best Inkscape forum ever!

[brynn]

Comments from Mark Crutch (aka "Xav")

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.

[brynn]

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.

[brynn]

Some questions as I organize the list.

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?

[Dillerkind]

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.

[brynn]

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?

[brynn]

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 

[brynn]

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.

[Dillerkind]

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 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.

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.

[brynn]

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.

[lurkalot]

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.

[hadim]

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 !

[brynn]

Welcome hadim, and thanks for comments

[antov]

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.

[brynn]

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 

[antov]

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

[antov]

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

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

[brynn]

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.

[ponnuki]

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.

[brynn]

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/

[Pilosopong Tasyo]

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).

[hamza.gameart]

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