Turning point for Linuxvillage and it's forum?

[melodie]

Hi,

2015 ending, let's do a summary on the state of the small Linuxvillage Community. We have few participations, with a very small number of people posting. The numbers today:
3636 Messages in 685 Topics by 88 Members.

Last user registered: jojolemerou. Welcome to him!

60 members posted at least once, 28 membres never posted so far.
 
When the adventure started, Desmoric and turzin co-created Linuxvillage, then later had to leave to take care of their families and non for profit assocations, and I continued and maintained the forum. There had been several moves related to server issues, then Gandi.net accepted to offer us a PAAS (a dedicated space in a virtual machine) on their professional servers which brought stability and security.

Some English speaking members became less present and shortly after not anymore when I attempted to put some power into their hands. (ego-ego, "if I'm the one to move a thread, it's not you" - well dumb things!)

In short, I don't know if this forum is still useful, except for an access to the tips and tricks posted in the two sections, in French and in English.

You need to tell me : do we continue? Do we stop? If we continue, do we need improvements, such as modifying sections or other things?

[OnlyHuman]

Some ramblings:

Many users probably visit their distro forum more than this one.
There are many linux distros and what people want from their distro installed systems can vary greatly, so probably impossible to please everyone.
Possibly an English forum version rather than just an English section would be better, or a simple means so the French language can be clicked and converted to English.
I daresay sometimes user  loose interest in linux or have other more important life commitments that prohibit their time for linux
Maybe the reason and aim of the  forum could be explained more.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
Best wishes
OnlyHuman

[kjdixo]

Hi Melodie

I enjoyed posting here, a few technical things, a while ago.
Sorry I did not post more, I got side-tracked and was too busy, then forgot to look back.
I do post links to this forum from other forums like the LXDE and puppy forums.
I think there is a lot on this forum, but in my opinion the index page is too long and 'boring' and could do with condensing into a shorter page, it has to grab people and attract them in.
I would try a new layout with two columns instead of one.
I would try to use colour to highlight and differentiate different topics.
Make it look pretty and visually exciting and make the titles exciting and give people a 'teaser text' so they want to know more.
That brings me to another suggestion . . . it would be quite easy to set up a twitter feed that links into this forum and your related web sites. People could then embed your twitter feed on their websites and keep an eye on new happenings.
The beauty of twitter is in its simplicity and immediacy, updated daily and you can add photos and graphics.
Also try to send a mail shot to inboxes once  a month, I am sure existing members won't mind.
Thanks for all your hard work and effort and I hope the forum stays and gets more users and more content posted.
I will try to post something in the near future.

To sum up . . . I think the index page looks a bit dull and boring and it needs to made more exciting and be enjoyable so people want to visit here rather than anywhere else.
The index page links to fun and exciting topics, but it needs to be fun and exciting itself, because people spend only seconds looking and then click away, you need to attract their attention I think. IMHO.
Regards
Kevin
England UK Dorset

[melodie]

Hello everyone!

kjdixo, thanks for your ideas. Let's see what we can do with them. I'll certainly make the sections more simple, by merging a few ones which can be merged. I might also gather all the English sections so that they all follow, and same for the French ones.

As for the colors, you are very right but I don't know how to create a skin for a forum and I don't have time to learn about that, especially as there are still many things to do to continue the development of Bento Openbox (there is a new website started for the Bento Openbox project, with the name "bentovillage").

If you wish to submit one, and if it can use the "Show topics for Past: 24h 48h 72h" plugin, then I would gladly install it, as an alternative (have you checked your profile? There are more themes available for the members logged in, and you can choose more at the SMF forum which I'll install if you use it).

OnlyHuman, thanks for your comment! Hope to see you here with your new babies built on Unity-Linux!

Best regards,
Mélodie

PS: "or a simple means so the French language can be clicked and converted to English."
this is never bringing very good results, it's ok for a "once and a while" use, but on the long run it's tiring to read badly translated sentences. Figure out: I am almost perfectly fluent in English (though not perfectly fluent), I use both French and English spelling dictionaries in Firefox, once a while use on line dictionaries to seek for a word… I can tell you about it. ;-)

[kjdixo]

Melodie

As for the colors, you are very right but I don't know how to create a skin for a forum and I don't have time to learn about that . . .

I am the same, but I will help as soon as I have some spare time.
Consider 3 methods, all 3 have 'pros and cons'.
1. Use a predefined skin written by someone else.
2. Dive into the default CSS and tinker with the code (using expert knowledge of CSS).
3. Use a predefined skin written by someone else and then go to method 2.
Never satisfied with predefined templates, I usually customise them if it is not too difficult..
Several years ago I changed the look of a 'phpbb2' forum by modifying the CSS so I know what is involved and it can be quite a big task that also needs thorough testing.

Yesterday I tried installing SMF on localhost on my puppy linux computer but I had problems starting mysql, which is required for the forum to work.
So I installed it online 'for testing purposes only'.
http://www.kdworld7.net/smf
I am very busy at present,
When I have some spare time and the inclination I will start to investigate the options (do some experiments).

