How not to write a forum for a newspaper
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I'm quite curious as to the inner workings of this particular WTF. Namely, the forum software for Spiegel Online.
It begins with the fact that, even though there's a check box "keep me logged in", you'll be logged out after about 24 hours. Regardless of the state of said checkbox after logging in.
If you browse the articles while logged in and decide to dive into the discussion thread attached to an article (yes, it's not attached directly to the article), you'll sometimes be presented with a "you were inactive for too long! you'll be returned to the main page!" message. Which promptly does exactly that. You'll then have to navigate back after which the forum works. You could also hit "history back" and "refresh". This happens after a random amount of time.
If you then actually write a comment it will be held back because a moderator needs to check it. Or so they say. Doesn't prevent double- and triple-postings, though. And, yes, you can write comments at, say, 3am in the morning. Don't expect the comment to show up before 9am, though.
They also have pagination so that there are no more than 10 comments per page. However, the pagination is horribly broken. Just now, one thread states that it contains 5 pages worth of comments. You can't access any comments after page 3, however, you'll simply be thrown back to page 3 even if you manipulate the GET-parameters to show page 4 or 5.
This is revision 2 of the forum software, by the way. I'm not quite sure what they did to warrant an increase in version numbers - bug fixing wasn't it.
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@Rhywden said:
It begins with the fact that, even though there's a check box "keep me logged in", you'll be logged out after about 24 hours. Regardless of the state of said checkbox after logging in.
I really don't know whats going on here either.
I have this one forum that uses Vanilla that randomly forgets I've been logged in. Sometimes it's the next day, sometimes it takes weeks and weeks, and then, poof, Please Sign In.
No other site that I log in for behaves that way.
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@Rhywden said:
I'm quite curious as to the inner workings of this particular WTF. Namely, the forum software for Spiegel Online.
It begins with the fact that, even though there's a check box "keep me logged in", you'll be logged out after about 24 hours. Regardless of the state of said checkbox after logging in.
If you browse the articles while logged in and decide to dive into the discussion thread attached to an article (yes, it's not attached directly to the article), you'll sometimes be presented with a "you were inactive for too long! you'll be returned to the main page!" message. Which promptly does exactly that. You'll then have to navigate back after which the forum works. You could also hit "history back" and "refresh". This happens after a random amount of time.
If you then actually write a comment it will be held back because a moderator needs to check it. Or so they say. Doesn't prevent double- and triple-postings, though. And, yes, you can write comments at, say, 3am in the morning. Don't expect the comment to show up before 9am, though.
They also have pagination so that there are no more than 10 comments per page. However, the pagination is horribly broken. Just now, one thread states that it contains 5 pages worth of comments. You can't access any comments after page 3, however, you'll simply be thrown back to page 3 even if you manipulate the GET-parameters to show page 4 or 5.
This is revision 2 of the forum software, by the way. I'm not quite sure what they did to warrant an increase in version numbers - bug fixing wasn't it.
Smells like poorly coded mod_perl
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@Rhywden said:
Spiegel Online
I didn't even know they still existed.The guy on the left looks suspiciusly like the guy from the Gay Pink Striped Shirt thread.
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@El_Heffe said:
@Rhywden said:
Spiegel Online
I didn't even know they still existed.The guy on the left looks suspiciusly like the guy from the Gay Pink Striped Shirt thread.
Wow. That shirt and jacket are probably Worse Than Pink.
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@Rhywden said:
It begins with the fact that, even though there's a check box "keep me logged in", you'll be logged out after about 24 hours. Regardless of the state of said checkbox after logging in.
I'm assuming they have something like this:
private static Dictionary<int, datetime> KeepLoggedInUsers
When you log in, it puts you into that global variable. Then every 18 hours, their IIS cycles the application pool and resets all the global variables.
At least that's how I would do it if WTF was Priority #1
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@Ronald said:
@Rhywden said:
I'm quite curious as to the inner workings of this particular WTF. Namely, the forum software for Spiegel Online.
It begins with the fact that, even though there's a check box "keep me logged in", you'll be logged out after about 24 hours. Regardless of the state of said checkbox after logging in.
