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Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 2:51 pm
by JensJohansson
If something is shit, then let me know.. somehow.

It's a major upgrade, like... 10 years younger software or something. I could have tried to shoehorn-and-vaseline the old forum code to work but somehow it was time for this a very long ago, not the least because of unknown unknowns in phpbb2 when it comes to security holes.

So.. I would expect that there are some problems. If old avatars or old file uploads are not showing, let me know, I could probably fix it somehow.

Skin ... well, it's the default skin now, i liked the "plain grey" one myself, I will try to fix that at some point.

I will anyway try to attend to any issues within the next few days to 10 years or something like.

Keep on rockin'

J

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 3:18 pm
by ZenithMC
Yeah! The Stratoforum is back! Thanks, Jens! :D

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 4:31 pm
by JensJohansson
It should also now use https. Welcome to 1995!

There is some hokey facebook login system. It's via OAuth..

Update. It was a bit of a pain in the cock to set up but facebook login seems to work somehow, you can connect FB to an existing account if you know your old password. You'd think the system would be clever enough to know if your email is the same but then again perhaps FB does not allow the email info back into this domain, not sure.

Also I donno if this works for registering new accounts. Maybe.

BTW if you are an old timer and don't have your old password you may be shit out of luck, as we all know it's difficult to prove that you are you. But perhaps email me..

skål

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 5:27 pm
by Empathica1928
Holy crap! I was nervous when the site was down yesterday, but this is cool! Thanks, Jens. :)

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 6:19 pm
by SatanicSmile
Good to have the forum back, thanks, Jens

Skin ... well, it's the default skin now, i liked the "plain grey" one myself, I will try to fix that at some point.
Same here, but it's not big deal. Would be still great for sure!

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:30 pm
by NeverendingAbyss
Quite a change, but I can get used to it.

Now we can continue our discussion on coffee and semen. :)

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:39 pm
by Pancio
Thanks for the update, Jens,

I was thinking about it and magically it happened, wow, I must be a medium.

At a first glance I was like: "WTF, wrong forum?" then my panic attack ended.

We will let you know about problems and welcome back, Stratoforum.

Cheers!

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:40 pm
by JensJohansson
NeverendingAbyss wrote:
Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:30 pm
Quite a change, but I can get used to it.
Now we can continue our discussion on coffee and semen. :)
Yes! Quite! Semen and coffee!

Egads NeverendingAbyss... wtf happened to your avatar. Sigh. Also facebook login only works if it's from the main, most basic login screen apparently. "Stay logged in" or whatever it's called helps.

None of my custom perl moderation stuff works, they will tho with just a small fix since new database credentials bla bla bla.

But then again, things have been so calm here the last few years. And also phpbb3 also seems pretty much more evolved. No need to block via auto-appending IP ranges of assholes to .htaccess etc :D

Rightie oh. Almost time to mosie on down to the Teatro Caupolican. We are hoping for blue skies and basically no riots whatsoever. wish us luck

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 8:39 pm
by Malys
Oh cool, my good old profile is still working, nice.

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 8:45 pm
by mocobhc
Yay, happy to see the forum back, thanks Jens! I just needed to re-upload my avatar. My eyes still need time to adapt to the new look, such a distinguished and serious vibe coming with it, uhhh :lol:

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 9:33 pm
by adrian9
im all good, same log in and avatar since day one , hehe.
also , I did like the old plain gray, is a classic.

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 12:00 am
by NeverendingAbyss
JensJohansson wrote:
Wed Nov 27, 2019 7:40 pm
Egads NeverendingAbyss... wtf happened to your avatar. Sigh.
Ah, I couldn't find the old one, but this will do.

Good luck with the riots. The whole place needs your act to soothe the fire. Squirt all over them crazy crowds. :x

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 12:40 am
by Dawn_is_Here
Wohoo back again!
Long live the forum! :D

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 1:43 am
by AAAAAAAAAA
According to this forum, 8% of my posts are in a single thread "most nicest poster" :lol:

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 1:38 pm
by ZenithMC
Quite a number of spam topics and accounts are being created. :(

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 3:09 pm
by JensJohansson
ZenithMC wrote:
Thu Nov 28, 2019 1:38 pm
Quite a number of spam topics and accounts are being created. :(
I thought I turned on some question challenges for new accounts, unclear if it worked or if the people running the bots intervene manually with a bit of googling at that point in the process.

I have turned on admin approval of new accounts for now.

I guess the old board had some advantage in having less common file names/ interface/ whatnot/ something

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 4:59 pm
by ZenithMC
Just a thought, but I noticed that the web crawlers / search indexers are designated as registered users. Is that actually the case? If so, does that mean they have access to the hidden boards?

