Could we open the forums to all residents (at least read access)?
|
Jesse Barnett
500,000 scoville units
Join date: 21 May 2006
Posts: 4,160
|
09-16-2007 13:20
I have never understood why the forum was setup this way. You have to have payment info on file to access here. Don't know what the percentage is of "no payment info" is, as opposed to "payment info on file" but I would imagine it is one heck of a lot of residents. If a person is going to join sl and wants to start creating stuff then there are no amount of wikis and personal pages that can come close to the information that is available in the Content Creation forums. Technical would be another good one for people to have access to see tips on setting up thier machine and the viewer to maximize thier expirience.
Would it be possible to allow people to at least read and browse the threads and reserve asking questions or posting comments to those with payment info? Looks like it would be one more reason for people to want to give payment info.
Any Lindens care to give an official response?
_____________________
I (who is a she not a he) reserve the right to exercise selective comprehension of the OP's question at anytime. From: someone I am still around, just no longer here. See you across the aisle. Hope LL burns in hell for archiving this forum
|
Cocoanut Koala
Coco's Cottages
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 7,903
|
09-16-2007 13:41
I think they should be able to also. I've never felt that information is something you withhold.
coco
|
Warda Kawabata
Amityville Horror
Join date: 4 Nov 2005
Posts: 1,300
|
09-16-2007 13:52
I think LL closed off the forums because it wasn't a positive advertisement for newcomers.
_____________________
 I rent out land on private islands. Message me in-world for details. 
|
SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
|
09-16-2007 13:55
I think LL leans more in the direction of eliminating the forums than expanding their use. Possibly the idea is that denying access to unverifieds enables third party forums to meet the demand. It might be seen as a way to encourage folks to get verified. This old thread of mine discusses the matter some: /327/d2/139824/1.html .
_____________________
-
So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.
I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to
http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne
-
http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.
Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard, Robin, and Ryan
-
|
Colette Meiji
Registered User
Join date: 25 Mar 2005
Posts: 15,556
|
09-16-2007 14:18
I think the original restrictions were put in place to stop trolling, spamming and flaming.
Other applications such as limiting access were probably seen as a bonus.
|
Morwen Bunin
Everybody needs a hero!
Join date: 8 Dec 2005
Posts: 1,743
|
09-16-2007 14:29
From: Colette Meiji I think the original restrictions were put in place to stop trolling, spamming and flaming.
Yes... and as we already do enough trolling, spamming and flaming of ourselves we don't need others to help us with that!!!! Morwen.
|
SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
|
09-16-2007 15:44
There's this old feature proposal or "voting proposition":
=================
Prop: 2262 34 votes/10 voters/no applied Name: open the forums to unverifieds again Category: web site Subcategory: forum Author: Lynn Evelyn Prop Date: 2006-11-04
Feature Detail:For some reason, LL has decided to keep the forums inaccessible for the largest part of the global population: those without Credit Card.
I honestly feel that this is a wrong move, even considering the fact that grievers appeared.
However, I believe that giving forum access to unverifieds will reduce the strain inworld, as it gives us the possibility to ask our noobquestions in the forums, stopping noobs (like me) from bothering people who should be doing more important stuff.
If you get grievers, just IP ban him/her... that shouldn't be to hard, should it? And if the mods can't handle the amount of griever attacks... get more mods.
=======================================================
It occurs to me that there might be a security problem with read only access. Read only access wouldn't let people post but they' might still be able to set their signatures, which is probably sufficient to use the security flaw in vBulletin that is the probable cause of the forum's vB code being turned off.
_____________________
-
So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.
I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to
http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne
-
http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.
Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard, Robin, and Ryan
-
|
Brenda Connolly
Un United Avatar
Join date: 10 Jan 2007
Posts: 25,000
|
09-16-2007 15:50
From: Morwen Bunin Yes... and as we already do enough trolling, spamming and flaming of ourselves we don't need others to help us with that!!!!
