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Message Board Updates and Constructive Ideas

This will be the thread where you can find updates on what we're doing to address key issues with these forums, and where you give CONSTRUCTIVE feedback. That means 1. be nice 2. be thankful to those putting in the volunteer effort and 3. be patient while these things are being worked on.
scott
2013-04-30 17:11:33
How about a lock icon to tell us that the other thread is indeed locked? ;) I said this already in another thread, but bbpress is awful software inside and out. I get that the site is built on Wordpress and it was easy to integrate bbpress into it, but there are tons of code bridges that allow real, free open source forum software to be used that have tons of features, excellent stability, and have been iterated on for over 10 years.
rice-rocket
2013-04-30 17:16:46
To Nathan, I'm one of the people who has crtiqued some of your work in another thread. I just want to also say thank you for the work you have done. Yesterday I sent in an check for my Bike-pgh membership. In part because my frustration with how the board has been running has made me aware of how much the board and Bike-Pgh mean to me. Thanks.
mick
2013-04-30 17:39:37
What forum software do you recommend, and what specific code bridges would you recommend? The big issue with changing things over to new forum software would most likely be losing all logins and all past threads. If there were some sort of way to port all that to new forum software then I'm all ears.
scott
2013-04-30 17:40:40
scott wrote:What forum software do you recommend, and what specific code bridges would you recommend? The big issue with changing things over to new forum software would most likely be losing all logins and all past threads. If there were some sort of way to port all that to new forum software then I’m all ears.
assuming bbpress uses a MySQL database you should theoretically be able to map all the old content onto a new database with RELATIVE ease. I also know there are more than a few folks round these parts who are way smarter about databases than I am. My point being that the data should be able to be ported over to whatever solution you choose and therefore shouldn't be the primary factor in picking the best solution for the forums moving forward.
cburch
2013-04-30 19:23:13
"assuming bbpress uses a MySQL database you should theoretically be able to map all the old content onto a new database with RELATIVE ease." OK, so I'll dip my toe into this since I'm a developer, but have spent my time as close to the data storage as possible. I'm decently ok at applying some code searching and schema reverse engineering even when logical constraints aren't expressed in db-land. And to a lesser extent other forms of storage are fine to, it's just a little more work to get and you may have a tough time getting the sort of meta information that makes this go smoother. So, if we do find ourselves changing platforms and we need to lift content, I'll volunteer to help. On one condition. IF AND ONLY IF we can have an environment to qa in. Things can easily get missed with any data migration and it's much worse when you don't know the app intimately. So I won't step into something where I can't test my work before putting it live. But if I can, I'm here to help.
byogman
2013-04-30 19:46:22
Yes a solid test plan is a must moving forward.
cburch
2013-04-30 20:26:00
I'm in the process of setting things up on my host, as I'm pathologically addicted to test environments and version control. I'll also likely set up some rudimentary issue tracking, probably just a publicly viewable spreadsheet listing what complaints and suggestions have been made, and how they're being ignored handled. As regards new forum software, what features are desired, that do not currently exist? I ask not to be flippant, but because moving to yet another solution is a non-trivial endeavor...I wouldn't choose to change merely because "bbPress is the sux"(even if it is). If there's defined value to be gained by choosing another package, though, that's a different story. Having a solid set of requirements for what is desired is crucial, before anyone could have a meaningful discussion of the costs and benefits associated with another migration. Edited to add: testing img tag:
reddan
2013-05-01 07:41:21
The thread cut starts with a photo in quotes...
headloss
2013-05-01 14:57:13
"Stick topic (to front)" for me doesn't seem to work. Ideally clicking that would keep the topic at the very top of the page.
scott
2013-05-01 14:58:04
I'm having the same problem Benzo reports, also Chrome/Win7. Seems to be related to the wide picture posted on the last page.
epanastrophe
2013-05-01 15:00:08
scott wrote:“Stick topic (to front)” for me doesn’t seem to work. Ideally clicking that would keep the topic at the very top of the page.
I mentioned in the other closed thread that http://localhost/topics/ shows the pinned threads, but http://localhost/mb/ does not. The only way I found this was clicking page 2 from the main screen which takes you to http://localhost/topics/page/2/ and then clicking page 1 which takes you to http://localhost/topics/. However, If you click page 1 from the main screen it keeps you on http://localhost/mb/ instead of http://localhost/topics/
benzo
2013-05-01 15:18:28
FYI, the message board looks VERY broken using win9 too. The "forums home" page looks ok, but when you click on a thread the formatting falls apart and you have some weird texed-based looking content. This has been true since the beginning of the roll out, but I thought I'd mention it again.
marko82
2013-05-01 15:59:20
Some threads have the right side cut off for me on an iPad. Other threads don't seem to be affected. When I login in, it takes me back to the home page instead of back to the page I was on (like the old message board did). Doesn't even take me to the message board, but to the site's home page. Most paragraphs display with the first two words all the way to the right side instead of the normal left justified format. I have to remember to look far right for the missing words (which is a bit awkward). On some threads, clicking on the last post (from the forums' home page) still takes me to the first page of that thread instead of the most recent post. Thanks for continuing to work on the bugs.
srpit
2013-05-01 16:10:31
same text display issues as above on an iPhone, chrome or safari. didnt bother with opera...
cburch
2013-05-01 16:15:48
srpit wrote:On some threads, clicking on the last post (from the forums’ home page) still takes me to the first page of that thread instead of the most recent post.
It seems to me to be that exceptionally long threads break the board's ability to link directly to the last post. For example, on Quizbot's "Oblivious PGH Motorists on video", both the thread name and the time-since-last-post link currently to an anchor on page 6 of the thread. On "Tag-o-Rama" (138 pages) and "Wheelset of Fortune" (38 pages), these both link to an anchor on the first page. The 15 page "Cars hitting buildings" and 10 page "Have you made your 311 complaint this week?" do not seem to be affected, but I don't at a casual glance see any in between to find the breaking point...
epanastrophe
2013-05-03 00:48:53
I've stayed out of this conversation, but thought I might dip a toes in to ask: does anyone know what has happened to some of the gravatars? I can log in to Gravatar and see mine fine, but it doesn't show up (for me at least) lately. To test, here's the embedded image: So if that works, why doesn't it work next to my name? Thanks to everyone who is working on the board.
pinky
2013-05-06 12:32:16
Shall we continue posting bugs to this thread?
sgtjonson
2013-05-06 16:29:44
pinky wrote:I’ve stayed out of this conversation, but thought I might dip a toes in to ask: does anyone know what has happened to some of the gravatars? I can log in to Gravatar and see mine fine, but it doesn’t show up (for me at least) lately.
Try what is within your power first, reupload your gravitar and see if that fixes the bug. If that doesn't do it, then I'm thinking that there is some sort of parent-control glitch in that admin tools for this site... something meant to censor inappropriate avatars which is getting turned on by mistake. I looked at the page source for any obvious problems and the generated link redirects to the faceless avatar rather than your actual avatar. So, it's either generating a bad ID "d5b543932996fba115ad42d14ad0da3f?" or gravatar doesn't recognize it due to a bug on their end.
headloss
2013-05-06 18:10:22
I believe Gravatar works by matching up emails. So check that the email address you're using at the Gravatar site is exactly the same as the one you use at this site.
steven
2013-05-06 22:05:09
I just edited my post in the Tag-O-Rama thread. It asked if I wanted to include a reason. I typed Removed "patisserie", which I'm not sure is the right term. It updated my post, but the reason doesn't show. I expected to see a note after it, as on some other boards, like Edited 11:10 PM by Steven. Reason: Removed "patisserie", which I'm not sure is the right term. But I see no indication it was edited, nor the text it prompted me for.
steven
2013-05-06 22:32:08
was the "keep a log of this edit" box checked? otherwise there's no indication the edit happened.
salty
2013-05-06 23:02:56
I was able to remove "cunt" from a post on another thread, and it worked for me. YMMV.
quizbot
2013-05-07 01:35:28
I thought it was checked. But let's see. No, still no note about editing. I edited this post multiple times, with the box checked or not, with various editing-reason messages.
steven
2013-05-07 01:49:18
Hey look - there's my gravatar! Thanks, Steven.
pinky
2013-05-07 09:24:05
@Reddan My temporary solution to the login-jumping-back-to-main-page bug is to hit the back button on the browser a couple of times and then refreshing
sgtjonson
2013-05-07 15:13:33
Is there a hard link for the feedback somewhere? I'd think that the "contact" page under the "about" tab would be a good location for that.
headloss
2013-05-08 12:28:07
It would be cool if this thread was titled "Have you submitted your forum bug this week?"
sgtjonson
2013-05-08 15:15:30
As of 5/23/2013, stickies live again. [waves hat in air, mimes riding a bull] Next up, fixing some glitches with the unread-posts stuff, then maybe tackle the problem where the links for long threads get hosed up.
reddan
2013-05-23 17:15:46
A purely cosmetic issue: Can the italic font you are using be a little less slanty? It is sometimes hard to read. FWIW, I'm on a Dell laptop, Win 7, Chrome Version 26.0.1410.64 m.
stuinmccandless
2013-05-23 17:41:36
Italics are designed as such. Oblique (slant) fonts are skewed versions of a (roman) font. The latter tend to be uglier than the former. I'm not a professional but we seem to have an oblique on our hands. It should be possible to fool with the .css file(s) and specify a nicer face. However I feel it would be a bit of an imposition on reddan to do the work. You could check out the wordpress options and see if anything works better for you. My only problem with the current slant font is transitions. For example: ... be a little less slanty? It is sometimes ... ... be a little less slanty?  It is sometimes ... The first is what you get normally, the second adds a space. In principle this is an easy fix (if that's the problem).
ahlir
2013-05-23 19:04:53
According to my machine (Win 7+Chrome), the font in use is Droid Sans, and yes, that really is its italic. IIRC, custom style sheets have been discussed previously...
epanastrophe
2013-05-23 19:41:17
It should be possible to fool with the .css file(s) and specify a nicer face. However I feel it would be a bit of an imposition on reddan to do the work.
Not a horrible imposition, but really not my focus. I volunteered to help fix the nasty bugs and help implement important features...my skills are better suited to creating stuff like the cross-device unread replies tracking feature we added a couple months back, hauling sticky posts out of their grave, or to debugging through the gruesome spaghetti of PHP which is causing the URLs for the Tag-a-Rama thread to be all hosed up. This is not to say that I'm not happy to help with the CSS and formatting stuff, but colors, fonts, layout, and other elements of the overall site design are really more up to the Bike-PGH staff than to me. To be honest, my sense of aesthetics, if unchecked, would result in something about this exciting:
reddan
2013-05-23 20:25:04
(Grr, logged in and got bumped back to the main page...) I imagine your aesthetics would suit a lot of us It kind of reminds me of IRC, which I kind of grew up on
sgtjonson
2013-05-23 21:06:24
StuInMcCandless wrote:A purely cosmetic issue: Can the italic font you are using be a little less slanty? It is sometimes hard to read. FWIW, I’m on a Dell laptop, Win 7, Chrome Version 26.0.1410.64 m.
Stu, Fonts are installed on your machine. HTTP request-reply passes information on font (name, size, attributes) and code points (now days UNICODE using usually UTF-8 as a coding scheme) and css. Your browser does everything else.
mikhail
2013-05-23 22:15:59
In olden days, websites could only use the fonts a user happened to have already installed on his computer. But modern browsers can download fonts specified by the site. Droid Sans is provided by Google, and a site can use it simply by adding a line of CSS code. The browser then downloads the font for its own use in WOFF format. Google makes a bunch of free fonts available in this way, including Droid Sans. But Droid Sans seems a poor choice for this site. From what I've read, it was built without an italic style specifically due to the limited memory space available on the Android mobile devices for which it was intended as one of the built-in fonts. I don't think it's a great choice for uses where italic might be required, or where device memory isn't severely limited. I suggest using Open Sans instead, also provided by Google. I think (not certain) the changes required would be: 1. Change the line that loads the CSS http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Droid+Sans:400,700 at the top of every HTML page to load .../css?family=Open+Sans:400,400italic,700,700italic instead. 2. Modify http://localhost/wp-content/themes/foldabike/style.css, changing both references from Droid Sans to Open Sans. Perhaps this is worth trying to see if it fixes the problem?
steven
2013-05-24 00:12:04
Looks like pins are working on the main page again. This is awesome.
benzo
2013-05-24 08:27:20
@dan twitter bootstrap ftw!
dmtroyer
2013-05-24 20:33:08
The pins are great! But when just looking, it's a bit unobvious where the regular posts start. Maybe have a hairline just below them? Or just give the pins their own background color?
ahlir
2013-05-25 13:22:34
@dan what about putting it on github and where people can enter issues and make pull requests?
dmtroyer
2013-05-25 15:23:43
Just fixed a bug in the unread_replies plugin...for completely unread topics, clicking the title was not taking the user to the first post. At this point, the "keep track of my read and unread replies across all my devices" feature should be pretty solid. Please let me know if any problems in that area become apparent.
reddan
2013-05-28 17:27:53
I would sincerely like to know why I could not paste what appeared to be a text email, with a couple of embedded links, into a post the other day. On the Mon Valley Expressway thread, at least seven tries were necessary to get my post up. Each time I pressed the "Submit" button, my content disappeared. On two of those occasions, I had posted straight text, ensured that I saw it on the board, then made an edit to paste in another paragraph, then the entire post disappeared. In frustration (!! I was at work, and probably gave up a half hour of prime-time concentration to get the post up!), I ended up re-typing the bulk of the email. What makes posts disappear like that? I would be happy to forward the original mail, much mangled by Yahoo, to someone who can figure out what bad mojo (or, more likely, combination of embedded .css, spaces in HTML tags, and other kablooie) caused such repeated failures.
stuinmccandless
2013-06-02 18:20:36
This might be way out there but: In the early days of the internet (pre-WWW, when the usenet groups dominated and virtual dinosaurs roamed the earth) some newsreaders supported something called a kill file. If there was a user who was really irritating, you put their email address in the file, and your client would filter out messages originating from them. (You would still see messages that quoted them, of course.) It made for an easy way to to deal with trolls... after enough people had added them to their kill file, they wouldn't get a response to their pot-stirring and would eventually go away. It might be nice to have something like that.
myddrin
2013-06-04 07:49:56
StuInMcCandless wrote:I would sincerely like to know why I could not paste what appeared to be a text email, with a couple of embedded links, into a post the other day. On the Mon Valley Expressway thread, at least seven tries were necessary to get my post up. Each time I pressed the “Submit” button, my content disappeared. On two of those occasions, I had posted straight text, ensured that I saw it on the board, then made an edit to paste in another paragraph, then the entire post disappeared. In frustration (!! I was at work, and probably gave up a half hour of prime-time concentration to get the post up!), I ended up re-typing the bulk of the email. What makes posts disappear like that? I would be happy to forward the original mail, much mangled by Yahoo, to someone who can figure out what bad mojo (or, more likely, combination of embedded .css, spaces in HTML tags, and other kablooie) caused such repeated failures.
To deal with this issue I tend to copy / paste to a plain text editor (usually windows notepad) to sanitize the text and remove all formatting garbage. I copy and paste again from the text editor to the browser or whatever destination I want.
benzo
2013-06-04 08:24:15
constructive idea: can me make the introductions thread light up with a little greenlight gif when someone posts there for the first time, to ensure that we all see it and give a hearty welcome? On a related note, can we do something to make the stickies more evident relative to the regular threads?
headloss
2013-06-04 11:01:46
For me at least, the sticky threads get a little pushpin icon next to them. Since it's apparently done in CSS, though, there's no way to get an alt text in, and it seems to load last of everything...
epanastrophe
2013-06-04 11:10:24
I get the little push pins, but to give an idea of how underwhelming they are... I never noticed them until just now. :(
headloss
2013-06-04 11:13:32
I get the little push pins, but to give an idea of how underwhelming they are… I never noticed them until just now. :(
Don't make me break out the tags on yo ass.
reddan
2013-06-04 11:19:39
@Benzo - I know that trick. I was using it. It didn't help.
stuinmccandless
2013-06-04 11:41:41
reddan wrote: Don’t make me break out the tags on yo ass.
Oh! and how cool would it be if we could have MySpace style walls for our profile page?!?!
headloss
2013-06-04 22:44:09
Awesome.
edmonds59
2013-06-05 05:23:57
Not so much a board issue as a website issue. I found a broken link, likely left over from the big move a few months ago. On this page: http://localhost/2013/06/05/will-penndots-penn-ave-safety-changes-make-a-difference/ This does not work: http://bike-pgh.org/get_involved/ride-a-bike/bike-to-work-guide/ But if I search the site and go to this link, I get what I was looking for: http://localhost/101/ And as a suggestion, it would be helpful if that "101" guide was listed in the pull-down menu under "Resources" rather than "Projects". Whatever the distinction is between a project and a resource, isn't clear to me.
stuinmccandless
2013-06-05 16:22:34
Hrm..... what happened to the website? All vertical now? Took me a couple of tries to get to the "forums" list...
bikeygirl
2013-06-05 17:16:07
Allow me to embed vimeo videos please :)
benzo
2013-06-06 08:04:06
I thought there was another "bug reports" thread but I couldn't find it... anyways, the linkifying code breaks on these weird URLs that the PA state legislature has, which end in '..HTM': http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/75/00.033.007.000..HTM the weird part is it still happens if I put the link inside an 'a href', which I would have expected to be left unmodified. link Edit: ah, apparently that's partially a lie, since the 'link' link above works. But, if I try to use the actual URL as the link text, it doesn't work: i.e. here's {a href="URL"}URL{/a} (with braces replaced by angles): http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/75/00.033.007.000..HTM
salty
2013-07-20 11:19:28
salty wrote:I thought there was another “bug reports” thread but I couldn’t find it…
I searched for that recently and it brought up some sort of feedback form. Hopefully the form got passed on and not lost in the aether.
headloss
2013-07-20 11:28:50
Two suggestions for photo handling. (1) Allow photo to be turned 90 degrees one way or another after uploading. (2) Allow photos to be deleted after uploading, within the one-hour edit window. I thought I uploaded the bicycle image, Image047(1).jpg, but instead uploaded the flower image, Image047(2).jpg. I see I can upload the correct one in an editing step, but I cannot delete the incorrect one.
stuinmccandless
2013-07-20 12:05:18
1. The various "The People Report A Bug" threads seem to have been airbrushed off the board (as far as I can tell). But that's ok. It's not the People's board, it's BikePgh's board. Deal with it. 2. ".htm" is MS's version of a web page extension. But all current browsers know what to do with it. Maybe there's some other problem. Maybe this site is parsing urls for validity; but I thought that's what browsers did... I could be misinformed (again). 3. Updating photos on this site is a bit confusing; make sure that your local copy is what you think it is then upload again. Repeat until you get the result you want. [annoyingly on edits, the pointer inserts at the end as opposed to the current focus. sigh.]
ahlir
2013-07-20 18:05:06
This web site examines the text you post and tries to be helpful, noticing URLs, even if they're not in [a href=] elements, and converting them to use [a href=]. It knows about both .html and .htm, but it doesn't expect the state web site's weird URLs with two dots before the extension. I don't want to see this thread sent to the cornfield too, but any chance Reddan could give us a progress report? The list of site bugs doesn't seem to have had any status updates for well over a month.
steven
2013-07-20 23:08:04
Yes, it's definitely the double dot that confuses it, not the extension. It's definitely weird - but legal. The part that really surprised me is the last case where I did supply {a href} but it ignored it in favor of the (incorrectly) parsed version. Maybe that's some sort of attempt to prevent phishing-type stuff.... Let's see, does this link go to bike pgh or bike cleveland: http://localhost (Edit: OK, in that case it did use the href... I dunno. Maybe I screwed something up before.)
salty
2013-07-20 23:50:28
I don’t want to see this thread sent to the cornfield too, but any chance Reddan could give us a progress report? The list of site bugs doesn’t seem to have had any status updates for well over a month.
Sorry for the late reply...been very busy for the last couple of months, haven't spent as much time haunting the board as usual. I don't know anything about vanishing threads, but this isn't the first time in recent memory that such things have been reported...can anyone recall specific examples? As far as progress goes, what little time I've put towards it has been on the back end...looking at admin-level stuff, and occasionally poking at the "super-long threads get busted URLs" problem. Also, please keep this in mind:
I volunteered to help fix the nasty bugs and help implement important features…my skills are better suited to creating stuff like the cross-device unread replies tracking feature we added a couple months back, hauling sticky posts out of their grave, or to debugging through the gruesome spaghetti of PHP which is causing the URLs for the Tag-a-Rama thread to be all hosed up. This is not to say that I’m not happy to help with the CSS and formatting stuff, but colors, fonts, layout, and other elements of the overall site design are really more up to the Bike-PGH staff than to me.
reddan
2013-07-22 08:15:10
I ran into the NBC thread(s) missing at some point and commented about it in http://localhost/mb/topic/zombie-threads/ Others had noticed the disappearance as well. In retrospect this may have been due to ongoing instabilities in the message board software. On the other hand I (sort of) recall that the discussion had started a descent to the raucous... I see that site:bikepgh.org now shows several NBC threads, so who's to say what happened? The Mysteries of Pittsburgh... (apologies to Chabon)
ahlir
2013-07-22 18:03:03
postscript: None of this is meant to cast any aspersions at @reddan. I very much admire him for stepping into the breach.
ahlir
2013-07-22 18:22:38
Thanks for the update, Reddan! As far as I know, with the possible exception of the NBC thread, the only threads that have disappeared have been at the direction of Bike Pgh, when discussions became less positive. So I don't think there's much evidence of a software glitch doing it.
steven
2013-07-22 23:12:56
It's BikePgh's board and they can do whatever the want. Especially since we're on notice to avoid abusive posts. But some acknowledgement if and when it happens would be nice so people can calibrate. Not to say that it ever happens, of course.
ahlir
2013-07-23 06:52:36
Hello, I am also getting the text cut off on the right hand side when view this site on my ipad. You cannot not zoom out to see the rest; it's as if the page literally chops off the text. This only happens on a few threads. I think when a long line of text is made. If you can look into this, it will be great because its impossible to read all of the words on these threads. Thank you.
italianblend
2013-07-24 04:13:38
yup, narrower viewports are still having text issues on some threads. i havent bothered to track down the pattern yet. i'm a lousy QA tester.
cburch
2013-07-24 07:34:02
I can compile a list of threads where it happens, I'd say its like 10%. For now, this one: http://localhost/mb/topic/bike-rack-on-long-trip/ At least on that thread it's only the first paragraph of each post that is cut off, subsequent paragraphs are wrapped at a narrower boundary. That is a more generic issue, that the formatting is different for the first paragraph. That happens on threads that aren't cut off, and on all devices, with the net effect that subsequent paragraphs are too narrow. I haven't looked at the HTML/CSS.
salty
2013-07-24 12:44:32
Bug report If you go to edit a post, any ampersand characters are converted to an escape sequence in the editor. It seems to handle them fine when saving though. It's not really a big deal, I thought it was reposting the escape sequence, but it seems to handle it fine.
benzo
2013-07-25 08:56:54
@Benzo: That's not a bug, that's a feature (well, for some of us).
ahlir
2013-07-25 17:33:00
TdF thread page 3 (but not 1 or 2) also exhibits the cutoff problem, and also only the first paragraphs. This page also exhibits some other formatting problems like excessive whitespace. http://localhost/mb/topic/tour-de-france-3/page/3/
salty
2013-07-27 06:36:09
can you please add an indicator next to the "messages" link at the top that tells you if you have a new message? As it is now, I don't know if I have a new message unless I click into my inbox, which I pretty much never do.
rubberfactory
2013-07-30 11:48:24
This has been mentioned before, but I don't recall if it came up ITT. When I am reading a thread and not logged in, if I click the login link and enter my credentials, I am returned to the bikepgh homepage. Under the old site, I would be returned to the last page I was reading. Can this feature be added to the new site?
jaysherman5000
2013-07-31 12:20:08
The reload speed of the webpage slows down to a crawl sometimes - and I also get "Error establishing a database connection" message fairly often. Other interwebs seem to be working ok for me so I think it's the BP site itself, or some script or something. Chrome, desktop.
marko82
2013-08-02 07:24:43
Pyut it somewhere on a board...
mikhail
2013-08-03 14:45:31
It's because of the very long word (115 characters with no spaces) in Vannevar's quote from BH's Ebay store on that page.
steven
2013-08-19 13:43:52
It cuts text for me too in Firefox if the window isn't large enough However this stuff was designed, it was obviously done with a widescreen monitor
sgtjonson
2013-08-19 15:37:42
Pierce wrote:However this stuff was designed, it was obviously done with a widescreen monitor
Nope. :) My work machine has two screens with total width of 3840 and lab machine has 12 screens (6x1920 and 2x1080) and it does not matter if I open FireFox as 11520x2160 -- it still cuts. And if thread is "normal" then I can make window as small as 1010x759 and everything is OK.
mikhail
2013-08-19 16:22:56
happening the the bh graffiti thread too now.
cburch
2013-08-19 16:36:12
Ha! It has that nice half-ass photocopy feel to it
sgtjonson
2013-08-19 17:13:31
I'm still seeing the cut off text too - both on the desktop in Firefox and on the iPad. Frustrating. Sometimes I just have to stop reading because it drives me crazy.
srpit
2013-08-20 19:19:51
Mikhail wrote:and lab machine has 12 screens (6×1920 and 2×1080)
you complete me.
vannever
2013-08-20 22:50:40
I used to work where Mikhail does now. That 12-headed monitor is really something to see. I had a four-screen setup, the small version.
stuinmccandless
2013-08-21 06:48:22
Some examples...
mikhail
2013-08-21 15:21:12
It's a digital representation of this: Lego Unitron Space Set
sgtjonson
2013-08-21 15:44:35
New idea: Seeing the updated thread about the recovered bike made me think of this: Is there some sort of plug-in or other HTML-ish mechanism that lets you set up a slide show? I think it would be great to have a sticky thread, modifiable only by an admin, which displays a continuing rotation of known-missing bikes. Five seconds at a time, with summary underneath, automatically goes to the next one if you don't press something.
stuinmccandless
2013-08-27 17:52:41
StuInMcCandless wrote:New idea: Seeing the updated thread about the recovered bike made me think of this: Is there some sort of plug-in or other HTML-ish mechanism that lets you set up a slide show? I think it would be great to have a sticky thread, modifiable only by an admin, which displays a continuing rotation of known-missing bikes. Five seconds at a time, with summary underneath, automatically goes to the next one if you don’t press something.
This is the Chicago format http://chicago.stolenbike.org/
headloss
2013-08-27 23:01:14
This isnt message board, but on my samsung s4 phone on the "events calendar" I cant scroll the calendar. This happens on other similar calendar formats. Whats the deal there?
edmonds59
2013-08-28 07:44:28
Are you using Samsung's browser or Chrome? I definitely recommend the latter, I can scroll the calendar on my tablet (N10) and I assume it will work on a phone as well, I can check. BTW you can also add the calendar to your calendar list using that button on the bottom right (that might need to be done on a computer, not sure) and then view the events in the calendar app, you can toggle them on/off.
salty
2013-08-28 08:43:02
salty wrote:TdF thread page 3 (but not 1 or 2) also exhibits the cutoff problem, and also only the first paragraphs. This page also exhibits some other formatting problems like excessive whitespace. http://localhost/mb/topic/tour-de-france-3/page/3/
Page 2 of Byogman's Possible editorial... thread has same first-paragraph-is-cut-off issue (also the 'quote' button at the bottom of each post. but not the intervening paragraphs). Didn't see anything that was unusually wide on that page, though.
epanastrophe
2013-10-07 08:13:15
I found that I could not post consecutive comments on the non-message-board part of the website. In particular, regarding District 4 candidate Samuel J. Hurst, he posted comments regarding cyclists on Facebook about a week apart. I was able to post a quote and a link to the first comment, but the website rejected my posting the second one, with the following text: "Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!" Here is what I tried to say in the second post: He posted this on Facebook on Oct 30, commenting on a Tribune-Review article on commuting patterns, and responding to a quote by Scott Bricker about investing in separated bike lanes: If members of the Bicyclists Community ask the City, who is struggling to pave it's own roads without floating bonds, have a reasonable staffing in regards to Police Staffing and may be on the verge of closing additional schools, to spend more money for Bicycle Lanes and physical structures....then the City must ask the Bicyclist Community for additional Taxes/Revenues/Fees. Furthermore, Residents of the City of Pittsburgh need members on City Council who will fight for such Common Sense and a Mayor who can prioritize such. https://www.facebook.com/samueljhurst/posts/10200230235153639 wrt a link in the Trib: http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/4968949-74/pittsburgh-cities-among?fb_comment_id=fbc_1412189699012751_75780_1412223149009406 He further commented on this article a few minutes later, reiterating what he said on Facebook on October 21: "The City of Pittsburgh needs to enact legislation that requires Bicyclists to use Bike Lanes if readily available, and reasonable clear from obstruction. We do not need to fund Bike Lanes to watch Bicyclists ride down the road two inches from the Double Yellow Line."
