FreeNAS Forums Change-log

[JoshDW19]

This is a change-log to notify you as users if there are any forum level changes so we can try to help keep everyone in the loop, and help you take advantage of new features as they come out. This may include plugins, theme updates, and updates on maintenance. If you have any questions please feel free to ask!

11/8/17 - Google Ads are now live only for unregistered users / guests. If you are seeing ads while you are logged in please let me know. They should not be shown for anyone who has logged into their free forum account.

8/15/17 - Users were reporting white text on a white background in the content area of posts. Xenforo was not respecting CSS rules to theme the text either. Further review suggests that the font-family Rubik was the troublemaker. I have since enabled Tahoma as the default and disabled Rubik until I can find out what happened here.

8/1/17 - The FreeNAS Forums Daily Digest is now active. This is an experimental feature so please let us know if you run into any issues. The Daily Digest will automatically send you the most popular daily topics on the FreeNAS forums and will help keep you in the loop on what's being talked about in the community.
The "Name" field has been changed to "Username" to help new users and avoid confusion during registration.
.xlsx files are now allowed on the FreeNAS forums.

12/3/16 - Capitalization of "FreeNAS" is auto-corrected for consistency. Note: this feature was quickly reverted since 99.9999% of people name their FreeNAS system "freenas" and case changes in listings can be significant.

11/3/16 - Tapatalk has been updated to version 3.14. There have been a number of security fixes that have been added in this version.

10/13/16 - Removed QUESTION and PROBLEM thread prefixes - these prefixes added no value to posts, just distractions.

9/29/16 - Removed duplicate instance STP - there was a duplicate instance of share this page appearing in new style at the bottom of pages. It's been removed. Minor theme adjustments to new style to fix some areas that still look unfinished.

9/28/16 - Added Quick Hardware Guide - Quick hardware guide is now available under resources.

9/22/16 - Added iXsystems ad - iXsystems ads added in the bottom right corner of the forums.

9/3/16 - Staff / iXsystems banners - Easily Identify staff members and iXsystems employees with new banners.

8/31/16 - cmd and file tags - Add two new tags to make it easier to show commands and filenames. Note that these are for inline use, and code is still the thing to use for multi-line commands or output.

8/30/16 - Google Translate - Added a google translate drop down box in the top right area of the screen. Currently hidden on some mobile devices due to compatibility issues.

8/30/16 - Register / login with Facebook - New users can sign up via facebook. Users can also associate a pre-existing forum account if they wish.

8/29/16 - Code Button - Added a custom code button to the post editor that is easier to find for new users and easier to point out for existing users.

8/26/16 - Badges - Trophies now appear as badges on user profiles. New badges may be added at a later date if the community likes this feature.

8/24/16 - Member Cards - Turned on member profile cards so users can now click a members photo in a thread and respond and send messages more quickly. (This also appears to have turned on overlays all over the forums).

8/23/16 - Revert Ratings - Ratings plugin has been reverted

8/16/16 - Switched like button to thanks
The like button has been converted to a thanks button. Now when you thank a user for their post it will go into their total likes. Changed "likes received" to "thanks received" and made some other phrasing changes to match the thanks button. Any likes that were accrued on old post should show up now as thanks.

8/15/16 - Switched forums to re-captcha

Switched forums to re-captcha for user registrations after receiving a number of complaints about the Q & A system having hard to find or incorrectly formatted answers. This will help improve the user experience on new registrations, but also if you need to perform a password reset.

8/13/16 - Relaxed signature line restrictions for new users

We've upped the number of acceptable lines to 20 (from 10). New users were having a hard time fitting their hardware configurations in spoiler tags. This should help that.

8/13/16 - Reduced number of ratings to 5 (and the more applicable ones)

Removed disagree as well as a handful of other ratings that didn't necessarily fit with our forums. We will now only have positive feedbacks available. I'll look into making all the positives roll into "likes" as a grand total soon.

