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The end of a long story - Printable Version
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The end of a long story - venam - 08-08-2020

Hello nixers,
After 9 long years of this fantastic Unix enthusiasts community running,
it's with immense sorrow that I'm announcing, as of tomorrow 09-08-2020,
the closure of the nixers forums.

Every story has its ending, its adventure, its suspense, and I truly
think we've had our golden forums days, and that now is the time to turn
the page.

The world has moved away from forums based discussion and we cannot deny
this anymore.

Many thanks go to our wonderful community that contributed high quality
content, which will stay in read-only mode for the enjoyment of future
readers.
The IRC will also stay up and running.

I hope you will keep pleasant memories of your time on the nixers forums
and that it'll always have a special place in your heart, as it will
in mine.
Thank you everyone!


EDIT:

Let's give it another change. With some changes I think the forums medium can be more attractive.
I'll need all your help for that!

RE: The end of a long story - opfez - 08-08-2020

Damn, that's unfortunate. Well, I had a good time the few weeks I've been here.

RE: The end of a long story - neeasade - 08-08-2020

Thank you for everything venam. I'm sure I'll see all you nixers around in other places. <3

RE: The end of a long story - seninha - 08-08-2020

Thanks, venam, for the opportunity you have given us to discuss and share our knowledge.
As neeasade said, I see you all around over the Internet.

RE: The end of a long story - gmk - 09-08-2020

So long and thanks for all the fish, I'll miss this place.

I guess I should finally get around to checking out the irc.

Peace.

RE: The end of a long story - movq - 09-08-2020

Thank you for having run the forum!

Sad, though. I'll miss it. Maybe it will come back one day. :-)

RE: The end of a long story - s0kx - 09-08-2020

Thank you venam and everyone else for all of this great content <3 I'm not the most active irc user, but I promise to bookmark all of your websites.

RE: The end of a long story - venam - 10-08-2020

We're back online with some changes, which I hope will make it more approachable and interactive.

Namely:
  • An online indicator
  • FAQ for new comers
  • The extra signup security question has been removed as it was extremely hard to answer (according to the stats)
  • The syntax help being more prominent, as many users are having difficulties including media in their posts
  • The addition of categorization of users according to how active they are on the forums, which shows under their avatars
  • Certain users will automatically be promoted to moderator based on their forums activity
  • If you are part of the "grey hair nixers" group you can ask for your own *.nixers.net subdomain
  • I updated the Activities
  • A thread will be promoted every week
  • Improved the SEO by adding a sitemap and social metatags

We'll give it a go, and see what changes it'll bring. Let's give it another chance.

RE: The end of a long story - jkl - 10-08-2020

I oppose user titles and voting. Both make it attractive to write pointless postings. I mean, see what I did even before I was honored for it! ... ;)
... and there’s still no default avatar, I see. Good, good. (But the image-not-found picture next to my nickname is still weird.)

I seem to be a moderator now. Ha!

... the other changes are good though, thank you for reconsidering the shutdown.

RE: The end of a long story - neeasade - 10-08-2020

> Both make it attractive to write pointless postings

I do think that's kind of the point

RE: The end of a long story - venam - 10-08-2020

(10-08-2020, 03:24 PM)jkl Wrote: ... and there’s still no default avatar, I see
Fixed.

(10-08-2020, 03:24 PM)jkl Wrote: I oppose user titles and voting. Both make it attractive to write pointless postings.
That comes up to the community, I'm trying to find ways to incite activities while still having good monitoring and moderation.

If anyone has any other ideas I'm all ears.

RE: The end of a long story - jkl - 10-08-2020

Thank you, finally I see something! :-)

I had a few ideas. I’ll need to make a serious list these days. I hope I can remember them all.

RE: The end of a long story - z3bra - 10-08-2020

I too dislike the voting system. It adds noise for no reason. New content is scarce, so tagging it as low quality won't help.

I see no point in the online indicator as well, given that the info is available on the main page.