stuinmccandless
2013-10-30 01:44:06
Is there any way that the Categories from the drop down on the New Topic page Could be shown hierarchically on the forum home page?They are extremely fitting categories, but the way the site is set up now, it is all lumped into one page, and older posts get lost too quickly. The categories listed are: Community Introductions Ride Board Commuting in Pittsburgh Free For All Geek Out DIY Eye Candy FS/WTB Advocacy and Safety Stolen Bikes Organizing the site in this manner would make it much easier to only consume what you are interested in, instead of scrolling through page after page to find what you want.
ericf
2013-12-03 06:48:00
I found a website bug. Click on my name, to the left. Note that my list of "Forum Topics Created" is on more than one page. Try to click on "2", "3", or the forward arrow, and you become lost. Please fix this.
stuinmccandless
2014-02-07 05:19:20
We still have some broken links. This does not work. It is accessed from the menu at the top of the page: * Get involved * Take action * Click on "shared lane markings" I suggest that the rest of the links on that page should be checked, as well.
stuinmccandless
2014-03-30 19:07:33
Another problem is that the quote feature will quote what is highlighted... regardless of wether the highlighted text is part of the person you are quoting statement... It will even quote the url if that is what is highlighted.
headloss
2014-03-30 21:04:47
Ok, this may be a very stupid question, but How the hell does one add a profile pic? Usually in a message board there would be a way to do it in your profile editing but I do not see that....... I guess this is the most appropriate thread to ask.
shooflypie
2014-03-31 09:19:03
Gravatar.com
jonawebb
2014-03-31 09:21:07
Please fix the pagination buttons on the main page. They point you to the next page on the eye-candy sub-forum, which only has posts over 3 years old.
benzo
2014-04-11 09:20:42
Interesting, it looks like it's fine now. Not sure how that happened for me.
benzo
2014-04-11 09:25:07
I'd like to bring this issue up again. The forums are still cutting text on the ipad. Can you please have someone look into this or change the forum format?
italianblend
2014-05-31 04:43:42
Is it just me, or is this site clocking in on Central Time?
ahlir
2014-06-13 16:26:54
Also, can we make this a sticky thread? I knew to scroll down and look for it. If it's sticky people will know where to post stuff like this. Though we could always go back to threads like "THIS BOARD IS $%#! BROKE!!! FIX ITT!!!!!"
ahlir
2014-06-13 16:36:46
It's not on Central time, but rather Standard time. This one-hour-off thing began when we went on Daylight time.
stuinmccandless
2014-06-13 20:40:28
Well, to me it's CDT. Are there really operating systems out there that still screw this up?
ahlir
2014-06-13 22:41:19
not likely to be the OS - buggy library or more likely misuse of said library (or "rolling your own" time conversions). (edit: agree it's likely a DST issue)
salty
2014-06-13 22:46:52
I think we're using bbPress for the forum. This page says they added support for DST in version 1.0, released in 2009. Maybe we're running an older version. Or maybe it's just a configuration problem, and DST support is simply turned off.
steven
2014-06-13 23:43:21
You're right. It's up to you to do the dst correction.
ahlir
2014-06-14 12:21:49
Is it just me or "Quote" button does not work?
mikhail
2014-06-14 12:33:00
I have not been able Able to use quote function for some time.
benzo
2014-06-15 08:26:13
Isnt it time to look into a new forum system?
italianblend
2014-06-15 19:37:43
Please look into getting something new. The text chopping is so frustrating. And with mobile devices becoming the norm, it is worth taking a look at.
italianblend
2014-06-17 14:08:37
"Isnt it time to look into a new forum system?" We've looked into this during the original transition. the main problem is the history and archive that's on here that will be lost by switching as it won't carry over. I'm no tech, so i can't discuss details.
erok
2014-06-17 14:39:44
There is so much history here. The almost 300,000 posts and umpteen thousand threads are a living history of how this town's bicycle culture came about and continues to evolve. To lose it would be unthinkable. It's bad enough we lost 1/3 of the accounts on the board in the last retooling. No, fix it. It's almost surely CSS, XML, HTML, whatever. I work in a software shop that's doing far more complex stuff than a message board, and making it all work on a multitude of browsers, OSs, machine types, etc. Whoever is testing it, though, possibly could use a better test bed.
stuinmccandless
2014-06-17 17:10:27
I'm sure there is a way to log everything into a searchable archive and start fresh. But I'm no tech.
italianblend
2014-06-17 20:01:04
Yeah, some sites I've seen have made searchable archives or even continued to run the old board software in "read only" mode. I'm sure with enough time you could write something to import the data into the new board. Although, I think most of the "big" issues with the board were solved long ago (by reddan et al) - most of the issues I still have are the layout issues which is certainly CSS, etc like Stu said. I use stylebot (which someone here suggested) to improve the layout on my desktop devices, with just a couple lines of CSS tweaks. Unfortunately, I don't know of anything like that for mobile. I think it's likely not too hard to fix that on the server side, although it's not really my area of expertise. Maybe we can gather a few volunteers to get together somewhere (maybe at the bike-pgh office?) with a variety of mobile and non-mobile devices, so we can set up a little test lab and tweak the layout until it looks good on all devices?
salty
2014-06-17 20:55:12
Great idea Salty, we'll work on putting it together. We'll call it Bike City Codefest.
scott
2014-06-18 07:41:09
We're losing posts again. This morning, I added a few lines, no HTML, to a thread, and an hour later, discovered it did not post. Just now, I saw that @jonawebb posted a comment to a thread, but I could not see it. I tried loading that thread in a different browser but it did not show up there, either.
stuinmccandless
2014-08-07 10:12:29
Since this is still running, on my ipad, the right side of text boxes still gets cut off and is unreadable, even by lateral scrolling.
edmonds59
2014-08-07 10:30:47
@ edmunds59 Since this is still running, on my ipad, the right side of text boxes still gets cut off and is unreadable, even by lateral scrolling. This is true for me with IE 8 as well. (Yes, it's antiquated browser. So am I. Don't criticize the coffee, you might old and bitter yourself someday.)
mick
2014-08-07 11:10:39
I don't think the forum is a priority here. We don't get heavy traffic on the forums and nothing has changed in a while. So, is the forum simply a minor asset to bike pgh and not worth throwing resources or time into, or will an improved forum increase site traffic and number of posters and members?
italianblend
2014-08-07 18:30:38
We don’t get heavy traffic on the forums I didn't realize that we were in competition with 4chan. Out of curiosity: Are bikepgh analytics available? I'd be curious to know what visitors do here. I would assume this information is not proprietary...
ahlir
2014-08-07 19:13:05
We don’t get heavy traffic on the forums Maybe our bike forums bugs are really a traffic-calming measure? :-)
steven
2014-08-07 20:46:16
This forum used to be more lively. Maybe it could be again? But maybe everyone moved to facebook.
mick
2014-08-07 21:59:18
Facebook... maybe jail. Depends on the person.
headloss
2014-08-08 00:30:03
^Ha
rgrasmus
2014-08-08 08:11:59
"This forum used to be more lively. Maybe it could be again? But maybe everyone moved to facebook."
Or spend most of their time lurking in the shadows here (kinda like on Facebook!)
smarchit
2014-08-08 14:33:58
I don't look at this board as much as I used to because I can't. I actually can't read whole posts from people because I can't see the whole reply.
stefb
2014-08-09 14:58:50
What happened to the little do-dad above the text box that allows you to upload a photo directly? I first noticed that it disappeared a few day ago and now must do it the old multistep third party way. Anyone else having this problem or is it my browser (chrome)?
marko82
2014-10-31 08:26:51
Nope, not there for me today, either. Chrome or Firefox.
stuinmccandless
2014-10-31 08:36:30
Missing for me as well, Chrome, Firefox, and mobile Chrome & HTC Android 4 browsers...
epanastrophe
2014-10-31 08:43:52
If this goes away, I'll be sad. Best feature of the board!
benzo
2014-10-31 11:00:04
Missing for me too. Also, not sure what happened to the quote feature which is either broken or removed. If removed on purpose, and no one could be bothered to tell us... well, that's jerkish.
headloss
2014-10-31 14:53:01
Looks like bad coding. The page tries to retrieve a script from http://localhostjs/topic.js, which is invalid (stray "js" after the "org"). There are other errors too. The code for image uploading is still there; it just doesn't work.
steven
2014-10-31 15:48:36
I continue to have the problem of the right side being cut off so I can't read the full posts. Doesn't happen on every thread, but it happens often enough to be super frustrating. Is this being worked on, or are we stuck with what we have now?? Agree with above comments that I don't do much on the MB because of this.
srpit
2014-11-19 05:29:24
@ srpit I continue to have the problem of the right side being cut off so I can’t read the full posts. Doesn’t happen on every thread, but it happens often enough to be super frustrating. Me too!
mick
2014-11-19 13:55:16
I just send the below email to "info@bikepgh.org"; I could not find a "webmaster@bikepgh.org" pointer. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = The BikePgh message board no longer displays image data correctly. Specifically, all tags are being removed. This makes it impossible to display in-line images. This is not good. A significant element in communication between cyclists (and anyone, really) is the ability to share information visually. It can be images of significant street features or simple part of an ongoing amusement. For some purposes posting an image together with text is the only effective method. Forcing readers to click on links simply destroys the impact of a message. I have not been on the board for maybe a week, but I see that people have been commenting about this issue for several days. I realize that everyone is busy; but even if the problem cannot be solved immediately it would be appreciated if bikepgh could acknowledge that there's a problem and that someone is looking into it. Or, that your policy is now different and that you will no longer permit image postings. The bikepgh msg board community is very involved in cycling issues and the board serves as an important forum for committed cyclists. I would invite you to scan recently posted topics if you are unsure that this is the case. As a dues-paying member of bikepgh, I hope that you can make an active effort to address this issue or at the very least acknowledge it. Thank you, = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
ahlir
2015-12-14 20:32:24
FWIW, at the bike-pgh members meeting this fall they said that new website is coming in early 2016, likely with improved forums! So, I doubt anything is going to be done till then.
benzo
2015-12-14 20:48:15
Well, no one is demanding major improvements at this instant. Just simple maintenance. How hard is that? Or, heck, just simple communication. You know, like in all that relationship stuff where you keep being told it is so important.
ahlir
2015-12-14 20:52:23
It was never good from the start. It is a major reason i don't look at this board for months at s time.
stefb
2015-12-14 21:00:19
It's really broken twice. The IMG tags now, but the previous problem of not being able to click on a button and navigate to a file, never got fixed. On some of my devices I can still see the vestige of a button, so the functionality is probably all in place, but some small linkage is broken. Hunch: Related code. All that to say, while doing the maintenance on the one, please also fix the other. Edit: Mick's and srpit's complaint from 13 months ago is also still broken.
stuinmccandless
2015-12-15 08:17:44
From long years of work in this industry, here's my explanation of what's going on. It's a complete mess, nobody wants to touch the code because it might fall apart (and even trying to figure out what's happening would take a long time). And anyway they're working on something much better that will be available real soon now. (The solution, BTW: some programmer does a heroic act, digs into the code, understands it, and fixes things without breaking anything else, gains our respect forever. Let his or her name be recorded in the annals of BikePgh history!)
jonawebb
2015-12-15 08:26:53
jonawebb hit the nail on the head. Not only is it a complete mess, but our support barely exists. We've had a programmer doing some heroic acts, but there's only so much he can do. We do intend to have a new messageboard with the new launch. and we are not going to attempt any customization that will require additional support beyond what the platform offers. I truly wish we had a magic want to fix this thing, or even make minor edits, but until then, we're looking forward to the new one. I'll inquire about the pics thing.
erok
2015-12-15 12:56:52
No plan to keep the old message board content around for posterity, then? Well, we seem to rehash certain topics regularly, so no doubt there will shortly be new threads on riding in winter, the Wabash tunnel, and bad drivers.
steven
2015-12-15 19:06:26
I'm OK with the legacy being destroyed - even though an inordinate number of the posts were mine. It isn't search friendly or anything, so the legacy dones't mean that much. I'm just hoping the board gets smooth enough so that we get a lot of traffic. I'm hoping we'll welcome new people. I hope it's convenient enough that people will discuss upcoming events here. I mean, I like all yinz, but posting for the same 12 people gets a bit old.
mick
2015-12-15 20:20:29
@Mick: 1) I would argue that everything should be preserved. I mean, for you and me it's all just stuff. But, maybe, ~100 yrs from now someone will want to research something or other about bike culture in the early 21st century. You know, just like today people get curious about bike stuffs from the late 19th century. 2) Yes, the search is crap. But why would you use if when you can simply google "site:bikepgh.org ______" and find what you need? 3) I don't know if it's just 12 people who post all the time (I'm too lazy to count). I would be more interested in the number of unique visitors. And, hey, bikepgh: you're into all that analytics stuff, right? I saw "google-analytics.com" in the page code. So I guess you already know the answers to the above questions; help us here. ~) Now that I got myself going (and there's still some postprandial wine left in my glass): You know, ever so often, there's a dude who post on this board something like "Hey, nobody reads your tired crap! Check out the reddit! That's where the action's really at!" Unbeknownst to the Dude, people like me (and I suspect many other posters to this board) do look at the reddit. But it's different. Okay, but different. For example, this week (and every week) the Hot thread is "Where did you ride this week?". Here's a quote from the (one) current post: "Last week I commuted to and from work 4 out of 5 days." I happened to be out of town most of last week, so only 2/5. Though most weeks I get stuck doing 5/5. I could post about it, but why? There's more important bike stuff to talk about. Maybe that's a bit unfair: jayjaywalker3 does relentlessly post relevant bike items. Some even attract the occasional comment. Finally, @Mick, face it: you and I are just plain old. I have the pictures.
ahlir
2015-12-15 21:57:01
I say the old message board content MUST be preserved. There's a lot of important history there. To me, this message board is one of the reasons that bikepgh has been a big success. Bikepgh would be weakening itself and also losing much of its historical record if it does not preserve the old messages.
paulheckbert
2015-12-16 08:49:30
Does it work now?
codemonkey
2015-12-16 08:54:20
I realize that I am not the target audience, but I MIGHT be because I am the target audience here. But seriously.....reddit? I don't even know what that IS, much less how or why to access it.
swalfoort
2015-12-16 09:03:06
Awesome! Code Money, forever will your name ring!
jonawebb
2015-12-16 09:03:35
Whatever happens to the board, preserving the years of history and history-making, is really important. It seems that worst case scenario is that we just post an archive of it.
erok
2015-12-16 09:11:01
The point about GA is important. For every visible user/poster, there are usually numerous lurkers like myself, and GA or login counts will capture that data. I'm not thrilled with Reddit. Low S/N ratio and poorly organized. It's too chaotic. At the same time, I'm glad to hear this forum is being replaced/updated. With coding support at a premium, a custom solution lacking common features makes no sense at all. I can't say phpBB is my favorite interface, but a popular system like that would be stable, minimize coding & support time, and be more familiar to users, which might wean some of them here from Reddit. The strength of this forum has is that it's actively used, stays topical, and is pretty simple to use. I hope those remain true after the anticipated update. PS: I couldn't get the "Quote" reply button to work for this post... ;^P imnsho ymmv.
ornoth
2015-12-16 09:20:04
Yeah, the quote and image insert buttons haven't worked for a long time. Also long threads eventually stop taking you to the last post (the Dangerous Drivers thread is currently broken this way). We've been working around these problems, e.g., creating new threads when they get too long. But doing without being able to insert images was just too much.
jonawebb
2015-12-16 09:47:26
The image insert button now works.
reddan
2015-12-16 10:09:21
Even though I'm OK with most of the legacy of the BP Forum being as obscure as the pre-Bike-Pgh bicycle activism stuff I've worked on, it would be a tremendous shame if there was no record of Tag-O-Rama.
mick
2015-12-16 12:45:49
At least save the history, even in read-only mode. Some of the conversations even from ages ago are still active and relevant -- dangerous drain grates, Amtrak, Wabash Tunnel, to name three. If we can simply link to the old one from the new one, I guess we have to. Tag-o-Rama, out of town news, and a few other threads are now into multiple editions.
stuinmccandless
2015-12-16 17:00:01
Some initial feedback on the MB software update
  1. User profiles are not editable. The "Your Account | Edit" button correctly goes to /message-board/users/USERNAME/edit/, but nothing (e.g. profile photo, caption) is editable.
