POLL: Any Interest in an EEVblog Mastodon server? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 23, 2022, 11:54:37 pm
content: As the poll says, should I bother to set up an EEVblog Mastodon server?A couple of people have complained there isn't an electronics focussed server, whatever that matters for?I don't use it myself, I'm all-in on Twitter.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 12:06:07 am
content: I use to run a Mastodon instance a couple years ago. Around 50-60k users at the time.I might be a bit behind on what it is like now but..I don't really see the platform going anywhere tbh. It will sever it's current userbase well but won't get to large scale.There is no monetisation for server owners so they are either running them at a loss or asking for donations. Granted most servers don't need the server scale that we ran with at 50-60k users and 10TB of media files.Small instances can run on decent raspberry Pi boards..Pretty much have 3 types of users on it.Banned Twitter users.Anti Twitter usersPeople who are on both platforms, that don't really pay attention to Masterdon.There are also some servers that are into CP content. Said content can end up being pushed to your own server if you don't actively ban those servers from the start.It could be interesting though as EE is so niche, even with a few hundred to a thousand users, finding interesting things and users would be easier than on Twitter where everyone is after attention.If you do go ahead with it, I know the server stack pretty well. Happy to help out.

author: MrMobodies
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 12:08:07 am
content: Seeing that it is decentralized I think it's an idea worth looking into especially if Twitter starts banning people/content or doing unfavourable stuff to the masses on there like what happened with Youtube and the dislike counter.I wonder, is it possible to synchronize and replicate all of your Twitter posts and tweets on that platform just as a backup incase anything happens.

author: John B
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 12:30:42 am
content: I've been hearing mixed things. I like the idea of decentralisation for social media. You can self select if you want an echo chamber.But is it bound by german speech laws?

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 12:42:52 am
content: Quote from: John B on November 24, 2022, 12:30:42 amIt seems to me it's the people who do the shouting that select whether you get an echo chamber. I suppose you could try talking about Nazis to find out if German laws apply.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 01:01:37 am
content: If you want to set one up why not just go ahead and do it. I hadn't heard of Mastodon until a few days ago when I read an article saying disgruntled Twitter users were starting to do it. I don't know if I am just out-of-touch with the various social media platforms but if I'm not an outlier then maybe many other forum users also don't know if they would benefit from it.You get very few responses to polls and I would argue a self-selected unrepresentative few. So maybe suck it and see, or "build it, and he will come" would be a better approach.I doubt whether in a niche like EEVblog fills it would be any more problematic to manage than the forum. And for me it might shift a lot of the noise that has built up since the TEA fiasco away from the forum proper. That may be a big plus for many forum users.I say do it and see what happens.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 01:53:11 am
content: Quote from: John B on November 24, 2022, 12:30:42 amhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software)Quote

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 03:06:46 am
content: Quote from: Jackster on November 24, 2022, 12:06:07 amThanks.Yeah, that's what I thought, sounds like a just a management nightmare. I'm some would bitch they want to connect to all servers, and others that just want a local EE community.Sounds like a world of hurt.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 03:08:25 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on November 24, 2022, 01:01:37 amI can see it being potentially more problematic than the forum, for sure.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 03:09:33 am
content: Another software fad? Sounds like it.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 03:10:03 am
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on November 24, 2022, 12:08:07 amTwitter is going in the opposite direction.It's actually been rather hilarious to watch people rage quit Twitter and move to Mastodon and then get banned there

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 04:33:57 am
content: Don't bother. Especially not right now. I've seen a very recent trend of posts and videos about switching to Mastodon, so no surprise some people are asking you this. This is just a freaking trend. It will die off.At least wait for a few weeks, or months, until all of this has calmed down, and only then consider whether a Mastodon server (or any other alternative network) could be a good idea. Right now, it makes no sense IMHO. You probably don't want to be part of this frenzy.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 05:13:35 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 23, 2022, 11:54:37 pmThat is what people on Mastodon do, complain.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 07:38:52 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 24, 2022, 03:08:25 amHa Ha. Talk about contradicting yourself. I think I was thinking the sum-total of issues won't go up, just move.I still think it is worth trying. You could add the caveat that it is an experiment.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 09:19:46 am
content: MasterFail more like. Yet another pointless software toy fad to try, just so everyone thinks he’s “on trend”. Why?! The forum still works on code from 1996, and works (just about) fine. Take your software toys and send em back so San Franchumpsco.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 02:51:21 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 24, 2022, 03:06:46 amIt is somewhat self-moderating. Content only gets pulled from other servers if users follow other users on those other servers.Users somewhat also have to go looking for the bad stuff.When I was running one, yea a few people complained but out of 50-60k users, we are talking a handful.I really don't see it being an issue with a few tech people. That and you can give trusted people moderation power.There are a few technology-related instances that I am sure users would want to connect with.Quote from: John B on November 24, 2022, 12:30:42 amOnly if you are on a server hosted in Germany or operated by a German company. Masteron.social for example is both.But if you host a server in the USA, then you are only bound by US laws while on that server.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 04:51:14 pm
content: Quote from: MrMobodies on November 24, 2022, 12:08:07 amTo back it up?I went there a year ago and deleted all my tweets. It's just a question of time until someone finds something offensive in your tweets and cancel you. I don't think having an online trail of thoughts is safe in the 21st century, they are cancelling dead people now, because they said things in 1980 that's not acceptable today.

author: AndyBeez
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 05:45:23 pm
content: It is certainly worth trialling an instance. I could find very little information about server sizing specifics, other than, more videos, more disk, more users, more bandwidth. I assume the instance is to be hosted in sunny NSW and not in the USA - like the forum is here?Though exploring the content onhttps://mastodon.social/, as well as the MAGA crowd, there's a lot of people posting pictures of cake on trains. Still, nothing to lose for being a pioneer bringing tech to the platform.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 06:18:25 pm
content: Quote from: AndyBeez on November 24, 2022, 05:45:23 pmThey don't share how much you need as it is so varied on how many active users you have, how many connections to other server instances you have and what is being done on your instance.From my experience.500-1000 users (not online at the same time), you are looking at 2 CPU cores and 4-6GB RAM (Redis likes RAM).Offload all media onto S3 compatible CDNs. Do not host it yourself! Not worth the disk space or HTTPS requests hitting your server.If users upload a lot of video content, more CPU is needed as it uses FFMPEG to transcode video to whatever resolution and bitrate the host sets (you can offload this to GPU if you have one).When I had an instance, it was around 1000-2000 concurrent users online during peak hours.2x 4 CPU frontend servers for Nginx/Ruby and FFMPEG (these were load balanced via hardware)2x 4 CPU backend for Sidekick (this processes tasks like new messages, pushing and pulling messages/content etc)1x 4 CPU backend for Postgresql/Redis databases.1x 2 CPU frontend CDN server that cached 250GB of media content in front of an S3 bucket.When doing S3 on a budget, you want to cache as much as possible as requests cost money and so does bandwidth. This server alone was doing 250-500mbps on average 24/7.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 07:02:50 pm
content: Quote from: John B on November 24, 2022, 12:30:42 amNo, you would be allowed to speak English.Seriously though -- what "German speech laws" were you thinking of?

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 07:47:41 pm
content: Quote from: eti on November 24, 2022, 09:19:46 am

author: John B
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 09:22:33 pm
content: Quote from: ebastler on November 24, 2022, 07:02:50 pmThe German conception of "hate speech".Laws against insulting people.Laws providing the German government with control over social media to censor content.Pretty much any other red flag legal means of controlling conversations on social media.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 09:26:29 pm
content: Quote from: John B on November 24, 2022, 09:22:33 pmThis surely puts up a red flag regarding your intended conversations.

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 09:30:25 pm
content: I see no big point in residing on a specific mastodon instance. It's pretty much the same as having a specific email domain. You anyway mostly follow conversations from people you follow. Sure, you might find it easier to find people with same interests, but I figure it's quite a hassle to run your own instance if you expect a lot of users.

author: John B
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 09:41:54 pm
content: I don't see why it's so hard to understand. If I read that something has to adhere to a countries speech laws, then I'm going to look at what that entails. Would it engage your braincells if it had to abide by Chinese law? Maybe Qatari law?

