Please consider a roadmap for switching to phpBB 3

[Sujao]

I don't care if you upgrade to phpbb3.x or simply use vbulletin or some other software. But please do something about the search function. What I miss the most is a "search this post" function. It is really a pain in the ass to go through 15 pages of a thread to find the answer you are loooking for. I think as most of the people use this board as a help resource this is a major improvement and greatly helps people to retrieve information from a thread.

[nixnut]

What I miss the most is a "search this post" function

Try the 'This Topic' option of the Quick Search.

[node_one]

Is there a way to see which topics I am watching with this version like there is with phpbb3? Maybe I am just not finding it.

[candrews]

Any news on a potential migration?

[pilla]

Any news on a potential migration?

None.

[CosminG]

Any news on a potential migration?

None.

come on people upgrade to phpbb3 even if we leave this forum behind and start from scratch

[node_one]

come on people upgrade to phpbb3 even if we leave this forum behind and start from scratch

++, but nobody else may go for that.

[CosminG]

come on people upgrade to phpbb3 even if we leave this forum behind and start from scratch

++, but nobody else may go for that.

I beleve you but I would like very much too see phpbb3 for this forum

[GD]

Hello...

I do understand that the migration process wouldn't be as simple as some fellow gentooers might think, but I do think that there is great interest in upgrading to version 3.

For as long as I have been a gentoo user this forum has been the number 1 resource when it comes to my troubleshooting anything linux-related. As a matter of fact I have rarely had to ask a question (see my post count) because nearly everything has already been answered in an existing thread.

However the search functionality leaves a lot to be desired. Searching for anything that contains common keywords results in an awful lot of results, and some threads might be as big as 30 pages long which makes it really hard to find out if a thread pertains to what one is searching for, let alone find a potential solution.

The search function in newer phpbb versions not only links to specific posts (instead of threads), but it also provides the context where the keywords were found in, thus making it substantially easier to evaluate a post's pertinence to what the user is looking for without having to leave the search results page.

Better aesthetics is always a welcome change, but in this case I think the search improvements are so important that an upgrade should be considered just because of this.

I don't know what an Administrator's/Moderator's forum usage is like, but I would dare make the assumption that the search function is not as important for you as it is for us. I mean as a gentoo user, wanting to experiment with a lot of stuff, I often find myself following a wiki how-to and then using the forums for troubleshooting. More often than not, it takes a while to understand where the problem might lie, what the best search keywords are, develop skills in deciding whether a thread should be dismissed as irrelevant or considered as a possible solution etc. In short, we spend a lot of time searching this forum .

I can't really comment on the custom modules' indispensability though... All I do here is post, reply and search .

I think that there should be a wider discussion with the community (perhaps bring this up in the GMN?) and see whether an upgrade would be favoured.

What I would like to know at this point however is whether the administrators would consider an eventual upgrade to version 3, or totally dismiss the idea.

EDIT: I just found out the "Display results as posts" option. It's funny I have never seen that all these years . It doesn't seem as robust as phpbb3, but at least it might alleviate the searching process chaos a little bit...

[zyko]

I doubt that phpBB3's search would be a great improvement. We would have to test it for some time to find out.

The new search functionality is still based on the very same principle. There is no sophisticated algorithm to determine a thread's "relevance" or "helpfulness" for any given search phrase. It still just blindly lists all occurences of a term (or a combination of terms) in chronological order.

Search tools for huge databases need some form of modern information retrieval method (beyond MySQL full-text search) to filter out redundant or useless results. As far as I know, not a single one of the available forum engines has anything more sophisticated. Furthermore, I don't know of any open source project that develops useful information retrieval stuff (but I haven't been looking very hard, either).

On the other hand, phpBB3 allows tuning the frequency of stopwords. Stopwords seem to be a problem now, since these forums have a narrow spectrum of frequently recurring key terms. This really should be tested. I would guess that most Gentoo-specific terms ("portage", "blockage", "kde4.1" ) are way too frequently used to yield nice results, even with a fine-tuned definition of stopwords. I'd also bet that most terms return identical search results in both phpBB2 and 3.

So my prediction would be that search results will still be largely dependant on the user's ability rather than the software used.

[steveL]

The standard advice has always been search: site:forums.gentoo.org foo bar (or "foo bar" if they go together in that order) for the reasons just given.

[i92guboj]

I don't know what an Administrator's/Moderator's forum usage is like, but I would dare make the assumption that the search function is not as important for you as it is for us. I mean as a gentoo user, wanting to experiment with a lot of stuff, I often find myself following a wiki how-to and then using the forums for troubleshooting. More often than not, it takes a while to understand where the problem might lie, what the best search keywords are, develop skills in deciding whether a thread should be dismissed as irrelevant or considered as a possible solution etc. In short, we spend a lot of time searching this forum .

Well, since we are not bots (well, at least most of us ) we use the forum just like any other user, plus, as mods/admins. The key point here is we are users AND mods, not users OR mods. So, we face the same exact difficulties you do, plus some others that are more specific to the moderation functions.

It's true that a better search engine would be welcome, that's no secret. However, there's a lot of work to do, and hence the forum is not a priority. I am not a Gentoo developer, so I don't really the current state of things much better than any well informed user.

I can only say what everyone here should already know: It's not just as easy as to throw in phpbb3 and import the databases. A lot of work is required to port all the custom stuff we have, and to ensure it's done without problems.

For the time being, google has always been my friend:

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site:forums.gentoo.org <keywords to search for>

[eMPee584]

I can only say what everyone here should already know: It's not just as easy as to throw in phpbb3 and import the databases. A lot of work is required to port all the custom stuff we have, and to ensure it's done without problems.

