Put those hands together (or to the keyboard) and give a warm welcome to our newest addition to the mod team, @Brickwizard.

[KGIII]

You folks don't see what goes on behind the scenes. (Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made.)

If you could see behind the curtain, you'd see that @Brickwizard has reported hundreds of spammers. He spots them before they post, in fact.

It just makes good sense to let him process those spam reports on his own. He was already doing 90% of the work. He might as well do 100% of the work.

Additionally, this will help with the approval queue. New users need some of their posts approved (a measure to reduce spam). They go into a queue, which is dealt with by mods or admins. Given how his time zone overlaps with others, that will give us greater coverage. It is my opinion that it will be a better experience for new users.

Brick has been here for ages, has some previous moderator experience, and is (obviously) a trusted member of the community. They've been gregarious along the way, and their accepting this labor is appreciated.

(We're just glorified janitors on a relatively obscure website.)

 

[Condobloke]

Onya, Brian, well done and well deserved.

Antipodean Brian

 

[f33dm3bits]

Congratz @Brickwizard!

 

[KGIII]

Congratz @Brickwizard!

Now that you've had some time to think about it, are you still willing to volunteer?

If so, I can make those changes -- but it might be proper decorum to wait and let @Rob take care of it.

 

[f33dm3bits]

Now that you've had some time to think about it, are you still willing to volunteer?

If so, I can make those changes -- but it might be proper decorum to wait and let @Rob take care of it.

I replied in the other topic about it when you and @Condobloke mentioned me up for nomination.

Thanks for the nominations! I'd be happy to help out, I do have to say I don't really have any experience in moderating, so I will need some guidance of the more senior moderators and I do let things get to my head sometimes but I'm sure working together with other mods it will work out fine. I've helped out with marking spam posts when we got flooded with spam and I haven't seen any topics that went out of hand in the past few months, unless I missed something when I wasn't around.

 

[Rob]

Woooo! Welcome @Brickwizard (Brian)!

 

[Brickwizard]

@f33dm3bits you do not need to worry, when i saw the mod controls for the first time, I was surprised how simple and self-explanatory they mostly are, I had to ask a couple of idiot questions [what's the difference between 2 buttons that to my mind were the same ] so hopefully I won't nuke a member in error

come on move over to the dark side

 

[f33dm3bits]

@f33dm3bits you do not need to worry, when i saw the mod controls for the first time,

I meant I can have times where certain type people in topics get to me but I would think working together with the other more senior and experienced mods that will work out fine.

 

[MikeWalsh]

@Brickwizard :-

I had to ask a couple of idiot questions [what's the difference between 2 buttons that to my mind were the same ] so hopefully I won't nuke a member in error

Heh. Been there, done that.

Like I said, it varies from one forum software suite to another. From how easy XenForo is for users, I'm guessing it's similarly easy for staff, too.

When I got thrown in at the deep end on BleepingComputer's IPBoard software - on April 1st, 2020, natch! - it was a frickin' nightmare. And that's a mature, long-standing project. By comparison, Puppy's phpBB was a piece of cake to get my head round.....though as you might expect, already having previous experience with IPBoard actually made that process easier.

They aren't so different, but IPBoard just ain't as user-friendly as phpBB...

You'll be OK.


Mike.

 

[Brickwizard]

I meant I can have times where certain type people in topics get to me

There are topics I don't care for and as none of us are experts in the field of Linux, but there will be enough of us to bounce off when we have problems, and I'm just across the stream from you, we can muddle through together

 

[MikeRocor]

Congrats Brickwizard and a big "Thank You" for your help, both in the past and going forward.

 

[kc1di]

Congratulations @Brickwizard And thanks for serving.

 

[PuppyHome]

Congrats @Brickwizard . A great addition to an already great team.

 

[Brickwizard]

(We're just glorified janitors on a relatively obscure website.)

You forgot the "less than minimum wage" bit

 

[dos2unix]

Congrats @Brickwizard !

 

[KGIII]

I'm guessing it's similarly easy for staff, too.

For a paid mature project, parts of it can be really clunky. There are parts that are just 'not good'. The admin section is unintuitive and limited. The UX is as bad as the UI.

It could be made better. I might have to dust off my PHP skills and see what this looks like under the hood. I wonder if XenForo would cooperate, allowing me to install a long-term dev environment on a private test server?