author: JohanH
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 09:54:59 pm
content: Well, Germany has been criticized for certain things lately, but I wouldn't compare them with those countries.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 10:09:11 pm
content: Quote from: John B on November 24, 2022, 09:22:33 pmAll of these are European Community laws/directives, so be careful where you put your server...I read that Australia and New Zealand might not be the best choices either?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_Australiahttps://www.newsroom.co.nz/nzs-hate-speech-laws-explained

author: AndyBeez
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 10:09:44 pm
content: Quote from: Jackster on November 24, 2022, 06:18:25 pmThanks for the numbers. Rough back of envelope calculation > your spec hosted somewhere in Europe on anelasticplatform, around €150/month? Plus any maintenance overheads. Ironic that for Masterdon to work 24-7 for it's users, it needs pushing to a third party platform; anything that's AWS is hardly decentralised. Concurrent user connections over a reliable CDN is the killer. How popular does an Instance need to get before it fails to scale? Explains why Twitter has it's own infrastructure.Now maybe if instances came with a crypto mining opportunity...quit with the crypto

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 10:55:40 pm
content: Quote from: AndyBeez on November 24, 2022, 10:09:44 pmAbout 100 Euros a month via Hetzner on their Cloud servers.Could do it for less on one of their dedi servers such as an AX41-NVME (not great to use a single server) but at the time, we scaled as we needed on their Cloud.As for decentralization, it is not about being data center/infrastructure decentralized.It is about not being on a single platform with a single owner such as Twitter or Facebook. Who in this day and age have a stronghold on this style of communication.Mastodon, while having some level of control, allows one to move freely between servers or set up their own server. You can't do either of those two things and still communicate with others on Twitter/Face.Note, "S3" is used for any service that supports the API. I don't touch AWS as it is way overpriced for the level of service you get. Which is basically zero unless you pay for it.You can also deploy your own S3 compatible storage if you want to be "decentralized" but that data is still sitting somewhere. It is not P2P social networking.The software scales quite well. You can scale each part of the stack with ease. Postgresql is probably the only one that requires a lot of work to do right at a large scale.But SQL also scales well horizontally so you only have to do multiple servers if you have a loooot of users.I don't think Mastodon will scale to Twitter's level of users and Tweets per hour but it is not designed for that sort of user load.

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 11:16:43 pm
content: Quote from: Jackster on November 24, 2022, 10:55:40 pmSeems like it would scale pretty well if every instance is a different server.Or is there some central tie that has to scale with the whole network ?About half my twitter follows have started either dual posting or moved completely to mastodon. There are a handful of holdouts but it's looking like I'll soon only want to read twitter for corporate postings, if at all. Musk seems to be trying hard to lose his money. It probably won't collapse, but for me, with interests mostly in tech and makering, I see it getting irrelevant pretty fast.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 11:21:32 pm
content: Quote from: ebastler on November 24, 2022, 07:02:50 pmAre you tendentious or honestly do not know?The laws in which one is not allowed to criticize the Jews.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 11:25:30 pm
content: Quote from: ebastler on November 24, 2022, 10:09:11 pmAustralia does not have a Bill of Rights

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 11:28:22 pm
content: Quote from: artag on November 24, 2022, 11:16:43 pmChris Gammell said something similar and has announced he's only using Twitter for work now and is auto crossposting there from Mastodon and will not interact on Twitter any more.I haven't really noticed any difference on my Twitter feed.I know there are several electroncis people I follow now have Mastodon account, but it doesn't seem permanent.Any creator ditiching Twitter for Mastodon is crazy IMO, it's shaping up to be an excellent place for creators, with potential monetisation opportunities.

author: John B
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 11:48:18 pm
content: Quote from: ebastler on November 24, 2022, 10:09:11 pmI would agree. I don't trust the Australian government to intervene in social discourse very much at all. The state and federal governments showed their idea of free exchange of ideas during the covid pandemic.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2022, 11:56:47 pm
content: Quote from: artag on November 24, 2022, 11:16:43 pmCorrect. I was thinking more of a single instance but of course, that is not what the platform is designed for.It has to push/pull data between instances so it would only load that instance if users of said instance connected to a lot of other users on one or more other instances.This could be used as a sort of DDOS if one or more users on a smaller instance (with limited hardware) followed every other user on every other node.The smaller node the user is on would then have to push/pull a lot of data which is CPU bound.Maybe there are some hard limits in terms of following count per user to stop this now, IDK...You could actually bog down other nodes as well by spamming out a lot of content but it is not hard to tell what is going on and ban said instances.I recall something like this happening at one point when I was hosting. We all just banned that instance and the problem went away.This does prove a point that this sort of federated social media system has flaws but also has the ability to work around them and moderate out bad actors.Note, the Fediverse is P2P, with no central node that needs to scale. Just thought I would add that in.Instances connect with each other. Users are the ones that start the connections between nodes.

