The Dink Network

hi guys, the network forums really aren't well designed for the ammount of traffic on them. the loading time for pages with alot of post's it sometime pain stakingly long even on a fast net connection. there are alot of way to fix this sutch as phpbb forum's which are freeware. i'd like to see the addition of pages to this forum.

anyone who would like to make a comment or have a go at me for my bad spelling, prasie or critasize my idea may do so.

bring the DN forums out of the stoneage!

It might be a good ideea of improve for the next generation.

I think the loadingtimes are pretty good, I never encountered any serious 'slowness'.

So they're definetly not of stoneage design...

This may be a silly question, but do you use dial-up?

Pff, I think DN forum is very well done. And the speed has nothing to do with how the forum is made, its either your stupid iSP, or 1&1.

Well, on slow connections long threads take a long time to receive.. and besides, why would we want to replace this forum with a dime a dozen phpbb board Sure, this forum doesn't have things like signatures, preview buttons and so on.. but it's not like we need all those features here.

In a way, a long thread on this forum should be even faster to receive and view than a long thread on some phpbb board. After all, by now everyone got pretty much all avatar pictures and backgrounds cached and even if they do change, they're only small as opposed to the big animated avatars on other forums. Basically it's only plaintext traffic when you're viewing this forum. And no signatures also means no downloading of images all the time. I do have to add that those forums have options to turn them off but who's gonna turn off the Dink avatars, even if you had the choice

metatarasal:
I think the loadingtimes are pretty good, I never encountered any serious 'slowness'.

So they're definetly not of stoneage design...

Glennglenn:
Pff, I think DN forum is very well done. And the speed has nothing to do with how the forum is made, its either your stupid iSP, or 1&1.

I take it you 2 don't have dialup or some of the slow so-called "braodband" speeds we get here in NZ then.

I agree with Simeon. But that's only because he's my homie. Aight?

But really, phpbb isn't nearly as cool as this board. Phpbb is meant for people who don't feel like making something original and time consuming, and want a nice, clean board. But dude, coming to this board feels like coming home! I think Redink1 has done a fantasticious job on creating this, and it should never become a random phpbb forum. That'd be like Queens of the Stone Age become a hip hop group.

I have seen a phpbb based forum system that looked better than this one. However, the Invision Board system is better than phpbb. Tends to look better and has more features.

I agree with Simon, this forum is good as it is, we don't need all those fancy features, allthough some new small stuff would be great though

I believe I'll be siding with Simeon on this one. Yeah, some of the huge threads here take a little while for me to load, but at least it's worthwhile here... waiting at another forum for a few megabytes of crap gifs to load is pointless and dull.

I like this board, it's nice in it's simplicity.

This place is tailored to belong to those who love Dink so I think its appropriate its custom made and unique.

I do appreciate your caring though.

Lets hope Redink1 doesnt kill you.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

Uh oh...



It may be too late

Speaking as someone who has gone from High Speed to standard dialup recently, the DN actually loads quite fast when compared to a lot of other sites. Considering how the DN is set up with the forum integrated into the main site, switching to phpbb2 or invision would be kind of counter-intuititive.

I agree with Striker, even though I have just gone from dial-up to high speed (finally )

I agree with everyone who disagrees with Darkknight.

Besides, phpBB would be impossible to use here, because this site is made with CGI, not with PHP. The server would need php software, and above all, you can't integrate the php board inside the cgi site.

Yes, I use dial-up.
This site is loading fast enough, although the pages that has many posts(>50) aren't that fast.
The design is great, and I wouldn't change it.

I guess you could have the forum on another host and use CGI to frame it on DN But I totaly agree with everyone besides Darkknight!

A thing which could (and IMO should) be done to reduce loading times on slow connections (as well as fast!) on this site and elsewhere is to introduce content coding. Very easy to implement, and the benefits are manifold.

I say: keep the miasma board.