Morwen. We gotta get something for our money
_____________________
Don't you ever try to look behind my eyes. You don't want to know what they have seen.
http://brenda-connolly.blogspot.com
|
Isablan Neva
Mystic
Join date: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 2,907
|
09-16-2007 17:13
From: Colette Meiji I think the original restrictions were put in place to stop trolling, spamming and flaming. I would tend to agree with this, the restrictions cut way down on the "alt account trolling/flaming" that was a regular feature of the old board. Not that people still can't log in with alt accounts to say all the things they don't want attached to their main account, but it does slow most of them down bit 
_____________________
 http://slurl.com/secondlife/TheBotanicalGardens/207/30/420/
|
Jesse Barnett
500,000 scoville units
Join date: 21 May 2006
Posts: 4,160
|
09-16-2007 18:05
From: Isablan Neva I would tend to agree with this, the restrictions cut way down on the "alt account trolling/flaming" that was a regular feature of the old board. Not that people still can't log in with alt accounts to say all the things they don't want attached to their main account, but it does slow most of them down bit  Some have missed one part of it that I stated: Read only access. If you don't have payment info on file then they would not be able to post comments. I have been to umpteen jillion forums. 95% are setup so that you can read the forum threads but you can not reply to threads or ask questions unless you register with them. In this case thou, you still couldn't register without payment info. I agree that LL is looking to get rid of the forum at some point but there is an incredible amount of irreplaceable data here. We were screwed once with the scripting wiki and I do not want to go down that road again. Open this forum up to let people READ it at least. I don't understand how someone could set thier signature if they do not have a forum account and can only read the posts?????? And that reminds me; Could someone please explain that bbcode was turned off because of a security hole and not because of the bogus "upgrade" reason that is given in Torley's post??? Haven't heard about the Vbcode threat but someone in France discovered a phpbbcode threat about the time that LL shut it off. Jeez even if we act like it sometimes, we are not 10 years old and can handle the truth.
_____________________
I (who is a she not a he) reserve the right to exercise selective comprehension of the OP's question at anytime. From: someone I am still around, just no longer here. See you across the aisle. Hope LL burns in hell for archiving this forum
|
Zen Zeddmore
3dprinter Enthusiast
Join date: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 604
|
09-16-2007 18:45
i aggree jesse, and the bad PR excuse doesn't hold water either. Over all, the people who gripe here, get boo, hiss, and 'get a grip will ya?' untill they recant. So even the gripers hang on and hang on ' heh what does THAT say for weather or not to join( it must have SOMETHING making it worth it in spite of all that).
_____________________
A kilogram of programmable nanobots can lower the certainty of both death AND taxes.
|
Isablan Neva
Mystic
Join date: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 2,907
|
09-16-2007 18:51
Hey, hey, hey there. I was just agreeing with Colette's assesment of why the forums became restricted to payment info on file. I think opening them up to "read only" is worth asking Strife to take to the mountain and see what the mountain says. There may be reasons for the decision that we are not aware of. The bbcode was likely turned off because of a security issue. This forum version is way out of date but since it is integrated so tightly with the website, an upgrade is probably on the "to do" list but keeps getting bumped in order to put out bigger fires. It's an annoyance, but not the end of the world. We can still post lolcats, so it isn't so bad 
_____________________
 http://slurl.com/secondlife/TheBotanicalGardens/207/30/420/
|
Jesse Barnett
500,000 scoville units
Join date: 21 May 2006
Posts: 4,160
|
09-16-2007 19:21
From: Isablan Neva Hey, hey, hey there. I was just agreeing with Colette's assesment of why the forums became restricted to payment info on file. I think opening them up to "read only" is worth asking Strife to take to the mountain and see what the mountain says. There may be reasons for the decision that we are not aware of. The bbcode was likely turned off because of a security issue. This forum version is way out of date but since it is integrated so tightly with the website, an upgrade is probably on the "to do" list but keeps getting bumped in order to put out bigger fires. It's an annoyance, but not the end of the world. We can still post lolcats, so it isn't so bad  Aw Heck. I know. I can't even imagine how bad it ouuld be here with open posting, ewwwwwwwww, nasty, yech, bad. But yeah this one has festered in me for a long time. Saw Torley expressing surprise once or twice that unverifieds couldn't get in and I kind of figured they would open it up at some point. Now after being gone sooo long and then coming back and seeing bbcode off for so long. Sorry but as far as I know fixes have been issued for all the bbcode threats out there. Other forums have installed them and are back in business. Trying to read scripts without formatting is extremely difficult to do. I guess that was what drove home the point that we are going to be abandoned once again. Pushing us off to another site and then saying that all the threads here can't be moved because of copyrights concerns isn't going to cut it again. This is an SL treasure and is simply irreplaceable. So yes, Strife could you please pass this on up the line?
