Options for new discussion forums

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Did you have a chance to post this to their page as of yet? Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place…

Yeah, there was an existing issue I piled on to...so it might not get noticed.

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

Based on the feedback it seems those who have checked out GitHub Discussions (GHD) have given a thumbs up.

A few thoughts/questions...

1. @Narflex...are you/Google Ok with GitHub Discussions as a community supported discussion solution?
2. @Narflex...would you be able to point forums.sagetv.com subdomain to "https://github.com/OpenSageTV/Community/discussions" when the current forums are retired?
3. If Jeff is Ok with the above then we would pin a post on GHD with a link to the static copy of the original forums.
4. Moderators. I am in discussions with Opus4 and he believes he would have time to help if needed (and I believe he is needed). When he has time and gets a GH account I will set him up with admin privileges to allow moderation. I will also have this ability but it is not my strength so will stay out of it if Andy will take it on but can back him up if/when needed.
5. Rollout/Communications...is there any method for Opus4/Narflex to send a message to current forum members with details on the move and signup process. This may not be needed if the subdomain can be forwarded but it may prompt some needed activity on the forums.
6. Sections and Categories. All posts go into a Category and Categories are either at the root level (like General) or are within a Section (like I setup Docker under Software). Please provide suggestions for any other needed Categories and Sections.
7. Migration. Do we migrate any critical info or only point to it? For any section we can PIN a post with either links to the related original forum posts or actually take time to copy/paste key post info to new PINNED posts. Volunteers to do this migration would be great.

Feedback welcome.

k

1. I think it's a great option! This is all done by the community, so Google's opinion isn't relevant.
2. No, I cannot point forums.sagetv.com to anything that is not Google owned. We will definitely put a sticky at the top of the archived forums directing people to the new forums though (before I do the final archival).
3. N/A given prior reply
4. Sounds good for moderators.
5. As mentioned above, we'll put an announcement/sticky on the existing forums before we archive them so people are aware.

I did complete the download of the existing forums and *should* be able to upload a version soon that people can check out to see if I missed anything important. I will do this again w/ a final version after the appropriate posts/announcements are made directing people to the new forums.


So with this IT'S NOW TIME TO MOVE ALL DISCUSSION TO THE NEW FORUMS ON GITHUB! The existing forums will need to stay live while I do the final archival of them. I don't expect everyone to move until I make the announcements...and likely some posts will slip through, but that's the way it'll have to be.

[jusjoken]

@Narflex,

Given your responses, will the current subdomain be pointed to the archive when completed? I hope so.

Thanks
k

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

@Narflex,

Given your responses, will the current subdomain be pointed to the archive when completed? I hope so.

Thanks
k

Yes, forums.sagetv.com (and forums.sage.tv) will both point to the archive. The only problem is that URLs within that archive will end up changing because they will all have to drop the query parameters.

I'm currently uploading the archival copy I made over the past few days so that it can be hosted on Google's servers as a test...I'll post the link to that once it's done (it's over 250k files...so not sure how slow/fast this will go). This will NOT be the final upload...I'll do that again in the near future.

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by wayner

In terms of sections/categories I could suggest a few: Hardware (maybe split into capture devices and other sub-sections), Guide/EPG, 3rd party integration.

I am not sure if Plugins should be part of Dev. To me Dev would be something primarily for the folks doing the development rather than end users. Or have a separate Plugins section for users.

Done... Keep the suggestions coming

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

I have recently also installed the GitHub app on my Android phone (IOS available too), and the discussions work well on it as well.

It also helps with account verification if your GitHub account uses 2FA (2 factor auth). Not certain if they are enforcing 2FA now for all account or not.

k

Github is not requiring 2FA right now.

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

Migration. Do we migrate any critical info or only point to it? For any section we can PIN a post with either links to the related original forum posts or actually take time to copy/paste key post info to new PINNED posts. Volunteers to do this migration would be great.

At a minimum we need the Windows & Linux installer instructional posts copied over, perhaps as stickied topics that can be commented on like they are today.

There are probably a few others that operate similarly like the transcoder plugin (https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66607) though you'd probably want to have the owner create the post so they can maintain it.

[Narflex]

I have the current archival copy of the forums up for people to check out to see if they have any major issues with it. It's currently accessible here (I haven't repointed DNS settings yet of course):

https://www.gstatic.com/sagetv/forum...ums/index.html

When you test it out...there ARE links that will end up sending you back to forums.sagetv.com (like search, or new posts..or other variants of links I've excluded). So if you get directed to forums.sagetv.com at any point...then go back...if that link to forums.sagetv.com is something important that should have been included in the archive, then please let me know and maybe I'll change how it's archiving to include that.

