Shopsmith Forums

How about a cranky old man section

moose wrote:Oh do I wish there was a special section to talk about MOM

I second that!

sawmill wrote:How about a cranky old man section

That would be good tomorrow!

sawmill wrote:How about a cranky old man section

Don't we already have that, just click on "Board Index"

ERLover wrote:Ya know some, I read your "digs" all day, take a happy pill
Community is, I believe for social discussions, maybe try and be more social!!! . Ya never know when you might have to start cooking and doing laundry. Not political as the MS has pointed out.

I don't know where you got the idea that the Community forum is for Social Discussions but if it is, much of what I read in the Community forum is everything but sociable. In fact, much of the forum has become non-sociable.

In the early days of the forum, the Community section was used for "shop related discussions" that did not fit comfortably in the other sections of the forum; that is to say 1)not for beginners 2) not for general woodworking, 3) not a tool review and 4) not maintenance and repair. It was also understood that the forum discussions would not be religious or political. It was generally understood by the members that forum comments would not be aggressive or demeaning. Sociable - YES but not bar-room sociable.

I want to ask a question about the Forum Software we use in light of a number of discussions about how to make them more functional or more friendly that have occurred over time.

One occurred earlier this year viewtopic.php?p=219385#p219385

It touched on the software itself and how changes were made due to cost. Not my expertise at all, but my question lingers...

It is: Of the Forum Software we use, what features exist that we are not presently using or have enabled?

Do any exist that allow us to possible flag a post in a way we could filter for posts that carry that flag?

Filters such as: Quill Spring, Carriage Lock, Gilmer, Poly-V, and a myriad of other unique identifiers that would get us into threads most relative to what we were seeking.

I know the admins have said Shopsmith periodically reviews the subjects and try to include them in the indexed searches. That is a manual process, and seems a more costly way to do it.

Why not have a field that we could fill in on the post that would classify posts by a pre defined number of selectable topics? We click on a field, and a unique identifier consistently is attached to any post with that flag that allows the index to select all those flagged in that manner? Or all those in that manner in the last week, month, year, all....

I would like to know what forum software and version we use so I may research what it is capable of and learn more about forum software in general.

I mentioned a GoFundMe project, and if we involve enough folks, we perhaps could help fund an upgrade to make these sorts of things possible.

Is anyone interested in doing something like that?

Everett

Everett, if you stroll all the way to the bottom of this page you will find the name of the software there. Click on phpBB and browse. I suspect you will come back with more questions than answers but it will be an informative journey.

I looked 'quickly' for a version number used by this forum but was not successful. I'll search some more later. I started purging books out of my office and all I have now is one big trip hazard. I need to straighten that mess out BEFORE I hurt myself.

The forum software is phpBB v3.1.9. The software is NOT a limiting factor in the number of subforums. Initially, we had kept the number of subforums low because the number of posts was low. I'll look at adding subforums for a few topics.

I must have miscommunicated about search. The search is updated automatically (the search built into the forum instantly, the website search rescans the forum portion a few times per week. No manual attention, except rarely when something has gone wrong.

Tags are an option (there are nice extensions to add that feature). To be useful, we would have to remember to use them and I often forget even to change the post title.

Thank you so much!

I know we have some folks far more skilled than I here who might weigh in with some really beneficial ideas.

I will read more on phpBB v3.1.9 and see where that leads me in better understanding what we have or could have available.

I agree that 10E and 10ER which I know you didn't manufacture would benefit by being in their own areas, and recognize that the 500 Greenies, Goldies and early 500's weren't manufactured by the current Shopsmith Company / RLF folks.

I know I, and suspect that everyone appreciates all you do for us.

Thanks again for the information.

Blessings to you and the rest of the Shopsmith Staff.

Everett

admin wrote:I'll look at adding subforums for a few topics.

Now if people would just use them.