Comment 1 Wayne Beaton 2009-07-22 11:21:41 EDT

+1

Comment 2 David Williams 2009-07-22 15:33:50 EDT

For a title/name, as you asked on your blog, how about "Eclipse Discussions" ... still pretty bland and old fashioned, but, seem understandable by most. 

Comment 3 Gunnar Wagenknecht 2009-07-22 16:05:57 EDT

+1

"Eclipse Bulletins"
"Eclipse BBS"
"Eclipse Answers Wanted"
"Eclipse Most Wanted"

Comment 4 Min Idzelis 2009-07-22 16:18:02 EDT

Most internet sites just call it "Forums"

or, maybe but not really, Support Forums

Comment 5 David Carver 2009-07-22 16:19:21 EDT

Interchange Exchange
Eclipse Interchange
Eclipse Exchange
Eclipse Parley
Eclipse Consultation Exchange

I would also add Forums in there some where.

Comment 6 Wayne Beaton 2009-07-22 16:24:28 EDT

Anything but EclipseFUD

Comment 7 Remy Suen 2009-07-22 16:30:33 EDT

Eclipse Crossroads or Eclipse Terminal might work as it's kind of like a meet-up of people. For a more Roman feel we could have "All roads lead to Eclipse" or you could throw in some Latin with "Via Eclipse". Of course, none of the above actually tell the reader what this is so it is not very helpful.

I also like Eclipse Exchange but at the end of the day I think we should either go with either Eclipse Discussions or Eclipse Forums because...well, that's what it is and a name should be descriptive.

Comment 8 Holger Voormann 2009-07-22 17:04:30 EDT

(In reply to comments #4, #5, and #7)

+1 for 'Eclipse Forums'

Covers both questions/answers and discussions; it is common used.
'http://forums.eclipse.org' would be nice. ;-)

Comment 9 Jacek Pospychala 2009-07-22 17:46:06 EDT

Keep it simple and self-describing. "Eclipse Forums", or "Developer Forums"  are ok.

Comment 10 ekkehard gentz 2009-07-22 17:47:48 EDT

+1 Eclipse Forums

Comment 11 Tor Neple 2009-07-23 02:06:51 EDT

+1 for Eclipse Forums

Comment 12 Ian Skerrett 2009-07-23 08:06:03 EDT

(In reply to comment #11)
> +1 for Eclipse Forums
> 

+ 1 for Eclipse Forums

Comment 13 Denis Roy 2009-07-23 08:59:28 EDT

Please see my blog comment for the winners of the Name This Thing contest:

http://dev.eclipse.org/blogs/eclipsewebmaster/2009/07/22/newsgroups-no-way-lets-call-them-something-else/#comment-627

Comment 14 Olivier Thomann 2009-07-23 09:34:31 EDT

Eclipse Agora

Comment 15 Miles Parker 2009-07-24 21:10:24 EDT

Denis, this is great -- thanks for taking the initiative on this. As a new project leader one of the few less than ideal aspects of the Eclipse communication tools is pubic support and discussion. Mailing lists and web-forums both have big weaknesses and I actually like the Eclipse newsgroup approach a lot but its a big barrier to users not already tuned into Eclipse -- they have to download software etc..

One really cool thing that will now be super (well, relatively) easy to do is to integrate forum support right into the Eclipse environment itself! SO imagine if you will under "help" there is an item for "Community". It could even be context sensitive so if you're in a particular perspective or whatever it would auto magically go to that projects forum first. Then you could have a nice interface for viewing the respective forums for any installed features...Worth a separate bugzilla request?

And, hey, how about a Help menu item for Bugs and Features along the same lines.. ?Just thinking out loud here.