Also, after taking a look around at some old posts, it seems that some of the smilies and unicode aren't being rendered properly (sometimes). However, they are processed correctly when I preview them in a new post.

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 10:39 pm
by browneyedgirl
My smartphone works here. 8)

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2019 11:37 pm
by Motha-faka
NICE NEW FORUM :D

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2019 4:25 am
by robocop
Holy fuck!! I panicked for a while there and didn't even know we were back online!! :lol: THANKS, JENS!!

Image

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Fri Nov 29, 2019 11:26 pm
by NeverendingAbyss
browneyedgirl wrote:
Thu Nov 28, 2019 10:39 pm
My smartphone works here. 8)
BEG! Where have you been all my life??

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Sat Nov 30, 2019 8:27 pm
by JensJohansson
ZenithMC wrote:
Thu Nov 28, 2019 4:59 pm
Just a thought, but I noticed that the web crawlers / search indexers are designated as registered users. Is that actually the case? If so, does that mean they have access to the hidden boards?
This would be somewhat serious, I checked and it seems "Bots" is a special class of users now. They should not have any access to that subforum if I understand it right.
ZenithMC wrote:
Thu Nov 28, 2019 4:59 pm
Also, after taking a look around at some old posts, it seems that some of the smilies and unicode aren't being rendered properly (sometimes). However, they are processed correctly when I preview them in a new post.
Hm.

What would be an example post that's not rendered right?

There was some weird thing where missing post topics in any messages that were not the first post, caused some strange things. I just fixed that with an SQL query.. I guess many things have remained the same between phpbb2 and phpbb3. But many other things have changed. Pbpbb2's end of life was January 2009.

There are many pending registrations for new spam users... :roll:

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2019 6:23 am
by ZenithMC
JensJohansson wrote:
Sat Nov 30, 2019 8:27 pm
What would be an example post that's not rendered right?
I guess I'll send you the links to those posts in a PM, as they are located in the hidden boards (although, maybe it doesn't matter and I'm just being paranoid?).
JensJohansson wrote:
Sat Nov 30, 2019 8:27 pm
There are many pending registrations for new spam users... :roll:
:shock: I can think of a couple possible solutions to that problem.
  1. Integration of a captcha for registering a new account. The simpler ones aren't very useful, nowadays, as current OCR technology has rendered them practically useless against modern bots.

    I guess the heaviest hitter here would probably be Google's reCaptcha. That thing is a royal pain in the ass even for humans to solve. However, the optional audio captcha is more easily exploitable, for some reason. Regardless, this should be a good guard against spam accounts.

    This is a bit of a tangent, but I know of some sites that integrate reCaptcha for almost any action, like logging in, or making a post, and it makes me want to bash my head into a wall, trying to solve them for up to 15 minutes straight! :pissed:

    So, as long as reCaptcha is used only for registration, I feel that it would be an acceptable compromise / trade off between the user's time and the protection against bots.
  2. Make registration invite only. I don't really recommend this option, as the Stratoforum is not a very active place, and this would require that users hand out codes to people who are interested in creating an account.

    Basically, some other place would be used as a hub to hand out these codes, such as Reddit. There, candidates would be vetted by asking them to answer an arbitrary question. I know that other forums with more active communities use this method, and it has effectively eliminated the creation of spam accounts there, but again, this probably isn't a good fit for this forum.
Perhaps there's an even simpler solution than what I have already proposed, I don't know. I've never been an administrator of a forum, so I'm not sure exactly what tools would or could be at your disposal. I also don't have any experience with PHP or SQL, so... :oops:

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 4:07 pm
by AAAAAAAAAA
browneyedgirl wrote:
Thu Nov 28, 2019 10:39 pm
My smartphone works here. 8)
I'm actually really happy to hear from you again! Hope everything is going great!!!

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 10:41 pm
by robocop
Still waiting for the section, “Penis talk in English.”

)_)=====D~~~~~~

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 6:23 pm
by valo_666
Glad to know that they want this alive, the mightiest and historically controverted forum of in history of metal! :lol:

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2019 6:25 pm
by SentineLEX
Sick. Thanks for keeping this place alive Jens!

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:09 pm
by HoldenCaulfield
Dear Stratofans.

Blue is always nice.

Greetings from Crete.

-HC

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2019 4:32 am
by R.F.
Oh crap, I can't believe it's still the same forum.

Long time no see. Nice to see familiar nicknames. See you all around.

Re: Forum upgrade

Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 7:33 pm
by Patricia
Hi guys!

Glad to see this place still works! Amazing! :ola: