Scratch

Magnie wrote:

TRocket wrote:

fg123 wrote:

I'd love to help. I'm good at PHP.

About the hashing method...
I believe FluxBB uses MD5.

the hashing shouldn't be a problem since we could use MD5 too 

I think we should move on to sha512 or higher. 

well this can be solved by getting users to type in their password, check it against the MD5 record and insert their new encrypted password 

TRocket wrote:

Magnie wrote:

TRocket wrote:

the hashing shouldn't be a problem since we could use MD5 too 

I think we should move on to sha512 or higher. 

well this can be solved by getting users to type in their password, check it against the MD5 record and insert their new encrypted password 

You could even arrange for this to happen the first time the user logs in. 

blob8108 wrote:

Magnie wrote:

I think it would be good for us all to learn a new language and for those of us that already know Python would learn about web-design with Python.

So it's a learn-learn ( win-win    ) for us all and I think it would be fun to create a site with Python, especially a forum since there are so few Python forums out there.

Absolutely! 

While we're looking at shiny new technologies, why don't we ditch SQL in favour of CouchDB?    It stores JSON-encoded documents which you query through "views" written in Javascript. You access it through a nice HTTP interface, and there are nice PHP and Python libraries for it.

Also, instead of BBCode, we could use something like Markdown, which is much nicer to write. 

One problem with not using PHP could be user logins -- I imagine you might end up having to login twice, once on the Scratch site and once on the forums.

I like this idea of learning a new language, although I'm not so sure about couchDB as accessing it through javascript seems a bit insecure.

Finally, I'm also not sure about markdown, it seems a well thought out idea, but why switch when everyone understands bbcode already? It already works perfectly fine. Markdown claims it's for helping people write large amounts of prose. Forums aren't really about that, they're more about writing small amounts.

Just my opinion though.

sparks wrote:

We at AT have certainly undertaken many interesting projects together, many of them changing the very Scratch experience. I call this a tentative suggestion because it would be a pretty large collaborative project and something that I don't think people should rush into.

A lot of the time the Scratch team seem to have problems with the Scratch Fora, the well known "Scratch time" where time zones just aren't taken into account is an example, and the lack of many necessary back-end controls lead to unfortunately necessary decisions such as blocking [url]tags from the fora. Why are these problems not resolved? Firstly because the Scratch team are being paid to work on the site in many cases and have many duties, meaning that site development needs to be balanced with their other duties - less time for development. Secondly, the fora aren't coded by the Scratch team (I think) but are rather a customisable forum "plugin" from a third-party provider.

I'm suggesting that we consider, as a collaborative, free and open-source project by the AT members, design a new forum system for the Scratch site. Hold your horses though, as this would be a large project. Firstly, we would have to see whether the Scratch team would be interested to "commission" us to make one (i.e. might adopt our finished forum system if it is good enough). Then, as clients, we should ask them as well as community mods what they like and dislike about the current forum system, knowing more about the back end would be helpful. I think it is important that we keep the forums quite similar to the existing one to avoid confusing users but adding more hidden moderation features that the team can use to better control and moderate the site, such as the proposed post-flagging system.

Please post thoughts or tell me I'm mad   

Sparks

What an awesome offer!

2.0 is going to be built on django, and so we're thinking of using django forum plugin and modifying it to suit our needs. How much modification it will need is an open question - actually, one we could use a lot of help understanding better.

I know people tend to think of "coding" as the hardest most valuable work that goes into a site like Scratch, but really the design work and the many choices that are part of it takes at least as much, if not more, energy and consideration. So help evaluating django forum plugins, and coming up with a specification for any changes / customizations we'd need to apply to them to make them work well for Scratch could be really helpful.

But if you guys are interested in making your own forums: please go for it! A Scratcher-run forum hosted outside of Scratch itself could be really cool. And we could think of good ways to authenticate against Scratch so the accounts are the same.

Lightnin wrote:

sparks wrote:

We at AT have certainly undertaken many interesting projects together, many of them changing the very Scratch experience. I call this a tentative suggestion because it would be a pretty large collaborative project and something that I don't think people should rush into.

A lot of the time the Scratch team seem to have problems with the Scratch Fora, the well known "Scratch time" where time zones just aren't taken into account is an example, and the lack of many necessary back-end controls lead to unfortunately necessary decisions such as blocking [url]tags from the fora. Why are these problems not resolved? Firstly because the Scratch team are being paid to work on the site in many cases and have many duties, meaning that site development needs to be balanced with their other duties - less time for development. Secondly, the fora aren't coded by the Scratch team (I think) but are rather a customisable forum "plugin" from a third-party provider.

