Welcome to new forums platform!

Hello everyone!

We are now live with the new forums platform! Woo hoo!!

At a glance you may not notice much of a difference, as we've retained most of the look and feel and feature set of our legacy forums system. However, we are using a completely new in house forums platform.

So what does this mean exactly? This new platform will give us a lot more flexibility to grow the forums, not only in terms of scale, but also for adding new features, which was a challenge in our previous platform. This is a huge win for us!

While we didn't change a whole lot in the forums user experience, here are the most notable changes that you may have noticed already:

-- Every submission form is now in line! Anything from creating a new discussion or reply, to reporting offensive posts or emailing a friend are all in line or appear in a modal form (a form which opens directly on top of the browser page). What this means is that you no longer have to be taken through several pages to submit content, it all happens on the same page you are currently on.

-- There are now true permalink pages for all forum posts. If you click on the chain link icon within any post, you will be taken to a page with that specific post only--which allows for easier referencing.

-- Logging into the forums will be through a modal window rather than going to a separate login/registration page.

-- No more flat and tree views, just the hybrid view, which is the combination of both threaded and tree view. Some notes about the hybrid view:

-- You'll be able to choose to either view the discussion thread in the expanded or collapsed view (the link to select your preference is located directly below the first post in the gray bar). Once you select the view you like, this setting will be saved automatically as a cookie in your browser. As long as that preference cookie is not deleted, you will remain in the view you've selected. By default, everyone will see the expanded view, until you select collapsed. With the move to the new platform, we are no longer storing the forum views preferences for each individual and we will be eliminating the forum preference page all together.

-- When viewing the thread in the collapsed view, you can expand each post individually by clicking on the "+" plus icon (located on the left of the each subject line), and clicking the "-" minus icon will collapse the post. Expanding or collapsing individual posts will not change your default setting.

-- The first post in a discussion thread will always remain expanded regardless of which view it is in, and it will remain expanded at the top of the forums thread even if you paginate through the thread (you will see the thread starter on Page 2, Page 3, etc.).

-- Regardless which view is selected, 30 posts in the thread will always be displayed on one page. And pagination of the thread is the same as in our legacy platform.

-- Search has been completely overhauled, and there's no more advanced search page. You will no longer be able to search within a forum or thread. While these were great features, usage was minimal. We also did a lot of consulting with our search team and came up with the better solution to give you search results that would make the most sense.

-- The permalink, report offensive post, and email a friend feature will be displayed with icons only (we have removed the text alongside of them) and if you hover over those icons it will display text to tell you what each feature is for.

-- Tracked discussion email updates will be hourly rather than immediately and it will be a digest of all updated threads rather than being individual emails sent. While we did want to keep it as immediately, the new system didn't have the flexibility for it without additional engineering work. Eventually, on Phase 2 of the forums redesign, we will have more customizable options for tracked discussion emails, like frequency, html, etc.

Here are some know issues about the Forum tracked discussion emails in the new platform and we will be working through these bugs.

-- Your tracked discussion from the legacy forums will be migrated to the new platform and available to you on 9/30/2010. You should not have a problem tracking discussions in the new platform now.

-- Tracked discussion notification emails when sent to you will have the subject line of "CNET Reviews Alerts"

-- Links in tracked discussion emails will only take you to the thread and not anchor you down to the updated post.

-- The realtime activity page isn't as slick as it was. In the given amount of time to get that out we had to punt on some of the fluffy cool cosmetic stuff like ajaxing in the new incoming posts. In the new version, when a post gets submitted to the forums, rather than the post being dynamically displayed on the page, there will be an auto page refresh. There is also no indication if the post is a new topic or a reply. In the near future, we hope to make this forum feature even better.

I think I have covered most of the changes that will impact you on our new platform. Our team has spent many months and countless days getting this to where it is today and I'm very thankful for their dedication and hard work. I feel like this is a whole new beginning for the forums with many more great and exciting things to come down the line.

Please give it a spin and if you happen to find or discover anything quirky or buggy in our forums, please do not hesitate to let me know in this thread. I also welcome any feedback that you may have in regards to the slight feature changes above. Good or bad, I'd like to hear it.

Thank you all for your time and your continued dedication to the CNET Forums!

