate it. So.... :th: :2tu:

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: doctormo on June 08, 2016, 11:29:33 AM

Since I'm the developer, I'm going to point a link:

http://inkscape.org/forums/

There's a bunch of features on yet there, but it has a full test case for what we have.

I've just added sticky posts and js based 'new posts' styling (which will mean that showing what has changed won't be a per-user expense for the server and we can cache the pages).

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Lazur on June 08, 2016, 02:17:02 PM

Off-Topic: show

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Moini on June 08, 2016, 04:03:59 PM

Seems I need to clean up the spam comment. I've been checking regularly, this seems to be the first one (and it was probably written below the image, not in the new forum, as there is no link to it yet)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 08, 2016, 06:18:16 PM

Welcome dimumurray, z3z and doctormo!

Thanks for adding to the mix.

When I first posted this, I wasn't sure how long to keep this discussion open, before going into more private committee. I guess I'll just watch to see when the discussion fades away. But definitely it will not go longer than 2 weeks. I'm thinking a week to 10 days would be about right. Comments?

Before too long, I'll summarize everyone's requests into some kind of list. There's a possibility of having a poll, if anyone thinks necessary. I guess probably not, but it's there if we need it. Thanks for everyone's comments :-)

To know what features I would want, you only have to look around IC. But I'm probably very flexible about most things. One thing I really enjoy (obviously :-P ) is smileys. But that can be accomplished without having in everyone's face, in case they don't like it. (Don't worry, Moini, I think I found a solution, at least for while we're here. Working on it...) (I mean, doesn't this just crack you up? :shoot:)

I think definitely most of the Inkscape icons should be available either like smileys, or true smileys. You can see what I chose as the ones I thought people would use most at the top of the text editor box. And the rest are in the extra page (click "[more]"). (Watch out Moini :-D) (Don't worry, nothing lewd or vulgar or super-flashy.)

I think it's also important to have a very mature (meaning full-featured) editor for text. Includes: quoting, lists (both kinds), formatting (left, right, centered and lr-justified), hr, super and subscripts, bold, italics, underline and strikethrough, font size and color (don't care about face). Also codes (assuming will have a programming board or section). Another biggie - off topic tags (I especially like this show/hide OT tags, that Lazure demonstrated in this thread, but any kind is fine). Also, the degree sign is helpful, and possible Tt or....I'm not sure what it's called - monotype maybe?

The ability for attachments, for screenshots. Or maybe a gallery software that can be used for screenshots. The Coppermine gallery that I use here at IC seems quite fully featured to me. And someone who knows more than I do, could make it much more appealing to look at. (It's free and open source.) For allowed extensions for the attachments, of course all the common image formats, including PDF, and maybe some text formats, like TXT and ODT.

I think allowing attachments, or providing some way for members to post their screenshots easily, is an inviting feature, especially for newbies who may be shy or don't know how to find an image host, or maybe even not sure how to make a link, if they can't just paste it in.

This probably goes without saying, but the new forum should have a strong Code of Conduct, and maybe stronger than the one on inkscape.org currently. I have some thoughts about that, but this isn't the time for those particular details. And some kind of disciplinary system (like forum warnings, for example).

When I PM'd the core members of IF, someone mentioned they would like the ability to have featured artists and/or featured images on the front page, and which are decided by getting the most votes or views or favs or something like that. So I like that idea. And someone else mentioned something similar. I think one of those...don't know the name...but a lot of websites have this....it's sort of like a slideshow at the top of their front page. Either it scrolls itself or you can click the left or right arrow to back or ahead. That would be nice!

Definitely drawing contests and challenges, both informal and official competitions. And a way to use the forum for a tutorial series. Right now, in inkscape.org gallery, the tutorials are individual, and I'm not sure if they can be turned into series somehow. For example, I made this large series about all the different reasons people need to convert raster images to vector: http://forum.inkscapecommunity.com/index.php?action=articles;cat=6 That one doesn't have to be in order, but I have a couple of 2-part tutorials, and they would need to be in order (or else combined into a lloonnng page).)

If the text editor is fully featured, it should work very well for tutorials and series.