The moderation panel is good ! I hope it will make maintenance easier on you !

Do you think its possible to promote a random thread every week ? That would encourage discussing past topics maybe ?

Oh, and thaks a lot for the new RSS link !

RE: The end of a long story - venam - 11-08-2020

(10-08-2020, 05:21 PM)z3bra Wrote: I too dislike the voting system. It adds noise for no reason. New content is scarce, so tagging it as low quality won't help.
We'll give it a go for a week, no harms in trying.

(10-08-2020, 05:21 PM)z3bra Wrote: I see no point in the online indicator as well, given that the info is available on the main page.
It does give the impression that the other person is ready to reply and how much a thread is active.

(10-08-2020, 05:21 PM)z3bra Wrote: The moderation panel is good ! I hope it will make maintenance easier on you !
That's the point.

(10-08-2020, 05:21 PM)z3bra Wrote: Do you think its possible to promote a random thread every week ? That would encourage discussing past topics maybe ?
Great idea, I'll do some research on how to implement this.

(10-08-2020, 05:21 PM)z3bra Wrote: Oh, and thaks a lot for the new RSS link !
It was there within the page before, I just put an emphasis on it. Made it more prominent.

RE: The end of a long story - twee - 12-08-2020

I never knew about the RSS. That's pretty nice.

I like the sound of promoting a random old thread. Different communities have different rules about whether it's okay to bring up old things so I tend to try and avoid it unless it's explicit that it's allowed (maybe it was and I just didn't see).

As others have mentioned, when thread frequency is already so low it doesn't seem sensible to add other ways to drive people away from reading one.

I'd probably prefer not to have categories of threads on the front page like there currently is as it just makes it harder to burrow through lots of past posts. There's search which is what I use to find things more finely than just wanting to explore, and I feel like most people here are interested enough in all the categories that having them isn't so necessary, but that could just be me.

RE: The end of a long story - jkl - 12-08-2020

(12-08-2020, 07:34 AM)twee Wrote: I'd probably prefer not to have categories of threads on the front page like there currently is as it just makes it harder to burrow through lots of past posts.

The current trend towards a de-categorization of web forums is exactly why Facebook is so popular: If you take all the structure off a web forum, there is no reason to not move to another unstructured mess of a web portal.

RE: The end of a long story - twee - 12-08-2020

I think Facebook and this forum are quite different: I like/d that one couldn't simply downvote a post and move on if they didn't agree, they had to actually articulate a reply. The smaller community and good moderation makes nixers feel friendlier.

The topics of nixers are all niche and closely related anyway, and there's sometimes overlap between categories which makes them less helpful or confusing.

Obviously we can differ here, but I see nixers as a category in itself, so it doesn't need subcategories.

RE: The end of a long story - venam - 12-08-2020

(12-08-2020, 07:34 AM)twee Wrote: I'd probably prefer not to have categories of threads on the front page like there currently is as it just makes it harder to burrow through lots of past posts
(12-08-2020, 11:48 AM)twee Wrote: The topics of nixers are all niche and closely related anyway, and there's sometimes overlap between categories which makes them less helpful or confusing.

Obviously we can differ here, but I see nixers as a category in itself, so it doesn't need subcategories.

That's the whole reason we added the "Active Threads" button at the top. It's supposed to be the after-the-homepage page. Basically, the homepage shows all the categories, and if you want a gist of what's currently active you can click that "Active Threads".

RE: The end of a long story - pfr - 13-08-2020

The "Active Threads" button is excellent. But what about the ability to "follow" threads? get notifications when others comment etc. Or is this already possible?

RE: The end of a long story - venam - 13-08-2020

(13-08-2020, 10:14 AM)Ramiferous Wrote: The "Active Threads" button is excellent. But what about the ability to "follow" threads? get notifications when others comment etc. Or is this already possible?

You can subscribe to threads.
I had temporarily removed the button, now it's back, under the "View a printable version".