Comment 16 Eric Rizzo 2009-07-25 23:21:00 EDT

(In reply to comment #15)
> One really cool thing that will now be super (well, relatively) easy to do is
> to integrate forum support right into the Eclipse environment itself! SO
> imagine if you will under "help" there is an item for "Community". It could
> even be context sensitive so if you're in a particular perspective or whatever
> it would auto magically go to that projects forum first. Then you could have a
> nice interface for viewing the respective forums for any installed
> features...Worth a separate bugzilla request?
> 
> And, hey, how about a Help menu item for Bugs and Features along the same
> lines.. ?Just thinking out loud here.
> 

You might be interested to follow this proposal: Bug 279383 ("Top Level Community/Collaboration/Social Project")
The Newsgroup client that would be a first piece of that puzzle: http://wiki.eclipse.org/Newsreader

Comment 17 Jacek Pospychala 2009-07-28 08:41:27 EDT

while we are at this topic, I very much like how Mozilla provides discussion channels to community. For example see https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Gecko. At the bottom left you'll find links to access the same forum as either mailing list, newsgroup, google group or web feed.
Everyone uses tool that he likes and there's no virtual separation mailing-lists for devs and Newsgroups for users.

Comment 18 Denis Roy 2009-07-28 16:25:50 EDT

Go ahead and kick the tires:

http://www.eclipse.org/forums/

I have not touched the Control Panel.  I know for a fact that changing account settings will not work.  Post comments here!

Comment 19 David Carver 2009-07-28 16:36:37 EDT

(In reply to comment #18)
> Go ahead and kick the tires:
> 
> http://www.eclipse.org/forums/
> 
> I have not touched the Control Panel.  I know for a fact that changing account
> settings will not work.  Post comments here!
> 

First, +1.  I happen to prefer web forums to newsgroups so I will definitely be visiting more.

With that said, here is a suggestion.  Does FUD have the ability to have sub forums?   The main reason I'm asking is thet a top level project could have many sub projects each with their own newsgroups/forums.   It would be helpful from a user perspective to be able to go to say a Web tools Category or Forum, and then see the available Sub Forums underneath that.  Like webtoosl, webtools.incubator, jsf, etc.

Comment 20 ekkehard gentz 2009-07-28 16:53:23 EDT

+1 great to see the first beta

I'm missing the openArchitectureWare WorkingGroup

also would be great to have a Filter, per ex.
M2T contains many projects, I would like to filter out all with Xpand in the subject per ex.
to easy follow all discussions

Comment 21 Chris Aniszczyk 2009-07-28 16:57:09 EDT

!@#$%^^ awesome.

I modified the ECF newsgroup description on the portal and didn't see it updated. How long does it take to update?

Comment 22 Alex Blewitt 2009-07-28 17:17:32 EDT

I'm not a big fan of the + and - icons to expand/commit. It might be because they just don't feel right on the Mac (which generally doesn't use + and - icons) but it feels a bit tacky.

The background colour is a bit strong, and looks 'square' the way it's represented inside the frame. Whilst the colour scheme fits, it could use softening down a bit.

The animated smiley icons on the new post page means I won't be coming back to use this forum at all. I wonder if that is just me or whether others have opinions on them.

The 'navigated to' link with that colour scheme is almost invisible. From the test post I made, I didn't even know there was a link to go back to the forum since the backlink was white on a grey background.

There's two titles - 'title' and 'description'. I don't think we need both, and I don't think the title page benefits from having extra whitespace for the description which (it looks like) most don't use.

Do we need to show who the person who originated the post and the person who last replied (and time)? They seem to take up a lot of space in the view. For some of the posts, the metadata takes up more space than the actual post of the title.

The squarish buttons for the site tend to get mixed in with native buttons (e.g. the 'choose file' upload).

I think the idea is in the right direction, but I feel that there's a lot of inconsistency in the appearance of the forums themselves and that addressing those inconsistencies would help improve the overall image.

Comment 23 ekkehard gentz 2009-07-28 17:29:43 EDT

on my monitor (1920 * 1200), its difficult to see what belongs to one Topic,
much space between the Topic and By: ....
perhaps a hairline between two Topics
or different colors for odd and even lines could display it better ?

ekke 

Comment 24 Moritz Eysholdt 2009-07-28 17:57:25 EDT

It is great to have this web frontend!

When posting a message via the web frontend, it appeared instantly in the newsgroup (nice!), but it took around two minutes to appear in the web frontend. This is not about patience, it is that the user may think that posting his message has failed - making him re-post his message, which will lead to duplicate posts. This is just a thought of mine, the future/other opinions will tell whether this really is an issue.

cheers,
  Moritz

Comment 25 Miles Parker 2009-07-28 18:06:29 EDT

This is really *(&(ing awesome. I think it will be really interesting to chart statistics of forum usage before and after this change as this really makes it easier for people to participate and especially to browse past issues. A corollary is that it will defeat the inherent bozo filter that the current newsgroup system accidently provides. (But that filter missed me so it can't be that good..) But even for regular users w/ readers it will be really nice to be able to have a real web front end to use on other people's machines.

