boo on MVS notifications!

[carboncow]

Matthew,

I thought I would just toss out that I'm not enjoying the new notifications to much. I'm glad they appear to be working now after being very intermittent for me for quite some time. This may be the only forum notification I got out nearly a hundred I belong too that doesn't include a direct URL back to the thread it references...but maybe that is on the way?!?!

Right now I get a generic link that requires me to login in (duh) and then surf to the "my posts" section...a few to clicks to many for me!

EDIT: and I just noted I can respond to the notification email and I can email directly to the guy who commented on the forum...isn't the g?al to keep as much conversation public as posible to build the community and data? I think this solution promotes a private discussion by accident. Very odd solution...

Shawn

[matthew1]

Shawn, thanks for your thoughts on this. The first thing to note is that it's (knowingly) not working correctly, and it's been like this since install days ago. Second thing is: I haven't forgotten about it. I get the emails also . I'm "eating my own dogfood" as they say in the software development community.

The reply to the commenter I didn't realize. You're right, the community benefits quite a bit more when discussion of Volvo problems and answers is public. I'll change that.

[carboncow]

Thanks for the feedback. Sorry to read of the frustrations...I saw that it was still a phpBB product and although I haven't set one (phpBB) in quite some time, I know of the frustration. you must be hitting the customizations pretty hard!

I was quite sure you were aware of the concern and didn't really expect this to be the end functionality but I always like to voice observations to people I know that want the feedback, if done constructively. I'm glad to read I hit on at least one topic new to the discussion!

Lastly, was there a specific forum before for topics about web, content, ect or was it always in the Events, Car Talk, General Discussion & MVS Forum section? I may be confusing it with the far to many other sites I play on...I felt a bit odd posting it in this catch all location. Maybe a dedicated section to those offering comments/suggestions about site content/functionality?

[matthew1]

Thanks for the feedback. Sorry to read of the frustrations...I saw that it was still a phpBB product and although I haven't set one (phpBB) in quite some time, I know of the frustration. you must be hitting the customizations pretty hard!

phpBB is old. No argument there. But it's got three things going for it, in this case: legacy, security and community. This forum has run on phpBB for over ten years. Posts from 2002 are treated the same way as posts from today. I won't say anything about security because that'll jinx it. Community is awesome... take a look at phpbb.com.

And now for the downsides. By far (far) the biggest drawback is extensibility. Or rephrased: there is no extensibility, phpBB is stuck in 2002. With WordPress, you drop in a folder and turn it on in the admin Plugins section and you're done. phpBB modification is the practice of unsupported template hacking, quite literally. Sounds like you know all this, Shawn, but I'm typing it anyway for those keeping score at home.

Lastly, was there a specific forum before for topics about web, content, ect or was it always in the Events, Car Talk, General Discussion & MVS Forum section? I may be confusing it with the far to many other sites I play on...I felt a bit odd posting it in this catch all location. Maybe a dedicated section to those offering comments/suggestions about site content/functionality?

It was always Events, Car Talk, General Discussion & MVS Forum. I'll toss around the idea of breaking out forum functionality and design into its own forum under that.

[matthew1]

No errors in the Apache or Nginx logs... grr. I know this is frustrating, guys. Bear with me.