  2. User directory appears borked. The "Messages | Directory" button goes to http://localhost/pm/?pmaction=directory, which displays a completely blank page. Some of the source gets downloaded, but looks like it aborts shortly after the header section.
  3. I have not confirmed, but RustyRed reported that email notifications for topic subscriptions are not being sent.
  4. The default resizing for photos is much larger than before. Nice!!!
  5. I'm a bit saddened that the link to the MB is buried under the main nav's generic "More" button, rather than being a visible button. For me, the event/ride calendar and the board are the reasons I visit the site.
  6. I wonder if we'll still need to chop topics into multiple volumes when they get larger. And I wonder whether that would still be desirable or not.
I've only tested with Fireyfocks on El Capitan. Thanks for the update! It's much appreciated, given the apparent idiosyncrasies of the old board. Hopefully once a few new-software issues are ironed out, this'll be better for everyone.
ornoth
2016-08-09 08:07:19
in, at least, Chrome on Windows, the bar with the 'donate'/'become an advocate'/'volunteer'  buttons is added in such a way that pagewise scrolling is messed up---several lines get skipped, because they were under the bar and not accounted for.   ETA: also, the combination of no background shading or colouring and no lines between posts makes it extremely difficult to tell where one comment ends and the next begins, and it's also difficult sometimes to tell among several short comments which poster name goes with which comment.
epanastrophe
2016-08-20 17:17:01
After using the new website for a couple weeks, my top complaints & suggestions: URGENT: * Make it possible to log in on an iphone! On my iphone 5, I tried many, many things for about 20 minutes yesterday, and was unable to log in to bikepgh.org! The LOGIN button is at the bottom of the screen and when you tap on it, IOS always grabs the tap “event” and brings up the back/share/bookmark/windows footer. In other words it is impossible to tap LOGIN so it is impossible to log in on my iphone. See below for screenshots of what happens before and after I tap the “LOGIN” button, every time. Rotating the screen, zooming, attempting to scroll, tapping a little higher, starting from many different bikepgh subpages - none of those worked! If I can’t log in then I can’t post to the messageboard from my phone. Grrrrr! Fix this today! * If you’re not logged in, but browsing an MB thread, why the !*% doesn’t the text “You must be logged in to reply to this topic” include a link to the login page? Fix this today! MEDIUM PRIORITY: * Eliminate avatar pictures in threadlist and make inlined pictures smaller; you’re wasting too much screen space on unimportant stuff, especially for those using phones. See my earlier suggestion that you make it dense, more like reddit. * Sometimes, when links or pictures are included in a post, several inches of white space is added below the link or picture. Pure waste of screen space! * The “donate / become an advocate / volunteer” in the non-scrolling screen footer are an annoyance and a waste of screen space. Stop wasting it! * On an iphone 5, browsing the threadlist, I can see only two or three threads at a time because each is so bulky. It’s hard to browse when you can see so little at a time (like browsing your inbox in a window that’s only two or three lines of text high). After axing the avatar, also shrink the text size, abbreviate “hours” with “h”, “minutes” with “m”, make it 2-4x as dense, you can do it! Doing so will boost messageboard use. * It’s hard to tell where one person’s post ends and the next person’s post begins, because of the absence of background color changes or delimeters. * The form for submitting new posts is similarly invisible: a white void on a white background. How is a first-timer supposed to know where to click and type? Below are pictures before and after attempting to click on the word “LOGIN” on an iphone 5.
paulheckbert
2016-08-22 21:11:30
Thanks Paul for letting us know.  Trying to find a workaround but no luck yet. We'll get our developers on it asap.   Mike
unicyclemike
2016-08-23 16:01:30
You're probably aware, but the message board has been loading very slowly lately. Like, 15-20 seconds to load a page. Just wanted you all to be aware.   On ipad.
italianblend
2016-08-26 16:48:04
I submitted a version of the following comment yesterday. Either the web system lost my post or I forgot to hit "submit". After more experimentation, I discovered that the login-from-iphone5 problems I reported a few days ago were limited to Safari. Try as I might (I tried everything I could think of) I was never able to log in on my iphone5 using Safari. But I succeeded, by using the Google app to get to bikepgh.org. Apparently that app has its own stripped down web browser that displays web pages differently enough from Safari that the LOGIN button was clickable. Also, no problems logging in from a macbook. I suggest you fix the "You must be logged in to reply to this topic" text to include a link, first. Do that today! Fixing login to work in Safari is also vital, since Safari is the native browser for iOS. The page load time for the messageboard seems to be 20-35 seconds. Atrocious. Make it 10x faster. As you've probably noticed, postings to the messageboard are way down since the web change. Probably the combination of slow page loads and near-impossible login is driving users away.
paulheckbert
2016-08-27 16:51:27
I usually use iPad, Safari. That might explain things. Can you guys look into this? Probably losing a lot of traffic. But still 15-30 seconds for me.
italianblend
2016-08-27 19:45:50
The site's also very slow for me using any of Firefox, Chrome, or IE on Windows. About 8-10 seconds per page at the moment. Looks like a message board page drags in about 1 MB of JavaScript from a total of 51 files, plus 600 KB of CSS from 21 files. A mobile device's slower CPU might take even longer than a desktop system to plow through all that.
steven
2016-08-28 05:56:41
Looks like a message board page drags in about 1 MB of JavaScript I use chrome and even with the site already loaded I get these delays. If it's stuff like a static JS I thought it would be cached. But maybe I'm unclear on the underlying model. It is definitely an annoyance.  
ahlir
2016-08-29 18:59:23
It should certainly be cached (at least on a desktop system), but if the JS interpreter has to parse through a MB of code, it might take a while. And first it'll have to load those 51 files from the cache, on disk. (But I'm just guessing about the cause of the slowness. Maybe modern browsers are really good at that stuff.) The site seems to be noticeably quicker at the moment, though, at least with a desktop browser. About 5-6 seconds per page load.
steven
2016-08-29 21:40:37
And one more thing... Could someone finally figure out how to reset the timezone on the message board? I mean, really.
ahlir
2016-08-30 15:28:58
lol. did that just fix it?
erok
2016-08-30 16:45:17
Following a link featured on this board, I go to http://localhost/2016/09/02/setting-the-record-straight/ It has a nice article by 'scott' (you should read it). But the name links to http://localhost/. Identity crisis? Let's not go there... At the bottom is a comment section; I think. An

proclaims 2 comments. None are in evidence.

ahlir
2016-09-02 17:29:14
Board seems quicker in the past few days. Thanks!
italianblend
2016-09-02 19:56:25
Posting links doesn't work, at least from my phone. It rapidly cycles back and forth showing the link input box. Also, i can't upload images from my phone. Not sure if this is a problem with my phone. There's no indication of what's going on. I browse to the image, click find, then nothing happens when I submit.
jonawebb
2016-09-04 22:11:06
NM, figured it out.
sped
2016-09-06 11:12:50
hi -- As @jonawebb says, I can't post images from my phone either.  Does seem to work from my computer, though. overall I do like the update.  took me a few days to get used to, but the website is now solidly in the mid-2010s in terms of design.  :)
edronline
2016-09-06 11:14:30
A couple issues: - if you post a bare link, it should automatically turn into a link--see @paulheckbert's post above. - I'm also seeing the '3 comments' issue on 'setting the record straight' -- i.e., the header suggests there are comments, but they're not displayed, in Chrome, Firefox, or IE. - It's bad enough there's a huge slug of JS to be downloaded every time, but if it's blocked (I use NoScript typically in Firefox), the page is entirely blank.  Everything seems to still be there, just overlaid with a blank white sheet.
epanastrophe
2016-09-06 12:24:27
Hey a nice thick black line now surrounds the text entry box; Yeah! But the text/visual tabs have disappeared; boo.... Also, the green dot that tells me that I haven't read a thread seems to be broke today (it was ok yesterday). When I read a "green" thread it takes me to the last entry, but when I click "back to forums" the thread still shows green.
marko82
2016-09-06 22:18:51
Not only are the Text/Visual tabs gone, but for me at least, it seems to be stuck in Text mode again (no way to upload an image, for instance, and no buttons for formatting). And the text I'm typing inside the box is in a tiny font.
steven
2016-09-07 04:14:12
Also, now the board's not updating when I read a message. Still shows unread. Suspect we rolled back/forward to a bad release...
jonawebb
2016-09-07 09:25:14
Re the 3 comments. Bike Pgh has the comments section available but has never allowed the comments ago pass moderation, ever. So there are probably 3 comments to the article but none will ever see the light of day. probably better to take off the comments section on these blog posts (there is a word press plugin to do this) than to have comments you can't see.
edronline
2016-09-07 16:55:31
Two new things I don't like: 1) On a real computer, while I do get a nice box to type in, the text is so incredibly tiny as to be unreadable. It wasn't like that last week. 2) After I post, I cannot see what I posted. At all. I have to go to a different browser altogether. One old thing I am finding darned irritating: Those "Donate / Become an advocate / Volunteer" boxes at the bottom of the screen. Way too much real estate being taken up by stuff that I have no interest in seeing 100% of the time.
stuinmccandless
2016-09-07 18:03:36
I think there is something wrong with the cache settings. The green not ungreening instantly. The replies not always showing up. I think in an effort to speed up the site someone tweaked the cache (super cache plugin?) Settings and it is causing these problems.
edronline
2016-09-07 18:38:14
A cache problem seems likely. After posting, it takes about five minutes of repeatedly refreshing the thread until the new message shows up. One step forward, four steps back. Sigh.
steven
2016-09-08 00:29:31
ON this new version of the message board how do you change your profile picture? If I go to "your account" and then edit I can edit my name, display name, password, etc. etc. etc. But can't figure out a way to change the picture associated with my account (righ tnow I have no pic).
edronline
2016-09-08 10:56:57
edronline- If you look on the first page, and click the Help, there's instructions on changing your profile pic
erok
2016-09-08 11:11:05
I have to tell ya, the message board not refreshing properly is pretty annoying. Though perhaps I should be checking it less frequently...
jonawebb
2016-09-09 10:16:05
I'm unable to put an image into a post. (Win8, laptop, Firefox) There doesn't seem to be an Image Upload feature. the Donate/Advocate/Volunteer boxes get too much real estate.
vannever
2016-09-09 10:23:25
The wait to see a post is at least 11 minutes, but even there, it has been saying 11 minutes since I posted for almost five minutes. What makes this so irritating is that I often correct a post upon proofreading, either to correct a typing mistake, or to add a cross-reference, or clarify a sentence. I cannot wait 10-15 minutes to do that. I might repeat that editing step three or four times in that 10-minute span.
stuinmccandless
2016-09-09 14:53:18
Make that 20 minutes. And my "blinkies" post is still not showing up.
stuinmccandless
2016-09-09 14:54:59
I posted something, it showed, I went back and edited it, the edits didn't show up, but then when I tried to edit it again, it had the correct version on there. This is a ll cache stuff and easily fixable. Wondering if the people who are doing the website are monitoring this thread? BikePGH is using a slow server. That makes sense, since traffic isn't all that heavy, and getting something faster requires more $$$, and it probably isn't worth the trade off -- using more member money for a faster server means less services delivered. So they are probably using a cache app on their wordpress setup (if this is word press). and the settings are off a bit.
edronline
2016-09-09 15:34:59
I am making sure that comments on this thread get to the developers. thanks for your patience. i really don't know what happened with the toolbar and the image uploader
erok
2016-09-09 17:18:22
thanks Erok!
vannever
2016-09-09 18:35:20
Well, it looks like the following CSS is not found on BikePGH site: http_://localhost/wp-content/plugins/cartpauj-pm/style/style.css PS I've put underscore after http to trick parser
mikhail
2016-09-09 21:01:23
Ctrl-F5 did not help. So it looks like messages are going through automated premoderation or just delayed due to performance issues.
mikhail
2016-09-09 21:03:25
List of topic has been updated correctly with my name and timestamp indicating that a DB record has been created but topic itself is not updated. ANd it makes me think that page has been generated to be a static html page and that regeneration has not been started by some reason.
mikhail
2016-09-09 21:07:54
Trying Reply Button to see if it's going to trigger a different path
mikhail
2016-09-09 21:08:59
Hm, inspection of source code of the page shows that my name is present only as account record and no my posts at all. Please look inside server logs.
mikhail
2016-09-09 21:11:33
Now all messages appeared. If you look at time stamps than you should see how much time it took to appear.
mikhail
2016-09-09 21:12:59
10 minutes is the answer.
mikhail
2016-09-09 21:13:54
I think I got the add media button back by de and then reactivating the plugin.   Hopefully I didn't break anything else.  
unicyclemike
2016-09-10 09:13:21
Tried to use the search function on the board and found the thread I was looking for.  Am logged in, but the thread won't let me add a post or reply. Using Firefox.
ka_jun
2016-09-10 21:45:13
Won't let me do it on Chrome, either.
ka_jun
2016-09-10 21:47:40
I've seen that. Search takes you to the reply, but you have to click on the thread to get to where you can post. Look at the top of the reply for the navigation.
jonawebb
2016-09-11 08:04:41
I've been having weird issues posting, using chrome on macosx and windows. When I click submit to add a new comment to a post, it returns me to the thread page, but I don't see my new post. I go back to the thread list, and it shows me as a recent poster x number of seconds ago.   I click on the thread and still don't' see my content. I hit the refresh button, I still don't see my content. If I open a different browser, safari or IE, and go to the thread url, I see the new content. I clear the cache and go back to the thread, I can see my content. Seems like a weird caching issue with chrome. Not sure if it's the browser or the site. Anyone else experiencing issues like this?
benzo
2016-09-12 11:33:47
Image uploader still not working. Win7, Firefox 48.0.2. Seeing this: "An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later."
stuinmccandless
2016-09-12 11:43:29
@benzo, yes, that's the caching issue people have been complaining about. The new message doesn't show up for something like 10 minutes. The message board knows about the new post and shows that the thread has a new message, but the message doesn't show up and navigation doesn't work when you click on the thread since there's nothing to navigate to. This also makes edits not work anymore because the new message doesn't show up in the time when it still can be edited.
jonawebb
2016-09-12 11:47:46
Seems more like 25 minutes. Also, may only be topics where I've posted a response?
offtn
2016-09-12 21:12:15
Doesn't seem to matter.