I assume that the project titles are to be refined so I won't make suggestions on that.

Comment 26 Marcelo Paternostro 2009-07-28 18:41:16 EDT

Very nice... This has pretty much removed the need to have Thurderbird installed ;-)

I am missing the EMF (eclipse.tools.emf) newsgroup, though.

Comment 27 Ben Vitale 2009-07-28 19:55:55 EDT

Created attachment 142837 [details]
Topic name and author not aligned

A small layout nit.. the topic name and author name are not on the same line.. makes it slightly harder to scan and see who is writing what. 

This is in Firefox 3.5.1.

Comment 28 Karsten Thoms 2009-07-29 06:39:58 EDT

I really appreciate this new forum!

+1 for adding openArchitectureWare Working Group (http://www.eclipse.org/workinggroups/oaw/). We need this to switch the oaw community to this new forum.

Comment 29 Moritz Eysholdt 2009-07-29 07:47:04 EDT

+1 for adding openArchitectureWare Working Group
(http://www.eclipse.org/workinggroups/oaw/) from me as well.

Comment 30 Denis Roy 2009-07-29 09:31:27 EDT

Wow, just a bit of feedback...  Here goes.

(In reply to comment #19)
> With that said, here is a suggestion.  Does FUD have the ability to have sub
> forums?

There are categories and sub-categories that we could use.  I realize the list of Eclipse projects is quite long, but I didn't want to lump them under their respective top-level projects since we seem to be moving towards abstracting the top-level project from the user.

At any rate, I'm hoping that projects will link to their forum from their own home page so that folks don't have to visit the forum home.

I am open to suggestions, though.





(In reply to comment #20)
> I'm missing the openArchitectureWare WorkingGroup

I've added it.





(In reply to comment #21)
> I modified the ECF newsgroup description on the portal and didn't see it
> updated. How long does it take to update?

Should only take minutes, but I see it created an all new Forum.  I'll need to see why. 




(In reply to comment #22)
> Whilst the colour scheme fits, it could use softening down a bit.
Can you attach a picture of what you have in mind?  I'm out of ideas.
 
> The animated smiley icons on the new post page means I won't be coming back to
> use this forum at all.
That's what web forums are, my friend. But I'm with you on this one.  I could delete all the smileys if there is general consensus that they are too teenager-ish, but every forum has smileys.


(In reply to comment #23)
> perhaps a hairline between two Topics
I'll see what I can do.




(In reply to comment #24)
> > but it took around two minutes to appear in the web
> frontend. This is not about patience, it is that the user may think that
> posting his message has failed

Why would someone think that?  Will people post in the forum then run off to the NNTP newsgroup and see if it's there?  If so, then we don't really need forums.  I would assume most people will pick either NNTP or forums -- not both.

Regardless, it's the nature of the beast.  The Forum software has the ability of posting to NNTP, but I can't tell our NNTP server to insert records in a database...



(In reply to comment #26)
> I am missing the EMF (eclipse.tools.emf) newsgroup, though.

Ask the EMF project to use the Portal and update their project meta-data.




(In reply to comment #27)
> A small layout nit.. the topic name and author name are not on the same line..
> makes it slightly harder to scan and see who is writing what. 

I'll look into that.



Thanks for all your feedback so far.  I'll keep working on polishing this thing.

Comment 31 Donald Smith 2009-07-29 11:01:00 EDT

Just wondering if we're giving too much information in the "By" area:

By: Denis.roy.eclipse.org

Maybe should obfuscate the domain a bit?

I.e., 

Denis.roy.ecli....

Or

Denis.roy...

 - Don

Comment 32 Marcelo Paternostro 2009-07-29 11:10:52 EDT

(In reply to comment #30)
I just checked EMF's metadata and all the information seems to be there.  I wonder if EMF is not showing up because we have 2 newsgroups listed (eclipse.tools.emf and eclipse.technology.xsd).

