The Future of the Forum

[Irihapeti]

There is an area called the Lounge which is the equivalent of the Cafe. As for Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat, I'm not really sure. Maybe ask in Site Feedback and see what someone more knowledgeable has to say.

[coffeecat]

@Irihapeti, we created ULOS years ago when the forum was much, much busier, and the whole non-support discussion area needed a shake-up. With things much quieter recently I had often wondered about suggesting that we merge the Cafe and ULOS back together again, particularly in view of the number of people who can't be bothered to read the sub-forum straplines and who post in the 'wrong' one. :sigh: That is now, of course, moot with this site closing. But just a thought for those responsible for arranging things in Discourse.

[wildmanne39]

Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat

I brought this up yesterday and the conclusion is for now to post the Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat discussions in the lounge for now on discourse we will revisit this decision if we get complaints but the lounge has not been used much so complains probably will not happen.

[grahammechanical]

What was the original concept for the Lounge?

Regards

[Irihapeti]

The Lounge was originally for level 3 users; so, an exclusive club for a minority to get away from the rabble, if you like. But it seemed to be one of those clubs where you read your newspaper and keep quiet - no conversation.

[Rubi1200]

Sorry for the question at this late stage but I was wondering...once the forums become read-only will we still be able to login?

Obviously, I realize no posting or replying but would it still be possible to view my profile, read old messages etc.?

[Rubi1200]

The Lounge was originally for level 3 users; so, an exclusive club for a minority to get away from the rabble, if you like. But it seemed to be one of those clubs where you read your newspaper and keep quiet - no conversation.

Now it is open for anyone with level 1 and above it seems?

Also, off-topic, but perhaps you can help: I was just given a badge for the next trust level, Member, more than 4 hours ago but it still shows Basic if I view my profile in posts or threads.

Be patient and wait or open a question in the site help and feedback section?

UPDATE: now the Member badge is being displayed. I shall be more patient next time

[Irihapeti]

Sorry for the question at this late stage but I was wondering...once the forums become read-only will we still be able to login?

Obviously, I realize no posting or replying but would it still be possible to view my profile, read old messages etc.?

As I understand it, No. Only the public-facing parts of the forum will be visible and accessible. The software is old, and read-only is the only way of keeping it reasonably secure. Another option that's been floated is turning it into a set of plain html pages. Ultimately that kind of decision will be up to Canonical IS.

Except that: if anyone has a large enough disk, they can theoretically set a web crawler such as wget or curl running on the forum and save to html pages. I say "theoretically" because there could be firewalls and other stuff that get in the way, and I've never done this sort of thing myself before. But there's no copyright reason to prevent it.


Which raises the point: if you do have PMs or other non-public material that you want to keep, now is the time to take copies. There are programs that will save and index web pages. I use zotero for a recipe collection; and I've heard wallabag mentioned elsewhere.

[coffeecat]

Which raises the point: if you do have PMs or other non-public material that you want to keep, now is the time to take copies. There are programs that will save and index web pages. I use zotero for a recipe collection; and I've heard wallabag mentioned elsewhere.

Despite the forum software being old, it does have an inbuilt functionality to download private messages. Method (be warned, it is fiddly and time-consuming):

1. Go to a page of one of your message folders. Select the messages you want to download. There's a small box on the far right of the orange bar above the list of messages - if you tick that, you will select all of the messages on that page.
2. Under the list of messages, on the right, you will see a small square-edged button which says, "Selected Messages (XX)" with XX being the number you selected. Click that and you will see various options, including three download options: XML, CSV, TEXT.

[Irihapeti]

Now it is open for anyone with level 1 and above it seems?...

The Lounge came with the software, and by default was level 3. The conversation went something like this:

"We need an equivalent of the Cafe. Do we need another area for that?"

"We have the Lounge. It's hardly used and we're not saving it for anything. Why not use that?"

"And change the access level? Yes, sounds a good idea."

And so it happened...