_____________________
I (who is a she not a he) reserve the right to exercise selective comprehension of the OP's question at anytime. From: someone I am still around, just no longer here. See you across the aisle. Hope LL burns in hell for archiving this forum
|
Brenda Archer
Registered User
Join date: 28 Apr 2005
Posts: 557
|
09-16-2007 19:29
From: Jesse Barnett I have never understood why the forum was setup this way. You have to have payment info on file to access here. Don't know what the percentage is of "no payment info" is, as opposed to "payment info on file" but I would imagine it is one heck of a lot of residents. If a person is going to join sl and wants to start creating stuff then there are no amount of wikis and personal pages that can come close to the information that is available in the Content Creation forums. Technical would be another good one for people to have access to see tips on setting up thier machine and the viewer to maximize thier expirience. Would it be possible to allow people to at least read and browse the threads and reserve asking questions or posting comments to those with payment info? Looks like it would be one more reason for people to want to give payment info. Any Lindens care to give an official response? I one hundred percent agree. Read-only access for all would be a great idea. And LL might even get some people to buy some L so they can reply to some thread they're itching to comment on. My guess is that the database load on the forums would go up a lot if everyone could read the forums. But archiving the forums every so often and then displaying those archives in a static manner solves that issue.
|
Isablan Neva
Mystic
Join date: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 2,907
|
09-16-2007 19:57
From: Jesse Barnett Sorry but as far as I know fixes have been issued for all the bbcode threats out there. Other forums have installed them and are back in business. Fixing the security hole requires upgrading the forum to the latest, greatest avail from VBulletin (currently 3.6.8 - our forum here is still back on 3.0.5. Upgrades are easy enough, but there are extensive ties between the forum and the SL website that all have to be rebuilt with an upgrade. VBulletin upgades wipe all your modifactions, every single thing has to be redone. My bet is still that the forum upgrade is on the "to do" list, but keeps getting bumped down in priority as other issues surface. Some communication might help, but we all know that to not be LL's strong suit.
_____________________
 http://slurl.com/secondlife/TheBotanicalGardens/207/30/420/
|
SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
|
09-16-2007 20:16
From: Jesse Barnett
I don't understand how someone could set their signature if they do not have a forum account and can only read the posts??????
I was just thinking about this right before reading your statement. Well, if read access is to be limited to SL members there have to be forum accounts with a login process. I don't know the details of vBulletin enough to know what all a read only access user gets to fill out. The forums have been considered by many to be private in the past, for SL members only. I dont think there is any technical problem making a vBulletin forum readable by anyone without signing in. From: someone And that reminds me; Could someone please explain that bbcode was turned off because of a security hole I asked this question in one on my blogs: http://suebaskerville.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-this-why-second-lifes-forums-vb-code.html .
_____________________
-
So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.
I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to
http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne
-
http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.
Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard, Robin, and Ryan
-
|
Tegg Bode
FrootLoop Roo Overlord
Join date: 12 Jan 2007
Posts: 5,707
|
09-17-2007 03:07
Yep give them readonly access, it will teach them to search before loging in here and asking repeatative questions. But it was frustrating when being a noob to have no help at all, not even a search the forums option..................
_____________________
Level 38 Builder [Roo Clan]
Free Waterside & Roadside Vehicle Rez Platform, Desire (88, 17, 107)
Avatars & Roadside Seaview shops and vendorspace for rent, $2.00/prim/week, Desire (175,48,107)
|
Jesse Barnett
500,000 scoville units
Join date: 21 May 2006
Posts: 4,160
|
09-17-2007 03:55
oooooooo! Nice find Suzanne! I traced yours back and can see why there may be some reluctance on the part of LL to disclose exactly why bbcode was turned off; embarrassment!!!! That security hole was discovered and published on 1/31/05!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! https://my.controlscan.com/threats/details.cgi?id=16280O well, it won't be the first time someone got my cookies 
_____________________
I (who is a she not a he) reserve the right to exercise selective comprehension of the OP's question at anytime. From: someone I am still around, just no longer here. See you across the aisle. Hope LL burns in hell for archiving this forum
|
Malachi Petunia
Gentle Miscreant
Join date: 21 Sep 2003
Posts: 3,414
|
my guess at LL priorities for forums
09-17-2007 04:45
1: game stability 2: smell-o-vision ... 8192: Pie 8193: (hippo) ... Eleventy-thousand: vBulletin issues
|
Pie Psaltery
runs w/scissors
Join date: 13 Jan 2004
Posts: 987
|
09-17-2007 05:15
You've got that a little reversed there Malachi, it's
1. Get money from big business 2. smell-o-vision ... 8191. Grid Stability 8192: Pie (...tho I am sure I am lower on the list then that) 8193: (hippo) ... Eleventy-thousand: vBulletin issues
The restrictions of this forum are in place so LL can more effectively ignore its customers. They don't bother to fix the forum because... why fix something you don't want to work in the first place.
|
SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
|
09-17-2007 05:28
From: Tegg Bode it will teach them to search before logging in here and asking repetitive questions I wouldn't get my hopes up on that. There is nothing that will stop some people from asking someone instead of looking it up themselves. Well, maybe capital punishment.