Comment 33 Denis Roy 2009-07-29 11:25:30 EDT

(In reply to comment #31)
> Just wondering if we're giving too much information in the "By" area:
> 
> By: Denis.roy.eclipse.org

I'm using the same mangling as the Wiki: 
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Special:Recentchanges

Besides, all this is available right here on Bugzilla  :)




(In reply to comment #32)
> I just checked EMF's metadata and all the information seems to be there.  I
> wonder if EMF is not showing up because we have 2 newsgroups listed

I will have a look.  Thanks for checking.

Comment 34 Wayne Beaton 2009-07-29 11:31:51 EDT

I'm not certain that we need the "Last message" section at all. Maybe the date of the last message could be useful, but I'm not certain that the poster identity is. Removing the poster id should tighten up the column nicely.

The header on the main page is all squashed together in my browser.

I've updated the description for the Technology Project's newsgroup in the portal. I've whittled it down to something less than five lines...

Comment 35 Eric Rizzo 2009-07-29 12:46:14 EDT

+10 on the need for alternating row colors for lists/tables. It's really difficult to read as it is now.

If the user posts via the web forum, why is it displaying his mangled email address instead of the proper name from his profile?

I disagree that this mangling is as good as Bugzilla (as poor as Bugzilla is). Is it difficult to just trim off the domain altogether? Why does it need to be there?

When a message quotes another, the quoted part is not as obvious as it could be. It should be indented and, IMO, use a background color that is more different than the base background of the message.

+1 to trimming down some of the info at the bottom of the Home page (like who posted last). That whole section is a bit cluttered.

+1 that the followed links color is unreadable, needs to be darker.

Comment 36 Eric Rizzo 2009-07-29 12:48:56 EDT

(In reply to comment #35)
> I disagree that this mangling is as good as Bugzilla (as poor as Bugzilla is).
> Is it difficult to just trim off the domain altogether? Why does it need to be
> there?

Scratch that. I thought Bugzilla mangled email addys if the reader is not logged in, but apparently not. But I'd still like the forum to just leave out the domain altogether.

Comment 37 Remy Suen 2009-07-29 12:54:47 EDT

I would support the removal of the domain or to just get their name from Bugzilla instead (if one has been set). I'd much prefer seeing 'Chris Aniszczyk' instead of 'Zx.eclipsesource.com'.

Comment 38 Denis Roy 2009-07-29 13:45:46 EDT

(In reply to comment #34)
> Removing the poster id should tighten up the column nicely.

I'll give this a try.

> The header on the main page is all squashed together in my browser.

... and you browser is?  My ability to replicate this would be helpful.


(In reply to comment #35)
> If the user posts via the web forum, why is it displaying his mangled email
> address instead of the proper name from his profile?

Not everyone has a name in the Bugzilla database.  For those who do, I have set their alias to be their name.

Comment 39 Wayne Beaton 2009-07-29 14:47:09 EDT

(In reply to comment #38)
> (In reply to comment #34)
> > Removing the poster id should tighten up the column nicely.
> 
> I'll give this a try.
> 
> > The header on the main page is all squashed together in my browser.
> 
> ... and you browser is?  My ability to replicate this would be helpful.

Firefox 3.0.11. It looks better now. Did you change the column borders?

Comment 40 Denis Roy 2009-07-29 15:02:20 EDT

Yes, I did fix that.  I guess your usage of 'the header' was ambiguous.

Comment 41 Denis Roy 2009-07-29 15:57:01 EDT

(In reply to comment #32)
Marcelo, this was a bug with my sync script.  A bunch of new forums were added, and EMF is one of them.  It will sync itself with its newsgroup shortly.

Comment 42 Marcelo Paternostro 2009-07-29 16:03:26 EDT

(In reply to comment #41)
Thx!!!

Comment 43 Miles Parker 2009-07-29 17:04:10 EDT

(In reply to comment #30)
> Wow, just a bit of feedback..
> (In reply to comment #22)
> > The animated smiley icons on the new post page means I won't be coming back to
> > use this forum at all.
> That's what web forums are, my friend. But I'm with you on this one.  I could
> delete all the smileys if there is general consensus that they are too
> teenager-ish, but every forum has smileys.

