Inspiring

Question

NO NNTP News Feed = A loss of a lot of helpful people.

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
April 6, 2009
6 replies
21070 views

COPTIED FROM A REPLY, but after I posted I decided I wanted this to be a thread of its own.

As a 'News Group User' of the older forum, I find the e-mail feature to not be sufficient to make up the removal of the NTTP feature.

I, and several like me, answered a lot more questions then we asked. To do this, we don't hang around the web interface all day. Rather we connected with our handy news readers to the NNTP feeds. Thus we could pruse all the new topics since the last time we had a few moments. See any that we could help with and fire off a reply, then go on to the next message. No back buttons, multiple web forms or any other huey that slows down serial responders.

We NNTP users may have been a small group, but we where very vocal, at least on the ColdFusion forums where I share much of my knowledge.

I can tell you, if today is the indication that this is the best that these new forums has to offer, I will not be a frequent contributor to these discussions. And I am not alone.

I don't care if the technology uses E-mail, NNTP or RSS feeds, but it must use it correctly. The messages must be threaded, they must be complete and understandable and we must be able to read and reply with tools other then a web browser.

I am not going to be able to help with messages like this. It does not make sense without context to the other messages of this thread!

[Advanced Techniques] New message: "Re: post data" [1i9rpv-1np-7Qx9]

Ian Skinner,

A new message was posted in the thread "post data":

http://forums.adobe.com/message/1870239#1870239

Author  : dchard
Profile : http://forums.adobe.com/people/dchard

Message:
--------------------------------------------------------------
that I don't know...that's why I'm asking if it's possible and how. But I'm thinking is it possible to store the data on a session variable thru onclick? So that when a user pick a choice on the drop down then it will store in the session.

This topic has been closed for replies.

D

Dierk_Haasis

Participant

Bring back NNTP support. I don't care what loops some think I have to jump through to follow "my" boards, newsreader is the easiest way for me.

A

Anonymous

I have almost never used the Web/HTTP access to the forums. NNTP is so much easier, more direct, and for me it just sits there along with my personal and professional email accounts, various other vendor newsgroups and forums such as Microsoft's and Corel's, and even Usenet. I can just click to move among them and check for new postings.

I didn't even know that NNTP had been discontinued - there was no notice posted in the individual forums at all. I only came here to note that I could no longer connect to adobeforums.com, and found this thread. Threads ... that's another thing that NNTP does better than the website. On the website it's impossible to see which messages are replies to which in a message tree.

I hope that I'm considered one of the 'helpful people' - but whether I am or not count me among the missing, because I will most definitely NOT come and check a website to see if there's any activity in given forum. I DID and would continue to simply look at my list of NNTP newsgroups, which is always open and immediately displays whether there are any new messages, and how many.

- Herb V B

ilssacAuthor

Inspiring

On the website it's impossible to see which messages are replies to which in a message tree.

Not impossible, there is an option in one's profile to configure the view to a 'threaded' rather then 'flat' view. It is not a very good implementation of a threaded discussion IMHO. And it does not make up for the lack of NNTP. But I do not want arguments based on misinformation clouding the issue.

I have now been working hard for three days to find some way I can continue to work with these forums. So far the RSS feeds are the only thing I can bearly tollerate. But there are 6 frigging (apparently the preceding word which rhymes with "rigging" is not acceptable) RSS feeds for every forum and absolutely NO documentation that I can find on why one would choose a 'Thread' over a 'Discussion' or an 'All Content' RSS feed. I've just un-subscribed and re-subscribed to all the ColdFusion forums for the third time because I still have not found the one that gives me all the threads, messages, replies and updates.

Even with the RSS feeds, I have to open up a browser to reply to anything I want to help with and that REALLY slows down my work. I have to wait for the browser to open a tab, fetch the content, render all the HTML and JavaScript, click on a reply button, WAIT again for another page to download and render, and then wait for the AJAX - DHTML WYSIWYG form to render itself I tried the plain HTML form, but the system does not work well with that if you want any white space in your content, then better code in the expected HTML. And then I can start to type some 20 to 30 seconds later.

I could sometimes fire off two or three quick replies in NNTP in the time it takes me to type my first letter in this new system. I'm sorry I do not see myself sticking this out very much longer, and I think many of my fellow NNTP users may have already gone on to greener pastures.

Good Luck Adobe Forums.

Message was edited by: Ian Skinner

A

Anonymous

Re: Threading -

Thank you Ian for the correction, and you're right - this discussion shouldn't be muddied by untruths! (Nor should ANY discussion)

So it is not "impossible" to display threads. I changed my preference but then had to really look closely at the screen to see the light gray connections and very slightly indented heirarchies of messages ... As you say, it's not the greatest implementation ... Even some other web forums display a clear tree structure, displaying the message subject/topic and author and (rarely) the first line or two of text.