8/12/16 - Added New User Automatic Promotion Requirements

Removed the requirement of 2 likes for a promotion to Registered +
Requires 15 useful posts to be promoted. The first 3 posts are automatically placed in a manual moderation queue.

8/11/16 - Post Ratings Added

The admin team has been discussing for a while replacing the like button with "thanks" instead, but today we took it a step further. We've added post ratings across the forums so you can now respond in different ways to your favorite posts. Try it out and let us know what you think! You can also see in your user profile the amount of ratings you've received.

Google Search Integrated into Xenforo Search

We recently took the Custom Google Search instance that was written more as a kludge and integrated into Xenforo's search function with the help of a plugin. Now when you do a search using the search box you can get side by side results from Google and from Xenforo if you prefer. Please be aware that some 3rd party browser apps have been known to block this extension, so if you're having problems please check your settings first.

 

[Bidule0hm]

I think it's a good idea but the problem is that there's only the likes in the profiles next to the posts and the likes doesn't change anymore so is it possible to have the new ratings in lieu of the likes?

 

[anodos]

I think it's a good idea but the problem is that there's only the likes in the profiles next to the posts and the likes doesn't change anymore so is it possible to have the new ratings in lieu of the likes?

The old "likes" are equivalent of the new "agrees". So don't be afraid losing your rating.

 

[Bidule0hm]

Ah, I wondered if any of the new rating was linked to the old likes (my first guess was the heart icon but seems I was wrong :)).

It's not that I'm afraid of loosing the rating but more that it would be a bit a pity to have only the half of a cool feature :)

 

[Nick2253]

The old "likes" are equivalent of the new "agrees". So don't be afraid losing your rating.

If we have a way to customize it, is there a way to pick and choose what counts as "likes"? Like, could we count "agree", "thanks", and "useful" as old likes?

As a more general comment, do we want to have the "disagree" option? I'm thinking of a scenario where someone makes some incorrect comment; wouldn't it be better to have someone respond in a post to that than just mark the "disagree" rating?

 

[anodos]

If we have a way to customize it, is there a way to pick and choose what counts as "likes"? Like, could we count "agree", "thanks", and "useful" as old likes?

As a more general comment, do we want to have the "disagree" option? I'm thinking of a scenario where someone makes some incorrect comment; wouldn't it be better to have someone respond in a post to that than just mark the "disagree" rating?

I think it's nice to do both. Disagree and respond that way it's very clear when something is not a good idea. I just wish that they'd merge "funny" with "agree" that way I could continue to bolster my numbers by making snarky comments about things.

 

[JoshDW19]

Hey everyone! Your numbers for each individual rating are counted in your profile. You can easily see how many ratings you've received by just going to your profile and viewing them. I bet there's a way we can make them tie into your names so they'll be displayed when you post, but I haven't looked into that yet. I don't know that we'll tie them into likes after it's all said and done. That's just more of a side effect for now :).

 

[joeschmuck]

Since adding so many options and only being able to choose one of those options, you have limited the ability to count something like Likes Received. Funny doesn't mean it's helpful or informative. Friendly, not sure what that means at all, maybe someone wants to be my friend? I don't think flowering up the forums makes it more useful.

My recommendations are:
1) Come up with a hard and fast way to promote if the posting was useful or not useful. This could be the "Agree" or "Thanks" and "Disagree" or some variation. This could be used to increment the "Likes Received" indicator.
2) If you want to have a "Funny" or "Informative", have these as a separate selection if possible, if not possible then remove them.

I think the Trophy Points indicator should go away. I see no purpose for it.

 

[Ericloewe]

Bah, there goes my plan of announcing the new Hardware guide with my 8000th post (don't worry guys, I'm not doing the cheap thing and pushing it back to the 8192nd post... as long as it doesn't take too much longer), but I'd say this merits the measure - so, a few thoughts:

I wholeheartedly agree with @joeschmuck that some of the ratings are just noise (friendly, in particular, doesn't make much sense on its own - it would have to be a modifier of some sort).