+10 on axing the smiley's. Use case:

Subject: URGENT ECLIPSE WON'T WORK

Message:

whassap? :P i NEED to "build an application using EMF that provides an inventory of animals for a zoo". :O i dl'd EMF and replaced all the plugins and now nothing works. :(:(:(:( then what 2 do after? i NEED to get it done by tomorrow!!! thx. %) --d00d

Now, imagine with colorful animated smileys. Better or worse?

-Miles :P:P:P

Comment 44 David Carver 2009-07-29 17:22:05 EDT

My thoughts on smileys, they are good an bad.

1. Animated smileys are evil things.

2. Smileys can help denoted emotion and when somebody may or may not be kidding about something. 

Agreed they can be over used and abused, but they have a purpose.  Regardless, they are going to show up in the text, having the smileys can help translate what the meaning is.

Denis is right, every Forum software has smiley's.   PHPBB, vBulletin, Agora, etc.  For those that don't like them, you always have your newsgroup reader as an alternative.

Comment 45 Denis Roy 2009-07-29 20:20:53 EDT

(In reply to comment #43)

LOL! :-D  u 2 funny!!11

Our community is very professional in nature, so I say we keep the smileys.  I think there is a setting to limit the number of smileys in the Admin control panel; I'll limit to 2 per post.

Comment 46 Gunnar Wagenknecht 2009-07-30 02:06:26 EDT

(In reply to comment #45)
> Our community is very professional in nature, so I say we keep the smileys.

:)

> I think there is a setting to limit the number of smileys in the Admin control
> panel; I'll limit to 2 per post.

:(

Comment 47 Marcelo Paternostro 2009-07-30 08:57:11 EDT

Hey Dennis,

I was looking at the EMF forum (http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php?t=thread&frm_id=108&S=a543fabe833c655ce54b7cc58408115e) and noticed that the posts there are from Sept, 2002.  I haven't seen neither a "sort by date" option nor a "next page" so I am assuming that something is wrong here.

Comment 48 Denis Roy 2009-07-31 10:30:42 EDT

Marcelo, the forum had 43000+ messages to import from the newsgroup.  I guess it just took a while, since everything looks good now.

Comment 49 Marcelo Paternostro 2009-07-31 11:10:47 EDT

(In reply to comment #48)
Indeed it is!  Thx!

Comment 50 Denis Roy 2009-07-31 15:55:38 EDT

Once the forum goes live (ie, not 'beta'), it will be searchable by Google, and it will support linking to specific threads and posts.  With that in mind, we will discontinue the newsgroup archives.  We will keep existing archive files to maintain links, but newer newsgroup posts (and newer newsgroups) will not be archived.

Comment 51 Miles Parker 2009-07-31 17:21:47 EDT

(In reply to comment #46)
> (In reply to comment #45)
> > Our community is very professional in nature, so I say we keep the smileys.
> 
> :)

OK, OK, I realized that the oAW forums have it and they seem to have survived intact. I suppose we can use all the smiles we can get. :# So re: comment #43..

-10

 O:)

Comment 52 Miles Parker 2009-07-31 17:25:40 EDT

Two other notes (sorry if I missed prior comments). 

1. I assume you are going to fix so acronyms are capitalized. (ABC, not Abc)
2. I think you might have implied answer to this above, but is there going to be a nice url for direct access so that I can refer from my page. i.e. http://eclipse.org/forums/ABC? right now if I click on a forum I get an obscure code.

Comment 53 Ben Vitale 2009-08-03 09:19:21 EDT

I've hit this a few times..

1. Navigate to favorite forum to create a new topic
2. Try to create a new topic but not logged in
3. Get redirected to login page, perform login

Expected result: It takes me to the create topic page for the forum I had selected.

Actual result: It takes me back to the forums front page.

Comment 54 Eric Rizzo 2009-08-03 15:26:12 EDT

(In reply to comment #52)
> 2. I think you might have implied answer to this above, but is there going to
> be a nice url for direct access so that I can refer from my page. i.e.
> http://eclipse.org/forums/ABC? right now if I click on a forum I get an obscure
> code.
> 

It appears you can eliminate the long code from the URLs. For example, http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php?t=thread&frm_id=89 will take you to the Newcomers group directly.
I'm using these URLs in a little plug-in I'm writing that presents a simple browser in the IDE for accessing the forums. Have to wait for Denis to confirm if those URLs are really "safe" to use.