If you browse the articles while logged in and decide to dive into the discussion thread attached to an article (yes, it's not attached directly to the article), you'll sometimes be presented with a "you were inactive for too long! you'll be returned to the main page!" message. Which promptly does exactly that. You'll then have to navigate back after which the forum works. You could also hit "history back" and "refresh". This happens after a random amount of time.
If you then actually write a comment it will be held back because a moderator needs to check it. Or so they say. Doesn't prevent double- and triple-postings, though. And, yes, you can write comments at, say, 3am in the morning. Don't expect the comment to show up before 9am, though.
They also have pagination so that there are no more than 10 comments per page. However, the pagination is horribly broken. Just now, one thread states that it contains 5 pages worth of comments. You can't access any comments after page 3, however, you'll simply be thrown back to page 3 even if you manipulate the GET-parameters to show page 4 or 5.
This is revision 2 of the forum software, by the way. I'm not quite sure what they did to warrant an increase in version numbers - bug fixing wasn't it.
Smells like poorly coded mod_perl
I'm so good I impress myself. According to Netcraft they do run perl.
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@Ronald said:
I'm so good I impress myself. According to Netcraft they do run perl.
If only the OP was talking about Spiegel, the catalog, and not Der Spiegel, the news magazine.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Ronald said:
I'm so good I impress myself. According to Netcraft they do run perl.
If only the OP was talking about Spiegel, the catalog, and not Der Spiegel, the news magazine.
Can't you see how it's even more impressive? I PREDICTED the underlying technology for something that would come up later in the thread.
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@Ronald said:
Can't you see how it's even more impressive? I PREDICTED the underlying technology for something that would come up later in the thread.
That is pretty amazing, TBH.
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@Ronald said:
@Ronald said:
At least it's not Community Server, amirite?@Rhywden said:
I'm quite curious as to the inner workings of this particular WTF. Namely, the forum software for Spiegel Online.
It begins with the fact that, even though there's a check box "keep me logged in", you'll be logged out after about 24 hours. Regardless of the state of said checkbox after logging in.
If you browse the articles while logged in and decide to dive into the discussion thread attached to an article (yes, it's not attached directly to the article), you'll sometimes be presented with a "you were inactive for too long! you'll be returned to the main page!" message. Which promptly does exactly that. You'll then have to navigate back after which the forum works. You could also hit "history back" and "refresh". This happens after a random amount of time.
If you then actually write a comment it will be held back because a moderator needs to check it. Or so they say. Doesn't prevent double- and triple-postings, though. And, yes, you can write comments at, say, 3am in the morning. Don't expect the comment to show up before 9am, though.
They also have pagination so that there are no more than 10 comments per page. However, the pagination is horribly broken. Just now, one thread states that it contains 5 pages worth of comments. You can't access any comments after page 3, however, you'll simply be thrown back to page 3 even if you manipulate the GET-parameters to show page 4 or 5.
This is revision 2 of the forum software, by the way. I'm not quite sure what they did to warrant an increase in version numbers - bug fixing wasn't it.
Smells like poorly coded mod_perl
I'm so good I impress myself. According to Netcraft they do run perl.
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@dhromed said:
@Rhywden said:
It begins with the fact that, even though there's a check box "keep me logged in", you'll be logged out after about 24 hours. Regardless of the state of said checkbox after logging in.
I really don't know whats going on here either.
I have this one forum that uses Vanilla that randomly forgets I've been logged in. Sometimes it's the next day, sometimes it takes weeks and weeks, and then, poof, Please Sign In.
No other site that I log in for behaves that way.
I have one of these as well. I'm not sure if it's because of the particular tweaks that the keeper of the forum has made to Vanilla, or if it's a thing with Vanilla itself, or if it's just a browser cache/cookie thing, but it's jarring to get into a routine of checking the site and then one day be logged out.
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@eViLegion said:
@e4tmyl33t said:
...
23 posts in just under 7 years? Your lurking is prolific!Indeed. I had a period of two or three years in there where I honestly forgot about the site, but even without that I don't tend to post much because I supervise a helpdesk now and worked retail previously, so I don't have much input to provide on anything code-related. I just sit back and enjoy morbs and blakey arguing with people about various things.
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@e4tmyl33t said:
...enjoy morbs and blakey arguing with people...
Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm here for. That and making terrible jokes with impunity.