You forgot the "less than minimum wage" bit

It might be funnier if people think this is a paid gig. We can strut around and pretend we're making the big bucks!

Alas, while I have some ideas, I'm not privy to the financials -- but I'm like 99.999% certain that the site does not generate a profit. If we were using a FOSS BB (forum) script, that might help quite a bit. Some FOSS projects have converters that will let you convert from the proprietary software's database to their FOSS database structure.

Frankly, that might be a service worth paying for. There are qualified experts in the field of database conversions. You can do it yourself, with enough time and expertise. Thee's also the scripts that I mentioned that ideally perform the task for you.

 

[theLegionWithin]

gratz!

 

[wizardfromoz]

It might be funnier if people think this is a paid gig. We can strut around and pretend we're making the big bucks!

Seven figure salary here...all zeroes.

...so hopefully I won't nuke a member in error

Brian, I have nuked one or two in error. We are only human (well, some of us are Wizards but we have mortal ties). Rob cleaned up for me where necessary.

Cheers

Chris

 

[MikeWalsh]

@wizardfromoz :-

Seven figure salary here...all zeroes.

Yeah, riiiiight. You wish..!!

Be nice if there was a '1' in front, eh..?

Alas, while I have some ideas, I'm not privy to the financials -- but I'm like 99.999% certain that the site does not generate a profit. If we were using a FOSS BB (forum) script, that might help quite a bit. Some FOSS projects have converters that will let you convert from the proprietary software's database to their FOSS database structure.

Frankly, that might be a service worth paying for. There are qualified experts in the field of database conversions. You can do it yourself, with enough time and expertise. Thee's also the scripts that I mentioned that ideally perform the task for you.

@KGIII :-

Well, you're certainly right about one thing. Anything is possible.....and it's directly proportional to the amount of effort you want to put in.

Case in point:-

Our Admin, Erik (rockedge on the Puppy Forums) had set up the current main forum as a 'test' environment a few months prior to John de Murga's passing at the end of April in the first year of COVID. When the old forum went into permanent 'maintenance mode' due to unpaid hosting bills, we carried on with that one going forward.

The 'kicker' was; what to do with the old forum? We didn't want to lose more than 16 years-worth of information OR the well over a million posts the database contained, along with tens of thousands of various attachments. The database was something like around 23 GB + at this point in time....

(At least we DO now have multiple backups....spread out across a sizeable area of New South Wales AND Queensland in Oz. Barry himself, along with a few other veteran members in the area, all now have their own secure copies...)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

The other snag was the sheer age of the software. The Murga-Linux 'Puppy' Forum was running an ancient 2-series phpBB build, heavily-patched & customised, from around 2006. If Erik was going to turn it into a static 'archive', he also wanted it running the latest build alongside the new forum. So.....

.....he set up a couple of additional 'test' servers to attempt the conversion from early 2-series to late 3-series; a task which everyone on the phpBB forums said was, frankly, impossible. Nobody thought it could be done, given the almost complete re-write the software had undergone in the intervening years.

They reckoned without Erik's sheer doggedness & perseverance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

It wasn't going to be easy. He knew it would involve several intermediate conversions, since there was no way the old software would go straight to the newest version because of the changes involved.

Erik has also been pretty good with PHP, Perl & Apache/LAMP stuff for several years. Following several 'dry' runs & whipping up some custom scripts along the way - and after nearly 4 months! - the job was finally complete.....including that huge database.

The nay-sayers over at phpBB were gobsmacked. Nobody had believed it would be possible.....but Erik had proved them all wrong. Since then, he's whipped-up another script, running on the hosting company's VPS, which auto-detects if a new version is available & simultaneously updates not only the new forum but also the old, 'static' archive AT THE SAME TIME.

Some of the webmin members at phpBB have since adapted chunks of Erik's conversion script for use on their own fora & projects. Which is quite a compliment!

And ALL of this was accomplished on a pair of elderly Dell PowerEdge blade servers running - of course! - 'Puppy' Linux. What else?


Mike.

 

[KGIII]

Nobody had believed it would be possible....

Well, that's just silly. This stuff is definitely possible. It's just a matter of time and skill, or willingness to learn new skills.

Also, as I recall, from the 2.x series to the 3.x series wasn't too 'breaking', at least as far as the database was concerned. I think it even retained table names and the like, though adding new material.

But, once you get used to the 'XenForo way', it's not too terrible. The ACP is easily searched, even if some of the names are a bit cryptic.