Forum Topic

You may hate this forum, but it has its uses. I can't speak for the majority of readers and posters, but I can say that for me its pluses far outweigh the slight clunkiness of format and things like the re re re (which is easily resolved by using my delete button). They've set up an alternative forum in Chiswick - perhaps others might comment on how the two differ - I don't read them enough to know, but each Neighbour Net forum has a distinctive character and if something works in Chiswick that doesn't mean it will in Acton.Just off the top of my head, even putting aside all the numerous and varied topics freely discussed, this forum has helped a local family to find their lost dog, alerted residents to planning meetings and other important local events (often to be found on the front page of the site, too), pushes politicians and police to act much more quickly on local matters (at least it used to with the last Council administration), helps people to find good local plumbers, electricians etc, provides excellent advice for people having problems with local landlords or housing associations (also enabling them to get in touch with one another) and a myriad of other uses - just like the one you used in Dulwich, I expect. I’ve given away unwanted plants, borrowed garden waste bags, alerted people to a con-man knife grinder and found a fantastic craftsman to mend my broken stained glass window. I could go on but I don’t approve of long posts.I have to admit that I used to have a link to the site in that, until quite recently, I was the editor – but editors don’t edit or moderate the forum. And as I say I am the ex-editor.

Clare Gittins ● 5660d

Hi, Will.Good luck with your venture.I would advise you not to let the clique behind the "new" Chiswick forum use you for their own purposes.That forum is run by a group of people who were expelled by Neighbour Net for continually breaking the Forum Code of Conduct. This included the use of sock puppets to further personal business interests.One of those who posts on the new Chiswick forum does little except covertly (sometimes even overtly) promote his own restaurant business. Having read your forum's code of conduct, I would judge that his behaviour would fall outside of what you regard as the boundaries of permissible behaviour.The new Chiswick forum is also dominated by a right wing cabal which includes one person who took it upon himself to try and "cleanse" the ChiswickW4 forum of socialists in the run-up to last year's general election (whilst at the same time always welcoming the contributions of Tory spammers).Another thing they do not like on the new Chiswick forum is anyone with a sense of humour - which is why they banned bobby osborne (someone who is universally acclaimed as ChiswickW4's most entertaining contributor) as well as various other posters.I will probably sign up but would prefer it if you could include a clause outlawing expressions of racial bigotry, and most of all PLEASE ENFORCE IT. When I once took someone to task for continually spamming the ChiswickW4 forum with his anti-Asian prejudices, I was accused of being "hateful" by one of those who now posts on the new Chiswick forum.With any luck, a properly-enforced clause against racial bigotry will deter people like her from joining your forum.Most of all, please remember that the new Chiswick forum needs you more than you need them.

Robin Taylor ● 5660d

One of my previous employers put me on a committee which was to present a report on the addition of a discussion board to the company's web site. Consultants had recommended an expensive option and one of the board directors was convinced we could just use a free open source bit of software at minimal cost.Will's board was like many that we looked at and although it was true it would have taken minutes to get it up and running further investigation showed that there were likely to be a significant number of problems that would arise not least security and the likelihood of the board being spammed. There were also considerations such as upgrades, data protection issues and restrictions on commercial use. As far as we could work out the boards would periodically get hacked and then the programming may or may not issue a new version or abandon the software to do something else. They weren't paid so the shelf life of the software was uncertain.That was the least of the problems that presented. There was no way to integrate the board properly with our existing web site even with a fairly large and adept team of programmers assigned to the project. Basically these free boards are great for hobby sites but are a non-starter for anything more ambitious or with commercial intent.The report that we submitted costed maintenance of the internally built discussion board at a third of the original project cost each year. This was because browser changes and new platforms meant that the code constantly had to be updated. For this reason the user interface on the boards was very simple so that the updates were easier to do and there was less likelihood of browsers causing a conflict. It's not just ActonW3.com that has a very simple user interface - look at sites like the BBC or the Guardian in their comments section. They are designed like this for a reason and I'd take the basic nature of the design of this forum as an indication of the sophistication of the thinking behind it not a lack of ability. The code for the forum appears to be proprietary which means they wrote it from scratch - this is far more difficult than plugging in some free off-the-shelf software.This site also appears to face massive integration challenges. It uses a single application and user databases across a number of different domains and users may or may not be a member of the same forum application on different sites plus the user database also needs to be integrated with a number of different sites in the same way. If you don't think these issues present huge technical issues then you don't really understand much about online applications and databases.The look and feel of this site may seem basic but the software that sits underneath and the database technologies seem pretty much state of the art.The site does have areas that could be better but as far as I can see it is one of the busiest local discussion boards in the country so its deficiencies are not critical. I don't understand why frames are still used and whilst this forum works fine on my iPad I can't access the site at all through my blackberry. If the user isn't given a bells and whistles application because code simplicity is necessary to implement cross platform compatibility then it is reasonable to expect the necessary changes are implemented quickly. But these are minor quibbles.This forum seems to me to be something for Acton to be proud of. A good cross section of our community seems to come together here in harmony despite differing view points. This is partly down to the community spirit of local residents but credit must also be given to the company which manages it. Griping about their software on their forum seems to me both ungrateful and ill-informed.