Comment 55 Eric Rizzo 2009-08-03 15:54:58 EDT

(In reply to comment #38)
> (In reply to comment #35)
> > If the user posts via the web forum, why is it displaying his mangled email
> > address instead of the proper name from his profile?
> 
> Not everyone has a name in the Bugzilla database.  For those who do, I have set
> their alias to be their name.
> 

I have a real name set in both Bugzilla and the wed forum profile, and yet posts from me show my (pseudo-mangled) email address as the sender instead of my real name. Can that be corrected so that people identify the person instead of the bizarre-looking-pseudo-email?

Comment 56 ekkehard gentz 2009-08-03 18:59:55 EDT

(In reply to comment #55)
> (In reply to comment #38)
> > (In reply to comment #35)
> > > If the user posts via the web forum, why is it displaying his mangled email
> > > address instead of the proper name from his profile?
> > 
> > Not everyone has a name in the Bugzilla database.  For those who do, I have set
> > their alias to be their name.
> > 
> 
> I have a real name set in both Bugzilla and the wed forum profile, and yet
> posts from me show my (pseudo-mangled) email address as the sender instead of
> my real name. Can that be corrected so that people identify the person instead
> of the bizarre-looking-pseudo-email?
> 

same for me

ekke

Comment 57 Denis Roy 2009-08-04 10:53:50 EDT

(In reply to comment #52)
> 1. I assume you are going to fix so acronyms are capitalized. (ABC, not Abc)

Yes, I'll probably use the project name (Eclipse Communications Framework) instead of Ecf.

> 2. I think you might have implied answer to this above, but is there going to
> be a nice url for direct access so that I can refer from my page. i.e.
> http://eclipse.org/forums/ABC? right now if I click on a forum I get an obscure
> code.

I'd really like that, but I'm not sure how easily I can automate this.  We create newsgroups fairly often, so each group would need an Apache RewriteRule which would need to work its way into the webserver's config.  Then, it's all case sensitive, so /forums/ecf would work, but /forums/Ecf and ECF would not.  I'll think about it.



(In reply to comment #53)
> Actual result: It takes me back to the forums front page.

I'll take a look.



(In reply to comment #54)
> Have to wait for Denis to confirm if those URLs are really "safe" to use.

Yes, those URLs are safe.  Any short/human readable URLs will be in-addition-to, not instead-of.




(In reply to comment #55)
> Can that be corrected so that people identify the person instead
> of the bizarre-looking-pseudo-email?

Yes, I'll update my sync script.



Thanks to everyone for trying this out so far.

Comment 58 Miles Parker 2009-08-04 16:39:40 EDT

(In reply to comment #57)
> (In reply to comment #52)
> > 1. I assume you are going to fix so acronyms are capitalized. (ABC, not Abc)
> 
> Yes, I'll probably use the project name (Eclipse Communications Framework)
> instead of Ecf.

That makes sense. Much more scannable.

> > 2. I think you might have implied answer to this above, but is there going to
> > be a nice url for direct access so that I can refer from my page. i.e.
> > http://eclipse.org/forums/ABC? right now if I click on a forum I get an obscure
> > code.
> 
> I'd really like that, but I'm not sure how easily I can automate this.  We
> create newsgroups fairly often, so each group would need an Apache RewriteRule
> which would need to work its way into the webserver's config.  Then, it's all
> case sensitive, so /forums/ecf would work, but /forums/Ecf and ECF would not. 
> I'll think about it.

Yeah that would be a bit weird. What about some kind of re-direct? Are the links at least static / stable so that they could be hardcoded into site links?

Comment 59 Denis Roy 2009-08-05 10:21:42 EDT

> I assume you are going to fix so acronyms are capitalized. (ABC, not Abc)

I'm looking for long-term volunteers to help me out with that aspect of the forum management.  

When I imported the forums initially, I based the forum name on the project's short name (ECF) instead of Eclipse Communications Framework.  Perhaps I should have used the project's name instead, but the damage has been done.

