Forum Maintenance: Bug Reports and Optimization Requests

This thread is intended to serve as a central repository of all bug reports and improvement suggestions for the forums. I'll go through the last year or so of forum posts and Discord posts looking for stuff that has been reported/requested and not acted on, so Dominy (our web guru) can use it as a task list. If you have reported or requested something and you don't see it in this list, please add it as a reply and we'll update the original post as necessary.

Bug Reports

• While in a forum post, clicking on the Forum link in the header does not take you back to the main list of threads. Have to use back button or jump out to events then to forum to get back to the main list of threads (NOTE Will be done when we have upgraded to a newer version of the framework for better route reloading support)
• FIXED Viewport issues due to unnecessary long character names. Need to add a limit so this is not possible.
• FIXED Posting a forum link in Cabal Announcements in Discord brings up graphic with the old ODO logo, not the new ODO logo
• INTENDED Posting a new event does not automatically prompt a post in Cabal Announcements in Discord
• FIXED On new member application, "raiding" is misspelled

Improvements

Smaller changes and improvements.

• Events
  • FIXED Characters can sometimes appear gargbled in the Personal Signup: Name label. Display the actual name and don't rely on toString()
  • Being able to close events as described in forums.omnedatumoptimum.red/t/forum-maintenance-bug-reports-and-optimization-requests/1504/post/11470/
  • Give the option to set all times on the events calendar to 24 hour format instead of enforcing 12 hour am/pm format
  • Being able to view older events
  • Show event start and end time, instead of duration, i.e. when signing up, enter start and end, instead of start and duration in hours or minutes.
  • Show event time on a separate line under the date
  • Events: Being able to change role after signup
  • Events: Being able to change character after signup
• Accounts
  • Limit character names to 14 characters
  • Add character first and last name to applications and profile
  • Add character first and last name to character list in user profile
• Admin
  • Config Panel: Configurable webhooks, discord invite link and various document such as ODO rules
  • Go through all info provided info to applicants during the application process. We should include Discord link in the actual mail. Document with screenshots on the StB forum so recruiters know what is communicated.
  • About Page: Make a configurable thread/post on the forum display in a generated "About ODO" page.
  • Pagination for application list (StB / Tools)
  • FIXED Have some way to automatically trigger a promotion to squire after 30 days--most likely a reminder to officers in the MC Matters thread on Discord based on the date the applicant was listed as Invited on the forums.
• Misc
  • Display discord invite link on web front page when users are logged in
  • Redirect the user to their original page if bounced to login

Feature Requests

Bigger tasks that require a lot more time to complete.

• Linking Discord and web users: forums.omnedatumoptimum.red/t/forum-maintenance-bug-reports-and-optimization-requests/1504/post/11477/
• Have the events show up in an actual calendar format, or an option to see calendar vs. list and the default be calendar view
• Ingame bot RE: Not worth it
• Shout Box with discord integration RE: We have discord.
• Badge System
• FIXED Basic discord bot

Maintenance

• FIXED The custom ODO site is created in Angular5. We should upgrade to Angular6 or 7. This is not too much work, but kind of boring.
• FIXED Automatic backups needs to be improved. The current system is too fragile. This includes dumping of all databases + all uploaded media. We currently use a 50GB SSD volume in distributed storage, so the chance of data loss is very low even without backups. Still other situations like unintended deletion or the need for a rollback makes this important.
• Possibly also add basic disk and cpu monitoring with alerts. Full system disk is probably the most common cause of downtime.
• FIXED Client code needs cleanup

Notes

We have removed most suggestions around changes on the actual forum itself. We have way too much work to do on the main site and their tools and underlying systems already. Improvements we get will mainly come from upgrading he forum software.

Prioritizing

We should try to prioritize bugs, improvements and features (individually) using numbered lists.

• Bugs are first priority
• Improvements are second priority
• Features is last

Change Log

• 2018-01-30 Dom: Fixed post formatting + added logo bug + merged in my old list
• 2018-01-31 Dom: Maintenance section
• 2018-02-03 Dom: Added character name chages
• 2020-09-22 Dom: Updated tasks

Prioritization-my opinion

The bugs, especially the ones that are typos and misspellings, should be first priority.

Of the minor improvement requests, I think the following (in order) should be priority:

Have some way to automatically trigger a promotion to squire after 30 days--most likely a reminder to officers in the MC Matters thread on Discord based on the date the applicant was listed as Invited on the forums.
Give the option to set all times on the events calendar to 24 hour format instead of enforcing 12 hour am/pm format
Show event start and end time, (during event creation) instead of duration, i.e. when signing up, enter start and end, instead of start and duration in hours or minutes.
Events: Being able to change role after signup
Events: Being able to change character after signup
About Page: Make a configurable thread/post on the forum display in a generated "About ODO" page.
Begin able to view older events
Pagination for application list (StB / Tools)

As for the feature requests and maintenance, I don't know enough about the work involved to appropriately balance time vs. benefit, so I am comfortable leaving that to Dom to decide which of those are the best use of his limited time. Maintenance items should probably come before minor improvements and definitely before features, since maintenance applies directly to the proper function of the site as a whole. It doesn't matter how many cool bells and whistles you have if you get a 404 when you try to access XD

I'd probably prioritise the About Page over these 2 event elements tbh. I think the about page gets more use and is more about us looking good. Being able to change the role signup and which character you're bringing is nice, and would be good, but because we can talk about which character we'll be on and what roles, there's nothing which that would actually change other than aesthetics.

In terms of feature requests, I think I'd personally put the calendar at the top of the list.

I'm amused. ò.ó

Feature request: The ability to close the signups for an event before the start of the event. Also, probably have events close signups automatically at raid start time.

User Story

As a raid leader I want a static/final list of members to invite to an event. There are currently no restrictions on when a signup can happen and the raid leader might miss members singing up minutes before or after the event have started. This can create unnecessary conflict as we also fill raids from cabal chat or discord for unallocated slots. Currently you can also sign up to events several years/months old.

Solutions

• Events will automatically close once the official start time have passed
• Possibly also provide an option to auto close an event N minutes before the official start time
• Clearly display if an event is open/closed and show "Signups close N minutes before start time" if this is relevant.
• Provide an open/close event toggle for the raid leader so he/she has full control over the signup list.
• If an event is delayed by 30 minutes the raid leader must edit the event start time or re-open the event using the toggle button.

Events will be closed based on start time and the configured close time + Raid leaders can manually override this system using the open/close button.

It seems to me that a lot of people don't seem to pay attention to the welcome e-mail, judging by how many new members end up asking for the discord server info. Will ignoring the welcome e-mail break this proposed functionality?

Might I suggest a statement to recruits that they MUST hit reply to the email. Then send it to a particular address and match up the ones that went out to the ones that came back.
That would let you know who followed up.