How can the forums be made better for DefCon?

[TheCotMan]

Suggesting New Ideas does work:

The Politics and Religion issue was discussed again, after 2-3 years of being considered off-topic on the forums and a month-long discussion and vote by mods, the present policy remains unchanged.

Moving "Rules" up was discussed, and has come up again.

Enforcement of a "Lurking-only" period for new users is entering testing.

and...
The "Tech News" section has not been discussed yet, but will be.

We are trying to limit the list of forums on the first forum page to keep it short. Though we added the "Generic Announcements" section to the top, front page, we moved Fucktard Hall into /dev/null and expanded /dev/null sub forums.

Without extending the list of forums, how would you suggest adding a "Tech News" forum? (There are really 3 common choices: make it a subforum of an existing forum (which one?), make it a new forum on the first page and move another forum into a subforum of a top forum (which one), Don't add it.)

Any other ideas to make the forums better?

[klepto]

How about making the username/avatar on the same-line as the post, the way it currently is setup makes me do alot of unnecessary scrolling when there is a big post/thread.

[TheCotMan]

How about making the username/avatar on the same-line as the post, the way it currently is setup makes me do alot of unnecessary scrolling when there is a big post/thread.

From the view of content within a thread?
Cheesey ASCI-Art:

--------------------------------------------------------
AVATAR...........................Join Date: Mmm YYYY....
AVATAR UserName..................Posts: NNN.............
AVATAR Title............................................
AVATAR .................................................
--------------------------------------------------------
(Post and content)
-------------------------------------
Sig
--------------------------------------------------------

How would you like to see it look instead?

[klepto]

Vbulletin Admin Control Panel > Vbulletin Options > Style & Language Settings > Use Legacy (Vertical) Postbit Template > Yes

Vbulletin Admin Control Panel >Vbulletin Options> Message Posting and Editing Options > Require Click for Quick Reply > No

[TheCotMan]

Vbulletin Admin Control Panel > Vbulletin Options > Style & Language Settings > Use Legacy (Vertical) Postbit Template > Yes

Vbulletin Admin Control Panel >Vbulletin Options> Message Posting and Editing Options > Require Click for Quick Reply > No

I'll add this on to the list of things to discuss with the other mods. If you happen to see this format on the forums without an announcement, it is probably being used for testing, or observation to see if tis can be duplicated in a custom style to allow user selection.

[bascule]

Vbulletin Admin Control Panel > Vbulletin Options > Style & Language Settings > Use Legacy (Vertical) Postbit Template > Yes

I 100% agree with this suggestion. Much better to have avatars/user info along the side of the post than on the top.

[bascule]

Without extending the list of forums, how would you suggest adding a "Tech News" forum?

Well, I don't know about you, but I'd say a Tech News forum would probably get a lot more use than the "Wireless Technology" forum. I don't know where exactly you'd end up putting that, but if there's one forum I'd say doesn't belong on the front page it's that one. (Just looking down the list of forums on the front page you'll see it's the least used of the major discussion forums)

[converge]

I like that too.. the forums used to be like that a while back, but changed after an upgrade. I always assumed that vB had changed the basic structure altogether, but if we can go back.. that would be nice :)

[klepto]

Security Error: Domain Name Mismatch

You have attempted to establish a connection with "forum.defcon.org". However, the security certificate presented belongs to "forum.defcon.org". It is possible, though unlikely, that someone may be trying to intercept your communication with this website.

If you suspect the certificate shown does not belong to "forum.defcon.org", please cancel the connection and notify the site administrator.


This is what I get everytime I come here using https:// . Using Mozilla 1.7.12

[TheCotMan]

Security Error: Domain Name Mismatch

You have attempted to establish a connection with "forum.defcon.org". However, the security certificate presented belongs to "forum.defcon.org". It is possible, though unlikely, that someone may be trying to intercept your communication with this website.

If you suspect the certificate shown does not belong to "forum.defcon.org", please cancel the connection and notify the site administrator.


This is what I get everytime I come here using https:// . Using Mozilla 1.7.12

Thanks for the reminder. This has been on the to-do since around the time we moved over to support https. I think a decision was made to deal with this, but it has not been put into action.

I'll go bug the person that proposed the solution to see what was finally decided in fixing this.

[The Dark Tangent]

My bad.

OOpps.. I forgot about that.. my browser doesn't complain, so I forgot about it. I think the solution is a non-self-signed cert. I'll have to go buy one someplace for maximum compatibility.

I was thinking verisign, geotrust, or thwate.. any suggestions?

[TheCotMan]

OOpps.. I forgot about that.. my browser doesn't complain, so I forgot about it. I think the solution is a non-self-signed cert. I'll have to go buy one someplace for maximum compatibility.

You defeated my attempt to hide the name of the person from the masses.

I was thinking verisign, geotrust, or thwate.. any suggestions?

"Not Verisign" is all I'd like to suggest.

[converge]

I'm appalled... I can't even believe verisign was an option... dood!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...verisign+-self

thawte has yet to give me pain (even though it was bought up by Verisign, so technically part of the evil), some links from a google of other peoples comparisons:
http://www.getonline.co.uk/faq/secure-servers/faq-03/
http://www.aota.net/E-Commerce/TvsV.php4

Also to be noted (as shown here) GeoTrust certs do not cover the compatibility realm so much for teh browsers. There are other underdog possibilities like XRamp, but I have no experiences to offer, their site generally pissed me off with an awkward sales feel, and it looks like their browser compatibility is about the same as GeoTrust ... so it looks like compatibility is the tradeoff for cheaper price.

[fluoxetine]

I believe it's been suggested before but how about a short quiz during the registration process, it could be multiple choice - something like:

"Hi, I'm new posts" should...:
a) be posted anywhere
b) only posted in the Community Talk forum
c) only posted in the Defcon 14 forum
d) not be posted... ever!

[Voltage Spike]

I believe it's been suggested before but how about a short quiz during the registration process

This has been suggested quite a few times in the past. I'm not entirely sure why it has never been implemented, though.

My suggestion: Fix the search button in the toolbar so it isn't all uppercase. We wouldn't tolerate it in a forum post, and we shouldn't have to tolerate that eyesore every time we visit.