Regardless, in our databases, the project name is not always better.  Some project names are simply 'UI', in which case, the project shortname is more descriptive.

So I'm looking for a volunteer or two to a) help clean up the current forum names, and b) maintain them on an ongoing basis, should new forums be created with sub-optimal names.

Anyone?

Comment 60 Wayne Beaton 2009-08-05 10:50:09 EDT

Is it possible to allow users to anonymously pose questions? 

I realize that we have potential spam/abuse issues, but I'd still like to discuss to see if we can reduce barriers as much as possible.

Comment 61 Denis Roy 2009-08-05 11:11:05 EDT

We've tried that a couple of times before in the past, and every time we're reverted back to disallowing anonymous posting.  It just doesn't work.

I realize creating a Bugzilla ID is a barrier, but at the same time, it also paves the way to new bug reports, participation on the Wiki and Babel.

Comment 62 David Carver 2009-08-05 11:34:06 EDT

(In reply to comment #61)
> We've tried that a couple of times before in the past, and every time we're
> reverted back to disallowing anonymous posting.  It just doesn't work.
> 
> I realize creating a Bugzilla ID is a barrier, but at the same time, it also
> paves the way to new bug reports, participation on the Wiki and Babel.
> 

Which all could be done as well with open id supported as an additional login, eclipse could also act as an open id provider, but that is another bug. :)

Comment 63 Benjamin Muskalla 2009-08-06 05:44:02 EDT

It seems that the forum currently does not support binary attachement - at least it doesn't recognize them. See for example this post: http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php?t=msg&th=148798&start=0&S=4b1b2c1b15543f941c17ba058079955a
I think at least pictures should be shown somehow for others to follow the discussion.

Comment 64 Gunnar Wagenknecht 2009-08-06 05:55:58 EDT

(In reply to comment #63)
> It seems that the forum currently does not support binary attachement - at
> least it doesn't recognize them. 

That's a known issue. Usually MIME was used for mails and the usenet used to use UUEncoding.

http://fudforum.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&&th=118459&goto=159304#msg_159304

It seems there is a patch available, though.

http://fudforum.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=118553&start=0&

Comment 65 Markus Keller 2009-08-06 10:18:00 EDT

Some nested newsgroups are currently hard to find. When I start at http://www.eclipse.org/forums/ , and search for JDT on that page, I get no match. When I expand "Eclipse Projects", I find AJDT but not JDT, and there's nothing more to expand.

Only when I *click* "Eclipse Projects" (which does not look like a link until the mouse hovers over the text), then I get a new TOC with two new expandable groups at the end. Only when I further expand "Language IDEs", the JDT group finally becomes visible.

Requests:
1. Show all levels of subgroups on the main page (initially collapsed)
2. Add a search field at the top of the main page that allows to search in newsgroup names and descriptions

Comment 66 Denis Roy 2009-08-06 11:09:22 EDT

Thanks, Gunnar, I'll try the patch.  

Rats, this means I'll likely have to zero the database and reimport all the newsgroup posts again.

Comment 67 Eric Rizzo 2009-08-06 14:36:27 EDT

(In reply to comment #65)
> Some nested newsgroups are currently hard to find. When I start at
> http://www.eclipse.org/forums/ , and search for JDT on that page, I get no
> match. When I expand "Eclipse Projects", I find AJDT but not JDT, and there's
> nothing more to expand.
> 
> Only when I *click* "Eclipse Projects" (which does not look like a link until
> the mouse hovers over the text), then I get a new TOC with two new expandable
> groups at the end. Only when I further expand "Language IDEs", the JDT group
> finally becomes visible.
> 
> Requests:
> 1. Show all levels of subgroups on the main page (initially collapsed)
> 2. Add a search field at the top of the main page that allows to search in
> newsgroup names and descriptions

/
Speaking of the categories...
Would it be better to have more categories? How about nested categories (for example, under Modeling, a MDT category with the various MDT-related groups in that, etc.)? I think there is a point at which we can over-organize it, but right now my opinion is that the Eclipse Projects category is just way too big.
I also don't like having the Languate-specific category under the Eclipse Projects category, especially since Java/JDT questions are among the most common.
Any thoughts or ideas for better organization?