  • iPhone4, iOS 7
  • iPad, iOS 9
  • two different Win7 laptops, one running Chrome, the other Firefox
One shot at getting a post right. I only check the board a couple times a day. If I respond, I am not coming back in a half hour to fix something. Prior to this, I might go back and fix something three or four times in a couple of minutes after the first post.
stuinmccandless
2016-09-13 14:09:17
Seems more like 25 minutes.
You can take a look at the series of my messages time stamp. It was 10 minutes exactly.  
mikhail
2016-09-13 14:32:55
I looked at my time stamps...........it was 25 minutes. Obviously, the delay varies, I have no guess as to why.
offtn
2016-09-13 15:22:55
3:22 PM - I made the above post. After that, the post was not visible. The Forum home page showed the post as "10 seconds ago" and the topic below it "Calling Out..." showed with a last post of "14 minutes ago". These last post times didn't change until another new reply showed up on the Forum home page, but my above reply still wasn't visible. It seems that the Forum home page froze up each time a new reply was posted. 4:10 PM +/- My above post was visible.
offtn
2016-09-13 16:17:12
I managed to sneak an edit in on the Joncaire steps thread, so the "edit" button/function is working.  Of course I wont be able to actually SEE it for about ten minutes or so.
marko82
2016-09-15 17:15:23
I'm not a tech type, so I'm not really sure how the whole caching thing works, but if you 'logout' of Bikepgh and then log back in you can see your post and dont have to wait the ten-plus minutes or switch browsers.  I previously have cleared my whole cache using my browser's function, which logs you out (of everything), but apparently logout will do it while not clearing your other app info.    
marko82
2016-09-15 17:25:58
Clicking the title of an older thread takes you to your first unread post as it should. But clicking the title of a new thread you've never read before (which its title in green) seems to take you to the last of the unread posts. It should go to the top of the thread. Just omit the fragment id (the #post-332512) from the end of the generated URL for those.
steven
2016-09-16 07:28:28
I think the caching thing is fixed. Edit: nope, it's not. The message board correctly updates the 'seen' flag on when you read other people's posts, but doesn't show you yours unless you logout and back in.
jonawebb
2016-09-19 10:58:18
Slight peeve:  I'm getting automatically logged out after a certain amount of time (eight hours maybe?).  I use to be able to stay logged on for days at a time as long as I explicitly didn't log out, but now it happens even if I have a separate browser window open just for the message board.  Is there a technical reason for automatically logging us out or can this be fixed?    
marko82
2016-09-19 12:46:33
They may be rebooting the server as they make fixes. That would log people out, I bet. Though I don't think I got rebooted over the weekend.
jonawebb
2016-09-19 13:17:32
As of a minute or two ago, I'm still having the delay issue when posting a comment.
benzo
2016-09-19 13:20:23
@Jon, I guess that makes sense and would probably explain why the time seems to vary.
marko82
2016-09-19 14:30:22
thanks yall
erok
2016-09-19 16:15:35
test
erok
2016-09-20 09:12:45
Oooh, the edit thing was fixed!
jonawebb
2016-09-20 15:09:11
The most annoying bugs for me, currently: On iphone 5:
  • Picture upload is still broken. If you click "Add media", the UI is mostly whited out, unable to upload from photo library. Must use flickr or similar; that's a much slower, clumsier process than when upload worked a few weeks ago.
  • Once you're logged in (using Safari), there's no way to log out, because the LOGOUT button can't be tapped.
paulheckbert
2016-09-20 22:32:07
I just tried to edit a post -- got "Forum ID is missing" when I submitted. The edit didn't go through.
jonawebb
2016-09-21 11:59:05
The read/not read bubble color seems to be changing to read immediately now, so yeay!
edmonds59
2016-09-21 12:06:20
Twitter (and perhaps some other?) includes get an absurd amount of space around them.  It seems they get enclosed in a 
, which has padding-bottom: 67.5% and height: 0. Using Chrome's inspector to tell the browser to ignore both these settings seems to allow the element to just take up the space it needs. (This seems to work in Firefox as well.)
epanastrophe
2016-09-22 18:35:48
BTW the last few fixes have resolved all the major problems with the message board, so far as I'm concerned. As I see it we're now down to minor problems. So, good work.
jonawebb
2016-09-23 11:30:15
I'm a regular reader of this board. when I'm in town. I just got back from a 2 week trip and I've been slowly catching up on stuff. It stuck me that I miss the old sticky threads that used to appear at the top of the board like 311, stolen bikes and maybe transient stuff that bikpgh was trying to publicize. Can we get that back? It was useful. Having to scroll past ~3 threads was never a big deal.
ahlir
2016-09-25 17:27:41
A fourth one, about simple rules and how-to-post-pictures and such, would be a welcome addition.
stuinmccandless
2016-09-25 18:11:35
I cant upload images on iPhone or iPad. Gives and error. And on iPhone the window looks pretty messed up. Can't see much on there. I would post a screen shot but...
italianblend
2016-09-25 18:35:05
Some combination of Chrome, Android, and the forum coding is causing pages to reload every time I switch to another tab and then back again. Which wouldn't be so bad if I were interested in checking for new responses before responding, but is problematic when it wipes out a half-written reply...
epanastrophe
2016-10-07 10:00:20
Twice now, I've noticed that when I make a first-post in a new thread, I'm unable to modify the post. When I try to modify the post, I get an error  message: ERROR Forum ID is missing also, I've been unable to upload any images for a few weeks. Insert from URL works, but not uploading an image. Win 8.1, Firefox. thanks!    
vannever
2016-10-23 19:14:37
I'm getting the "ERROR: Forum ID is missing." error message when I try to edit a post, also. So edits are now impossible. Also, the layout is atrocious when you insert a raw URL into a post. (The HTML auto-generated from the raw URL is presumably at fault.) See my thread today on Allegheny Valley Railroad. The lousy layout makes the forum less fun to read.
paulheckbert
2016-10-28 15:50:26
Three current problems:
  1. The image upload feature doesn't work. At one point, it was sort-of working. It would be so nice to have this working again!
  2. Images are cropped when displayed in-line. If I use a flickr link, and the picture has a width/height aspect ratio less than some number (4/3?), especially if it's portrait mode, the bottom will be cut off. How many times have I been forced to type "click to see the whole picture. grrr" because of that bug?
  3. Posts continue to waste lots of screen space. If posts are more lightweight, it encourages more communication! See reddit and facebook. A one-sentence post need not use up two inches vertically!
paulheckbert
2016-11-26 09:30:02
liberty
erok
2016-11-29 09:26:33
is anyone else having an issue with the image upload?
erok
2016-11-29 09:26:58
Yeah. On my Android phone with Chrome I see a dialog for choosing an image. After choosing, I see a progress bar as the image is uploaded. Then that closes and I see this: (Note that I uploaded that image from the browser on my phone to postimage.org. So upload works on my phone, just not to bikepgh.)
jonawebb
2016-11-29 11:37:14
Paul - is your problem on your desktop or your phone?
erok
2016-11-29 16:16:01
I tried to upload a photo from my Win7 laptop, and got a similar situation to what @jonawebb encountered. Perfectly normal .png filetype of moderate size (458KB), but got an error message when tried to upload it. Repeatable. * Click "Add media" * Click "Upload files" * Click "Select files" * Navigate to file * Click "Open" * See progress bar, apparently uploading file "An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later."
stuinmccandless
2016-11-30 01:33:46
On Macbook laptop with Chrome browser: BUGGY. Looks like Jon's picture. Can't upload. On iphone5 with Safari browser: BUGGY. Looks like Jon's picture. Can't upload. On iphone5 from Google app: BUGGY. I'm able to select a picture to upload, and the upload appears to work, but immediately after that the screen looks like Jon's picture, and none of the buttons that I can see seem to work. So if the uploaded file is there, I'm not able to use it.
paulheckbert
2016-11-30 13:15:34
I think there are two issues going on here. One is whether your browser has access to the files stored on your machine. In Android, at least, you have to give permission, and I don't think the browser always asks for it. This seems like a problem with Chrome or Android more than a problem with bikepgh.org since I saw it on other sites. I found that by investigating the app settings there is a control panel that allows you to set permissions. I had something like "Access storage" off. Once I turned it on, I could upload files successfully to postimage.org, and I got the progress bar from bikepgh.org. But the bikepgh.org site still gave me the screen I posted above once it got done, apparently, uploading the file. Btw, here's the screen where I have permission to Chrome:
jonawebb
2016-11-30 13:26:05
How hard would it be to have some type of mileage tracker on the site/message board, e.g. like the National Bike Challenge site that just closed up shop.  Would self reported ride data be useful for BikePgh to lobby the City, or for other uses?
ka_jun
2016-11-30 23:16:04
I support that idea. Even if it's just a link to a reliable national one, I'd be fine with that.
stuinmccandless
2016-12-01 06:53:32
what about setting up a bike pgh strava group?
edronline
2016-12-01 07:44:00
I personally don't use Strava.  I'm thinking of something different than Strava heatmaps.
ka_jun
2016-12-01 11:57:28
The first tracker began in late 2010. In March 2012, Bike-Pgh replaced that limited but functional tracking system, that was within its domain, with another, nationally based mapping system. For three years, this one worked reasonably well. I used it reliably to track every mile I rode. It was what got me into riding a lot and keeping track of the increased mileage. Games like Tag-o-Rama and Wheelset of Fortune gave me further reason to put pavement under me. Then, just as the 2015 riding season was getting underway, the keepers of that system changed their website such that I could not use it. I screwed around with it for hours, over a few nights, and eventually gave up. In the last month I kept track, May 2015, I logged over 400 miles. Other systems exist, some of them tied to a particular device. But I don't go for that. I don't want to drop several hundred dollars on an electronic device whose primary purpose is to feed data to a website. All I need are:
  • A mapping mechanism where I can reconstruct my path of travel, like MapMyRide.
  • A table for storing new rides and referencing old ones.
  • A logging mechanism which can take input from either of the above.
Some nice-to-haves:
  • A way of displaying a map showing more than one trip at a time; e.g., bike to North Park in the morning, bike downtown in the afternoon, separate trips.
  • Summary mechanisms that show me miles per {day|week|month|year} and compare them to past {days|weeks|months|years}.
  • Ways to post these summaries to social media.
stuinmccandless
2016-12-01 13:26:46
This happened on both iPad and iPhone. The text and photo went on the original post. Then I went back in to edit the post to add a few words. Could not post the change; got this instead. https://twitter.com/bus15237/status/805456131334307840
stuinmccandless
2016-12-04 12:00:23
Getting that same forum id is missing issue when attempting to edit a new post. Chrome on Windows 7. Though I just edited this post, and it worked. It didn't work on my new topic about bayard / bigelow bike lane encroachemnt though. Might be that it fails when editing a topic (first post) but succeeds on a reply?
benzo
2016-12-09 10:14:46
is there a way to edit a post I make several hours after the post is up?  I can't find an edit hyperlink by the posts.
edronline
2016-12-09 18:50:42
In my experience the system gives you ~1h to edit your post; which is pretty generous in the scheme of things. Of course, you always have the option to do a followup post and better explicate the issue at hand while updating us on your evolving thinking. It's ok. There are no absolutes in the world of opinion.  
ahlir
2016-12-09 20:28:35
In my recent case, I was trying to edit my new post, almost immediately after posting when I got the forum id is missing error.  
benzo
2016-12-13 10:24:36
BUG: this URL (third page of forum threadlist) http://localhost/message-board/page/3/ yields PAGE NOT FOUND Return home?