Cheers!
-Lee

Note: This post was edited by forum moderator Edited on 09/29/2010 on 3:11 PM PT

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Bug? Or Legitimate Reason? "Dead Links"

by Carol~ Sep 30, 2010 9:58AM PDT

It took me a while to figure it out, but while posting in the News thread, I noticed the links at the bottom were "dead".

No problem with the Vulnerabilities & Fixes thread. And here's why:

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6132_102-500114.html?tag=threadListing;forum-threads

The same link as above : http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6132_102-500114.html?tag=threadListing;forum-threads

An encore:

Continued : http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Stuxnet-strikes-China-1099519.html

Same link w/o "continued" in front of it:

http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Stuxnet-strikes-China-1099519.html

Bug? Legitimate reason?

Carol

(I tried it w/o the semi-colon. Used various other characters. Same thing. )

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I think this might be a bug

by Marc Bennett CNET staff/forum admin Sep 30, 2010 1:33PM PDT

But I'm confused. Is the issue that links can be posted and hyperlinked, but only when they are on a new line? But if any text is before the url, there's no hyperlink?

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Marc, I don't have a problem with hyperlinks..

by Carol~ Sep 30, 2010 9:00PM PDT

Unless it's a matter of semantics, in that I've misunderstood what a hyperlink is. If you're using the words "links" and "hyperlinks" interchangeably, then what you wrote is the case. I'll try to explain it again.

If you look at yesterday's News Thread, you will see examples (throughout) of what I'm having a problem with. <<== "News Thread" is hyperlinked in this sentence, according to my understanding of a hyperlink.

- At the end of each article/post, I usually write the word "Continued" with the source (URL) to the right of it. If "Continued" (or any text) is to the left of the link - the link is "dead".

e.g.
Continued : http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2010/09/30/usa-charges-60-people-part-international-zbot-investigation/

- If I omit the word/s "Continued" or "See:" (using the same link as above) it then becomes "clickable". In other words, if it's on a new line, as you alluded to.

e.g.
http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2010/09/30/usa-charges-60-people-part-international-zbot-investigation/

- If I create a hyperlink (with or without text) it works.

e.g.
Continued at : Grahmam Cluley's Blog
url=http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2010/09/30/usa-charges-60-people-part-international-zbot-investigation/

I believe the short answer would have been "links can only be posted if they're on a new line. (I don't "do short" very well. )

I hope this isn't "clear as mud"..
Carol

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Thanks for the explanation.

by Marc Bennett CNET staff/forum admin Oct 1, 2010 2:02AM PDT

That's what I thought you were saying. I'll file a bug.

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special characters

by James Denison Oct 2, 2010 4:24PM PDT

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Thanks for Reporting this finding, we have a bug filed...

by Lee.Koo Oct 5, 2010 8:54AM PDT

for this.

That's a strange one, surprised we didn't catch that during our test.

Thanks again for the example and the reporting of it.

-Lee

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Bug.. "Quotes" and 'Apostrophe' marks show as ? marks ONLY..

by Carol~ Oct 3, 2010 10:16AM PDT

when they are copied and pasted. The only way to presently work around it, is to remove the quotation marks and apostrophes from the "copied" text, and re-type them yourself. They will "present" as they should be, once submitted.

The previewed copy isn't always the same as it will look, once submitted.

- Copied and pasted without changes:

?If you don't escape properly, you're going to have XSS every time. Until developers get that through their head, we're going to have to live with lots of XSS holes.?

- This is what the above SHOULD look like, had I not re-typed the quotes and 3 apostrophe marks:

"If you don't escape properly, you're going to have XSS every time. Until developers get that through their head, we're going to have to live with lots of XXS holes."

I'll gladly try to explain this another way, if it doesn't make sense.
Carol

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So Much For The Apostrophe Marks!

by Carol~ Oct 3, 2010 10:26AM PDT

This is the first time I haven't see a question mark, substituted for an apostrophe mark. See this post as an example. It's filled with them!

http://forums.cnet.com/7726-6132_102-5000830.html

----
Please ignore this test:

?If you don't escape properly, you're going to have XSS every time.

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(NT) Thanks Carol. I will file a bug for this. Uggh.

by Lee.Koo Oct 4, 2010 2:22AM PDT

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BUG: Message marking

by John.Wilkinson Oct 3, 2010 10:44PM PDT

I don't know about others, but I'm still having a lot of issues with message marking. Looking over threads that I have never opened and that have no replies, most are marked with the red 'updated' indicator. And seemingly random posts in threads I have read days or even weeks ago are suddenly marked as unread or updated. If I refresh the page enough times the 'read status' eventually displays correctly, so the status must be stored correctly, but it's annoying not being able to readily identify new posts.