That's all that comes to mind for me currently. But likely someone else will say something, and I'll realize I like it too.

Edit
Some kind of member profile area -- name, avatar, message count, forum status (moderator, newbie, mentor, full member, for example).

Another thing I find helpful is the computer operating system (because we have so many issues that are system specific). Saves having to ask.

Do we need PMs? I'm not sure.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 08, 2016, 06:33:54 PM

From an email reply:

Quote

As a feature request, could you live with forum software that can tie in with
e-mail?

For example, the Sci-Fi publisher Baen has a web forum (bar.baen.com) that they
tie into mailing lists (and NNTP for that matter) so that anything posted in a
forum shows up on the mailing list, any replies on the list show up in the
forum, etc.

They use FudForum as the web forum. It can tie into NNTP. Mailman can tie NNTP
to mailing lists.

It's a bit of work to setup, and there are some things that don't translate well
(polls for example), but the result is one community rather than a forum
community and a mailing list community.

David Lang

Thanks David :)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Grobe on June 10, 2016, 03:54:06 PM

Quote from: Moini on June 07, 2016, 02:37:41 PM

@Grobe: at inkscape.org, Martin has written a pastebin that will keep your data for as long as you like (a user can delete it again, and actually they might, as the disk space per user is limited.)

Hi, tahks for that. However I can't see any need for backup of things I've written earlier (anything important will be keept local, and backup).
If anybody else may think I have written anything worth saving, please feel free to print/copy/download.

<off topic - yet useful>
Many programs for PC today is fairly complex, and takes time to learn. Many function (and their purposes) may be used only a few times pr year. I therefore have my own little database where I write down information I beleive is useful (recipies for doing some tasks), using the program Cherrytree (http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/) :2tu:
</off topic - yet useful>

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Moini on June 10, 2016, 04:21:39 PM

@Grobe: The pastebin at inkscape.org is not for backup (at least you should never rely on it...), but for sharing code or other text formatted contents. Only in contrast to the online service pastebins you described, it will not expire automatically. Sometimes people may want to link to it, then it's good if useful things aren't deleted. Was that what you understood?

Edit: btw. the pastebin already existed ;-)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 12, 2016, 11:11:12 AM

Hi Everyone,
I'll start to compile a list now. Although please feel free to continue posting ideas and features. It's still not too late.

I did want to mentioned something else. If the committtee, for one reason or another, can't get all the features we want into the new forum, I would be happy to use Inkscape Community (or perhaps more precisely my server) to provide that.

For example, since inkscape.org already has a gallery, having another gallery for screenshots for the forum might not make sense. (Of course nothing has been decided yet.) So we could put a gallery here. Or if we want a blog like feature, and Planet Inkscape can't be integrated with the forum, it could go here (or on another domain on my server, or whatever).

Unless this topic starts to be active again, I think we'll look to start with the committee next week...maybe mid- or late next week.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 12, 2016, 01:18:51 PM

Well, this is so obvious, I'm not surprised that it wasn't mentioned. But of course, the new forum needs to have very strong spam blocking, and other security.

In my (decidedly layperson) experience and opinion, SMF has the best security of any kind of free forum. Just for the sake of discussion, here is all the security I'm using here. I'm not suggesting we should neccesarily use SMF. But just to show one kind of security configuration that works very well.

Stop Spammer (http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1547) -- this stops spammers from registering
Forum Firewall (http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2815) -- this protects against different kinds of unwanted visitors, besides just spammers
Bad Behavior (http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2502) -- this is an SMF implementation of http://bad-behavior.ioerror.us/, another spam blocker -- also includes a HoneyPot (http://www.projecthoneypot.org/about_us.php)

Also, SMF has some kind of security built in, not provided by mods. I think the very strong security questions (at registration) also help to prevent the automated spam (the bots can't solve them). Strong passwords. I'm not sure how much the captchas help. But again, it's layers of protection! After some point, I think it discourages spammers from considering this a fertile ground for them.

So it's layers of protection to have them all together. In the 3 years Inkscape Community has been open, I haven't had to delete more than 5 spam messages! These programs together do all the work.