_____________________
-
So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.
I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to
http://www.google.com/profiles/suezanne
-
http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.
Members: Ben, Catherine, Colin, Cory, Dan, Doug, Jim, Philip, Phoenix, Richard, Robin, and Ryan
-
|
Colette Meiji
Registered User
Join date: 25 Mar 2005
Posts: 15,556
|
09-17-2007 06:13
From: Pie Psaltery You've got that a little reversed there Malachi, it's
1. Get money from big business 2. smell-o-vision ... 8191. Grid Stability 8192: Pie (...tho I am sure I am lower on the list then that) 8193: (hippo) ... Eleventy-thousand: vBulletin issues
The restrictions of this forum are in place so LL can more effectively ignore its customers. They don't bother to fix the forum because... why fix something you don't want to work in the first place. The Forums have moved up to Eleventy Thousand? I feel much better now. Realisitically though with the Tao of linden your place in line is kinda unimportant. New issues automatically are sexier than old ones, so the stuff at the end of the line, STAYS at the end of the line.
|
Qie Niangao
Coin-operated
Join date: 24 May 2006
Posts: 7,138
|
09-17-2007 07:52
From: Isablan Neva Upgrades are easy enough, but there are extensive ties between the forum and the SL website that all have to be rebuilt with an upgrade. Are there? Other than the links at the top of the forum, and the (possibly reluctant) link from secondlife.com/community to the Forums, is there something clever integrating the content in some way? (There may be--I'm genuinely interested to know; I may have been missing something cool all along.) As for the Forums "embarrassment factor" for LL, I can't imagine it could be worse than the public blog comments. I've been trying to come up with some reason LL wouldn't be enthusiastic about having the Forums available to new users, just in the interest of offloading some of the Support Portal load. I can imagine (barely) that they want all the support queries coming through one source, to be able to collect statistics for improving the Knowledge Base (or the product itself)... but haven't convinced myself of that, by any means. One thing: Search here is pretty brain-damaged. Do we know if newer versions of vBulletin are any better? Or... hmmm... if some special arrangement with Google is part of the future in-world Search upgrades... I wonder if there's something other than vBulletin that might be under consideration. (Well, if that doesn't make the Forums sexy/shiny enough... maybe they can be declared part of WindLight... wouldn't it be better if each post could have its own weather?  )
|
Nina Stepford
was lied to by LL
Join date: 26 Mar 2007
Posts: 3,373
|
09-17-2007 08:00
there is a bridge in the user tables of the forum db, but thats about the only integration outside some template work.
_____________________
SLU - ban em then bash em! ~~GREATEST HITS~~ pro-life? gtfo! slu- banning opposing opinions one at a time http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/zomgwtfbbqgtfololcats/15428-disingenuous.html learn to shut up and nod in agreement... or be banned! http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/off-topic/1239-americans-not-stupid.html
|
Isablan Neva
Mystic
Join date: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 2,907
|
09-17-2007 08:12
From: Qie Niangao Are there? Other than the links at the top of the forum, and the (possibly reluctant) link from secondlife.com/community to the Forums, is there something clever integrating the content in some way? (There may be--I'm genuinely interested to know; I may have been missing something cool all along.) Actually there are. The forums exist inside the parts of the SL website only accessible to residents. When you log into the resident only areas, you are automatically logged into the forums (assuming you have access), which also leads you to account information. You join date listed here on the forums corresponds to your join date in SL - not the date you first checked out the forums. Your forum ID is your SL account name, you cannot create an account here that isn't also an SL resident, nor can you change your name. Changing your password changes it for forums, account info, website access - everything. If you want to log in on your alt account, you have to completely sign out and sign in under that name. It all works in tandem; the forums aren't a stand-alone application like they are in most places. If it was all separate, you would be able to create an account that didn't correspond to an SL account. You would have to log in to the forums separately from the rest of the SL website.
_____________________
 http://slurl.com/secondlife/TheBotanicalGardens/207/30/420/
|