John

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that's what I meant earlier

by James Denison Oct 3, 2010 11:17PM PDT

In another thread when I had green colored posts in thread I'd created before the transition, which post I've read then and now, and the indicator refuses to change. I finally decided maybe it's tied into the Tracked Discussion part of it which they've not loaded yet.

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Tracked Threads have been migrated...

by John.Wilkinson Oct 3, 2010 11:35PM PDT

You should see all of your tracked threads fully migrated, though that's not tied into thread marking. In my case, I've seen threads that have been marked as read since the migration suddenly appear as unread as well as new posts submitted directly to the new system do the same, so I'm not convinced this is a migration issue.

John

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BUG: Tracked thread notifications

by John.Wilkinson Oct 3, 2010 10:46PM PDT

I know these are still a work in progress, but it should be noted that notifications are being sent for all posts, including those submitted by the member. Thus, within an hour from now, I'll be receiving an email stated that a new reply to this thread exists. Moments later, I'll learn that the poster is John.Wilkinson.

John

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Actually, I think it is even worse than what you reported ..

by Bill Osler Oct 4, 2010 11:51AM PDT

For the threads I have tracked I get an update email every time anybody posts to the thread (even myself, as you noted) and the emails keep coming even if I have not visited the forums. If memory serves the prior software (and every other forum I am familiar with) sends a notice out when another user updates the thread and then stops sending notices until I return to the thread. I think I received 4 update notifications about one thread over the course of a 12 hour work day.

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There was no limit...

by John.Wilkinson Oct 4, 2010 3:33PM PDT

Unfortunately, the old system offered no limit to the numbers if emails sent; it simply sent an email for each reply nearly immediately. As a result, hot topics frequently produced dozens of emails an hour, especially when featured in a newsletter. (Some reported CNET as spammers as a result.) The new system groups notifications, limiting it to one email per hour, but also notifies you of your own posts. Hopefully they'll be able to implement a happy medium.

John

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Yes the update includes your own post as the updates are...

by Lee.Koo Oct 5, 2010 3:10AM PDT

similar to RSS feeds, it send updates regardless if the post is by you or anyone else. Not sure if we can do anything about this, but I will ask.

BTW folks, we found some data issues with some imported track discussions for some of our members and the engineers are currently in process of fixing the issue. Once this is fix, they will be remigrating the tracked discussions for those who are affected.

Thanks for you patience will we iron out some of the issues.

-Lee

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BUG: Word "document" followed by a period...

by John.Wilkinson Oct 3, 2010 11:41PM PDT

Try typing the word "document" followed by a period and the letter "d" is automatically transformed into a less than sign. Seems like some regex gone awry, possibly related to a Javascript filter?

John

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(NT) Thanks John, bug filed!

by Lee.Koo Oct 4, 2010 2:41AM PDT

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Anyone Else Having Profile Post Number Problems?

by Grif Thomas Forum moderator Oct 4, 2010 4:19AM PDT

Although I'm not having many of the same problems as others (I can still login, post, and do moderator duties), but when I check my personal CNET profile, it appears like all of my personal posts stopped on September 29, the day of the change.. Checking a recent post shows it correctly being "read" and such but it just doesn't show up in my profile so I can quickly search for it at a later date..

Maybe I've missed something but are others have the same issue.

Hope this helps.

Grif

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It's known and expected...

by John.Wilkinson Oct 4, 2010 5:04AM PDT

I believe Wayne asked about that the other day. In short, the profiles and various other parts of CNET still need updated to pull content from the new forums. That's expected to happen this week, but only pre-migration content will show up in the interim.

John

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Thanks John, It Was My Impression...

by Grif Thomas Forum moderator Oct 4, 2010 5:57AM PDT

...the problems were occurring with migration from the "old to the new" forums, meaning one would see the new stuff but not the old.. My problem seems to be the reverse, where I'm seeing the old posts in my profile but nothing new shows up there..

Oh well, I'll wait to see if the content migration steps fix the problem in the next week or so..

Take care.

Grif

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It's still looking at the old data...

by John.Wilkinson Oct 4, 2010 6:08AM PDT

They've fully migrated all of the data, but they didn't have time to update the Profiles and other parts of the site. As a result, those pages are still loading the content from the old databases/old forums rather than the new. Once they point them to the new forums all content should start to appear.

