Your Feedback & Ideas For A Better HotHardware

Heuristic post analysis

3vi1 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:43:57 GMT

These DVD spammers got me thinking:

How about scripting a post-checker that examines the content of messages, and scores posts based on regular expressions. When a post scores too highly, it either gets put in a "moderation" bucket where moderators must check it first, or optionally it adds a button where anyone can delete the post.

Example rules:

------------------

.*rip DVD.* = +10, post mentions ripping DVDs.

.*How to convert.* = +10, after ripping you must convert

.*Step (1|[Oo]ne).*[Ss]tep (2|[Tt]wo).* = +10, post is a series of instructions.

.*<img src=.* = +1, post has images.

.*<a.*href=.* = +1, post has hyperlinks.

{user info}.*Posts \d<.* = +15, user has posted less than 10 times.

{user info}.*Posts \d\d\d = -15, user has made more than 100 valid posts.

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The names of software that is known to be supported by forum spammers could be added at +31 points, or whatever the spam threshold is.

Surprise Prize give-a-ways! (help incrase overall traffic)

ice91785 — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:41:54 GMT

So basically it'd be the same concept as the rest of the prize give-a-ways except don't announce the giveaway -- simply just announce a winner. This way you are weeding out people that SPAM to get their post count up during the "X" days the sweepstakes usually take place AND you are not obligated to spark interest with what the prize actually is, more the concept of just winning.

Futhermore the time(s) for sweepstakes would be more random -- 1 prize for a random amount of time (say 2 prizes in 2 days or 1 in one month) and they could range in $$ value. Say, a hothardware t-shirt one day, a SSD drive 3 weeks later, and some case badges a week later or something....

Once word catches that for posting quality posts at HH random prizes are given away I think it'd generate quite a bit of extra traffic (unless your give-aways were like Marcos dirty socks followed by Dave's workout shorts or something )

Rep system instead of Points system?

gibbersome — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:15:44 GMT

I'm new here so please go easy on me.

I have seen the points based system that's implemented here but it seems little arbitrary and random to me. If I understand correctly you receive more points if people reply to your posts or threads. But someone could very easy rack up points with inane posts, or starting a controversial topic.

What I was proposing instead was a reputation based system (as on slickdealz.net). If you like someone's post, you give them reputation points. In this way if someone posts a thread regarding some hardware or tech problem, the user who gives the best response will get the most points.

There are many ways to prevent abuse of the reputation system (a user can give out max 10 points a day. Cannot give back to back reputation to the same user, etc). I don't know if this is possible but maybe worth looking to?

Stickied Posts

transam02 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:18:27 GMT

What bout having the some post stickied like in other forums. So that if there was useful information for everyone to see right at the top of that section. So whenever they opened that section it would be up there at the top all the time instead of searching for it. Just my thoughts. Does the new forum have that ability or no.

Photo comments

3vi1 — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:02:53 GMT

How about adding the ability to comment directly to users' photos? You could give users the ability to disable this, or approve comments first.

There are a few system-build pics that I'd like to comment on and ask questions about, and it would make more sense if the conversation were inline with the original pic.

login not working right in places

Drago — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:50:45 GMT

I had just run Ccleaner on my compy and it cleared out all my internet cache and what not in firefox. Well i visit the HH home page and i am not logged in. I go to an article and i go to the bottom put in my username and password and write my response and hit submit. Nothing happened, i was greeted with the same looking page with no error message or anything. I figured i fat fingered my pass so i tried again more slowly and no dice. So i copied the text i wrote, and clicked the sign in button at the top of the arcticle page it brings up a popupish window and i put in my username and password and hit sign in and then the lil box says loading. It said loading for 10 min before i got fed up and just went back to the home page and finally was able to long in there.

Just letting you guys know of these issues so they can be fixed cause i am sure this issue would put off some people as they try to put in a reply and think the page or site is broken at the time.

Mailboxes?

3vi1 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:00:19 GMT

Does anyone else's Inbox work, or is it just mine that's broken?

I sent myself a couple of test messages, but didn't receive them. Mental said he sent me a message and received some error about my mailbox not existing.

Bug: Entangled articles?

3vi1 — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:28:25 GMT

I posted a message to the Could Intel's Atom end up the last chip standing? article, and the message also appears as a response to the Futuremark & Gigabyte Tag Team article.

Editing it in either article causes the edits to also appear in the other. Some kind of synchronization issue with the articles being posted from different servers?

Weird.

Where did PMing go?

mentaldisorder — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:04:42 GMT

I believe it was ICE who pointed this out in another thread, but there is no more PM button/email button.

(please visit the site to view this media)

3vi1 — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 01:09:31 GMT

At times, HH seems to be preventing its own pages from showing embedded videos(?)

