deskthority - Suggestions and Changelog

Muirium · 01 Feb 2015, 14:25

Thanks!

copter · 01 Feb 2015, 15:23

For me http://wiki.deskthority.net forwards to http://wiki.deskthority.net/cgi-sys/defaultwebpage.cgi, which looks like this:

scottc · 01 Feb 2015, 15:27

Works for me. Have you checked DNS propagation? It's likely that there's a wildcard record for *.deskthority.net, and you just can't resolve wiki.deskthority.net yet. You can test that by going to durrwhee.deskthority.net.

copter · 01 Feb 2015, 17:25

durrwhee.deskthority.net actually gives me the same error.

All deskthority.net, wiki.deskthority.net and durrwhee.deskthority.net resolv into same IP address 144.76.137.19, which seems to be the right one based on current propagation worldwide.

scottc · 01 Feb 2015, 17:48

Yeah, that's what I'd expect - since you can't resolve durrwhee.deskthority.net (a record that definitely doesn't exist), you hit the wildcard *.deskthority.net record, which should be the same situation as wiki.deskthority.net if you can't resolve that. Maybe your ISP's DNS server is just really slow.

Coincidentally, do DT's DNS records have a TTL of 86400? That seems a bit high.

copter · 01 Feb 2015, 17:59

86400 TTL is a bit high, but I guess on this matter it doesn't that much matter as slow change doesn't do much damage. But regarding the issue I checked DNS globally and it seems that change hasn't hit the servers yet in most of the places due this TTL.

Daniel Beardsmore · 01 Feb 2015, 21:47

Yippee, a site that fuels the myth that there is any such thing as "propagation". There isn't.

webwit · 01 Feb 2015, 22:18

There's no special DNS for it, it uses *.deskthority.net which exists for 4 years now. It's handled as an apache vhost. You can enter anything as subdomain in that DNS propagation check. If it doesn't work for you, something else is wrong.

Halvar · 01 Feb 2015, 23:00

Works for me and I like it, thank you!

While we're at it, maybe it'd make sense to replace the rarely used "FAQ" link in the page header by a link to the wiki. What do you think?

Muirium · 01 Feb 2015, 23:03

Worked here straight away. I use Google DNS, which is the one IP on the internet I know off by heart: 8.8.8.8

I second Halvar's idea. When I was a newb I never even thought of checking the FAQ. And from the frequent questions around here, many people don't either! That's precious real estate up there for the good stuff.

@Daniel: "Propagation" as in latency. I find EE's DNS to take ages to update when sites occasionally change servers, compared to my home connection. The last time I edited my domain's records (when changing email provider) I could see just how slow both my ISPs were compared to Google and OpenDNS. They all got there in the end, but it all takes time.

Daniel Beardsmore · 01 Feb 2015, 23:40

It's not "latency" either, and the notion that it's geographic is totally absurd. DNS records are cached according to the time to live (TTL) specified by the record. Yes there are some DNS services that retain DNS records beyond the length of the specified TTL, which is frustrating.

New DNS records are available instantly everywhere in the world, but if there's a few minutes of setup delay on the DNS server, and you try to use the new record before it's ready, you might end up caching NXDOMAIN for an hour or more by mistake!

The idea that you've got this bucket brigade propagating DNS around the world, country by country, is completely wrong.

Muirium · 01 Feb 2015, 23:44

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑The idea that you've got this bucket brigade propagating DNS around the world, country by country, is completely wrong.

True. And that's an unfortunate misunderstanding that still seems quite common. But it certainly is a thing looking for some word or another to describe it. What we see is that DNS updates aren't instantaneous, on all DNS servers worldwide. Something tells me the "propagation" metaphor will persist until we finally fix that.

Judging by the way IPv4 is sticking around, a good while after 100% namespace saturation, I do not expect rapid progress!

Daniel Beardsmore · 02 Feb 2015, 00:17

I'm hoping IPv6 gets abandoned for being the braindead demonic offspring that it is.