  Same result here.  page/4/ also does not work, although /2/ does.
epanastrophe
2016-12-15 16:57:52
Spam thread here: http://localhost/message-board/topic/electric-bikeslegal-in-most-states-great-transportation-method Aside from that, I have been receiving a handful of emails--two today--asking me to approve or mark as spam a new trackback on the post "The out-of-town news thread, vol. II".  Each time, I click the link to mark it as spam (because they are, every one), which looks something like http://localhost/wp-admin/comment.php?action=spam&c= [ID_NO] #wpbody-content, and end up at the shop's account page http://localhost/shop/my-account/#wpbody-content ...
epanastrophe
2016-12-20 16:20:31
I'm glad others think that the electric bike thread is spam.  I looked up their website information. Very shady.  Seems to be located off shore with a U.S. front.  Big warning through the service I looked it up on that the website was pretty scammy. http://www.scamadviser.com/ Especially if you compare the results to bikepgh.org or pretty much every other website out there. For the spam website- Website: electricbikesandscooters.com Title: Buy electric bikes at electricbikesandscooters.com Domain Age: 187 Days Website Speed: Average Website Value: $141.07 Organisation: Domains By Proxy, LLC Owner: Registration Private Owner Address: DomainsByProxy.com,14747 N Northsight Blvd Suite 111, PMB 309 Owner City: Scottsdale Owner Postcode: 85260 Phone Number: +1.4806242599 United States Phone Type: geographic :Phoenix, AZ Qwest Corporation Email: United States Owner Country : Hidden Unknown Website Location : United States United States Probable website origin :- 88%; Unknown Unknown 12%; United States United States Notes:- Alert ResultThe owner of the website is using a service to hide their identity Alert ResultThis website is 187 Days old Alert ResultThe website expected life (365 days) is relatively short. Analysis Details:- Although being a new website, does not make it un-trustworthy, as with any new business you should be extra vigilant and do your own research before placing an order or making an investment. This site is using an anonymous service - which prevents us from identifying the site owner. This can sometimes be just so that the owner does not receive spam, but be aware that many scam sites use this as a method to hide their identify. If this is an ecommerce site - we would suggest you confirm the business address with the website owners. The website has been newly registered with a short life expectancy, which follows the pattern used by many fraudulent and fake selling websites. Please be vigilant and take extra care before providing any payment information.
edronline
2016-12-20 16:23:39
I'm getting spam email through this site. I assume (given earlier posts on this thread) that there's a bogus account. Or maybe a more serious hack. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [urls disabled] from: BikePGH A new trackback on the post "Commuter bike for a woman" is waiting for your approval http: //localhost/message-board/topic/commuter-bike-for-a-woman/ Website: montres faux cartier femme (IP: 113.66.40.159, 113.66.40.159) URL: http: //www.aaawatch.cn/fr/ Trackback excerpt: montres faux cartier femme Use the feedback in Arbitration Results to do just that. Approve it: http: //localhost/wp-admin/comment.php?action=approve&c=35858#wpbody-content Trash it: http: //localhost/wp-admin/comment.php?action=trash&c=35858#wpbody-content Spam it: http: //localhost/wp-admin/comment.php?action=spam&c=35858#wpbody-content Currently 385 comments are waiting for approval. Please visit the moderation panel: http: //localhost/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?comment_status=moderated#wpbody-content
ahlir
2016-12-23 11:50:36
When I had a wordpress site I had a plugin that would filter out all this trackback spam.  I'm sure that Bikepgh has the same.  it would dump it all into a spam folder that I could look at if I chose to.  It was all spam/junk, selling fake handbags, sunglasses, viagara, etc.
edronline
2016-12-23 14:16:07
I cannot get an image uploaded, nor can I get it linked. I suppose if I had all morning, I could screw around with trying to get my old Flickr account reactivated, upload there, and link from there like I used to do five years ago. But it would sure be nice if I could spend 20 seconds to upload a photo straight from my computer. Win7 laptop, Firefox. Repeated "Error in upload, try again later."
stuinmccandless
2016-12-28 13:11:29
When you go to add a comment on a thread, and it says "You must [log in] to comment", after you click on "log in", and log in, the web system should return you to exactly where you were, so you're not forced to find the message board, and find the thread, and find the particular web page once again.
paulheckbert
2016-12-29 10:17:06
Please fix some of these web bugs. Today's bug is that I had submitted a post http://localhost/message-board/topic/we-need-trails-on-both-banks-of-the-mon/ and the system mashed my paragraphs together (looking unlike the text I entered in the edit window). When I hit Edit, made some changes and hit Submit again, I got an "ERROR: Forum ID is missing". I tried 4 times. So it was impossible to Edit this post.
paulheckbert
2016-12-31 20:32:59
Hi Everyone, Thank you for keeping this thread going with information on bugs -- it is super helpful as we continue to improve the website. Our developers are following this thread, and so am I. Some bugs are harder to resolve than others, but we're getting there! Your support is appreciated. Thanks, Jane
skipdip
2017-01-11 11:01:16
It might sound like all we have is complaints -- and of course there's plenty to fix -- but your efforts are much appreciated. As a new resident, the message board has been the most engaging and useful local resource I've found. TYVM!
ornoth
2017-01-11 16:18:24
I cannot seem to get to a page on the index prior to page 2. Page 1 is, of course, the main message board page. Scroll to the bottom and click "Next", and you go to page 2. But scroll to the bottom of that and click either "Next" or "3", and you get a "Page not found" message. This is on my laptop (Win 7, Firefox). I haven't tried other platforms, or getting to pages 3 and back from other places. Is anyone else seeing this? I was trying to find the thread about Angela Urban being hit with her sister by a distracted driver last May, and striking out on looking for her name or other words that I recall about the incident, decided to start scrolling back through the listings. Couldn't get page the second page.
stuinmccandless
2017-02-05 15:39:37
"media" upload continues to be broken (and/or has shitty error messages).
ahlir
2017-02-05 18:37:04
*couldn't get past the second page. Meanwhile, confirmed that it fails in the same manner using Chrome on Win7.
stuinmccandless
2017-02-05 19:32:32
Stu: yes, that page 3 bug appears to date from December or earlier: http://localhost/message-board/topic/message-board-updates-and-constructive-ideas/page/7/#post-336025 A general question: can you guys make the web site 2x or 4x or 8x faster? The page load times for the messageboard are excessive. Undoubtedly, this is discouraging readers. I just timed: 9 seconds for http://localhost/message-board/ 15 seconds for http://localhost/message-board/topic/message-board-updates-and-constructive-ideas/page/7/#post-338053
paulheckbert
2017-02-05 21:19:53
It isn't just the message board.  It is the entire site. Usually you have to pay more money a month to get faster hosting and sometimes the trade-off ($$$ for speed) isn't worth it to a non profit
edronline
2017-02-05 21:30:41
WordPress has a number of free caching plugins available. Some have lots of settings. There's plenty of stuff they could try without spending any bucks (only time). And there are some basic issues with the site coding that should be simple to fix. There's no reason it needs to load the same JavaScript file several dozen times, for instance, but it does. And it takes almost 2 seconds each time the page requests a certain CSS file that doesn't exist (which it seems to do five or six times). I've noticed that the scroll bar seems to update well before the site shows any text (unlike most sites). That makes me think part of the the issue is with scripting or fonts; the browser has the content, but perhaps has been told not to display it until it's all finished loading the page, rather than displaying content as it comes in. For instance, when doing a full reload of this page, Firefox has retrieved all the text for the page by the 2.5 second mark, but doesn't display any of it until much later. So there's lots of room for improvement before they even think about paying for faster hosting; just eliminating some of the obvious wastefulness would help a lot.
steven
2017-02-05 23:39:50
Same issue as Stu. Was trying to bump the "long overdue instructions" thread because it has been neglected. I have the URL for it but it won't load. So I can't bump it up.   Not sure anyone can get on it anymore? http://localhost/message-board/topic/long-overdue-introductions-thread/ Edit: wouldn't load from my smartphone -- running Android 7.1.1 and newest version of Chrome.  But would load from my Win 10 computer, also running newest version of Chrome.  However, seems to have made a lot of calls to different websites, including one called "randomprecisionphoto.com"  For whatever reason that was fouling up the old thread working on my phone browser. Also, returning the pinned posts would help.  
edronline
2017-02-12 20:24:02
Can we have an auto-subscribe-to-new-threads option. It's hard to keep up with new threads without often checking the message board. Just give me all, and I can unsubscribe to those that don't interest me.
yalecohen
2017-02-14 22:39:51
Still miss the pinned posts (introductions, stolen stuff, conditions report).
benzo
2017-02-16 10:08:24
just noticed on my windows 10 with chrome (all updated to the newest versions) the bikepgh.org site switches back between http: and https.  If I logout, it defaults as http.  I can log in (it thus sends my password as clear text, oi!!) and then force it to go back into https mode by going into the store, throwing something into the cart, and then going into the payment screen.  Then, if I go to any other bikepgh.org page, it is https. this is obviously a bug somewhere.   update: you can force it back and forth by typing in the full web address -- http:// vs https://.  Ideally a website should "push" or force a typed in http:// address to a https:// connection
edronline
2017-03-17 20:39:55
What is the problem? I am trying to upload an image to the forum and I get "An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later" outlined in red.
zzwergel
2017-03-20 00:39:33
The web site http://openstreetspgh.org/ is down currently. It's a bad day for this, with the first Open Streets Pgh event today!
paulheckbert
2017-05-28 10:25:48
PKCS cert for bikepgh.org issued by Starfield Secure Cert Authority certs.starfieldtech.com expired today and started producing invalid cert errors. Please renew your cert.
ornoth
2017-08-05 16:28:09
Due to the issue above if you use https on a chrome browser for this site you get all types of security warnings.   IMHO when this gets fixed they also should force https, because right now you can view the site either way depending on whether you go to it with https or http. If you just type in bikepgh.org it defaults to http. Not really best practice and I think forcing https is super easy to enable.
edronline
2017-08-06 09:00:06
If I try the “You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Click here to login.” link in the past few days, I enter my name & password, and when I click the “Log In” button, I’ve gotten a “Not Found. The requested document was not found on this server.” error, both from Chrome on macbook and from Safari on iphone. But it did actually log me in. It merely looks like it failed. Similar erroneous error message for logout.
paulheckbert
2017-09-19 23:25:34

I've seen the same 404 error screen on login for about two weeks - iOS(X), chrome & safari.

marko82
2017-09-20 09:38:56
I get the same error as well. If you click back to the page that dumped you, you're fine (and auth'd). But this is definitely a bug.
ahlir
2017-09-20 10:02:09
Yeah, having the same weird redirect after logging in on chrome on windows and mac at least. It does log me in, but always have to re-type the URL to get back to the main board page. Doesn't seem to matter if I login from the main board page or a thread page.
benzo
2017-09-20 12:26:26
I've gotten the error as well!
zzwergel
2017-09-20 22:50:05
Well, there certainly is a major new look to the board. I think it functions OK, though a couple of points could yet be tuned. The "Edit" button does actually work, but I wasn't expecting to get the whole splash screen above the post I was trying to edit.
stuinmccandless
2017-09-21 20:58:35
I think they fixed the login. I was able to login normally from my phone this afternoon (after I worked around the display bug that kept "login" from appearing -- it was covered up by the Facebook etc icons at the bottom. I used the Desktop view).
jonawebb
2017-09-21 22:21:59
FWIW, still get the bad redirect after a logout event, but login seems good now.
benzo
2017-09-22 10:13:07
The board is not functional on an iPhone 4.
stuinmccandless
2017-09-23 07:00:50
The display of flickr pictures is broken on some bikepgh forum pages today. Fix this! An example is at http://localhost/message-board/topic/turtle-creek-rail-trail/page/6/#post-346683 There's a flickr URL just after the caption "Rankin end of Rankin Bridge: click for uncropped picture" that displayed fine a few days ago, but today, the bug is that I'm seeing a big white space plus the base of the linked-to filename ("rankin_bridge_sidewalk_annotated"). Instead it should be displaying the picture. PS: "click for uncropped picture" is something I've had to say when using flickr URLs for months, because this web system often crops the picture, failing to show it all. Continued grrrrrrrr.
paulheckbert
2017-09-26 10:53:50
Works on my Android with chrome. Maybe it was Flickr?
edronline
2017-09-26 12:50:27
Truly. If a pic is too large to display in the content area, it should be *proportionally* resized downward, rather than randomly cropping it. A "content management system" shouldn't be arbitrarily mangling content.
ornoth
2017-09-26 12:52:57
what i've noticed is that when I reply to a thread I now have to hit the submit button more than once.  Or maybe there's just now a long pause built in after hitting the Submit button for the reply.   also, it typically a) marks my reply as new to me, so to clear the green I have to open the thread again and read my own reply, and b) often after I hit submit it takes me to page 1 of the thread.
edronline
2017-09-26 13:16:37
In good news, I can now browse and add comments via my iPhone4. Whatever you fixed, thank you!
stuinmccandless
2017-09-26 15:57:03
The menu in the Mac version of Chrome is all jacked up. Looks fine in Safari and (Windows) Chrome.   https://flic.kr/p/XVsyux
rustyred
2017-09-28 12:44:38
I can't login on my phone anymore. I have an Android and I'm using Chrome. The Bottom bar with links for Facebook Twitter Pinterest Etc blocks the very bottom of the menu that has the login option.
edronline
2017-10-01 20:05:51
@edronline, I ran into that, too. You can get around it by switching to desktop mode for a minute. But of course it's a bug that should be fixed.
jonawebb
2017-10-01 20:15:58
That's a good work around.  I went into a thread and scrolled to the bottom to the "log in" link.
edronline
2017-10-01 20:47:36
I've also been using the login link on the threads as well. Seems to be the easiest way on mobile. I can't get it to work with desktop mode on my phone.
benzo
2017-10-02 09:31:10
Minor irritation on iPad: I cannot discern whether I have read a thread or not, like I can on my Windows laptop. Probably something in the .css? Make it green(er), bolder, something, to make the unread posts stand out, like they do on Windows.
stuinmccandless
2017-10-02 23:47:47
Maybe it is browser related. Does your iPad have a current version of Safari?  Have you tried downloading a second web browser to your ipad?   Maybe your browser is too old to support whatever html5 or css code they are using to turn the new threads green?
edronline
2017-10-03 07:33:58
Please please stop it with the "stay up to date with our newsletter" popup.
jonawebb
2017-10-07 13:55:08
+1.  It is so annoying.  It pops up right when I'm trying to do something else on the page and it is very large and must be dismissed in order to continue on the website
edronline
2017-10-07 17:24:06
Everything got wonkie today (Mac iOS-Safari) ((ok in Chrome) I cant get the cursor into the text area at all, so unable to post anything, & Most Importantly the GUI is putting things in list form (or whatever https://imgur.com/a/HJsOy
rustyred
2017-10-10 20:48:32
the iOS-Safari issue seems to be fixed. thanks!
marko82
2017-10-11 15:20:23
The login 404  issue seems fixed;  Thanks (iOS-safari)
marko82
2017-10-13 17:13:19
Apparently something timed out or got reset, so that when I brought up the message board on my Win10 laptop using Google Chrome (v61.0.3163.100), I found I needed to log in again. OK, fine. That succeeded, but I was presented with a "not found" page, and this in the address bar. I added a blank between the http and the trailing "s" so that this would not actually bring up a page. "http://localhost/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bikepgh.org%2Fmessage-board%2Ftopic%2Fbiking-east-suburbs%2F%23new-post"
stuinmccandless
2017-10-14 14:35:47
Also getting the weird redirect on login -- for me, it went to https ://localhost/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bikepgh.org%2Fmb%2F. Looks like it's trying to redirect to the secure server, but not trimming the url properly before sticking on the https stub.
epanastrophe
2017-10-18 16:47:36
Petty grievance: I'm a dues-paying member of bikepgh. In my posts, I'm labelled as a "Participant". Some other people get labelled as a "Member". What is up with that? Could you at least explain what us lowly posters need to do to ascend through the (seemingly) many levels of inclusion and recognition? Higher contributions? Knowing the right people? Simply complaining? I just want to know... Nothing personal, of course.
ahlir
2017-10-21 20:58:03
Damn.  I'm a member.  I guess that everyone is equal here, but some are more equal.  Like me.
edronline
2017-10-21 21:19:41
Number of posts, I think.