What I explicitly told it to include is the following:
Main page
All forums listing pages (which show all the threads in a forum)
All threads (including every page of the thread)
All member listings
Overall member list
All attachment downloads
All images/css
Public conversations between members

[VCRUser]

I would definitely want to be able to search, as well as see the list of topics, threads I'm following, have posted to, etc. Will look around some more later.

[wnjj]

Jeff suggested that when it's it its final place Google will index it and you should be able to search that way. I've used outside search for many years with "site:sagetv.com" behind it as the results are easier to sort through.

[Narflex]

Originally Posted by VCRUser

I would definitely want to be able to search, as well as see the list of topics, threads I'm following, have posted to, etc. Will look around some more later.

This site can have no interactive functionality...it must be completely static pages, there is no bending of that rule. So, you will not be able to do any of those things you listed unfortunately.

[jusjoken]

I assume the notice on the static site main page will have a note and link to the GitHub discussion?

k

[jusjoken]

Originally Posted by jusjoken

I assume the notice on the static site main page will have a note and link to the GitHub discussion?

k

Nevermind...obviously the notice on the live site will move over on your next copy.

So far the static site looks fine.

k

[VCRUser]

Originally Posted by Narflex

This site can have no interactive functionality...it must be completely static pages, there is no bending of that rule. So, you will not be able to do any of those things you listed unfortunately.

That's a big loss, IMO, since searching the old posts has helped me solve a lot of issues - especially when I'm not getting any "live" answers to my current problem.

Is there a workaround?

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by VCRUser

That's a big loss, IMO, since searching the old posts has helped me solve a lot of issues - especially when I'm not getting any "live" answers to my current problem.

Is there a workaround?

yes, agreed, if this is the case. Being able to search old posts for hints, clues, answers is essentially the whole point of the forum. Am I missing something here because I don’t understand the term ‘pointing’?
After nearly 20 years, the long-suffering users are getting essentially three weeks to gather as much info as possible and write it down?
Like I said, what am I not understanding about what’s about to happen?
I was under the understanding we’d be able to do our own HTTrack so we at least had a personal reference to this info - will that be possible?

[VCRUser]

I and others have attempted with Httrack, but run into errors. If anyone has figured out how to do it, please let us all know.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by VCRUser

I and others have attempted with Httrack, but run into errors. If anyone has figured out how to do it, please let us all know.

Jeff had to complie his own version of HTTrack to do this. Not sure why, since I used it four years ago and everything worked fine, so at least I have that. WebCopy ran into the same, 403 Foredbidden errors, so me thinks the problem isn’t with those apps, but is with the site itself. Either way, tick, tick, tick…

[Narflex]

As I've mentioned before...the static archive that will be up at forums.sagetv.com after the shutdown will get indexed by Google and become searchable that way. So there shouldn't really be any loss of information.

As for downloading your own copy and searching that...the uncompressed archive is currently 17GB (should shrink a little after some other optimizations I've done)...so you're not going to be able to search that effectively on your own machine.

I am also going to look into fixing the URLs so that they don't completely mismatch (Right now it's fairly tricky to convert a live forums URL to the corresponding static one). They definitely won't match when I'm done...but right now an existing URL like this:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58024

would actually become:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...c03ac8185.html

And that's terrible for finding things from old links. I'm hoping to make it something like:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...d_t_58024.html

We'll see if HTTTrack will play nice if I make those code changes to it. (UPDATE: Yeah, this works fine...you'll be able to easily convert an old forums link to a new one manually)

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Narflex

As I've mentioned before...the static archive that will be up at forums.sagetv.com after the shutdown will get indexed by Google and become searchable that way. So there shouldn't really be any loss of information.

As for downloading your own copy and searching that...the uncompressed archive is currently 17GB (should shrink a little after some other optimizations I've done)...so you're not going to be able to search that effectively on your own machine.

I am also going to look into fixing the URLs so that they don't completely mismatch (Right now it's fairly tricky to convert a live forums URL to the corresponding static one). They definitely won't match when I'm done...but right now an existing URL like this:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58024

would actually become:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...c03ac8185.html

And that's terrible for finding things from old links. I'm hoping to make it something like:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...d_t_58024.html

We'll see if HTTTrack will play nice if I make those code changes to it. (UPDATE: Yeah, this works fine...you'll be able to easily convert an old forums link to a new one manually)

Ok, thanks for clearing most of this up And 17gb isn’t much, maybe as a download though if taxing the system was a problem. If there’s a good way to do that at some point, just let me know.

[VCRUser]

So just to make sure I understand, we'll be able to use Google to search the static site - will we have the flexibility of searching keywords, threads v. posts, etc - if so, how is that done via Google search?

Will your changes to httrack be available for us to set up to try the full site download for ourselves?