CadSoft forums now available on element14

Matt Collinge wrote on Wed, 23 June 2010 13:46

Christy Zurcher - element14 Manager

Will you guys please stop doing this!?

Are logins really in such short supply at Farnell that each of you can't

have one, or are you too lazy to log in properly and "Matt Collinge" is

some sort of catch all acount?

This may work for you folks, but it's rather annoying for the rest of the

world.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Hi Olin,

I'm not sure to what you are referring. I don't see any of my posts as coming through from Matt. When I look at the newsgroups using Outlook Express I see everything as "Christy Zurcher wrote:"...etc.

We are not using a shared login - our gateway should be passing through our names using our IDs from element14, just as it does in reverse, passing through your details to element14 when you post to the forums.

Is there a particular post where you are seeing this so I can investigate?

As mentioned, I use Outlook Express to view the newsgroups and  messages posted out from element14 appear to have a proper line-length when I view them there.

We want to make sure this works well for you guys who use the forums, so anything I can do to make the experience better/investigate/fix on our end I will surely try to do.

Thanks,

Christy

Christy Zurcher schrieb:

I'm not sure to what you are referring. I don't see any of my posts

as coming through from Matt. When I look at the newsgroups using

Outlook Express I see everything as "Christy Zurcher wrote:"...etc.

Don't worry - Olin is posting through yet another newsgroup-to-web

interface which has a few flaws. One of those is the (wrong)

interpretation of mail adresses and assigning them to more or less

correct "user names" - and then displaying only these names without the

mail address, ignoring the provided user name of the sender.

There's nothing you can do about this from your side. This needs to be

fixed at the other side. Your posts are perfectly fine (besides the line

length... ).

Is there a particular post where you are seeing this so I can

investigate?

<http://www.eaglecentral.ca/forums/index.php?t=msg&th=38123&start=0&S=5ccfa201173f2824731980c511a9ef15>

That's how it appears there - but remember, that's a fault of their

interface software, not yours.

As mentioned, I use Outlook Express to view the newsgroups and

messages posted out from element14 appear to have a proper

line-length when I view them there.

Maybe your OE automatically wraps the lines when viewing, or your window

width is rather small so the lines appear shorter than they are. In

fact, all your paragraphs are posted as a single line.

We want to make sure this works well for you guys who use the forums,

so anything I can do to make the experience better/investigate/fix on

our end I will surely try to do.

Thanks for all of your support, especially concerning the continuity of

the newsgroups. (But, however, don't confuse them with "forums"... )

Tilmann

Olin Lathrop schrieb:

>> Silly that you still don't see ...

Ah, it's a religious issue.

It's really amazing how you manage to distortingly quote and ignore all

facts and arguments - even those you mentioned by yourself before.

Luckily, Oliver's complete post is still available for reading.

Everyone that doesn't see the One True Way is a heathen infidel.

I couldn't have described your position more precisely.

Trying to have a civil discussion is therefore both

impossible and pointless.

That's obviously true. Unfortunately.

Tilmann

Alexander Horst wrote on Wed, 07 July 2010 18:10

Oliver's point was that NNTP does allow you to use your favourite

standardized "forum editor", just as you wished.

Not really, but I wasn't going argue with a religious zealot.  There are

many things that forums can do that NNTP can't support, therefore can't be

viewed with any NNTP client, and can't of course be sent either.  It would

be nice if all forums had the same interface, as long as it's the right

one.  By "right", I don't mean something with so many features stripped off

as to be NNTP compatible.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Olin Lathrop wrote:

Oliver Betz wrote on Mon, 05 July 2010 06:13

>> Silly that you still don't see ...

>

Ah, it's a religious issue. Everyone that doesn't see the One True Way is

a heathen infidel. Trying to have a civil discussion is therefore both

impossible and pointless.

Quoting only parts of sentences won't help for a good discussion either.

Oliver's point was that NNTP does allow you to use your favourite

standardized "forum editor", just as you wished.

As others said before: Trying to read and contribute to several different

web-based forums is very time consuming. Having all the interesting stuff

centralized in my email/NNTP/RSS-reader saves me a lot of time and is very

convenient to use, as I only have to learn one interface, which I can

even choose according to my needs.

Oliver Betz wrote on Mon, 05 July 2010 06:13

Silly that you still don't see ...

Ah, it's a religious issue.  Everyone that doesn't see the One True Way is

a heathen infidel.  Trying to have a civil discussion is therefore both

impossible and pointless.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Olin Lathrop wrote:

>If you're on a dozen lists and forums you need to get a life

lists and newsgroups, not forums.

Because I'm using efficient methods (not forums), it's doable.

>Besides that though, I wouldn't want to actively go to a dozen forums to

>check what's going on either.  This is where I find email notification very

>useful.  I get the email from everything I participate in in one place.

too complicated, less powerful.

>Each message tells me enough what it's about so that I can decide to click

>thru the link to that specific message and read more and maybe reply.

how do you mark a thread for "ignore" this way? I simply press "I".

Or "W" for "watch" if the thread is interesting. "K" to keep a message

beyond the expiration time.

In most forum applications, you don't even have a thread view.

>It would be nice if all the forum editors were standardized, as long as

>they pick the right standard, of course

With NNTP you can choose your user interface.

Silly that you still don't see the advantage as you are describing it.

Oliver

Tilmann Reh wrote on Fri, 02 July 2010 09:10

(though I can never understand why someone could prefer that)

Quote:

(more direct and more efficient) NNTP access.

Quote:

This is not a religious war from my side

Clearly it is.