So the strongest security we can get, the better. :nod:

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: honyk on June 13, 2016, 12:25:28 PM

As a developer I enjoy stackoverflow forums. From user perspective you do need to pickup answers from several post, it is usually summarized right below the question. There is gamification which supports engaging users. You can build your reputation by asking well formulated questions, answering thorougly, by commenting/voting questions of others... You can follow various tags and adjust notifications with customizable period.
See e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/inkscape

From admin view it is a service where you don't need to manage hosting/backup/spam/mail server/security updates.

The project itself can have a dedicated space. Inkscape could join already existing http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/ as some general questions overlap vector/bitmap graphics.

But I understand this philosophy might be too radical for many.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 14, 2016, 02:23:48 AM

Welcome honyk!

That certainly could be an option, if we wanted only a helpdesk type of forum.

The biggest reason I don't enjoy that type of format, is I find it not very common that there is one right answer. In forums that force you choose one right answer, I usually end up being reminded to mark an answer as the right one. And then I have to explain why there isn't any one right answer, and that it was parts of several replies the solved the problem.

In fact, one of the most frequent responses in any Inkscape forum is, "well, there are a few different ways you could do that...." !

I've received another email reply, so I'll post that shortly, and try to finish up the organized list, today.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 14, 2016, 04:03:29 AM

Off-Topic: show

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 14, 2016, 04:47:41 AM

Comments from Mark Crutch (aka "Xav")

Quote

The problems with Inkscapeforum all boil down to there being a single point of failure, in the sense that MicroUgly is the only person who can administer the site. To that end, I think it's important that any replacement tries to avoid having a single point of failure of that type, but I'm concerned that trying to indulge everyone's requests might lead to exactly that.

I'm sure that Martin Owens is a fine programmer, but is there really any sense in him using his time to create yet another forum program? I would sooner choose an off-the-shelf forum with a number of developers behind it, otherwise we could still end up with a site that can't be changed or updated if something were to happen to Martin, or he were to lose interest over time.

Similarly, every add-on or plug-in that you add to a forum imposes a maintenance burden. When there's a security update to the core forum software, do we wait until all the add-ons are compatible with the new version? Do we go ahead with the upgrade, and disable the extra functionality? And what do we do when that single-developer add-on that looked so useful stops being developed?

I would be strongly in favour of starting with a well-supported off-the-shelf forum, and keeping things simple. Inkscapeforum could disappear or implode at any time, so let's get the official replacement going as soon as we can, and worry about all the other niceties later. If we had the luxuries of time and money, we could have any kind of forum we want, but right now it seems to me that we're on a sinking ship with water lapping at our feet whilst we discuss whether or not we need to add cup-holders to the lifeboat.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 14, 2016, 05:37:50 AM

I have some similar thoughts. As I said in the op, at first I thought the committee would would just choose the most feature rich, or extensible software, and enable various features as the forum and community grows, over time. But after some early complaints, I had hoped that discussing features first, would encourage people who seemed to think they had no voice, to be part of the process. I want it to be fair.

But we will get started this week, I promise!

I don't expect we will try to indulge everyone. I expect we will follow the tradition of open source development, and discuss things together, reach concensus, and create what makes the most sense.

If anyone thinks that just posting their request will result in that feature coming out in the new forum, it might not. These features listed here will be guidelines for the committee. We will try to include as many as possible. But it might not be p ossible. And if someone really, really, really wants a certain feature, but doesn't want to participate in the committee, ready to discuss why they think it's so important, it's not likely to happen.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 14, 2016, 05:38:33 AM

Some questions as I organize the list.

Quote from: Lazur on June 07, 2016, 04:07:48 AM

A way to host group projects.
#smc for example at blenderartists.

I've looked that up on blenderartists.org. Do mean a poll feature? Or do you mean just the ability to have contests, challenges, competitions, in general? Is there a feature I haven't noticed (or maybe I don't even see it, since I'm not a member)?

Edit
Can someone explain how pastebin is different from file attachment, or from inserting code into a message (see the # button in this editor). Are they all reasonable ways of sharing code, or does pastebin provide a benefit over the others?