Concerning "the addition of pages to this forum", I don't know. It's not a very bad idea, and can be useful to limit the amount of scrolling on huge threads, as well as loading (50+ posts, or some random other treshold). On the other hand, the tree structure of the threads isn't well suited for this. If there are 100 replies, all to the original post (like many standard boards), this won't be a problem. If there are 100 replies, with each reply a reply to the previous, where would you split the pages?

It certainly is an interesting idea.

What I would like, though, is a link between a file download page and its file discussion forum (and vice versa).

I say: no pages, it's counterintuitive to the rest of the board. But magicman's second suggestion is a golden one, I'd like to see that too.

Yes, I use dial-up.
This site is loading fast enough, although the pages that has many posts(>50) aren't that fast.
The design is great, and I wouldn't change it.

You wouldn't change slowness? That's odd and makes no sense. I've seen forums that load large number of posts faster than tdn, so the slowness can be fixed.

Concerning "the addition of pages to this forum", I don't know. It's not a very bad idea, and can be useful to limit the amount of scrolling on huge threads, as well as loading (50+ posts, or some random other treshold). On the other hand, the tree structure of the threads isn't well suited for this. If there are 100 replies, all to the original post (like many standard boards), this won't be a problem. If there are 100 replies, with each reply a reply to the previous, where would you split the pages?

Pages would indeed do it. The most common threshold (and a good one I think) is 20. As for the "where would you split it" question... well, i have a solution that would be useful for another purpose. Objectivism Online Forum (and most Invision Board forums for that matter) lists them in order of posting and splits them at a pre-set number (the IB default is 20, though it can be changed). Of course as has been pointed out in previous posts here, that makes it unclear who the reply was to unless a quote is included. That is the soloution: quotes. IB systems put quotes into the post by default (in a seperate box in the post box) that can be removed if the poster wishes. That would also fix another problem commentented on in this forum. And that is the problem that all but nested view make it unclear what post is being unreplied to unless a quote is included. Of course there is no reason why a nested view cannot be paged.

Oh, and by the way... for those of you that said you don't want the system changed to a phpbb system because you like the way tdn looks and you want it to remain the way it is... well, if IB was used for the forum it could be made to look like this easily.

Also redink1 has said before that the next generation of the forum will take a while because maisma programming is not easier and he has little time. Well it'd be easy to get the upgrades he wants (and more) with IB and it'd take very little time.

I'll second agreeing with the second suggestion, though stated in my reply to his post, I like the first one as well. I also mentioned a way of going about doing it.

Do you know what a tradition is? It's what people have done for a long time. There might be better things out there. Hell, it's easier to get a turf lawn rather than a grass one, some people even like a turf lawn better. But other people don't. Some people like a grass lawn. Some people want to stick with tradition. Now would you rather have a grass lawn, or a turf lawn?

Do you know what a tradition is? It's what people have done for a long time. There might be better things out there. Hell, it's easier to get a turf lawn rather than a grass one, some people even like a turf lawn better. But other people don't. Some people like a grass lawn. Some people want to stick with tradition. Now would you rather have a grass lawn, or a turf lawn?

Firstly, I'd like to say that tradition is not a good enough reason to do something. Decisions should be made badsed on effiency and price if price is relevant. As for what I'd prefer in terms of lawns: I don't know. I don't know much about the differences. But I'd choose the cheaper one (unless one is drastically better and worth the increase in price).

i use dsl2 and iam also in australia,
so i take it you people dont like change. the phpbb board was just an idea. and it's been said the threads with more than 50 posts take a while to load. i dont use sigs or any of that other crap. just try and add pages would help.

This thread with 28 posts tok 1 second to load! And phpBB is just full of stupid exploits anyway, and since this forum is a self scripted forum by Redink1 & WC is this forum not exploitable as no one has the source code

so i take it you people dont like change

That's the impression i got as well. Or at least tradition over change, regardless of the quality of the change.