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 25, 2022, 04:24:38 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 24, 2022, 11:28:22 pmIt's not that my twitter feed has changed. It's that the contributors are mostly dual-posting. If twitter survives as a useful place they will still have followers. If the interesting people leave they've already have rebuilt it somewhere without a lock-in.To be fair, I don't follow celebrities. I think the two biggest accounts I follow there are yours and Naomi's - and she's crossposting. For people that do, it will probably remain fine, but my feeling is that makers aren't strongly represented there. The interesting posts to me are often not the start of a thread but the little people who respond to it. Mastodon is pretty much up to speed in that respect already.In Dave's position, I'd crosspost and watch both streams to see which worked the best. It covers the options with no loss.I see no advantage in an eevblog instance, though. Yes, it would be good to have an ee instance but the eevblog forum is a strong brand. Why dilute it ?Of course, in a sensible world, twitter would federate. Can't see that happening. But the internet has been here before - Usenet was vastly superior to the hotchpotch of gated communities that bulletin board operators used to like, and the big guns that corporate interests prefer. It will swing back to a decentralised system because one size doesn't fit all. I see the next step as small forums federating (remember, it's a protocol, not a monoculture) and the big boys going the way of yahoo, geocities and the rest of the internet detritus. Might take 10 or 20 years, but owners like Musk pulling their weight instead of being a service is the beginning of the end for them.As for twitter being good for creators .. it might, if it stops being twitter. Long posts are still painful. Video is just a url to something worthwhile posted elsewhere. I could see Musk making it a direct competitor to facebook in order to turn a profit .. and I won't be on either of them, and nor will anyone I follow. I presume you're talking about content creators, not physical creators. The latter aren't usually in it for monetisation, but they are the source of it, just as artists tend to pave the way for urban renewal but move on when commercial gentrification catches up.

author: eti
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2022, 02:57:59 am
content: In my hopefully humble view, I would think that if any significant software investments would be worthy of putting time into, they'd be put into making this forum a little less clunky (footer background & terrible contrast of the URLs are poor from a usability standpoint) and maybe fixing the attachment mechanism. It's overall in good shape, as a non forum software person, but it's a bit clunky and hanging onto 1996 for dear life in many areas. Also a way to prevent "Captain multi-multi-multi-multi-multi-quote" folks from propagating the GHASTLY MESS of embedded, nested quotes, would bring the forum much needed functionality improvement.Humans are humans. As much as you tell them "don't quote-quote-quote" you are talking to HUMANS, and they can be VERY dense at times - the mechanism needs to FORCE them to not be able to do this.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2022, 03:27:08 am
content: Apart from whay I already said, I would second the point of not wasting resources and energy on something that would only split information across different media which IMO would not benefit anyone in the end. One strong point of this forum is that it brings together a lot of people, and the nature of it being a forum makes it much more interesting content-wise than a Twitter-like system. People tend to take more time to post on a forum like this one than on those quick-post networks, and since Dave has complete control over it, it's also a lot more time-proof. So I'd second putting some effort, if anything, to improve this forum rather than scatter efforts on alternative networks.That said, I understand Dave's presence on Twitter, so I'm not questioning that - I think it's important for the business side of things. We need to keep in mind that EEVBlog is a business.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 26, 2022, 10:56:31 am
content: Quote from: artag on November 25, 2022, 04:24:38 pmYes, content creators.Well known Makers are also by definition content creators, otherwise how do they become well known? They use Youtube, a blog, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc to show off their work.Musk has said twitter will be a competitor to Youtube, and apparently even Mr Beast is on board with it. It's a no brainer to have blog style content too, and images to rival Instagram.One platform, just different tabs for different stuff.

author: voltsandjolts
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 26, 2022, 11:32:53 am
content: As SiliWiz said, one common meeting place is the best option, this forum.A few folks have commented that this SMF forum software and appearance could do with some tweaks or updating....I would say if changing anything please only make very minor changes. I find the usablility and presentation of this forum to beby farthe least worst I have encountered out there on the web. Yes, it may look a bit 1996, but that is far better than the modern-style forums which have so much waisted space and glitzy graphic BS. The density of text / information is just right here, IMHO.Perhaps its for the same reason that I would say DigiKey has the best component vendor site (despite recent negative changes). It's just well presented, mostly correct, searchable text info. Farnell and RS are just so clunky in comparison.I blame millennial web designers.