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Dillerkind on June 15, 2016, 07:43:46 AM

Reading all the ideas and suggestions made by everybody here made me feel like a very simple person. So many things I'd never have considered myself. I can't help but feel a bit uneasy though, thinking of what this thing could turn into with all the mods, addons and hacking required to achieve certain things. Xav definitely has a point.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 15, 2016, 08:17:06 AM

Quote from: Dillerkind on June 15, 2016, 07:43:46 AM

I can't help but feel a bit uneasy though....

I guess most people are uneasy with change. I was hoping that providing a way for everyone to be involved, would help to make it an easier change. (Because that's one way I deal with stressful situations - the more control I feel like I have, the less stressful it seems.)

Is there anything I can say or do, to help make it less stressful?

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 15, 2016, 08:30:47 AM

Ok, the list is ready. It's attached in ODT file (to save me from typing it again). (I guess most programs like Word, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, etc., should be able to open it.) If it seems like a lot of people can't open it, I'll try and type into this thread, later tonight.

If anyone sees anything I misunderstood, or overlooked, please let me know.

I'll send out the first emails to start the committees work, in the next couple of hours :)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 15, 2016, 09:23:51 AM

Aaii, just thought of one more.

Multiple languages, if possible. Or if the forum software can't handle multiple languages, at least have boards for the few most common languages.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Dillerkind on June 16, 2016, 03:54:27 AM

Quote from: brynn on June 15, 2016, 08:17:06 AM

I guess most people are uneasy with change. I was hoping that providing a way for everyone to be involved, would help to make it an easier change. (Because that's one way I deal with stressful situations - the more control I feel like I have, the less stressful it seems.)

Is there anything I can say or do, to help make it less stressful?

Haha, I'm sorry. I guess my wording wasn't optimal. Didn't mean to make it sound like it's stressing me out and giving me sleepless nights. If there's change, I'll do my best to adapt to things - and if I can't, well, that's my problem then. But hey, after all we're talking about an internet forum, not rocket science :D What I meant was that things will get more complicated to maintain, the more stuff gets glued on. So I'd personally opt for a mature off-the-shelf solution.

Quote from: brynn on June 15, 2016, 09:23:51 AM

Aaii, just thought of one more.

Multiple languages, if possible. Or if the forum software can't handle multiple languages, at least have boards for the few most common languages.

I'm not sure what to think about this. On the one hand, yes, it would be cool if users could just use their native language. On the other hand.. hmm, I can imagine that this would make things more complicated in several regards. You'd probably have to have separate moderators for each language, things would get divided up to a point where you'd miss out on cool stuff (posted artworks, questions, solutions to problems) only because you're not checking all the other language forums or don't speak a certain language, etc. Where I totally agree with the multi-language approach is tutorials. Offering tuts in different languages (wherever available) would be nice. But personally I'd simply go with English as the "official" language.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 16, 2016, 06:51:44 PM

Yes, absolutely multiple languages makes things more complicated! For one thing, it usually takes a very large forum community, to pull it off. At least that's my experience. But even on IF, we sometimes have seen people assisting others in French, German....I don't recall Spanish, but I seem to recall an exchange in Dutch once. So in a way, it happens naturally sometimes.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: lurkalot on June 17, 2016, 10:57:14 AM

Quote from: Dillerkind on June 16, 2016, 03:54:27 AM

What I meant was that things will get more complicated to maintain, the more stuff gets glued on. So I'd personally opt for a mature off-the-shelf solution.

I would whole heartedly agree with this. Harder to maintain is a big one in my book. Also when addons (mods) become obsolete it can be tricky to find something else to replace it with. Plus if you're even thinking about using SMF 2.0.x, then you'll probably find there wont be the same mods available when SMF 2,1 comes out. Luckily we have Tinyportal 2 working on SMF 2.1 beta 3 right now, so we're keeping up as that progresses.

Then of course everything is moving towards responsive design, largely because of the amount of phones, tablets and other small screen devices which are now becoming more and more popular. It's a minefield actually. ;)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: hadim on June 19, 2016, 02:47:38 PM

Hi guys,

Just my two cents here.