For an equivalent statistic to "likes received" I'd suggest sum(agree, thanks, winner, informative, useful), that keeps things easy to display at a glance.

Whether to include "funny" in the same category as the above list is a bit of a philosophical question. I do feel that it should be useful at least for whatever new user restrictions are in place now (I've kinda lost track of what requires how many likes now, so I'm not sure how useful the inclusion would be).

 

[Ericloewe]

Also, someone seemed rather eager to dislike something by @cyberjock... and @ProtoSD of all people, for some reason? Has someone been holding a grudge for years, anxiously waiting for the forums to get a dislike button, checking every day?

 

[JoshDW19]

Also, someone seemed rather eager to dislike something by @cyberjock... and @ProtoSD of all people, for some reason? Has someone been holding a grudge for years, anxiously waiting for the forums to get a dislike button, checking every day?

Hey @Ericloewe there's no dislike button included as far as I can see. There originally was a dislike button and I removed it purposely. The only thing we have that is similar is a disagree button and that is considered a neutral feedback. People disagree all the time, but I wouldn't think that means anyone's upset. Perhaps I'm missing something here? I'd encourage everyone to take disagree with a grain of salt. It's not meant to be offensive.

Hmmmm.... I think I agree the friendly one can probably just go away. Plus the heart icon is a little weird. Any ideas on another expression that can replace it?

That's not a bad idea to make your likes the sum of the positive feedback. Let me look into that. Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[JoshDW19]

Updated with information on user promotions!

 

[cyberjock]

Yay.. here we go with the "charms bar" from when we first rolled out xenforo... didn't we learn that this was a "bad thing" when we tried to do this before? After all, it was removed, on purpose....

 

[Ericloewe]

The only thing we have that is similar is a disagree button and that is considered a neutral feedback.

So what's being counted after the slash? I'm using "dislike" as a generic term, analogous to the statistic I mentioned, but for negative feedback?

Yay.. here we go with the "charms bar" from when we first rolled out xenforo... didn't we learn that this was a "bad thing" when we tried to do this before? After all, it was removed, on purpose....

Whatever it is, it might be a leftover from this ^.

 

[joeschmuck]

@JoshDW19 , Hey, I think you know me a little by now and know that I'm not picking on you but I feel like you found a new toy and are just playing with it (remember your mom said you would go blind if you keep playing with it). I know you have the best of intentions but I don't think this needs to be fixed and the simple "Like" serves the purpose well. Crap, maybe I'm just too old after all I still have a Flip Phone, thank God because it seems like there are drones walking around the streets playing Pokemon Go, it's driving me crazy!

Just to touch on something from an above comment, I'm not sure I believe "Dislike" should be included either. We have enough people getting upset or angry and adding this is going to poke someone in the eye even more. If you just stick to positives then you at least eliminate that one source of irritation, tryst me, it's not a neutral position. Of course you cannot eliminate someone from posting negative feedback but at least we can try to make this a friendly forum. Oops, I need my Heart Icon here :p

But if you keep the new icons, just make sure they reinforce positives, not any negatives. And that is just my two cents. Time to go watch a movie on DVD on my 25" CRT TV (In the old days your TV was a piece of furniture and you called it your 25" Color Console. Times have changed.) Okay I lied, I have an LED TV, I'm not dead yet but when I did have that console, I have a full set of Sams Fotofacts Schematics to repair it and those came in handy several times. Yea, off topic, I get that way because I'm old.

 

[gpsguy]

I don't understand your statement. Since we can't add likes anymore, are you saying that the like count might go away and we'll all start over again with 0's in the new system.

I don't know that we'll tie them into likes after it's all said and done.

 

[JoshDW19]

Thanks for all the questions guys. I'll try to answer everyone inline here.