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2022, 12:09:11 pm
content: Quote from: voltsandjolts on November 26, 2022, 11:32:53 amIndeed. Unfortunately a great deal of web design is still in the era of 1980s DTP with all those colours and fonts - using features because they're there, not because they're wanted or needed.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2022, 07:49:59 pm
content: Quote from: voltsandjolts on November 26, 2022, 11:32:53 amAhah, yeah. I do find Mouser's site better than Digikey's though. Easier to find stuff with (usually) more criterions. But Digikey tends to hold more parts.

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2022, 08:12:06 pm
content: Quote from: Jackster on November 24, 2022, 11:56:47 pmAn interesting article on scalability here :https://mastodon.social/@shantyworld/109411546548031693

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 26, 2022, 08:53:30 pm
content: Quote from: artag on November 26, 2022, 08:12:06 pmInteresting read.The defacto standards idea is somewhat problematic though in my view of a decentralised network (outside of technology level standards).The idea of having said standards is gatekeeping and centralises what is and is not allowed on the network.Which is fine if you agree with what standards are being set but if you don't, well you are no longer in the network.Hate speech is a great example as everyone has their own definition of it and level as to where they draw the line between saying mean things and actual hate towards an individual or group off prime.Very easy to become the arbiters of free speech when it is your loud voice telling everyone what the rules are.This is the problem with the current social media websites and now they want to become like them...

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 27, 2022, 12:38:44 am
content: Quote from: voltsandjolts on November 26, 2022, 11:32:53 amThe idea of updating the forum software to something slightly more modern and commercial like XenForo has been floated before, but generally people don't like any change. As you said, very minor if anything.The problem with SMF is that basically hasn't been updated for forever, and mod packages have issues with versions etc. The current SMF software running now is already a huge hodgepodge of mod plugins and even some custom stuff.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 27, 2022, 10:29:43 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 27, 2022, 12:38:44 amDo a test run and see how it goes.People who moan might switch on that the new stuff is better once they experience the better software.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 27, 2022, 11:14:33 am
content: SMF is the best platform for this kind of forum, IMO. Talking about desktop/laptop browsing and posting, because one can not do much engineering from a phone/tablet anyway.No other platform that I'm using through other forums, or that I've ever tried can beat this SMF.Not even the SMF 3.0, which I've tried and didn't like it as much.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 27, 2022, 11:52:12 am
content: In case this is the first time hearing of Mastodon, it has a completely different concept than Twitter. Twitter is one large platform, while Mastodon is a network of a lot of tiny platforms or servers. You could compare it with classic mailboxes/BBSs which are linked by a network like Fidonet.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 27, 2022, 12:54:18 pm
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on November 27, 2022, 11:14:33 amI really like XenForo. Extremely similar to SMF.Never seen a site use SMF 3 because it's not released, right?

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 27, 2022, 12:57:25 pm
content: Quote from: Jackster on November 27, 2022, 10:29:43 amThere is a whole bunch of stuff to consider, even down to how Google would handle the indexing of the old posts if the system changed.Massive decision even to try it out I think. It would need a lot of user backing.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 27, 2022, 01:26:32 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 27, 2022, 12:54:18 pmMy bad, sorry, not 3, forgot what version it was.I've installed something on a RaspberryPi two years ago, it was a beta for the next SMF release, the major difference was a new WYSIWYG editor that can drag and drop inline pics, but the pics were inserted as base64 text instead of being attached. Another thing to the new editor was that it was not preserving the spaces, turning double spaces after a full stop into single space, and mangling spaces or tabs at the beginning of a line, and so on.All recent web editors mangles spaces (at display time).Just curious, can XenForo display consecutive spaces?

