Use Net "clutter" in new post search?

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TNGTony

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Sep 7, 2003
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Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
I welcome everyone to weigh in on this topic. I could be the only one with this "problem". :)

Scott,

It's great that you added usenet newsgroups for people who can't get to these groups via NNTP servers. Congratulations.

I have a request though...can there be an option to get new "Local" posts?

I can't stand to read UseNet posts in this format and it also makes looking for new unique content on this web site VERY difficult. I will read the usenet posts using my news reader and nothing else.

Just to let you know I nearly exclusively use the "search for new messages" button here and on the other site. It is the most efficient way to see what's been going on HERE. The additional clutter is very distracting.

Thanks
Tony
 
Mentioned this in another thread, just want to concur here. I think it very important we have an option to remove that from the new message search.
 
I am sorry but there is no way to remove these areas from the search page.

But the good news is today we had over 800 messages because of the usenet, however this was because we downloaded almost all the posts over the last month, from here on in the posts from the usenet will be much slower with a handfull of posts each day instead of 800 new posts all at once. :)
 
Scott,

I may be in the minority here. But this to me is a DETRIMENT to the board. Not an asset. Having an unmoderated generally clutter-filled, spam-ridden, flame-prone, unmoderated newsgroup forced on those who come here for a moderated, focused forum will NOT help SatelliteGuys' cause.

This message board did not have 800 posts today. The Use Net newsgroup had about 50 information posts with 750 combined flames, spams, questions about piracy, and advertisements.

I am happy for you that you were able to get this thing to work. But if there is no way for people like me to filter out the junk, it is not a feature. It's a bug. The idea of this being integrated into the board with no "off" switch is to the detriment of people like me that come here to get away from the newsgroups.

Unmoderated newsgroups and moderated forums groups are diametrically oposed to each other! Combining the two is not an asset. It devalues the uniqueness of the forum and the reason to visit the WWW site. At the same time it opens the clean WWW site to the garbage that is 75% of the newsgroups postings.

Again, the merging of the two is okay as long as people like me have the option to filter out the offending material (like the entire section containing the newsgroups)

Yes I know I could go forum by forum and look one-by-one to see if there are any messages that appeal to me. Or I could just look at the "new messages" and weed out all the CRAP from the newsgroups. But neither is convenient and neither is something that will make me want to visit daily as I do now. This is the reason why I don't visit DBSForums daily. They don't even have a "search for new messages option.

If there really is no way to weed out the newsgroup "new messages" from the rest of the forums, then that feature becomes useless to me and these forums are much more difficult to navigate. Therefore I am less likely to visit on a whim any more. I am less likely to see all the information I otherwise would have since I manually would never navigate the DirecTV or Voom or any forum other than General and Dish Network. Which means that even if it's posted here first, I am more likely to see it elsewhere first.

Please don't read this as a threat or ultimatum. It's nothing of the sort. And I am not conceited enough to think such a tactic would do anything other than make me look small and foolish. It is just the truth about the way I feel.

I read the newsgroups every day. Specifically I only read these two. But I do it through my news reader with spam-blockers and personal filters finely honed over 12 years of usenet reading experience which allows me to zap passed garbage. If it's now part of this forum, where the same type of navigation is slow and at the mercy of the board's filters and editorial settings, I want nothing to do with it.

Thanks for hearing me out.

See ya
Tony
 
Hey Tony, I think this feature is a great addition to the site!

This site is miles above any of the other forums.

Thanks Scott for all your hard work!
 
I agree with TNGTony. Actually, I find the 'forum' format to be a PITA compared to NG's.
 
Hey BCW incase your haven't noticed satelliteguys is a forum...

dbsforums is a forum
dbstalk is a forum

I don't think that the forum style here or anywhere else is going to change.

Go have fun in the newsgroups if you like them better.
 
JustinC said:
Hey BCW incase your haven't noticed satelliteguys is a forum...

dbsforums is a forum
dbstalk is a forum

I don't think that the forum style here or anywhere else is going to change.

Go have fun in the newsgroups if you like them better.

I don't think that they are going to change either. But I also think that cluttering them up with stuff from news groups makes them more of a PITA than they already are. You are welcome to your opinions, I have mine. I don't look at dbsforums or dbstalk very often because of the PITA factor. If this one becomes a clone of the others, I won't come here very much either.
 
Ok I just fixed it.... (Boy the wonders of coffee!)

You no longer need to post a message to get access. :D

Of course if you don't want access to the newsgroups please PM me and I will remove them for you. :)
 
Thank you Scott! I really appreciate the work! And so that no one gets the wrong idea, I LIKE the fact that Scott found a way to get usenet access to the newsgroups. The ONLY thing (and it was a pretty big "only") was that I couldn't filter them out.

Congratulations again Scott!

See ya
Tony
 
No problem Tony, I totally understood what you were saying. :)

Just took me awhile to figure out how to fix it. :)

I am guessing you want me to turn off usenet for you. :D
 
Perhaps you should make it to where users can turn that function on and off whenever they want to because some may want to view the usenets sometimes while other times do not want to.
 
I finally had a chance to check out the forum after the update to the update and it works great! Thanks again Scott.

Stargazer....Babysteps. :)

I'm sure this "simple" thing you are asking for is a real PITA to program. Scott is still trying to iron out some other bugs. Just take a look at a thread in the rec.video... newsgroup to see what I'm talking about.

Read all of it on the newsreader. :D

See ya
Tony
 
Actually the problems that David Levin posted about there are eaither all fixed or bogus. :)

He has been complaigning about bbcodes being posted to the newsgroups when the only person who has posted BBcodes to usenet have been David Levin. If there were a way to turn off BBcodes for an individual forum I would do so. :)


As for making it a user setting I wish it was that easy. :) On Vbulletin it would have been no problem, but here user rights are much different and the only way to change them is via the admin panel.

But the number who have asked for Newsgroups to be removed (3) is small and the number of people now reading those groups and posting from here great
 
Scott,

Can you possibly work to automate these process? For example, can you make usenet access an option during new member account creation? And eventually, an option for usenet in the profile? The only thing(??) that would have to dynamically change with login would be the forum page linked on the homepage and in the navigation bar.

If it's not possible to support more end-user customization for the forum with the current software (not just for this, but all sorts of other new features too), perhaps you might want to reconsider Vbulletin at some point down the road?
 
Unfortunately it at this time can not be automated. Again the small number of users requesting these removals does not make it worth it.

I don't think we will be moving to Vbulletin anytime in the future. While phpBB has its drawbacks, it does somethings better then VB. Beside Vbulletin can't do newsgroups. :)
 
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