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Ah, sorry that I assumed it was all Araq's doing. Here's my feedback: I see no way to keep track of threads I've posted in, or threads I am interested in, or g

by rspeer 11y ago

Ah, sorry that I assumed it was all Araq's doing. Here's my feedback: I see no way to keep track of threads I've posted in, or threads I am interested in, or get notifications when people reply. That would be the most important thing. Maybe I'm missing something, because right now I read down the list of subjects for threads I'm interested in, and look for whether the most recent responder is different from who I remember. Writing forum comments in ReStructuredText is not friendly. Anyone who is not wise to the ways of the forum is going to fail the first time they try to post code, and I still have to look up a ReStructuredText reference, because I never use RST for anything else. Just use GitHub-flavored Markdown, the markup language of least surprise for developers. As another person responded, reading a thread longer than 10 messages is unnecessarily awkward. The navigation buttons -- which must be used frequently -- are not particularly prominent on a computer screen, and on a phone they're like a millimeter in diameter. Interface elements are strange. Why is someone's username a link if the page behind it doesn't do anything useful such as list their posts? Why does the timestamp have a dotted line under it? What am I supposed to be able to do with the timestamp? I would expect from other places that it would be a permalink, but it seems to just be nothing.

ilaksh 11y ago
There is a syntax cheatsheet link under the text entry for forum posts. Since its still not a huge forum, adding notifications would create a lot of overhead and I'm not sure it is that much better than looking for your icon in the threads and using the fact that threads are ordered by most recent posts. At this point it seems unnecessary. If you have ideas for improving it though you can make a PR: https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum . Best to discuss on the IRC channel with dom96 and them first though (or on the forum). I agree it would be nice if it loaded a little more than 10 at a time, but the nav arrows aren't that bad for me.
- rspeer 11y ago
  Remember how I said this software was an example of Not Invented Here? This means that when you ask for my feedback and then switch the topic to the classic open-source defense of "so fix it yourself", I'm even less likely than usual to comply. The Nim community's attempt to write a forum from scratch has left them with a deficient forum, and I've explained some reasons why. I took your request for feedback seriously, so you should take my feedback seriously.
  - ilaksh 11y ago
    I don't represent the other guys who actually built Nim and the forum, I only played with Nim a little bit and am a fan. I feel like the forum is ok. Notifications would be interesting to work on but I have two other projects besides my day job and haven't had time to play with Nim for months. Not sure where all the salt is coming from.
dom96 11y ago
Thank you for your feedback! Notifications are indeed on my to do list. As well as a more accessible RST reference, right when you're replying/creating a new thread. The RST syntax on the forum supports the GitHub-flavored ```lang ... ``` code blocks, and many people don't realise that. Your other points are also valid. But now let me give you the Nim communities perspective. Why did we decide to write our own forum? Well, for three reasons: 1. The old forum used phpBB which is horrible. When the Nim forum was initially written, the "nice" forum software didn't exist (Discourse). 2. (Kind of a continuation of 1) popular forum software was always spammed to death by bots, because of the software's popularity those bots were far more prevalent. It was our belief that a custom forum would have a lower chance of getting spam, and we are mostly right about that. 3. We want to test Nim. The amount of bugs that the development of the Nim Forum (as well as Jester which the forum uses) uncovered is phenomenal. The Nim forum is also a showcase of what Nim can do, and I think that's important. What I find puzzling though, is the fact that many of your points could also be said about Hacker News. Hacker News has no notifications, no friendly GitHub-flavored Markdown syntax and also has awkward little buttons (the upvote/downvote on mobile is irritating). Yet it thrives and you yourself use it.

by rspeer 11y ago

ilaksh 11y ago

There is a syntax cheatsheet link under the text entry for forum posts. Since its still not a huge forum, adding notifications would create a lot of overhead and I'm not sure it is that much better than looking for your icon in the threads and using the fact that threads are ordered by most recent posts. At this point it seems unnecessary. If you have ideas for improving it though you can make a PR: https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum . Best to discuss on the IRC channel with dom96 and them first though (or on the forum). I agree it would be nice if it loaded a little more than 10 at a time, but the nav arrows aren't that bad for me.

rspeer 11y ago
Remember how I said this software was an example of Not Invented Here? This means that when you ask for my feedback and then switch the topic to the classic open-source defense of "so fix it yourself", I'm even less likely than usual to comply. The Nim community's attempt to write a forum from scratch has left them with a deficient forum, and I've explained some reasons why. I took your request for feedback seriously, so you should take my feedback seriously.
- ilaksh 11y ago
  I don't represent the other guys who actually built Nim and the forum, I only played with Nim a little bit and am a fan. I feel like the forum is ok. Notifications would be interesting to work on but I have two other projects besides my day job and haven't had time to play with Nim for months. Not sure where all the salt is coming from.

dom96 11y ago

Thank you for your feedback! Notifications are indeed on my to do list. As well as a more accessible RST reference, right when you're replying/creating a new thread. The RST syntax on the forum supports the GitHub-flavored ```lang ... ``` code blocks, and many people don't realise that. Your other points are also valid. But now let me give you the Nim communities perspective. Why did we decide to write our own forum? Well, for three reasons: 1. The old forum used phpBB which is horrible. When the Nim forum was initially written, the "nice" forum software didn't exist (Discourse). 2. (Kind of a continuation of 1) popular forum software was always spammed to death by bots, because of the software's popularity those bots were far more prevalent. It was our belief that a custom forum would have a lower chance of getting spam, and we are mostly right about that. 3. We want to test Nim. The amount of bugs that the development of the Nim Forum (as well as Jester which the forum uses) uncovered is phenomenal. The Nim forum is also a showcase of what Nim can do, and I think that's important. What I find puzzling though, is the fact that many of your points could also be said about Hacker News. Hacker News has no notifications, no friendly GitHub-flavored Markdown syntax and also has awkward little buttons (the upvote/downvote on mobile is irritating). Yet it thrives and you yourself use it.