stuinmccandless
2017-10-21 23:18:40
In that case, it seems like Participant signifies superiority through our extreme posting frequency, while lowly Members perhaps only post when they have something interesting and relevant to say. So I think it's edronline, not Ahlir, who should be grousing about having inferior message board status. In any case, Bike Pittsburgh really needs to clarify all this, so we know who should be lording it over whom.
steven
2017-10-21 23:40:02
Stu, you have way more posts than I do.
edronline
2017-10-22 08:06:00
I've been on the board regularly for over 10 years. I think I signed up sometime in 2006, maybe even earlier than that. It wouldn't surprise me if I'm in the neighborhood of 10,000 posts.
stuinmccandless
2017-10-22 19:32:02
Here's an idea: To have more precise differentiation, we could set up maybe 5 levels. How about alpha (plus,minus), beta (plus,minus) and gamma? And publish some guidelines so that at least us gammas can understand (to the degree that we're capable) what we need to do to progress (if that's indeed possible).
ahlir
2017-10-23 11:02:03
Personally, I like the sequence: Spammer (0-2 posts), Lurker (3-12), Regular (13-250), Troll (251+).
ornoth
2017-10-23 11:18:54
Can I be given troll even without 250?   I bet it is linked not to the # of posts but to your bike PGH donation profile as I'm a monthly donation member.  But their database either isn't complete or properly linked to active members
edronline
2017-10-23 13:56:39
Using three Greek letters to represent five levels sounds perfectly sensible, but it's not very welcoming to people of different cultures. I suggest instead using levels named Γ (Greek gamma), Г (Cyrillic), Phoenician , then one letter from Tengwar and one from Futurama (images not handy). But they should be mapped to levels in a random way that varies over time, so everyone has a chance to be level  occasionally, and give those poor level Г newbies a hard time. Then the instructions for progressing to a better level can be: just wait. Simple and elegant.
steven
2017-10-23 14:18:31
??? ?? ??. But seriously, what is up with all these labels? Will we have to wear level-appropriate armbands to that meeting tomorrow?
ahlir
2017-10-23 18:48:36
@ahlir, your plan would usher in a new world that is brave.
edronline
2017-10-23 19:40:49
Ok, the login 404 is back....   ...and as a "participant" do I get a trophy or something like at the youth soccer games?
marko82
2017-10-23 20:08:18
Well, if you're going to do that, we may as well bring back this thread
stuinmccandless
2017-10-23 21:29:09
i've been trying to get the devs to fix this. it's annoying
erok
2017-10-24 10:49:14
I'm not getting any follow-ups...of my posts or subscriptions...it's been going on for a long time...months...???
yalecohen
2017-12-04 00:31:45
I've noticed a drop in the number of people participating in this messageboard in the past year. I suspect it's a consequence of the new web system (as of 2017) and its slow response time. If a page loads in under a second, that's tolerable. When pages take 5-10 seconds to load, routinely, many users don't come back. BikePgh should fix its web system to make page load times much faster.
paulheckbert
2018-02-02 13:43:30
I complained somewhere else on the board but the load times have gotten worse recently...  Some of this may be a cost issue . Typically upgrading your hosting package increases the speed.
edronline
2018-02-02 14:38:39
I don't think the slowdown is due to server load (at least not a bikepgh.org). If you watch the links being loaded (ex at the bottom left in Chrome) it looks like some of the links related to ads (I guess) are slowing things down, especially "countserver.sharethis.com", I think. Please clean this up.
jonawebb
2018-02-08 09:36:28
My biggest barrier is still the stupid login, often redirecting me after I login to a bad url and not being able to see the login option in the menu bar on mobile (chrome/safari on iPhone)    
benzo
2018-02-08 10:02:16
When chrome 68 rolls out it'll mark all http sites as not secure .Bikepgh actually supports https on all pages but the hosting/wordpress isn't set to force https .can someone switch this over on the server/WordPress side?   Right now if you log in using an http page instead of https your password is being sent as clear text .yikes.   This is an easy fix.  I did this yesterday with my own website
edronline
2018-02-09 10:32:50
Hi @edronline I sent this issue to our developers to address. Thank you for letting us know.
skipdip
2018-02-09 12:36:08
Did the message board change for other people- ie, the Avatar pictures disappeared from the main message board topic screen?
edronline
2018-02-17 19:07:57
Not for me, but the site omits the avatar images on that screen when the browser window is narrower than around 640 pixels.
steven
2018-02-17 23:58:06
That's really weird since nothing changed with my phone. I get avatars on this page but not on the message board index.
edronline
2018-02-18 00:06:18
If you visit this page, it should display your browser window's size. If the bottom number is 640 or more, you should see avatars on this page. If not, then not. The individual thread pages always show avatars (just formatted differently on narrow screens). Of course, knowing what you "should" see only tells you whether the site's broken for you now, or it was broken before and it's now fixed.
steven
2018-02-18 03:13:31
It is well above 640. When I visit on the mobile page they are gone. If I switch over on my phone to the desktop version they are back. Oh well.
edronline
2018-02-18 10:11:57
The thing that takes me to the most recent post isn't working in many longer threads now. This is iPhone, Chrome. I saw it most recently on the 311 thread.
jonawebb
2018-02-19 08:26:11
I had that too. The threads didn't look "overfull" either.
edronline
2018-02-19 13:35:14
I'm having some bizarre behavior intermittently over the past few days. I usually navigate directly to the Message Board index page. Recently, I arrive there and have been logged out, even if it has only been a short time since I logged in (yes, with the persistent login checked). From there, one of two things can happen... If I click Login and attempt to log in, I get rejected with an "invalid recaptcha" error. But if I go back and log in from the home page, I can login successfully. If, instead of trying to log in, I just follow a link to view an individual message board thread, then the thread pages comes up... and I am magically *logged back in* without having ever gone through the login prompt. If I then navigate to the message board index page (where I was logged out before) I still remain logged in! This is bizarre and very worrying behavior. A site which can't properly handle users' login credentials doesn't inspire trust. And that's on top of the frustration of having my persistent login preference ignored. Is this problem unique to me, or have others encountered this? Experienced on laptop MacOS Sierra Chrome. Haven't worked to verify it on other platforms & browsers as of yet.
ornoth
2018-02-19 15:41:19
Same problems. A couple of days ago login was not working on Chrome; nor today ([Version 64.0.3282.167 (Official Build) (64-bit)]; Win10 1709), but worked on Edge or Firefox. On Chrome reCapcha was refusing to accept me. Tonight, Chrome would not let me edit a post ("504 Gateway Time-out / nginx"). I had no problem logging in then editing with Edge, or with Firefox. But I did login from the home page. It was also the case that otherwise Chrome/reCapcha has been making me do their image test, with successive views. Even with me trying to do my best to make non-robot motions.  
ahlir
2018-02-19 20:27:05
The developers have been working on some issues the past few days.
erok
2018-02-20 11:36:35
you may notice it's https now
erok
2018-02-20 11:37:01
For me it's currently loading the first page of a thread instead of the most recent.   iOS - safari  & chrome
marko82
2018-02-20 12:47:22
gah.
erok
2018-02-20 12:52:14
WEIRD. It seems like page 1 is now the most recent page of posts, everything is sorted from most recent to least recent now (used to be page 1 was the least recent and posts were ordered from least recent to most recent). However, clicking on a thread from the main forum page still brings you to the last page of the thread (the first posts) instead of page 1 with the most recent posts. Not sure what to expect, but I'm guessing yinz probably already know something about it.
benzo
2018-02-20 13:23:56
this last post first is nucking futs.  You need to then scroll all the way to the bottom to add something new.  Which then gets added up top.   OI!! please fix else this will kill the message board.
edronline
2018-02-20 19:22:16
please fix else this will kill the message board
They already half-killed it, earlier. The messageboard changes a year or two ago, that made page load times several times longer than they used to be, have probably driven away half the former user pool. Speed it up 5x or more, and fix the message-ordering bug, and you might be on your way to restoring it to its former popularity.
paulheckbert
2018-02-20 23:22:59
Ugh. I can't use this message board anymore. This is a simple WordPress setting someone flipped. Can someone just flip it back?
edronline
2018-02-21 09:33:29
Please just shut the whole thing down for a week & fix all these issues. We use to have a really active community here with several dozen people interacting on a regular basis and who knows how many others following along without posting.  Sadly, most of the regular users no longer post here because the functionality/usability of this message board sucks.  Some of that discussion now takes place on Facebook which is ok, but even on BP Facebook page content tends to be stale or last minute, and not very interactive. There is a lot of activism that gets started and nurtured from the discussions on this platform, lets not lose that.    
marko82
2018-02-21 11:52:17
Does the bike PGH staff know what's going on? There is often a lag between when an issue is identified and when it gets fixed, if it ever does. This issue is less an annoyance and more critical since functionality is crap. I often feel that bikepgh could do a better job with communicating on these sorts of issues. I keep checking back hoping this issue is fixed...
edronline
2018-02-21 12:41:09
I am sorry for all of the frustration with the message board, everyone. I understand the important role this space plays in your activism. BikePGH staff does know about these issues–We do not have a developer on our small staff of 9 to provide immediate attention to everything which is why you see things being resolved with some lag time. We do communicate issues to our generous volunteer developers regularly. Thank you for supporting BikePGH through your membership dues and through your activism on and outside of the message board...and thank you for your patience as we continue to try and resolve our website issues.
skipdip
2018-02-21 12:59:43
Update: backwards posting issue has been resolved.
skipdip
2018-02-21 16:12:22
Thank you for restoring the ordering to the previous state. We appreciate it! We (including us dues-paying members) understand that things can go wrong and that someone will (eventually) fix it. But it shouldn't be a big deal to post "we're experiencing technical difficulties until further notice. Please stay tuned". It's easy to do and it's a simple way to make us feel that someone cares, or is even paying attention. And it significantly decreases the number of those cranky posts (which are never a good sign). And calling out the volunteers is always nice ("Thank you @GregLeMond for fixing that stupid .ini bug!").
ahlir
2018-02-21 18:58:54
It is back being forward!
edronline
2018-02-21 20:33:08
Thanks for putting the board back to its same broken self.... But it's still broke.  Load times are painfully long, you can't post images easily, it doesn't scale well on mobile devices, and on and on. It's time for BP to either put some money into this or let it die.  I can use an old school site like reddit because at the end of the day it works, but dealing with all the glitches on this site has me visiting (and posting) less and less, and it has driven people to other platforms.  We are losing the community.  Don't believe me, how many new users have you seen posting here this year?    
marko82
2018-02-21 22:03:15
Thanks so much for restoring order to the boards! Dilly Dilly!
benzo
2018-02-22 10:46:10
I'm glad there are volunteers that maintenance the board but some basic checking of functionalty is needed once tweaks are made.
edronline
2018-02-22 14:17:37
Have an “A” site and a “B” site. One is production, the other QA. Make your tweaks in the QA site. When checked out with a simple battery of tests, flip them. Meanwhile, incoming content updates both.
stuinmccandless
2018-02-22 21:13:06
Y'all need to ease up on the staff, please. No one on staff really runs this, they just report issues. Certainly no one is running QA, or even has time to. If you want to see those sorts of things you should come in and volunteer.
mayhew
2018-02-24 20:55:45
most pages on bikepgh.org says https:// in green (100% secure).  The message board individual threads show them insecure probably because the pictures linked in the message threads are pointing to http:// (ie insecure) links. Once july hits Chrome will declare these pages "not secure."   fixing this will be a bear.
edronline
2018-02-26 19:40:10
The message board replaces emoji and Chinese characters with question marks.

?

zzwergel
2018-02-27 20:46:46
Today I couldn't log in from my work computer (win 10, chrome 64). Kept getting"invalid recaptcha" error on the login screen. I have the exact same setup at home and it works...
edronline
2018-02-27 20:58:54
A constant irritation: Not being able to insert a hand-built “a href” tag. This error has been around a few months. First, an example. * Go to the current 412 Flock thread * Find the recent posts about the Viking Ride * I have one in which I mention Brigadoon * The word “Brigadoon” is a link to a Wikipedia article. Getting that link to work correctly took well over five minutes. What’s going on is that the message board software adds an extraneous quote mark when you manually build a link. This breaks the “A” tag. The sequence should look like [a href=“URL to some website”] (using angle brackets instead of square ones) but instead you get a third quote mark next to the second, every time. Attempts to repair it will work about 1 chance in 3. Either the quote comes back anyway, or the software drops the whole URL sequence altogether.
stuinmccandless
2018-03-26 05:39:33
The software is indeed annoying. At the very least it could inform you about your formatting errors. But no. It's easy to make a typo and suddenly the whole thing disappears. Not everyone typing in weird html is a troll. (And why can't we just get .md formatting as an input option? I mean, sheesh, it's 2018.) I do my posts in 'TEXT' mode, so for example I can point to this board like this and it should work. But be careful to not switch into VISUAL mode, which will simply trash your markup.
ahlir
2018-03-26 19:38:06
I've also had visual mode eat up my letters as I type so I always use text mode.
edronline
2018-03-26 20:55:49
I’m one of those new users who would probably post more often than I do, but it’s VERY hard for a new person to even FIND the log in button!   I’ve tried to respond to threads and I’m taken to a screen saying I need to log in, but I search the page and the menu and there is no link. After a lot of playing around I managed to do it today, but honestly I don’t think I could quickly do it again. This is super basic. If you want new people to join your discussions, you have to make it easy for them. If the log in/register buttons aren’t prominently displayed, you’re gonna lose a lot of traffic like me who browse regularly and sometimes feel like adding a bit to the discussion.
pit2mad
2018-04-24 17:24:39
Starting in September chrome will label all non https sites as not secure and will start flashing it on the address bar when typing data into forms on these sites. The bikepgh message board uses https, but many of the links to pictures within it are http links. Thus, most threads on the message board have broken locks. They are mixed secure and not. By September chrome won't care and when people type out new messages on the message board using chrome the not secure will flash. I worry this will scare away potential users of the message board... https://www.engadget.com/amp/2018/05/18/chrome-to-kill-secure-indicator/
edronline
2018-05-18 07:53:25
I agree with @PIT2MAD about the login button. Through practice I’ve learned to find it by clicking on some random thread and scrolling to the bottom to find the login link, but that is SO non-intuitive.
stuinmccandless
2018-05-19 19:06:44
Maybe it’s time to simply create a subreddit for this community. We have been dealing with a less than ideal forum for many years now. I don’t blame anyone as I understand there is really no hired tech staff, but it would be so nice to have a great forum that’s easy to use. I’m not an expert. But it’s 2018. There’s gotta be a free or low cost option out there.