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 27, 2022, 02:05:35 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 27, 2022, 12:57:25 pmGoogle handles redirects quite well. It will remove old links and replace them with new ones when it sees a 301.All can be done with some .htaccess or redirect rules. This will help with other places on the internet and local threads still linking to older URL formats.BRB going to try it out. Got the afternoon off anyway.

author: voltsandjolts
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 27, 2022, 03:02:28 pm
content: If switching from SMF to something else, perhaps setting up a demo server (to be wiped after a month or whatever) and invite all members with ?K+ posts on this forum to try it out and give feedback.For me, I like things as they are.But if the backend is causing headaches then something needs to be done.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 01:15:57 am
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on November 27, 2022, 01:26:32 pmDon't know, but it copies and pastes HTML and images very nicely IIRC.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 03:38:23 am
content: If XenForo improves site searching then it would be worth considering a change for that reason alone.Why not set up a test mirror of the forum on it so users can check it out and give feedback. Should you change you are going to have to test out migration of existing posts and all the other back room stuff. May as well crowd source some of it.You could try migrating the XenForo copy back to a second SMF server and create a test suite to compare the original forum contents to the twice migrated copy to help identify problems.I checked out the XenForo site and the first thing I read was this "Bypass your IT department and have your community up and running in minutes with a XenForo Cloud subscription featuring the complete XenForo software suite."That's a very '90's attitude to corporate IT where everyone with a PC thought IT was a pain and they could set up a local solution to better suit themselves. It's a red flag to advocate that sort of approach these days.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 08:42:25 am
content: Ignore their cloud service. It is designed and billed for idiots.I just tested SFM to Xenforo and it went well. Granted we are talking 20-30 posts.The only issue was media files. Going to test again as I know there was a directory error the first time.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 09:45:45 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 28, 2022, 01:15:57 amFound a XenForo based forum, the FreeBSD forum. It mangles spaces, one of the first things I've asked:https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/formatting-double-space-mangled-into-one-at-display-time.83785/Its look can be very close to SMF, indeed. From the cons, it bothers me that it copies the format, so if I copy/paste text from a webpage it will replicate the text format in my reply, which I never need in fact, but that is easy to avoid by copy/paste with CTRL+SHIFT+V instead of CTRL+V.A little too modern for my taste, with a lot of email, and alerts, and subscribes, and notifications, and thanks + likes (has two types), etc. but most of the annoyances and hypes can be disabled by the end user, at least in the FreeBSD forum.The way I'm browsing here is by 'Show new replies to your posts.' first, then by the 'Show unread posts since last visit.' links. I don't know if XenForo has a 'Show new replies to your posts.', I miss that on any other forum, in FreeBSD I have to click on the notifications bell first, then a submenu opens and have to click on eack topic, one by one, very cumbersome in comparison with EEVblog.Another feature that I use plenty here is the "Ignore topic" check box. It can help a lot, thought other forum platforms don't have it or don't activate it. Here it's easy to ignore rant subjects, or titles one doesn't want to read unintended many times while looking for what's new.FreeBSD is mostly a support forum for the FreeBSD operating system, so inclined to a Q&A board, but with forum format where the order of replies is preserved. Social interactions and off topic are discouraged, so for other social interactions there is a twitter-like feature (I don't have twitter, only assume it's twitter-like because it's limited to 100-200 characters). That can be deactivated too (by each user) if not wanted.Don't know if XenForo embed pics as base64 text, didn't try, but it can embed them inline (by default, no need to post then insert links in the just posted text, as in EEVblog). This come at a cost, the editor has to take some decisions for you, so you may find yourself fighting against the WYSIWYG editor quite often, though that might be only my fault, because I'm new on FreeBSD and don't know how to properly use the XenForo editor. Preview before posting is accurate in XenForo, while on SMF is not.Don't know if XenForo has mathjax, I guess it's possible. No idea if XenForo/plugins are free or if they are open source. Their webpagehttps://xenforo.com/is full of bloatware and meaningless emphasizing words, that's a bad sign to me.No idea about long term availability, or how easy is to migrate the database, or administer, or to moderate in XenForo.To sum up, FreeBSD/XenForo (https://forums.freebsd.org/) is more eye-candy, but I prefer EEVblog/SMF because it feels less bloated, and more straightforward to use. EEVblog let me focus more on the content, without flooding me with all kind of webdesign glitter.I like this forum as it is, and wouldn't want to see SMF replaced by XenForo here, on EEVblog.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 11:37:20 am
content: So we can move to Xenforo as long as there is a basic theme for the boomers with no WYSIWYG editorThe new editor in 2.2 is quite nice btw.https://xenforo.com/community/threads/text-editor-and-attachment-manager-improvements.181715/

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 11:57:02 am
content: Quote from: Jackster on November 28, 2022, 11:37:20 amNo. You misunderstood. Both SMF and XenForo have WYSIWYG editors.EEvblog will switch from SMF to XenForo or maybe to something else only if Dave decides so.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 12:25:00 pm
content: SMF has that 'Print' button which allows export of a multi-thousand-post thread to a single text page. Invaluable for finding stuff or even just refreshing ones rememberance of what went on months/years ago.I just looked at the example XenForo site (FreeBSD) and couldn't see anything like that. Lots of stuff for filtering threads but sometimes you just want the entire thing in a form you can let non-web tools have a go at.