Quote:

Additionally, I see those bugs in the forum software that cause

several

problems (which most users, especially those who use only the forums,

are not aware of). If that web interface would work perfectly, things

would be much easier.

I agree that the interface could be better.  If you look carefully as what

I wrote, you will see that I was in fact suggesting this.  I think that

having this be a native forum with NNTP and SMTP gateways would make it

easier to solve the issues you complain about, while giving the richest

experience to the forum users.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Olin Lathrop schrieb:

>>> Now you're starting to sound like Tilmann trying to tell

>>> everyone what they should do instead of making the system work

>>> for how people actually use it.

>>

>> and you are not telling people what they should do?

 

No.  More specifically I'm not saying or impling that people using

NNTP are stupid and should be eradicated.

Up to that point, I was just ignoring what you posted here lately. I

even ignored the "newsfeed bigot" though it's definitely wrong.

But I definitely was not saying or implying the above. Instead, I

remember that /you/ were explicitly calling the people who prefer NNTP

as living in stone age (and more of that kind).

Please note that I accept your personal preference of posting through

the forums (though I can never understand why someone could prefer that).

However, if someone posts for the first time here, and does this via

forum, it is well possible that he's simply not aware of the (more

direct and more efficient) NNTP access.

Additionally, I see those bugs in the forum software that cause several

problems (which most users, especially those who use only the forums,

are not aware of). If that web interface would work perfectly, things

would be much easier.

[This is not a religious war from my side, but from the way you argue

and the way you ignore other people's arguments, it sometimes appears to

me as if it was one from your side. Maybe/hopefully I'm wrong.]

As Klaus Schmidinger wrote, let's come down to technical aspects again.

I'm pretty sure that Farnell will improve the E14 interface, hopefully

based on all details we have discussed here so both worlds are

satisfied. And maybe even FUDforum gets some bugs fixed sometime...

Tilmann

Lorenz wrote on Fri, 02 July 2010 01:49

>Now you're starting to sound like Tilmann trying to tell everyone what

they

>should do instead of making the system work for how people actually

use it.

 

and you are not telling people what they should do?

No.  More specifically I'm not saying or impling that people using NNTP are

stupid and should be eradicated.

However, I think we can discuss how we think this forum should work.  Of

course those that run the forums can completely ignore us.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Oliver Betz wrote on Thu, 01 July 2010 14:29

Since we already discussed this topic, you know why I disagree -

efficiency. I need to take part in dozens of newsgroups and mailing

lists, never could do so with forums because it took way too long.

 

I also need have to visit several forums on a regular basis and it's

so much slower and annoying that I hardly participate to help other

people but only look for the information I need.

 

And there are so many different user interfaces. Each forum software

works differently. My news and mail client is always the same.

I don't see how what I suggested (forum based with NNTP and SMTP feeds)

works against that.

If you're on a dozen lists and forums you need to get a life

Besides that though, I wouldn't want to actively go to a dozen forums to

check what's going on either.  This is where I find email notification very

useful.  I get the email from everything I participate in in one place.

Each message tells me enough what it's about so that I can decide to click

thru the link to that specific message and read more and maybe reply.

It would be nice if all the forum editors were standardized, as long as

they pick the right standard, of course

Most of the are similar enough, with Element14 being the main exception.  I

still prefer writing a message in a forum than with a email or news gateway

because of the richer formatting which allows you create a neater looking

message with inline embedded pictures, formatting, list structure, and the

like.

If someone just wants to type mail, then it should be possible to map that

into the forum in a reasonable way although there will be some loss of

features.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

On Thu, 1 Jul 2010, Oliver Betz wrote to us saying :

>Olin Lathrop wrote:

>

>[...]

>

>>I think the forums should be the main interface, with email or NNTP feeds

>>for people that want that.  That allows for full features available via the

>

>Since we already discussed this topic, you know why I disagree -

>efficiency. I need to take part in dozens of newsgroups and mailing

>lists, never could do so with forums because it took way too long.

Just in case anybody is labouring under the misapprehension that Olin

speaks for the majority, I will state my whole-hearted agreement with

Oliver (and to an extent with Tilmann) on this subject.

The web is great for pretty stuff, Googling, and reference material. But

for discussion, whether technical or otherwise, web forums universally

suck, and mailing lists or NNTP feeds work really well.

--

Rob Pearce                       http://www.bdt-home.demon.co.uk

The contents of this | Windows NT crashed.

message are purely   | I am the Blue Screen of Death.

my opinion. Don't    | No one hears your screams.

believe a word.      |

On Thu, 1 Jul 2010, Oliver Betz wrote to us saying :

>Olin Lathrop wrote:

>

>[...]

>

>>I think the forums should be the main interface, with email or NNTP feeds

>>for people that want that.  That allows for full features available via the

>

>Since we already discussed this topic, you know why I disagree -

>efficiency. I need to take part in dozens of newsgroups and mailing

>lists, never could do so with forums because it took way too long.

Just in case anybody is labouring under the misapprehension that Olin

speaks for the majority, I will state my whole-hearted agreement with

Oliver (and to an extent with Tilmann) on this subject.

The web is great for pretty stuff, Googling, and reference material. But

for discussion, whether technical or otherwise, web forums universally

suck, and mailing lists or NNTP feeds work really well.

--

Rob Pearce                       http://www.bdt-home.demon.co.uk

The contents of this | Windows NT crashed.

message are purely   | I am the Blue Screen of Death.

my opinion. Don't    | No one hears your screams.

believe a word.      |