Yeah well true. So i checked out the CVS rep

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cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.gentoo.org:/var/cvsroot co gentoo-projects/forums

and downloaded the original php2.0.22 from
http://sourceforge.net/project/download ... 22.tar.bz2
then i used the ingenious kdiff3 to have a look at the differences. Basically there are some mods and a lot of customizations that are obliterated by the new phpbb 3.0 features. Some customizations however store some stuff in a MySQL database, so those modifications have to be carefully evaluated and ported or migrated to matching functionalities within phpbb/contrib code.
As always, my problem is a lack of time as i am currently working a lot on drupal for the http://hfopi.org site. Does the Gentoo Foundation not have a small budget to spare for this? It's really a tedious but quite simple task..

[doubleagent]

Upgrading to phpbb3 would be a good thing from both a psychological standpoint and a technical standpoint (you'd be getting rid of a large majority of the patches methinks). Also, when it comes to applying new patches, making a concerted effort in this initial upgrade could remove some burden off of certain maintainers who have historically done that work (if my understanding is correct).

But I would only encourage it if the majority of the mods have time to invest in this endeavor, and are willing to collaborate. Otherwise, the forums are fine the way they are, in that they by and large suite the users.

Just my two cents...can't really speak from a standpoint of experience.

[bunder]

But I would only encourage it if the majority of the mods have time to invest in this endeavor, and are willing to collaborate.

viewtopic-t-711526.html

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mods signed up:

pilla, neddyseagoon, kallamej, jmbviscetto, timebandit, desultory, and myself.

i've been running v3 since the end of may... people are more than welcome to see what the fuss is all about. in fact, you might like some of the features...

[Naib]

what does this new phpbb bring that the present one doesn't provide?

[bunder]

what does this new phpbb bring that the present one doesn't provide?

http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/

was on the previous page.

[petlab]

A search function that works. There is no justification for anything less. The gentoo forums have traditionally had far more free expert help available than any other distro. These days I find the answers I need on ubuntu forums and random blogs. Not on gentoo forums. I believe that the expert help we love and respect is still here on g.f.o. I also believe that it is lost, thrown away on a daily basis. After a thread cools off and moves below the first page of the forum category, it becomes useless for want of a proper search solution.

I think I can speak for most of the gentoo community when I say that we do not want our efforts thrown to the wind. We are trying to help each other with bits of our spare time and experience. We are learning and teaching collaboratively. That's admirable. That shouldn't be wasted.

I realize after writing this, that it makes little difference. This isn't the proper place to voice these ideas, obviously. Have you seen how many pages there are in the "search sucks" topic lately? But this SHOULD be the place to talk about this! Come on, foundation, HEAR US PLEASE. Would money help? Obviously, more developers' freetime is not the answer. Help has always been accepted, but there is not enough, obviously. A petition maybe? Micro-donations? Bake sale? If there was as much effort put into forum software as there is on ebuilds and proper design cycle procedure, we'd be the best forum on the web!

So, Users unite! That includes Devs! We are all together in this, let's make it really work!!!!!

Thanks for listening, please do something as well! and flames>>/dev/null.
-petlab

[i92guboj]

A search function that works. There is no justification for anything less. The gentoo forums have traditionally had far more free expert help available than any other distro. These days I find the answers I need on ubuntu forums and random blogs. Not on gentoo forums. I believe that the expert help we love and respect is still here on g.f.o. I also believe that it is lost, thrown away on a daily basis. After a thread cools off and moves below the first page of the forum category, it becomes useless for want of a proper search solution.

I think that migrating to phpbb3 can bring us a lot of new possibilities. Some of them are useful, some of them are pointless. But in any case, I don't think that the case is *that* dramatic as you describe. As has been said lots of times, you can still search in Google by adding "site:forums.gentoo.org" to your search. Most times you can find what you are looking for. I know it's a workaround, and not a solution, but it's there, and it works.

[petlab]

Maybe, but nobody gets excited by calm, understated discussion

I've had at least 3 times in the last year when my system (X, or portage, or KDE, or HAL) was actually broken due to an emerge. I found the solution here (thanks all!) and I shouldn't have to wait till google crawls the site to find answers.

I figure you have thought about both sides of the below arguments, take a look at the ones I have thought of. I'll put down my side of each argument, with lots of sarcasm, and leave the other side to the reader to investigate.

Search has only sucked since 2003.

For hard problems, there will always be a six character, UNIQUE word tied to your post, and the search will find relevant posts.

I have a problem with portage 2.2_rc16 and 2.1.6. Anybody else?

Stopwords.

People's hard work and time should be buried in a database as punishment.

Aaand, oyeah, there are only a small number of very loud voices in opposition to the status quo. And those people are just flamers.

end--

Thanks again for listening! There have been many times since 2004 that I have gotten some much needed help from gentoo forums, again thanks to all!

[Drone4four]

It's been a year and two months since the last post to this thread. Gentoo Developers: What's the status on upgrading the forums to phpBB-3?

[reMod]

Hey Guys,

I'm not sure if this idea came up some time before, but it would be interested why you don't upgrade to phpBB3... The old phpBB2, which Gentoo Forums is running on, is obsolete for about three years and I'm still missing some features that aren't included in version 2. The powerful knowledge lots of users served to newbies like me could be joined more simply than now.

Greetings

[tomk]

Merged previous post.

It's on the TODO list but it's not a simple task as we run an extremely modified version of phpBB.

[reMod]

Okay, thank you

[cryptosteve]

I like this forums no matter what software is used.

A new theme for mobile devices would be nice ...