I noticed that in my response to http://hothardware.com/News/Steve-Ballmer-Surprised-At-Investor-Reaction-to-MSYahoo-Deal, the video had been replaced with "(please visit the site to view this media)".

Editing the HH message to add another hard return above the embed caused the video to start working again. :\

Year Joined

bob_on_the_cob — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:27:31 GMT

IDK how others feel about this, but I feel like the time I have been here is a big deal, and I wish you could still see it like you could under your avatar.

Dynamic sizing.

3vi1 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:37:07 GMT

The size of this main middle column used for news and comments seems to be a fixed size.

The site would probably me much more friendly to use on portable devices and wide-screen monitors if it were to dynamically resize the middle column to fit the browser window.

Just a suggestion.

Uhmm... that's bad:

I'm not seeing paragraph spacing after entering this message in FF3.5.1. I had to enter two hard returns above to make that break.

The paragraphs appear to be output one right on top of the other, as if it was a BR instead of a P for my post... Though the HTML view shows paragraph/P markers between them.

New forum look

bob_on_the_cob — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:47:05 GMT

I'm really enjoying the new forums look. I am still getting used to them, but it seems like you guys are rolling out a complete redo of the whole site. I saw the new homepage, but the new forum look was a welcome surprise, and it is running well in Chrome, Firefox from what I have seen.

Introductions?

mentaldisorder — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:48:56 GMT

How about we get some introductions to the News crew! aka the authors of the articles.

What is My Groups?

mentaldisorder — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:00:35 GMT

I've never really payed attention to the biography area of the forums, however I've been wondering what the "My Groups" section is and why are there no groups to occupy it?

Who are the moderators?

mentaldisorder — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:42:47 GMT

As mentioned above. Spoke with Marco about it before we had the Tournament, but haven't heard anything since then.

Admin buttons display random images...

mentaldisorder — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:46:53 GMT

Those admin buttons seem to be displaying random images. I also clicked a thread in tech news earlier and all I got was the image of an Admin button...

Insert link and unlink not working?

transam02 — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:40:31 GMT

I am having problem with the insert link. It is there but it will not let me click on it and have it come up. Its just whited out. Is there somethin I need to do or hold my mouth a certain way.

Edit Button Error

mentaldisorder — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:51:59 GMT

Hey guys, I can't seem to edit my posts in the Folding@Home section. I don't know why, since I can edit a post everywhere else except there.

Posting user photos

amdcrankitup — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:03:06 GMT

I tried to figure it out 1st but how do you upload user photos! I figure ya,ll might want to see a face with the name! Right LOL.

Kinda like this one.This is not my good side! LOL Got a little bit of a scar and staples going on there.

Post response

amdcrankitup — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:42:24 GMT

Im not receiving emails when someone responds to a thread/post! Any ideas how to fix this?

iPod touch can't type in forums

bob_on_the_cob — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 04:34:08 GMT

Not that it's a big deal, because typing on the thing is a exercise in fustration, but I noticed today that I can't type in either the reply or quick reply boxes in my touch.

Forum Time Error

tanka12345 — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 23:34:01 GMT

Hi Everyone!

I was trying to change my time settings from the New Zealand setting (GMT +12), to the Nuku'alofa setting (GMT +13), to match the current time here in NZ, as it's Daylight Saving currently. I clicked save, and this message occured:

______________________________

Sorry, there was a problem with your last request!

Either the site is offline or an unhandled error occurred. We apologize and have logged the error. Please try your request again or if you know who your site administrator is let them know too.

______________________________

This doesn't happen on any of the other time zones when I change them. Can anyone here help change my timezone to GMT+13?

Thanks,

Tanka12345

Edit Tags

3vi1 — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:41:02 GMT

On the topic of "Points", Dave once said something (exactly) like "You guys don't use the tagging system enough! (so there, not sure why that just came to mind but it did)".

If tags are related to points, I suggest removing the modifier. There are a couple of reasons:

1) Going back and editing tags doesn't change the points. You could post from the front-page/threaded-view where you can't add tags on creation, then you have no incentive to edit your post to add them.

2) Worse: (if it works, didn't try) People could raise their points through the roof by posting everything to the forum with 9000 pasted-in tags then edit-deleting them.

3) There's no meta-moderation of tags.... The system will probably accumulate a lot of garbage before too long unless the people adding tags have no reason to pad them.

Just a suggestion,

3vi1 J

IRC BS Sessions

3vi1 — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:52:56 GMT

Here's an idea: How about scheduling bull sessions.. like an hour every couple of weeks... and host an IRC chat (or chat using some java app). There could be a topic du jour, or special guest, or whatever.

It's something we used to do like a million years ago when I was a sysop on CompuServe, and was pretty popular.