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 03:17:42 pm
content: It seems EEVblog is sprawling in all directionsfood , pets threads & now social media tools, may also include pick-and-place machines & other high volume manufacturering toolsdo we add EEVblog merchandise to the list?

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 03:35:54 pm
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on November 28, 2022, 11:57:02 amThis forum does not have WYSIWYG enabled though...That is why I made the joke comment, as you are preferring this older BBcode style text editor over the newer WYSIWYG standard of editor you tried in a newer version of SMF and Xenforo because it does not double space after a period and you prefer it not to copy formatting, even though you can just paste without formatting as you rightly pointed out.Pretty much everything you have said in terms of features, Xenforo can do stock or with an addon as well.Mathjax as far as I know, all you need to do is set it as a custom BBcode and get Xenforo to render it correctly in HTML. Pretty sure this is done with Javascript...

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2022, 04:05:47 pm
content: Quote from: Jackster on November 28, 2022, 03:35:54 pmClick on the last button in the EEVblog's reply editor, the icon with a mouse cursor between square brackets (when hovering over it, it pops a "Toggle view" balloon). When clicked, it switches the reply editor to WYSIWYG mode, e.g. try adding a numbered list and it will appear formatted.

author: newbrain
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2022, 03:17:37 pm
content: Quote from: RoGeorge onYesterdayat 17:05:47>Quote from: Jackster onYesterdayat 16:35:54Click on the last button in the EEVblog's reply editor, the icon with a mouse cursor between square brackets (when hovering over it, it pops a "Toggle view" balloon). When clicked, it switches the reply editor to WYSIWYG mode, e.g. try adding a numbered list and it will appear formatted.But it will mess with quotes, wont'it?

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2022, 03:36:59 pm
content: Quote from: newbrain onTodayat 16:17:37But it will mess with quotes, wont'it?LOL, it will.I have wondered why some people post like that, now it's clear.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 29, 2022, 10:54:11 pm
content: Quote from: newbrain onTodayat 01:17:37 am>Quote from: RoGeorge onYesterdayat 17:05:47>Quote from: Jackster onYesterdayat 16:35:54Click on the last button in the EEVblog's reply editor, the icon with a mouse cursor between square brackets (when hovering over it, it pops a "Toggle view" balloon). When clicked, it switches the reply editor to WYSIWYG mode, e.g. try adding a numbered list and it will appear formatted.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 30, 2022, 08:57:28 am
content: Well, I never said SMF works better, did I?I still like it the most, from the all that I've tried.Another thing that I miss at XenForo is that it doesn't write the title of the thread at each post. You have to scroll to the top of the page to see the subject. This is very annoying if you first open all the new answered topics, then start to read the tabs one by one. You have to first scroll up, or else from the middle of a page you won't know what topic are you reading. There is an empty row above each post in XenForo, with only the date, would be useful to write the title there, too.

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2022, 02:39:48 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on November 23, 2022, 11:54:37 pmGood luck with that. I wonder if the last remaining techie kept a backup ?https://xkcd.com/905/

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 29, 2022, 02:46:12 am
content: Quote from: artag on December 29, 2022, 02:39:48 amWorks fine for me, engagement is up, followers are up, features being added, Musk continuing to talk about video and monetisation.Any creator who abandoned ship is a fool and will regret it.And I'm about to win my public bet with Chris Gammell who said it would fail.

author: artag
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2022, 02:54:39 am
content: Not talking about usage - it's broken worldwide on many platforms as of this afternoon.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 29, 2022, 05:26:08 am
content: Quote from: artag on December 29, 2022, 02:54:39 amNot broken for me, and the #TwitterDown trending tag is barely getting any traction.Not the first time I've seen Twitter go down or have an error, happened many times over the years. Haven't seen it happen once since Musk took over though. Not implying it's more stable under Musk, just that I haven't seen it go offline, and I use it a lot.