Jump to content

Ask the Mods questions about the Forums!

Dman979

By Dman979
in Kerbal Network

 Share

Recommended Posts

Lisias

Lisias

Posted
Posted

It's possible to search my posts for URLs? Are they stored on plain text or they are "decorated' somehow?

I loose trust on Google for some time now, and with G+ going under 7 feet soon, I'll move all my content to my own site - I see no benefit on spending money on something I already have, a web presence (and Archive will preserve that content - I trust they will be around for more time than most of the shinny content sites I see around).

But, then, I want to update all my posts for the new location, I don't plan leave my posts with broken links (at least, not intentionally).

I'm not asking for an API (that would be nuts as it would be a huge security flaw), I'm ask for a reliable and deterministic way for looking into my own posts for some URLs , so I can edit them to the new location.

(Yeah, it will be a lot of work, but I think it's the proper way on doing things).

 

As a side note, perhaps would be a good idea implementing a bot that would search for dead links, and then "decorate" them with the archive.org URL for the WayBack machine? That would be an interesting feature...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sumghai

sumghai

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Lisias said:

It's possible to search my posts for URLs? Are they stored on plain text or they are "decorated' somehow?

Nope, sorry.

The forum's search feature (like for most forums) is quite basic, and apart from some basic wildcard (*) search it doesn't support complicated regular expressions/filters to look specifically for URLs or BBcodes.

Your best bet would be to go to your profile, click on the See my activity button on the right side of your profile banner, and review each of your posts manually for links you want to replace.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lisias

Lisias

Posted
Posted
14 hours ago, sumghai said:

Your best bet would be to go to your profile, click on the See my activity button on the right side of your profile banner, and review each of your posts manually for links you want to replace.

I can do it with a custom spider, but… How Forum copes with that? I give a peek on the robots.txt and it appears to allow it (only one bot is disallowed). There're some limits I must respect? I don't intent to be locked out due a misbehaving bot! :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sumghai

sumghai

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I can do it with a custom spider, but… How Forum copes with that?

We as moderation staff do not have knowledge regarding the intricacies of the underlying forums software, so I can't tell you anything about flood limits for spider access.

I strongly recommend you review each of your posts manually, as that is the safest option.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
tater

tater

Posted
Posted

What's the deal with the support forums? Does anyone actually understand how they work/get updated? I threw a couple Mac OS observations there, but it's hard to tell what thread I even posted in, honestly. I don't get why they don't just work like all the other forums. (doesn't matter, I'll continue to just ignore those forums)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tolnorus

Tolnorus

Posted
Posted

What's up with all the broken links in the mod descriptions?

To elaborate:  Some mods are stand-alone, while other mods are used as a foundation for yet other mods.  When this occurs, the lower-level mod will have a list of "Mods that integrate with this mod" with links, which are inevitably links to other forum posts.  Unfortunately, most of these links seem to be broken, yet the mod forums do exist, but I need to do a search to find each one rather than use the handy (broken) link.  This is inconvenient, but obviously workable because it at least tells me what mods to look for, but as a new player this is also confusing to me and makes it difficult for me to track down all the information.

My first question:  why does this happen?  Maybe I am doing something wrong.  Maybe the page is simply not updated.  Maybe the website changed the way it references threads.  I know this game has been around for some years, so as time goes by, stuff changes, and some of these forum posts are crazy long.  I appreciate the work that is invested by the mod creators, but it seems like that front post is the primary reference point because their titles keep getting edited to keep up with version changes.

My second question:  Is there a simple way to navigate this issue (other than google) that I'm not aware of because I don't know how to use forum websites like a pro?  I haven't seen any other complaints about this, but then I wouldn't know exactly how to consolidate this inquiry to a simple, concise sentence.

My goal here is to figure out how to find mods, match versions, and get stuff working so I can play KSP.  Any advice about navigating the mod forums to this end is greatly appreciated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sumghai

sumghai

Posted
Posted

Moderator and mod author here. Let's take a look at your questions, shall we?

11 hours ago, Tolnorus said:

My first question:  why does this happen?  Maybe I am doing something wrong.  Maybe the page is simply not updated.  Maybe the website changed the way it references threads.  I know this game has been around for some years, so as time goes by, stuff changes, and some of these forum posts are crazy long.  I appreciate the work that is invested by the mod creators, but it seems like that front post is the primary reference point because their titles keep getting edited to keep up with version changes.