italianblend
2018-05-22 18:44:22
Posting TO THE MESSAGE BOARD a message about the message board not working is... there's got to be a good word for it, possibly German...
jonawebb
2018-05-30 09:58:20
BeitragZuGebrochenenAnkündigungstafel?  
ahlir
2018-05-30 10:11:25
I tried. I was hoping that my post about the message board not being there would magically make it come back.   there has to be a German word for magical thinking that I can't remember from my 4 years of Deutsch I took in High School.
edronline
2018-05-30 10:24:07
Anytime there's a problem accessing the board itself, I contact Erok via Twitter, or failing that, a phone call to the Bike-Pgh office.
stuinmccandless
2018-05-30 10:53:37
reCAPTCHA v3 is now out.  The bikepgh site currently uses v2 during login. It's the "I'm not a robot" clickbox. v3 has NO visible interface with the person using it. i'm wondering if the website coders could add a v3 reCAPTCHA to the message board.  I think it would cut down on the # of spam posts to the message board as well as create little friction for the every day user (They'd still see the "submit" button and wouldn't have to do anything extra to post.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbvxFW4UJdU
edronline
2018-11-02 06:39:27
Thanks @Marko82 for finding the right thread. The Forum search function leaves a lot to be desired. Anyway, I posted that suddenly the lock has disappeared in my browser -- i.e., bikepgh.org is serving up insecure content along with secure content, and Chrome is flagging it as a security problem. @Steven did some snooping and found that the Over the Bar footer ad is being served up as an HTTP link image instead of HTTPS, thus causing the problem. If someone at bikepgh could tell whoever maintains the site that this is the case, it should be a 5 minute fix.
edronline
2019-01-11 20:46:29
(Just to be pedantic, it's not the OTB footer ad that's the problem, but the OTB sidebar ad. The exact same image, but in the sidebar it's referenced with http, in the footer with https.)
steven
2019-01-12 15:34:48
It's hardly intuitive, but if you can remember one unique word in the post you're looking for, the search function works reasonably well. In this case, it was the word "constructive". All you need is to memorize all 359,178 posts on the board first.
stuinmccandless
2019-01-12 22:45:25
A) someone added an attachment function to posts but size limit is 512k. Really. That's how much memory my first 8088-2 PC had. Though I upgraded it to 768k, but MS-DOS would only recognize the first 640k. Bummer. B) the search threads function seems to have disappeared, at least on the mobile version of the webpage.
edronline
2019-05-15 16:16:56
Nearly every photo is 1-2MB. Let me try adding a random pic, a still of the Westinghouse flood gate, from the video on our April 2017 field trip. Nope. 5CA7312C-5DE1-42BE-A95A-44FDD71B765C.png An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later.
stuinmccandless
2019-05-18 09:47:22
here's a 42 byte text file.
edronline
2019-05-18 10:29:43
Thank God I can now share my messages under 512 kb with everyone on the Bike Pittsburgh message board. I think I'm going to break out some ANSI art like I used to have on my BBS in the 1980s.
edronline
2019-05-18 10:30:34
We had a flurry of spam on the messageboard this morning (a new thread with text in Mandarin being started every minute or so) but using my awesome and magical moderator powers I marked them as spam, alerted Eric Boerer, and he blocked the offending user/bot. By the way, ergfdhfhfgh09 would like to sell you a fake diploma.
paulheckbert
2019-05-20 11:58:30
I'm going to now post exclusively using attached .txt files made with windows 10 notepad. sorta like when I used pico on the SunOS machines back in college.
edronline
2019-05-20 15:20:19
They're Baaacck....  Hey Paul, it looks like you have a new full-time job removing spam from the message board.
marko82
2019-05-21 07:38:25
it seems like the message board is dying a slow death. There's a general lack of interest which i think is from multiple issues. 1) the interface stinks, 2) there's no improvement of anything that's broken-ish, 3) spam is starting to pop up. it's like taking your kid to a playground and over the years as the equipment starts to break and it starts getting overgrown with weeds nothing is done to keep it in shape. Sure, maybe the diehard kids come to play still, but why would anyone else go there? Is there a way to pull this message board out of death by neglect, or should we consider taking our talents to someplace like a subreddit?
edronline
2019-05-21 09:34:49
My superpowers are not as strong as Eric Boerer's. He is able to block users. I don't know all the details, but it seems that a year or two ago, changes were made to the web system that resulted in much longer response times (like 5 or 10 seconds instead of 1 second) and that drove away most of the users. I think that, by itself, is the main cause of the decline of this messageboard. I wish BikePgh would fix that.
paulheckbert
2019-05-22 10:12:03
My guess is cheaper web hosting. I had the option with my web site to buy faster server response time for more $$$. Wasn't worth it for me. May have been worth it for bike PGH but they may not have the funds to do this and everything else. Hence the volunteer web developer, etc. My guess is that is an in kind donation with the advertisement on the bike PGH website.
edronline
2019-05-22 10:16:38
Pheck wrote:
My superpowers are not as strong as Eric Boerer’s. He is able to block users.
Somebody give the man the power! While BikePGH may not care whether the forum dies, at least give the ability to police the board to someone who does.
ornoth
2019-05-29 11:18:07
Constructive idea: How can we use the msg-bd to gauge increased cycling by new riders, new to Pittsburgh riders, and riders who’ve ramped up the amount they bike in and around the city? The heyday of this board was 2009-2013. Various things happened then. The rise of Facebook and other alternatives, a badly rolled out change to the board’s software, and the natural change of faces as people move on with their lives. Meh. Water over the dam, no need to rehash. Instead, focus on what got people riding, talking, sharing ideas. We had games, like Tag-o-Rama, but also Wheelset Of Fortune, and a scavenger hunt to seek out the hundreds of protractors that got glued up all over the city. I, for one, had time on my hands or made time, to check out all these possibilities. Second, we had well attended group rides. Some of the last pre-Flock Critical Mass rides got 150 or more riders. Tweed Rides, the Bridesmaid Dress ride, a couple of swimsuit rides, Midnight Mass, other night rides where we’d end up having pancakes at Ritter’s at 3:30 a.m. Today’s Underwear Rides still draw big crowds, so I know the interest is out there. What’s next? I think this is more a question for the greater Bike-Pgh organization than the handful of die-hard MB participants. Do we even have a community anymore, and if not why not?
stuinmccandless
2019-06-20 13:17:27
Blame it on Trump or George Wallace... I didn't see any ideas...constructive or not...only questions...??? which was sort of answered...the MB is kinda dead..and you would like it to be the center of pgh bike culture, etc... advertise, advertise, advertise... a BikePgh app might help... a additional platforms...say FB or twitter... offer free food and sex... have a contest... offer free sex ...start 'em young by talking in the schools about biking and etc... get the idea?  ...oh yea, did I mention, offer fr... And really, the MB is poorly designed, even for its heyday...difficult to use...hard to logon, difficult to navigate, etc ... no kindergardener would put up with the ui... only a few hacks from the old times nostalgically put up with it...while waiting the mills and penny farthings to come back... well, at least, banna bikes...
yalecohen
2019-06-21 02:43:46
I wish the default option...or at least an option...was to receuve all threads on the MB...or at least subscribed threads and NEW threads...then one could unsubscribe to new threads not interested in. Unless one accesses the board often, new threads, and the info therein, are lost... Also, when one has an item to post, please see if it fits into a more generic existing thread or create it as more generic name. FOR EXAMPLE: This is most inconvenient in reporting stolen bikes. (Such a post added today) I recall a Stolen Bike thread...I subscribed to it...but no one uses it...and when I happen to peruse the thread, I may find an old lost.stolen bike notice...too late for me to do anything about it. When you create a thread: Aunt Mollie's Green Trek with Caterpillar Horn Stolen ... ...it creates an unnecessary thread ..overloading the MB...  Think filesystem... This may also contribute to the dtsfunctionality of the MB.
yalecohen
2019-08-07 08:24:36
the web developer for bikepgh is/was a volunteer and it's unclear if there is any maintenance done anytime, anymore. Me thinks that what we have now is what we're going to have in the foreseeable future.
edronline
2019-08-11 10:20:12
Methinks everyone reading this thinks they know the state of the  MB what-it-is... This thread us for constructive ideas...for that time that when some attention us given to improving the state....and, indeed, someone reading this thread may just be motivated, after seeing all the clear and thoughtful ideas presented here, to step up to clean house...no doubt prompting backlash on fixing-something-that-isn't-broken...the nature 1A. And of course there are comments about USER BEHAVIOR that can be changed now...which was the main point of my comnent.
yalecohen
2019-08-11 10:56:18
I am trying to think of something constructive to say about being prompted for full login and completing the identify-all-the-fire-hydrants challenges every six hours, but I am at a loss. We’re still getting spam posts, so all this tightened security isn’t getting the job done.
stuinmccandless
2019-09-22 12:21:52
Stu took the words right off of my keyboard...
atleastmykidsloveme
2019-09-22 16:16:43
It's obvious bike Pittsburgh doesn't care about this message board. I see it like an old truck. Pieces fall off as you drive it down the road and no one is paying to repair it. I emailed them weeks ago about the popup message. No response, no fix. This message board has about 10 active users and not one is a bike pgh employee/worker/volunteer.
edronline
2019-09-22 18:43:17
Eric, I work for Bike Pittsburgh part time.  But I rarely go to the office, and hold no sway there. Has anyone tried telephone calls?  Or is that too old school. Or maybe even trying to speak with someone face to face (no, no face time)?
dave
2019-09-22 21:41:31
As a member driven advocacy organization bike pgh should be responsive to their constituency via reasonable communication channels. Email is listed on the contact page. Therefore they should read and respond to them.
edronline
2019-09-23 08:24:18
not only was the most recent spam post taken down, but Stu's request to have the spam post taken down was also taken down... and in it's place -- another spam post.   whee. the neglected message board rolls on, wearily.
edronline
2019-09-24 15:17:43
the taking-down, that was me. my role as a volunteer spam-flagger/moderator...
paulheckbert
2019-09-25 16:57:24
Another spammer, this time selling ammunition, but it took 10-15 tries to get past the fraudcatcher. Dammit, this is irritating.
stuinmccandless
2019-10-03 07:39:51
We can complain all we want. My sense is that the board maintenance has been depreciated by bikepgh. So this is the best we got.
edronline
2019-10-03 08:05:15
Has there been some activity on Meesage Board development? I've noticed a couple changes... I think...like, I'm not outed: logged-out/ttimed-outobce I jump through all the hoops to get (it) on... and when accessing a thread, I'm appropriately taken to the end, rather than the beginning, of the thread... Or is it my imagination?  
yalecohen
2019-11-05 12:11:11
How I feel when every time I visit BikePGH it takes 8-16 clicks to login:  
ornoth
2019-11-14 10:33:25
My sense is this message board has become vestigial, and BikePgh values social media - particularly facebook as their primary means of engagement and community. Although I and many of you seem to appreciate the back-and-forth this medium allows, it seems we are a dwindling few. Strikes me that this message board and its functions ought to be taken with a few grains of salt, especially considering Bike Pgh is a pretty lean operation and it appears the moderators here are volunteers. My expectation is one day before too long, this message board will simply cease. Until then, let's cut these folks some slack, because i'm pretty sure its only still up for the half dozen or so of us regulars.
atleastmykidsloveme
2019-11-19 10:18:06
@AtLeastMyKidsLoveMe's analysis may be accurate. The few users here remind me of Usenet using Luddites.... Some questions:
  • Are postings on the MB getting appropriate visibility?
  • Is it worth one's time to post here?
  • Can a more functional MB mechanism be resurrected on FB or other, more used, social media, etc. via BikePgh or separately..?
  • To this end maybe create a new thread (or here) to design/define/redefine/ refine/...  the functional/user requirements for a MB for the biking community...
.... ... For example, the proliferation of new "single-use" threads (e.g. Stolen XYZ Abcdef bike off Joe's Porch)...rather than a single Stolen Bike thread... is communicationally problematic to me as it requires constant MB monitoring rather than relying on email notifications...imo... .. ...my time us up here...especially since..maybe 6 people will read this      
yalecohen
2019-11-19 11:01:53
Maybe it's already too late, but we need to come up with an alternative to the message board. It's not being maintained, has disappeared from the front page of the BikePgh website. It's on its last legs. Facebook works well for events, but I'd like something where we could offer advice and play games. Any ideas?
jonawebb
2019-12-02 07:23:08
My only suggestion short of having someone setup their own board, is to just use the pittsburgh cycling subreddit, as it already exists and doesn't require a lot of effort to maintain. I have no idea who mods there though. Of course, who knows what will happen with a big corp like that... https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling412/
benzo
2019-12-02 14:40:12
That makes sense to me. The bicycling412 Reddit is kind of inactive, but could easily replace this, and I'll bet people will be able to find it. Can we create a subgroup for Tag-o-Rama? Can we post photos there?
jonawebb
2019-12-02 15:31:52
Hrm. I didn't think about the tag-o-rama, would probably need a differnt style, and probably a separate subreddit. Realistically, since threads "time out" and get archived eventually (no more posting), and you can't do images within a reply on a post (only in the original post). It would really not be ideal for that. Reddit Definitely works differently than the traditional message board. Might actually be a bit challenging for the way a lot of the threads are used on here... So, not sure it would be optimal, but I figured it was worth a mention.
benzo
2019-12-06 09:05:43
Maybe taking TOR out of the message board altogether would be necessary? Could Tag O Rama make a facebook page, and play the game via facebook? (*don't mean to stir anything up, and this is not any sort of editorializing, and I don't play TOR, but it just seemed an odd fit to host the game on an MB like this, and maybe fb would be a cleaner and better fit?)
atleastmykidsloveme
2019-12-09 08:46:22
Although I ratrely come here now, I really like the message board.   Next time I give money to Bike-Pgh, I will ask that it be directed to the MB.   Maybe that will make a difference? I don't do Facebook.  I resent it when public events slide into being Facebook events, where you need FB to find out how to participate..
mick
2019-12-12 10:42:33
There were a few informal discussions at the annual meeting last night about the message board.  There are at least a few staff members who read it, and said they would bring up the topic of visibility and usability at a future staff meeting.  Is there hope? Now if it starts getting more use, everyone needs to remember to play nice.  That seemed to be a problem a few years ago.
dave
2019-12-12 15:00:16
There was an anual meeting last night?  Of the membership? And no thread here? 
mick
2019-12-12 20:25:45
I knew about the meeting, but not through Facebook. They sent emails.
stuinmccandless
2019-12-15 18:22:40
The Private Message feature leaves off the year. Adding that back in would be really helpful.
stuinmccandless
2020-01-05 13:52:58