This thread with 28 posts tok 1 second to load!

One second? Wow! You obviously have a fast connection speed. However, ther are many that do not have sppeds that fast. The fastest we have here in NZ (in the mainstream) is 3.5MBps (a recent upgrade). Their are fatser speeds , but they are prohibitively expensive and either only available in limited areas or only available to business (at $1000s of dollars a month!!)

You like to completely change something for a minor fix. That's another way of looking at things I suppose...

I'd prefer quotes over the nested system as well, it's confusing and people often just press reply on the last post anyway. As for having posts separated into pages... I hate that with a passion, but as long as it's not forced, nothing wrong with having the option.

Oh, and by the way... for those of you that said you don't want the system changed to a phpbb system because you like the way tdn looks and you want it to remain the way it is... well, if IB was used for the forum it could be made to look like this easily.

I don't like TDN so much because of what it looks like, but because it's unique. From a slightly faster and an unique board, I'd pick the unique one anyday.

I think I was clear enough, DraconicDink, so you have no reasons to missinterpret my post.

Only thing I'd like to see changed is a page system so it only shows a certain amount of posts on each page. I'm sick and tired of the standard things, and I think the way the forums and the site are integrated is great. You can go anywhere, even from the forums, which look simple and don't use extra graphics, which makes it a LOT faster than those IBB, PHPBB, whatever standard boards.

You're about the only one compaining, so you don't nearly have as much influence as getting this changed. You should realize that.

Opps. This post was blank due to an error on my part. Sorry.

You like to completely change something for a minor fix. That's another way of looking at things I suppose...

No. I simply like change if it improves things.

All of the unique features of tdn forum could be done with IB.

Actually by default IB forums have fewer pictures than here unless they are added.

I don't think that either me or the other guy thought we had influence. We simply stated our views.

"Firstly, I'd like to say that tradition is not a good enough reason to do something. (and so on and so forth)"

Well, I tend to side with tradition when it works well enough for me that I don't get frustrated with anything... aaaaand I don't really get frustrated with this board. (Maybe the people who refuse to learn how to use it properly )

So I'm content.

So.... IB has built-in support for:

* Authentication with existing users information, including passwords?
* Automatic forum creation when a file is added to the database?
* Support for foreground and background icons?
* Direct integration for news entries?

If we change the forum will it crash in funny and unexpected ways like it currently does? The answer to both that and "Should we switch formats?" is both "NO"!

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

Well, I tend to side with tradition when it works well enough for me that I don't get frustrated with anything

I have no problem with a tradition that is works for me. I just don't agree with the "tradition for tradition's sake" that a lot of people have.

So.... IB has built-in support for:

* Authentication with existing users information, including passwords?
* Automatic forum creation when a file is added to the database?
* Support for foreground and background icons?
* Direct integration for news entries?

I'll answer those in numerical order:

1. Yes.
2. Not sure what that one is. However, it is extremly easy to set up such forums manually ( a few button clicks).
3. Yes.
4. Sort of... through a round about way anyway.

I'll tell you what: I'll return to the forum I was making with a IB Forum hoster and look into exactly what can be done and report back on it.

But as i said, the exact look of this forum can be done with IB based forums.

Also any features that are not included can be added. This is because the IB forum systems supports user created html pages that use any other language that is compatible with html.

IB based systems don't have many crashes.

I run a IPB forum, I know kinda every stuff you can do with it, if you want to know?

Well I'm all for keeping it the way it is... regardless of my views on tradition.

Send me an email with with a list please (yalnar99.25aqi@gmail.com) and I'll read it. Also can you give me a link to your forum so I can look at it.

Its a cracking forum I dunno if that is allowed to be psoted on DN. And some good things with IPB is:

Add\edit meber ranks,
Subscriptions,
Very easy to add forums + permission etc,
ALOT of options
+++++

Its pretty hard to tell, since there is alot of options and stuff you can do

I totally agree with you IceDomina!