As you have already surmised, the KSP Forums has been around for a number of years, and has gone through at least two major forums backend forum updates. One of these was the infamous April 2013 incident where a significant number of threads and posts were actually lost during the upgrade, while the more recent one involved changes to how thread URLs are formatted.

At the end of the day, mod authors are ordinary people with real life obligations and commitments, and while they may have time to update their mods, they might have accidentally overlooked the fact that their links in their OP haven't been updated. The best (and polite) thing to do is to quietly PM the mod author letting them know which broken link should be fixed, and provide them with the new links.

11 hours ago, Tolnorus said:

My second question:  Is there a simple way to navigate this issue (other than google) that I'm not aware of because I don't know how to use forum websites like a pro?  I haven't seen any other complaints about this, but then I wouldn't know exactly how to consolidate this inquiry to a simple, concise sentence.

The forums has a search tool in the top-right hand corner of every page. Try playing around with different permutations of keywords for the mod / content you are looking for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Snark

Snark

Posted
Posted
On 11/24/2018 at 11:46 PM, Tolnorus said:

Is there a simple way to navigate this issue (other than google) that I'm not aware of because I don't know how to use forum websites like a pro?

 

22 hours ago, sumghai said:

The forums has a search tool in the top-right hand corner of every page. Try playing around with different permutations of keywords for the mod / content you are looking for.

^ This.  @Tolnorus, I suggest you may have some luck with the "search the forum" feature (click on the little magnifying-glass icon at top right).  If you're looking for the thread of a particular mod, I'd suggest doing the following:

  1. Go to the Add-on Releases subforum.  (That's where all mod threads are located.)
  2. See the "Search" box at top right?  Click in the text-entry part of the box.  This causes a "search" menu to pop up.
  3. In that menu's "SEARCH IN" section, choose "This Forum".  This restricts your search to just Add-on Releases so you don't have to wade through unrelated stuff in other areas.
  4. In that menu's "FIND RESULTS IN..." section, choose "Titles Only".  Not only does this greatly speed up the search, but it also really helps filter the search results, because you'll only find threads about the mod (e.g. its main release thread) rather than threads that merely mention the mod.
  5. Type the name of the mod in the search box and execute the search.

In my experience, that generally does a pretty good job of finding errant mod threads.  Sometimes you'll need to do some figuring out which of its threads is the current one-- sometimes they go through multiple threads when a mod gets handed off from one maintainer to another.  But in general, I've found that this is a fairly efficient bit of spadework and can usually track down what you're looking for fairly quickly.

(Unless you're looking for a mod that's so universally used by other mods, and mentioned in their thread titles, that it becomes practically impossible to find the needle in the haystack.  I'm looking at you, Module Manager and Kopernicus.  :mad:  ...But if that's the problem you're running into, it's probably best to just post a "hey, does anyone know where I can find <mod name>?" question in Add-on Discussions about it and I'm sure someone will send a link your way.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cydonian Monk

Cydonian Monk

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Vanamonde said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_and_the_Stars

Speaking of which.... There was a differently named movie that was almost entirely the plot of this and/or the original "Against the Fall of Night". Knock off, rip off, who knows. It might have been a "TV dinner theater" type of movie (similar to the original James "Jimmy" Bond), but regardless was the same story of Diaspar and Lys. Something I saw decades ago as a kid that I've not been able to track down since. Definitely not "Logan's Run".

Does that ring any bells? Any idea what it might have been?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
CatastrophicFailure

CatastrophicFailure

Posted
Posted

While we’re on the subject, there’s a question that very conveniently has gone unasked, @Dman979. Exactly what happened to Dman978, hmmm? :huh:

No but really, as long as I’m here, has something been tweaked with the mobile formatting? Embedded tweets keep doing this to my iPhone. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Val

Val

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Delay said:

Sometimes notifications double up. Are there any plans to fix this?

Double up how? It's not something I've seen. What type of notification gets doubled up? New posts, quoted, mentioned, PM?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Delay

Delay

Posted
Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Val said:

Is it only New comment notification that get doubled?

Things like likes reactions and quotes, or being mentioned? I can't remember them being doubled, but that's not to say it couldn't happen. Most of my notifications are new comments, so it's most likely going to occur there.

Edited by Delay
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...