I don't understand your statement. Since we can't add likes anymore, are you saying that the like count might go away and we'll all start over again with 0's in the new system.

A couple people have suggested that we total all of the positive feedback into the likes as kind of a "grand total" of postive feedback. I thought that was a pretty good idea what about you? That way people don't lose likes that they've built up, and it helps contribute to what they've already received.

@JoshDW19 , Hey, I think you know me a little by now and know that I'm not picking on you but I feel like you found a new toy and are just playing with it (remember your mom said you would go blind if you keep playing with it). I know you have the best of intentions but I don't think this needs to be fixed and the simple "Like" serves the purpose well. Crap, maybe I'm just too old after all I still have a Flip Phone, thank God because it seems like there are drones walking around the streets playing Pokemon Go, it's driving me crazy!.

I know it's not your favorite Joe and of course no offense taken! We had quite a few of the moderators agree though that replacing the like button was a good idea including @cyberjock and could help users be more specific in the feedback they wanted to provide. After all if you say you are liking the post do you like the person that posted it? Do you like the content? Do you like their avatar? It's not very specific. This aims to help be a bit more specific and offer a few more expressions. It sounds like a couple of users have suggested reducing the amount of expressions to just maybe 3-4 useful expressions. Do you think that would help or be a middle of the road solution?

So what's being counted after the slash? I'm using "dislike" as a generic term, analogous to the statistic I mentioned, but for negative feedback?

Hey Eric, I do understand that you were using it as an analogous term, however I don't think the two words are comparable which is why I really want to be specific on that. What is being counted after the feedback are the disagrees or "neutral feedback". There's no negative feedback column.

Just to be clear again there's no dislike button...just a disagree button. If the vast majority of you think that having a disagree button isn't helpful we can certainly have the admins and moderators evaluate that, but we won't be able to address that tonight. Moderators if you feel similarly feel free to also start a discussion in the staff room and we can talk more there.

I hope I got to everyone. If you have any more questions feel free to let me know.

- Josh

 

[Jailer]

The big issue with any type of negative feedback is hurt feelings. Most people don't respond well to any negative feedback regardless of intentions.

This forum is less of a social gathering and more of a technical support line. A wide gamut of feedback options would play better in a more social setting. It's my personal opinion that a feedback system with likes and dislikes is pretty much useless as it it motivated by feelings. That's not the type of feedback system you want in a technical support forum.

But that's just the opinion of one person who doesn't partake in any social sites/media at all so my opinions may be out of touch with the mainstream.

ETA: Just for the sake of clarity I've worked in prison for 27 years so my feelings are probably not representative of most people. In fact I think I only have one feeling left and it's pretty calloused and resilient at this point.

 

[Bidule0hm]

A couple people have suggested that we total all of the positive feedback into the likes as kind of a "grand total" of postive feedback. I thought that was a pretty good idea what about you? That way people don't lose likes that they've built up, and it helps contribute to what they've already received.

It's a good idea, replacing the likes field with something like Ratings: 123/123 would be awesome ;) But actually the old likes are being counted as neutral feedback, for example on my profile page:

Last Activity: 1 minute ago
Joined: Aug 5, 2013
Messages: 3,274
Trophy Points: 83
Positive ratings received: 2
Neutral ratings received: 430

 

[joeschmuck]

The big issue with any type of negative feedback is hurt feelings. Most people don't respond well to any negative feedback regardless of intentions.

This forum is less of a social gathering and more of a technical support line. A wide gamut of feedback options would play better in a more social setting. It's my personal opinion that a feedback system with likes and dislikes is pretty much useless as it it motivated by feelings. That's not the type of feedback system you want in a technical support forum.

But that's just the opinion of one person who doesn't partake in any social sites/media at all so my opinions may be out of touch with the mainstream.

This is exactly how I feel too. While at times we may develop friendly relationships, this isn't a social site.