Rather soon the staff here at RyPN will be performing a long overdue upgrade to the latest version of the software that currently runs both the Interchange and the Classifieds. This upgrade has been long overdue in coming, and was only held back due to the fact that by continuing with the upgrade, we would loose the ability to view posts in Thread View. Doug and his crew over at Sunserver have been gracious in allowing us to continue using the older version of the forum software for the last 6 months, but recently several potentially dangerous problems have been discovered in the older software, as well as policy changes at Sunserver, which have now forced our hand to update.

Since Threads View is not included in phpBB by default, I have talked with the creator of the Threads View mod about creating a version for the newest version of the forum software, but he has no plans to create one at this time due to the complexity of the software. This brings us to the hard decision of having to remove Thread View from the Interchange, as it is no longer compatible with the newest upgrade. Our only other option would be to move to a different software backend for the Interchange, such as the Invision Board. The only problem with this software, while it does support Thread View (known as Outline View) as well as Flat View, is that unlike phpBB it is not free. Rather it costs a one time fee of $150, with a subscription fee of $50 a year to continue using. I still need to confirm with the board if we have enough money in the treasury to support these fees, but it is one option that we are considering.

As of the last few hours our current count of active readers (non-spam readers who have logged in at least once within the 6 months) placed the number of Thread View readers at 550 (32%), while those using Flat View are 1163 (68%) strong.

Many of you have probably noticed the changed in the default view from Threads to Flat View. We had at first had this set to Threads view in an effort to ease the change over from Webbbs to phpBB. Since then our readers who prefer Flat view has grown at a tremendous rate and actually passed the 50% view just several months after the change. If it were not for a bug in the default view code we would have switched over to Flat View as the default much sooner. More discussion can be found at: Has there been a forum change?

At this point none of the options mentioned will give 100% satisfaction to those who actively participate in the interchange so we are currently looking to solicit your opinion on the situation, as RyPN is here to serve the community. Once thing is certain though, as long as we stay with Sunserver (or many other webhosting companies) we cannot keep using the same version of phpBB as we are now due to the vulnerabilities that it contains, compounded even more so now that it is no longer being updated to protect against these vulnerabilities.

David Collison

David,
I suggest we stay with the free version. It saves money and that helps a whole lot when funds are tight.
Andrew

I fight web-spam for a living for a major search engine.

This board REALLY needs to be on the latest software.

In my job I see thousands of web forums, blogs and websites which have been "hacked" - someone found a weakness in the software, and used that weakness to fill the site with junk pages.

Right now I'm looking at a forum at MIT - yes, the university - hundreds of universities are hacked like this. It uses the same exact software as RyPN - phpBB 2.0. There are 92,000 postings in 24,000 topics. Virtually all are spam, and most of those are either urgent notifications of spyware or the promise of pornographic videos - both of which actually install spyware. (and this is why I'm not posting examples. :) The spyware will of course grab your online banking passwords and use your computer for other abusive activities.

I probably sound like a raving loon, I only *wish* that I was.

Obviously, 92,000 postings don't get made by humans. The spammers have written scripts to automatically post to these forums. This is why there's no more anonymous forum postings - anywhere. This is why most signups nowadays have you type the letters and numbers you see in a picture. That doesn't stop them - they just keep coming.

Point is, this could be RyPN. Right now they attack RyPN constantly with simple "new user" requests -- as the moderators discuss here. http://rypn.sunserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24526
However they could just as easily find a security flaw in the software, and that's how tens of thousands of websites get hacked. That's what happens when you keep using old software. And that's why RYPN's hosters have been gracious to a fault in allowing RyPN to keep running old software.

So please support RyPN having the latest software. I appreciate that people like their Thread view, but I gotta tell you - professionally - that's a minor thing compared to this threat, which affects hundreds of thousands of websites (thankfully, not so far, RYPN.)

A few minutes the staff here at RyPN completed a much needed upgrade from phpBB 2.0.22 to phpBB 3.0.2. This updated software offers a great many new features, chief among them the ability to insert photographs directly into your posts as well as the ability to print out a topic.

Unfortunately as many of you know, this and other upgrades came at a price, and that price was Threads view. With the direction that phpBB is currently headed it is very likely that there will never be another Threads view again (in this current software package) for a very long time. It is for this reason, now that we have the software upgrade complete, we are focusing our attention on alternative versions of forum software that do provide a Threads View option.

While we will do our best, this is not a guarantee that Threads View will be returning. As the majority of our membership has shown that Flat View is preferred, Threads View will not become the default view anytime in the future. As was mentioned earlier we are considering the Invision Board as a replacement for phpBB. The only problem with this software, while it does support Thread View (known as Outline View) as well as Flat View, is that unlike phpBB it is not free. Rather it costs a one time fee of $150, with a subscription fee of $50 a year to continue using.

I ask you to be patient as we evaluate our next course of action. If any of you have had any experience with this type of software before, or would like to suggest a different course of action, please post your thoughts in this thread, or else PM me.

David Collison

Excellent job, David. Absolutely outstanding.

Well after a goat and pony show trying to get logged in and having multiple failed attempts and getting incorrect password and enter verification codes then having to get a new password I finally was able to login and YES it does look much better!

Excellent! Looking forward to seeing more images from people.

So how does one add an image directly from one's hard drive? I see the browse button, is there a required file type and is there a maximum size?

Looks great, thanks for making it happen!

Stephen

Hi David,
Looks good to me.
One question. does this mean you can return to doing more mundane things like helping with paperwork ? *-)

Congratulations. The forum REALLY looks sharp.

Vbulletin is an excellent and well respected forum program. It supports threaded discussions as well as the flat view. Users can select which one they prefer in their personal settings.

I used VB on my forums, and have done so literally for years. I prefer it to any other program I've tried. They offer frequent updates to add features and address security problems. I highly reccomend them.

Any chance the new format will allow clicking straight through to the Interchange board or the Classifieds rather that having to select every time you click the link to either?

Just curious... Other than that, it looks great, though the colors were a little surprising given the brown based colors we're used to.

Best,
Michael Brown

Gentlemen,

A fine upgrade. I was not a fan of thread view and was very happy when flat view was introduced. I use it exclusively. My 2 cents only!

Thank you for all your continuing work on the Forum,
de Don n2qhvRMLI

For some reason, links from the interchange, which used to open in a new window, do not do so any longer. Flimsies links still do. Ok, I know we will never stop posting links to sundry photos on interchange, and some people will continue to post links to news articles on interchange rather than flimsies, so rather than try to assure link postings go to their logical places, can we at least commit to a standard of new windows for all links? Very frustrating to have to go through the log on procedure over and over again since I am used to just Xing out of new windows to go back to RyPN.

dave

I second that request: I miss links in posts automatically opening in a new window.

At the time that flat view was first introduced I hated it, but over time I have come to prefer it because you can see much more information on a page than in threaded view, and the view is not cluttered with long threads that are not if interest. However, the one thing I miss from threaded view is the ability to tell which posts are responding to which posts. In flat view there is no way to tell unless the posters quote the post they are responding to. If there was a way in flat view to indicate which post is a reply to which, that may alleviate some of the demand for threaded view.