Comment 68 Eric Rizzo 2009-08-06 21:19:07 EDT

(In reply to comment #52)
> 1. I assume you are going to fix so acronyms are capitalized. (ABC, not Abc)

I've gone through and tried to fix all of the forum names; please review and let me know any that need further adjustment.
As for the descriptions, we need the project leads to correct that data in the project metadata (in the portal). If you are or know a project lead, feel free to let him or her know. Otherwise, I'll be contacting them as I discover who they are.

Comment 69 Benjamin Muskalla 2009-08-10 03:47:49 EDT

One thing I could imagine would be a Runtime group besides the existing groups (RCP, RAP, eRCP, ECF, Riena, etc).

Another point I just saw: german umlauts are broken. See the author names in this thread: http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php?t=msg&th=131890&start=0

Comment 70 ekkehard gentz 2009-08-10 04:39:34 EDT

if subscribing a forum, the Link to the Topic in notification mail was wrong formatted.
in thunderbird I'm getting
...
To view the topic go to:\nhttp://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php?t=rview&goto=479173#msg_479173\n\nTo stop 
...
the second (unsubscribe-) link was correct formatted

Comment 71 Albert Hofkamp 2009-08-17 04:48:04 EDT

A few comments about the forums:

1. The 'search' page is completely empty for me.
   Even if it will be google-searchable, I'd like to have a edit box and a 'search now' button :)
   I have filed this problem under #286626, you may want to close that ticket to avoid confusion

2. The 'help' page is completely empty for me.
   I'd expect some descriptions of places to post or people to contact or so.

Comment 72 Remy Suen 2009-09-01 09:57:20 EDT

Created attachment 146188 [details]
Screenshot depicting the problem in question.

The forum software seems to choke on umlauts or something. Please see attached.

Forum thread:
http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php?t=msg&th=153216&start=0&S=676d1fa4c93f127f05b260bd187ea213

Newsgroup archive link:
http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.platform.swt/msg45743.html

Comment 73 Madhu Samuel 2009-09-02 02:27:01 EDT

In the eclipse forums, I can see a classification among the members, like junior member, member, senior member.

What is the criteria for this classification? When is a member promoted to a senior member?

Comment 74 Denis Roy 2009-09-02 09:36:50 EDT

> What is the criteria for this classification? When is a member promoted to a
> senior member?

It is automatic.  It is likely related to the number of posts you have made.

Comment 75 Denis Roy 2009-09-15 15:47:10 EDT

> The forum software seems to choke on umlauts or something. Please see attached.

Seems there is a patch for this.  I'll look into it.  Thanks
http://fudforum.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&goto=160138&

Comment 76 Denis Roy 2009-09-17 14:32:54 EDT

> > The forum software seems to choke on umlauts or something. Please see attached.

Apparently we're already running this patch.  I'll have to dig further.


(In reply to comment #71)
> 1. The 'search' page is completely empty for me.

I have removed it, and replaced it with our Google CSE.  The forum's search engine just didn't scale.  I have also fixed each page having the same title, but it will take a bit of time for Google to reindex all the docs.

> 2. The 'help' page is completely empty for me.

I have fixed this too.

I have also removed the (beta) word.  I think it works well enough to be considered 'live'.

My next step is to deal with the remaining minor issues, then make the 'old' Newsportal read-only and redirect to the forums.

Comment 77 Eric Rizzo 2009-09-17 17:42:18 EDT

(In reply to comment #76)
> (In reply to comment #71)
> > 1. The 'search' page is completely empty for me.
> 
> I have removed it, and replaced it with our Google CSE.

I don't see any search link or form on the forums home page (http://www.eclipse.org/forums)

Comment 78 Denis Roy 2009-09-18 15:20:02 EDT

Closing as FIXED, since the forums are running, and the old web interface has been disabled.

The remaining issues have been spawned out to separate bugs:

Umlauts: bug 289898

Attachments: bug 289899


(In reply to comment #70)
> if subscribing a forum, the Link to the Topic in notification mail was wrong
> formatted.

I will look at this, and if I can't fix it, I'll open a bug.

Many thanks to everyone who tried the site and provided feedback. Special thanks to Eric Rizzo for his ongoing work in helping maintain the forums.