John

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bug, glitch, or only an annoyance, you decide.

by James Denison Oct 6, 2010 12:32AM PDT

When you are reading a post in a thread, and you want to see what it was in reply to and clk on the line "In Reply to:" it will take you to the subject, but not open the post at the same time if collapsed.

It's only a bit disconcerting at first, until you realize you were delivered to the post, just don't see it yet till you also open it.

I think most people would expect if they'd clked on that "reply to:" link it would open up to that post, since it would be assumed you wouldn't clk on that unless you actually wanted to read it.

Just my thought on the matter.

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None of the above?

by Lee.Koo Oct 6, 2010 2:49AM PDT

James,

This isn't a bug or glitch--a minor of annoyance for those using the collapsed view--maybe, I think it's a nice to have feature.

I will file a request for this feature, but I can't promise anything as there are still many bugs to address first. However, I think that would be great addition to the user's experience.

Thanks for the suggestion!
-Lee

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Surprise... try it now James.

by Lee.Koo Oct 7, 2010 9:35AM PDT

Make sure you do CTRL + refresh on your browser.

2 things added to collapsed view.

1)Now, when you click the subject line of "In reply to:", it anchors to the post and expands it.

2)Now, when you click "Next unread" it anchors to the post and expands it.

Don't thank me, thank the developer Josh for implementing it for us and getting this out so quick!

Cheers and enjoy!
-Lee

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Thanks Lee!

by James Denison Oct 8, 2010 10:24AM PDT

Like I said, this is the best rollout of new CNET forums ever!

Works great.

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Unable To Create A Post..

by Carol~ Oct 6, 2010 7:14AM PDT

This may (or may not) be important to note. If it's not important, my curiosity wouldn't mind knowing, what caused it.

Last night and this morning, I tried to create a post in the Vulnerabilities & Fixes thread. I continually received the message, "Sorry, there was a problem generating the preview. Please try again."

I finally posted it, but not in the form I wanted, or intended. I was forced to eliminate the (actual) "Summary", by referring those interested, to the Adobe Security Bulletin itself. In other words, I was unable to post it in its entirety.

In an effort to figure it out, I've been "playing around" in the Test Forum. As far as I can tell, it's not what's IN the post. I was able to post ALL of it within two posts. But not as a whole. This is as much as I was able to post at one time. Where indicated (at the bottom) I was unable to include another word.

Is it related to the length of the post? Is there a limit to the amount of characters used? What condition/s illicit the preview message?

I doubt this will ever pose a problem for me in the future, as I can always work around it. But IF.. it's a bug, which might cause problems for other's, it may be time to stomp on it!!

Carol

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Carol, were you able to preview that large Adobe post?

by Lee.Koo Oct 7, 2010 2:41AM PDT

We have a current bug with previewing. If you preview a post that has a large body, it just simply doesn't work. However, if you just submit it without previewing it, then it will go through just fine. I've filed a bug for this.

Our Body limit is quite high and majority of post will go through unless the member is writing a book

Let me know if this what you are experiencing.

Thanks!
-Lee

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Never Able To Preview The Entire Post..

by Carol~ Oct 7, 2010 4:48AM PDT

Being prone to "book writing", I thought I might have hit the limit, a very long time ago. But strangely, I never have.

To answer your question (and not make THIS a book!):

At first try, when pasting the entire post, I was unable to preview it. In order to eventually post it, I had to remove the text from the "The Summary". This is as much as I could fit in one post, when "testing" it. Nothing more.

I don't know if you can make any sense of my thread (Preview/Post Test) at the test forum, but it's there if you wish to look at it. I wasn't sure (at first) what was causing it. Hence, the thread.

Two added notes:

- It's not the first time I posted a long vulnerability or fix, such as that. And yet, it's never happened before.

- I experienced another (unrelated) problem previewing. As posted here. I was attempting to post a news item, and "edit out" where the quotations marks, dashes and apostrophe's turned to questions marks. I may have previewed/edited a bit more than normal, but NOT an exorbitant amount of times. At some point, I was no longer able to preview it. Only submit, or cancel.

Another book has come to an end. I hope it's a clear read.

Carol

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Response

by purdyleespackle Oct 6, 2010 8:22AM PDT

I'm lost. All signed in. How do I post a question?

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