DNS update speed depends on TTL, which can be set at the DNS record level; sadly a lot of nameserver providers don't let you change it. eNom mandate 1 hour, and 123-Reg mandate 1 day.

webwit · 02 Feb 2015, 00:35

I had something like this in mind for the header. FAQ and The team moved to the footer. User Control Panel, Logout and View your posts moved under your user name.

: newnav.png (469.43 KiB) Viewed 4117 times

Muirium · 02 Feb 2015, 00:45

Very nice. I'd merge the dark borders together so both groups look unified, instead of lines of little separate boxes. (Literally just the separators should go. The overall dimensions are good.) But then I'm all into the flat aesthetic these days and ought to butt out of it!

copter · 02 Feb 2015, 09:11

Works fine at my work computer. Dunno what was the problem with my home laptop, specially if there was no DNS updates. Maybe some browser caching issue then.

webwit · 03 Feb 2015, 02:01

I finally modded the code so it doesn't show those bots in the Who is online list.

EDIT: And club members are now shown in bold.

Halvar · 03 Feb 2015, 08:01

webwit wrote: ↑I had something like this in mind for the header. FAQ and The team moved to the footer. User Control Panel, Logout and View your posts moved under your user name.

newnav.png

Nice, I like the menu changes. I'm not 100% sold on swapping the menber-related menu and the general navigation, because having search in the upper right corner has become such a strong pattern in recent years. Especially since we don't have a permantly visible search field, we should maybe make the menu item as easy to find as possible.

matt3o · 03 Feb 2015, 09:29

just a quick note since the other day I read an article on the subject (that I can't find, but I'll post as soon as I find it back).

A famous website switched from website.com/blog to blog.website.com. They experienced a drastic drop in impression, they initially thought it was just a matter of time, but after three months they were still not get the google searches back. So they reverted to /blog and everything was back to normal.

long story short. don't make wiki.deskthority the main domain for the wiki.

Edit: here's the link https://iwantmyname.com/blog/2015/01/se ... omain.html

Muirium · 03 Feb 2015, 12:35

It's just a redirect. Mostly for my own keyboarding convenience! Nothing's moving.

matt3o · 03 Feb 2015, 12:58

Muirium wrote: ↑It's just a redirect. Mostly for my own keyboarding convenience! Nothing's moving.

it's just a kindly reminder for the future selves.

Muirium · 03 Feb 2015, 14:13

But tomorrow never knows…

Daniel Beardsmore · 03 Feb 2015, 23:45

matt3o wrote: ↑long story short. don't make wiki.deskthority the main domain for the wiki.

I'm actually surprised you're even concerned about it … I thought everyone was just going to leave it to die quietly in a corner.

Muirium · 03 Feb 2015, 23:55

Don't attribute to antipathy that which can be adequately described by laziness…

Although you're right that, ultimately, they head in the same direction. Irrespective of intent.

idollar · 04 Feb 2015, 19:40

Hi,

When I click on the last post from the board index I need to move up to the page header to know what I am reading.
Would be possible to add the title of the thread after the last post ?

Muirium · 04 Feb 2015, 19:43

Screenshot of what you're on about?

idollar · 04 Feb 2015, 19:55

If from the board index I select the last post

: Board index.jpg (187.45 KiB) Viewed 3942 times

how do I know the subject of the thread that I am reading ?

: Post.jpg (82.08 KiB) Viewed 3942 times

One solution could be to add the title at the end also.

Muirium · 04 Feb 2015, 20:23

Or imagine a better interface for the forum junkie, optimised to show you all threads with new posts, arranged by time and with full details on thread title and even a peek at the latest post's text.

Because we have that. Welcome to µ mode!

http://deskthority.net/spy.php

idollar · 04 Feb 2015, 20:27

It is obvious that I have never clicked this link !
Thanks for the tip

chzel · 04 Feb 2015, 20:31

idollar wrote: ↑It is obvious that I have never clicked this link !
Thanks for the tip

Really??? I NEED that Spy...disable it and I am gone faster than...DNS records propagate!