[melodie]

Hi kjdixo,

I look forward to read about your tests. On the French forum there is also a discussion running: http://forum.linuxvillage.org/index.php/topic,731.msg4131.html#msg4131

I said I can install what members want, but not tweak skins to get the "Show topics for Past: 24h 48h 72h" inside each of them. It's up to the members to submit what they wish. (And also I'll be announcing new versions of Bento Trusty very soon, with lots of small improvements, and a full update).

[kjdixo]

Hi Melodie
Please take a look at

http://www.kdworld7.net/smf/index.php

It is not finished, I will wait for your suggestions and comments before continuing.
Thanks
Kevin

[melodie]

Hi kjdixo,

There is someone in the French section who pointed to the choice of themes at SMF. The very purpose of the topic related to the turning point would be more about topics and the value of our exchanges than in the colors of the forum, however, each member should feel comfortable with the colors, this is why I will just say, if you create a new theme that you like, I'll install it (provided it does not break the forum) : then you are free to set it up for your own use in your profile. I notice the author of the theme you picked to work on it, and visiting his other contributions, I see this one (a bit old and I don't know if it would work with the actual SMF):
http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?action=download;lemma=1426;id=8667;image

I kind of like it, the colors match well together and the first site has some good energy.

I have worked last night, on making the sections more simple, less main categories, merged several in one in each main group. I hope this will please the visitors and the members. I have also gathered the French and English sections together.

Any comments?

[kjdixo]

Hi Melodie
The tabs-fun.zip theme is an excellent theme, I am very glad you found that.
The tabs are colourful and are better than icons.
The orange hover is good.
If you want to you can replace the black icons with more descriptive images.
It also looks more standard than my effort . . . which I have now changed to test this new theme you found.

Combine the new theme with your simplifications and merging of topics and I think that is a good start and much better than before.
Look at http://www.kdworld7.net/smf/index.php where I am testing this old 2009 theme on the latest SMF 2.0.11.
It appears to work.
So good luck installing it.
kjdixo

[kjdixo]

Re: Black Icons
I found out that the black icons are dynamic and change colour as follows:
Black = No New Posts
Red = New Posts
So that is very handy . . . it is easy to see the new posts.

There are a few minor, unimportant positioning errors where text is not central.
It does not use 2 columns, but that is not a problem now - because you have simplified the category structure.
I think it works better than the current theme.
Both visually and in action (user friendly).
I look forward to seeing the modified, improved forum.

[kjdixo]

The plugin 24h 48h 72h does not appear anywhere . . . I cannot find it even though it is installed.
So if this is important to you then maybe do some tests and verify you can see it before changing the theme.

[melodie]

The plugin 24h 48h 72h does not appear anywhere . . . I cannot find it even though it is installed.
So if this is important to you then maybe do some tests and verify you can see it before changing the theme.

Hi,

The plugin : it works with the default SMF theme. If another theme is activated, and if we want it to work with another theme, the theme needs to be modified.

The new theme you are working on : even if I install it, it might not be the default theme. (Please check your profile if you didn't yet, you should find a choice for different themes, which are installed and available for anyone who wants to pick up something else than the default).

So any new theme I will add will not become the default, unless it pleases most members, or unless it's likely to please most members (who can still choose another theme for their own default profile) and can be tweaked to have that "last messages" links available. I see you have done a very good job in testing the tabbed theme. Do you think it's possible for you to work more on it? ie: if I suggest more colors for the tabs, ask you to add the Linuxvillage header to see how it matches... and perhaps try to see how to integrate the said plugin with this theme? (the SMF forums might help with that).

BTW, do you see the "24h 48h 72h " plugin here, with the default theme, once you are logged in? I know there is this "div=/show/hide" (id="upshrink") at the upper right corner of the forum, which I'd like to remove it from the css.

[kjdixo]

On your default current theme.
Yes I do see the upshrink icon and the 24 48 72 plugin working.

On my 2 column modified theme  I saw it and it worked also (now replaced with your single column fun-tabs theme).
On the fun-tabs theme I do not see it, so it might need some more code to get it to display.
Even 'view source' on the html does not 'reveal it' as 'hidden by the css'.
I can work more on this and would like to see it finished but I am very busy for 2 days so tuesday evening I will look again.
Also would I appreciate quick responses to my questions (feedback and comments), so I don't work for days on something that is going down the wrong track.
I can easily modify the css to do small specific tweaks.
I think it would be best for you to point out each small modification to me, one at a time, so we proceed in a manner that is under your control.
Thanks very much.
kjdixo

[melodie]

I could not answer right away the first time because I needed to think about it. I assure you I respond as fast as I can usually. You can take the time you want, and if you want it to be a closed topic once you can find how to implement the plugin in the theme, it's not a problem. If you feel I lack responsiveness (which isn't in my habbits), you can still send me a private message so I get a notificaction.

Thanks for your work by the way!

PS: I will be out tomorrow and the next week-end. From wednesday to friday I will try to find some time to study a set of other colors for the tabs and the black/red arrows.

[kjdixo]

Very good.
Thanks.