I'm suggesting that we consider, as a collaborative, free and open-source project by the AT members, design a new forum system for the Scratch site. Hold your horses though, as this would be a large project. Firstly, we would have to see whether the Scratch team would be interested to "commission" us to make one (i.e. might adopt our finished forum system if it is good enough). Then, as clients, we should ask them as well as community mods what they like and dislike about the current forum system, knowing more about the back end would be helpful. I think it is important that we keep the forums quite similar to the existing one to avoid confusing users but adding more hidden moderation features that the team can use to better control and moderate the site, such as the proposed post-flagging system.

Please post thoughts or tell me I'm mad   

Sparks

What an awesome offer!

2.0 is going to be built on django, and so we're thinking of using django forum plugin and modifying it to suit our needs. How much modification it will need is an open question - actually, one we could use a lot of help understanding better.

I know people tend to think of "coding" as the hardest most valuable work that goes into a site like Scratch, but really the design work and the many choices that are part of it takes at least as much, if not more, energy and consideration. So help evaluating django forum plugins, and coming up with a specification for any changes / customizations we'd need to apply to them to make them work well for Scratch could be really helpful.

But if you guys are interested in making your own forums: please go for it! A Scratcher-run forum hosted outside of Scratch itself could be really cool. And we could think of good ways to authenticate against Scratch so the accounts are the same.

Mod Central already has that.  You have to enter your Scratch username and password to sign up, so only Scratchers can join.

gbear605 wrote:

Lightnin wrote:

But if you guys are interested in making your own forums: please go for it! A Scratcher-run forum hosted outside of Scratch itself could be really cool. And we could think of good ways to authenticate against Scratch so the accounts are the same.

I know magnie already asked, but I would be perfectly willing to host the forum on my site for free (scratchBB.escratch.org comes with free FTP and mySQL)

ScratchBB.escratch.org doesn't sound good......
Let's go for scratch.escratch.org!LOLOLOLOLOL

cocolover76 wrote:

gbear605 wrote:

Lightnin wrote:

But if you guys are interested in making your own forums: please go for it! A Scratcher-run forum hosted outside of Scratch itself could be really cool. And we could think of good ways to authenticate against Scratch so the accounts are the same.

I know magnie already asked, but I would be perfectly willing to host the forum on my site for free (scratchBB.escratch.org comes with free FTP and mySQL)

ScratchBB.escratch.org doesn't sound good......
Let's go for scratch.escratch.org!LOLOLOLOLOL

Redundant much? XD

So it looks like we will be making this.

Now the big question is: PHP or Python.
I personally would go for either, I'm perfectly flexible, but the decision must be made.

rookwood101 wrote:

I like this idea of learning a new language, although I'm not so sure about couchDB as accessing it through javascript seems a bit insecure.

Sorry -- the views are written in Javascript, but they run on the Couch server (with its awesome caching). You don't access it through Javascript. 

rookwood101 wrote:

Finally, I'm also not sure about markdown, it seems a well thought out idea, but why switch when everyone understands bbcode already? It already works perfectly fine. Markdown claims it's for helping people write large amounts of prose. Forums aren't really about that, they're more about writing small amounts.

It was just a suggestion -- and those are good points. I just prefer the way Markdown *looks*. 

Wow, a lot of stuff has been written while I was at work!

I think we should keep bbcode because people don't want to learn something new when using the fora and it may result in compatibility issues later on.

I'm in favour of PHP over Python but that's more because I don't know much Python. I think AJAX would be a wonderful way to reduce page-load times for posts too.

Sci, Scratch time can still be an option.

From what Lightnin' says, he probably wouldn't adopt our finished product because they plan to use a plugin, but it may still be a fun and interesting project.

I'm off to celebrate the entrance to 2012 so see you all next year!

meowmeow55 wrote:

Isn't sha1 considered more secure than md5 now?

Yes, but sha512 is even more secure.

happy new year everyone! hope we start this next year    I also hope scratch 2.0 will finally come out in 2012! well i'll see you all next year   

this is my 500th and last post of 2011!     

sparks wrote:

Hey guys, just logging in quicky to say IMPORTANT! Lighnin' made a good point, before we start coding and possibly before we even choose our language, we need to plan our graphics, our aims and content, what we're doing etc first, planning is a big stage! don't forget!

Truly. Half of my projects aren't finished because I didn't plan ahead. And even if I do finish them, they always turn out much better if it was planned. 

Alright, that sounds pretty good. I'm just going to get this thread renamed