The ImageJ community (http://imagej.net/Welcome) recently move to Discourse (http://forum.imagej.net) and being a regular user I have to say I am very happy with it as well as the ImageJ community so far. I don't know about Discourse administration but by using Docker I guess the administration is pretty easy. Discourse is very active and a lot of plugins already exist (a quick Google search will show you some of them).

If you have questions about Discourse administration and deployment I am sure Curtis (ImageJ leader) will be very happy to help you : http://imagej.net/User:Rueden

I often didn't ask for help when I had questions about Inkscape because I was lost in the jungle of forums existing and so I would be very happy to see a more centralized way to communicate and ask for help (other than the mailing list).

Have a look at Discourse, it's really worth it !

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 19, 2016, 06:41:12 PM

Welcome hadim, and thanks for comments :)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: antov on June 20, 2016, 06:04:01 AM

Hi,

Recently I've used discourse (as a user) and it works.

http://www.discourse.org/faq/customers/ https://github.com/discourse/discourse/graphs/contributors

imho I wouldn't get hung up on languages. Installing seems relatively painless https://serversforhackers.com/video/installing-discourse-with-docker

https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=django

afaik it's normally a bad idea to start a new project, but lots of people are doing their own thing https://www.djangopackages.com/grids/g/forums/

Security is the big issue to keep on top of !

Coppermine gallery http://coppermine-gallery.net/ is still being developed. Though it adds to the workload with logins, updates, and spam, don't forget spam!

All things considered, flickr may be the best option.

hth.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 20, 2016, 08:35:33 AM

Welcome antov!

When you mention Flickr, do you mean for a gallery? I always thought it was more for art or photo portfolios (similar to Deviant Art), rather than for screenshots and file sharing. But I've never visited for very long.

Thanks for your comments :)

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: antov on June 20, 2016, 10:36:41 AM

Quote from: brynn on June 20, 2016, 08:35:33 AM

When you mention Flickr, do you mean for a gallery?

I hadn't thought to check but I maybe could have guessed, flickr doesn't support .svg https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN15628.html

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: antov on June 20, 2016, 10:43:50 AM

Quote from: antov on June 20, 2016, 06:04:01 AM

Coppermine gallery http://coppermine-gallery.net/ is still being developed. ...

I'm new to this site & hadn't seen your present gallery!

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on June 20, 2016, 12:06:07 PM

Ah yes, I do use a CPG gallery here. At the moment, the committee is still working out all the various issues. So I don't know if we will....well, at this point, we haven't even gotten to the point of discussing a gallery. But CPG is an option we could consider.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: ponnuki on October 04, 2016, 12:30:14 AM

Where are we atl with that?

I would vote for discourse as the best forum software, I would be willing to help installing and setting up the forum software. I would be happy to use one of my Digital Ocean droplet to setup a discourse forum as a test site (or for the full version).

Let me know if that is interesting to you. I would also like to help in any other ways, I use inkscape extensively for work, and I teach class about inkscape, so I'd love to help in one way or another.

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: brynn on October 04, 2016, 04:38:33 AM

Well, the situation has changed a few times, and we've had to turn a few corners along the way. But don't worry, we'll let you know when we have something definite :)

Thanks for your kind offer. At the moment, it's not looking like we might use Discourse. But there are many ways to contribute to the project. You can peruse this page, for more info: https://inkscape.org/en/contribute/

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: Pilosopong Tasyo on October 09, 2016, 04:34:39 AM

Quote

I don't know what this is called, but old fashioned typewriter font, ...

It's called a monospace font, frequently utilized in code tags where each character (letter, symbol, et al.) occupies a fixed amount of horizontal width. It's useful if you want the vertical alignment of text to be straight (e.g. tables, code indentation).

Title: Re: best Inkscape forum ever!
Post by: hamza.gameart on March 23, 2017, 04:35:26 AM

IF YOU WANT A NICE FORUM, the only forum i felt comfortable with , it was clean , clear and easy to use , was the SCIRRA.com forum