A lot of these problems go away with the purchase of form software like vBulletin, especially if you add packages that would support group activity. The full VB package including mobile bundle is 400USD and I refuse to believe that WCG can't afford this, especially if it's going to undertake a redesign of the main website.

Porting the data from the existing forum over would obviously take some work but I think everyone can agree that the divergence in functionality between the software we have here and what is generally considered "acceptable", especially for a site run under the auspices of a tech company like IBM, is only going to continue to grow.

Personally I would consider it an embarrassment. I think the only reason it isn't is the fact that so few people come to the forum but then that's probably due at least in part because of the fact that the software doesn't really allow for the full development of a real community here. At the very least there should be some sort of private mail facility which would go light years to helping team members connect with one another but I don't think anyone sees that ever happening.

Yeah, one has to discriminate between the functions served by the primary website and the forum of course but the fact of the matter is that the two really need to be more closely integrated. The fact also remains that certain functions, such as those designed to promote a sense of community, more properly belong on the forum side and that can never happen with the - and let's be honest here - the pretty feeble software we're currently using.

I know I said this already but it's worth emphasizing. The justification for never upgrading the forum software is that so few people come to the forum, but what seems to be perpetually overlooked is the fact that no one who has ever used modern forum software would have much patience with this system - and rightly so. I know that's a bit of an overstatement as there are some who are both patient and dedicated enough to learn the idiosyncrasies of this system, but still, there is nothing that can be done to make up for its numerous failings and shortcomings.

Beyond that, this system does almost nothing to promote contact between members let alone any sense of community or camaraderie. The ways that could be improved with a decent software package would be limited only by one's imagination. And I'm sure there are also any number of ways it could be tied into the primary web site.

The main point is that communication is what is critical and a vibrant forum is critical to communication. Communication can't just be one way - and a web site is only designed for one way communication. WCG speaks - you listen. The forum is where you get to speak and are heard. Except no one wants to come here, so what's the point?

Unfortunately, VB is full of security holes like Swiss cheese, so I don't thing it will pass rigorous IBM rules.

Approximately month ago hackers disabled tens of forums using VB (I am a member of one of them) and forced admins to restore databases (thus lost posts/discussions), temporally disable some plug-ins (not a big deal at all),...

Nice soft, but developers need more work to do on security side

Cheers

First off, I would really like to be able to watch the video mentioned at the start of this thread. Unfortunately, Media Player, Quicktime and Itunes can't play it.

Second, it usually seems like a good idea in a redesign to get what you have now working first. WCG is cursed by it's initial focus on being a load and forget "app". It needs the simplicity and reliability for that to be possible (and it does that very well now) but it needs to be easy for a cruncher to go beyond that, especially for the "computer illiterate". Searching, reading, and posting in the forums needs to be seamlessly integrated into the overall website. If, for example, BOINC is telling me it can't communicate with the server, doing a search from the WCG website homepage should list any website content and forum content so that, if there's a current outage, I can find that out in a matter of seconds. For the vast majority of crunchers, they never use the curent forums, and of the very small minority that do, an equally small minority of that group post. As for the existing team email function, it's worthless. With the current default to not participate, changing that won't happen. You can't suddenly "opt-in" folks by changing that default as anyone who really wanted to opt out would be able to justifiably cry foul. Just get rid of it. Bring in private messaging. From looking at other projects, PM seems to be a part of the BOINC "package". That would at least be a starting point as I don't doubt that IBM would insist on mods for things like dealing with PMs that get out of hand and such. Communication within the cruncher community here is so limited that looks like something out of the Flintstones. WCG needs to bite the bullet and address the device merging issue. No, that's not going to have huge payoffs but it is a credibility issue for WCG. When you tell me I have 32 devices when I actually have 3, credibility suffers. Yes, maybe I shouldn't be able to merge devices when I've actually replaced a computer with a new one but if I've had to reload an existing machine, that's the same device. Track the MAC address and allow me to merge devices that are for the same MAC address. Again, I've seen other projects allow device merging so hopefully, that's part of the BOINC "package" that WCG excluded back in the beginning, and it is a starting point that avoids reinventing the wheel. I liked when team challenges were added. It's one of the few ways here we can encourage our fellow crunchers. Unfortunately, it's buggy enough that that is one more obstacle we have to deal with. It usually takes 8-10 days (for a month long challenge) for a team's rank to appear on the My Team page, and, often, that rank is different from what is shown when you view the challenge itself. I "love" the limit of not being able to create a challenge that starts more that 30 days out. Most of the months have 31 days so trying to maintain a recurring set of challenges as I do means I have to deal with the nuisance of reporting on the results of one set of challenges and then having to wait until the next day to create the new set. Simple workaround - delay reporting by a day or two so I can get it all done at once. That's the thing though, why should I have to need a workaround?

I'm sure the WCG team has found some real needs that they want to address in a redesign but I think if long-standing issues aren't addressed as well, a redesign could hurt far more that it helps.

None of formats I posted here works for you keith?

Cheers