Alan Fairchild ● 5659d

Michael, you don't seem to have read my post in your haste to answer presumably your anxiety to show off your technical expertise got the better of you.I never mentioned capacity as an issue with free software. I use other free discussion boards which are much busier than this one even when not counting the spam posts. We found that the terms and conditions of most free boards forbade commercial use over a certain level of traffic although this seemed to be widely ignored.You also missed the key point about ongoing development of this site. Of course it does require custom development, that's why I made the distinction between proprietary and open source. There does seem to be ongoing maintenance taking place not to the front end but to database functionality and platform compatibility. It probably isn't an accident that the site works with the iPad - many that I used to use don't. It would be nice if it worked with a blackberry. I don't think that it is unfair of me to raise this - much of the criticism of this forum in this thread seems ill-informed or made with the aim of promoting another product but it is a fact that ActonW3.com doesn't work with blackberrys.I've never seen the app you mention and can't imagine there are that many likely users of it on ActonW3.com but why not ask if you would like it supported - or is it your own product you are trying not so subtly to plug? My guess would be that it wouldn't work as the rather archaic use of frames on this site would be a problem but why not be decent about this and ask the site's owners if they would look at it rather than grumbling on the assumption that they won't.

Alan Fairchild ● 5659d

'I'm not convinced this site faces massive integration challenges at all - the forum just runs in a frame.'But the user information also drives other applications. This is mainly where you would have integration issues as far as I can see. Certainly projects I was involved with always had a major issue linking existing user databases with third party software.'This forum has no security! Logging in with an email address and no password?'I tend to agree on this point although the solution for the individual would be to use a unique e-mail address. As far as I can see security doesn't seem to be an ongoing problem and worse case someone could find out your date of birth and post code which they would be able to do anyway knowing your name and the area in which you live. The actually databases themselves seem fairly cast iron secure which is more than can be said for those on many other forums which seem to get regularly hacked.'Given everyone is expected by certain parties to use their real name, there's a reasonable chance you could guess their login.'Maybe but why not in that case just register in their name if you were of a mind to play silly buggers? Facebook has not solved their problem of impersonation and it is a big problem. This site doesn't seem to suffer from it much if at all but ultimately there is no viable way for any site to stop someone pretending to be someone else other than the real person complaining.'And spammers will always go for the easy wins - big audiences, health forums, luxury goods, etc. 'You don't undestand how they work. They will target the software irrelevant of the subject. The more popular the software the more time and effort they will spend on trying to get access to it. Decent software will be more popular and so more hackers and spammers will target it which is why even the best have to constantly be upgraded to cure vulnerabilities.'The main reason I rarely use this forum is because it's so painful to read any thread longer than about 10 messages.  And on any touch screen smaller than an ipad, it's a nightmare.'I've never seen any forum that is particularly easy to read on a mobile phone once the thread length gets into double figures.You might not agree with what I say but can I suggest you look at it this way: if ActonW3.com could simply take a free, more richly featured piece of forum software and stick it on this site they would have done. They clearly don't have a huge software budget but do have sufficient inhouse expertise to build and implement their own software which suggests they have some inkling of what they are doing. If the use of free third party software does not present the challenges and issues that I am suggesting it might then why on earth would they not simply use it? Projects that I worked on reached precisely the same conclusion as ActonW3.com which is why I think much of the criticism in this thread is unfair and ill-informed.

Alan Fairchild ● 5658d