It took me at least ten times as long to get to this reply (after getting an email of your msg) as it would have WITH nntp. I didn't reply via email because I'm not yet sure just how that works - I'll find out soon enough ... maybe.

- Herb

C

ChivertonT

Inspiring

Indeed. It's impossible to monitor a web forum with the same ease as scanning a list of threads in a news or email client.

RoboWizard

Inspiring

Hi there

That's exactly how I operate. I have subscribed via E-Mail to the forums I want to monitor. Threads arrive and are sorted into folders and I scan them in my E-Mail client. If I want to reply I'm free to reply via my E-Mail client or if I choose I may visit the thread in question and reply via the browser.

Cheers... Rick

C

ChivertonT

Inspiring

Rick: You can't be replying over email because that doesn't work (see new top level post in this room). You also probably noticed that the emails aren't threaded, because their missing the right headers (again, see other posts).

ilssacAuthor

Inspiring

Just to put this into context I just replied to a thread that I original replied to in the old forum as a News Group User.

Save As Function

As you can see in the second post of the thread - which was my reply done last week, we Newsgroup Users collectivily provided nearly a quarter a million responses to these fourms over the last decade. Considering how few of us seem to make up the NNTP group that seems to be a goodly ammount of content per NNTP community member.

Newsgroup_User

238,007 posts since
Jan 1, 1999

While I'm sure that is a minority of the forum's content, it is not a trivial number in my mind. That seems to be a lot of good stuff to just throw away with an 'Oh Well, its not worth the bother'.

Ian

J

Jochem van Dieten

Inspiring

ianskinner wrote:
Newsgroup_User
238,007 posts since
Jan 1, 1999
While I'm sure that is a minority of the forum's content, it is not a trivial number in my mind. That seems to be a lot of good stuff to just throw away with an 'Oh Well, its not worth the bother'.

The nice thing about the API access is that it is possible to obtain the total number of posts on all forums: 1697652.

Is that the number just for NNTP on the Macromedia forums or does it include NNTP on the Adobe forums?

ilssacAuthor

Inspiring

jochemd wrote:
Is that the number just for NNTP on the Macromedia forums or does it include NNTP on the Adobe forums?

I could not say. I just noticed when I replied to that thread yesterday, that it included my original reply from last week that I did via my news reader. I knew that in the older forum all us NNTP users where considered the same user, even though in the old forum it would show my name under the Newsgroup User. I wonder if this may not be part of the problem. That Adobe, for what ever reason, does not want all of us to be lumped together. I suspect it would play havok with this award point system.

That brings up a question for you Jochem, since you are so knowledgeable about the standards. Does the NNTP standard require anominity from us users or is there someway that we could be able to be individually indentified by this system when we provide content? I would assume so, if nothing else by only being able to reply by email and not by NNTP.

Just playing with the numbers we have to date.

238,007 / 1,697,652 = ~.14019 or 14% of the total. That seems to be a respectable number to me.

P.S. God, I am really fighting with this interface, why can I not use SHFIT & CURSOR keys to highlight content for editing?

A

Adam Cameron.

Inspiring

I'm with Ian 100% on this. I have spent a good number of years helping out on these forums: according to Google I have made around 3500 posts; almost all of these are helping people out (I've actually only *asked* probably a dozen questions or so). And unless there's an NNTP feed to them, that's it: I'm finished.

For heavy users of support forums, a basic web UI just doesn't cut it. And what Ian said about the email is correct too: given the way people here post, the individual email messages are borderline incomprehensible. This sort of stuff is fine for the people who post the odd question (up to you to determine what I mean by "odd" there ;-), because all they have to do is wait for an email with an answer. However this absolutely does not work for the people who are trying to give the help: the way we use the forums is quite different from the way people asking the questions use them. This seems to be a gross oversight on the part of Adobe. I am very surprised that at no point did anyone approach the regular users here to involve them in beta testing the new forums before rolling them out the door. I suppose I could have been overlooked for the beta programme? Can anyone else here comment as to whether there was one, and I missed out?

I'm going to keep an eye on goings-on here for another couple of days, and if things don't get sorted out by then, I'm gone.

To be honest, I think you - Adobe - would be better off returning to the old system until you get a better game plan together.

--

Adam

RoboWizard

Inspiring

Hi Adam

I would have to respectfully disagree with you. Please allow me to explain.

I come from the FuseTalk (former Macromedia) forums. I'm in a very similar boat as you are. Except with post count.

You can't convince me that the new format is slower. Why? You say you had 3,500 or so posts all mostly helping others. Well, as I said. Similar for me. I have been operating with a similar setup to these new forums for a long while now. Receive post notification via E-Mail and replying via Web interface. Strictly. I've used two different E-Mail addresses. One had I believe 11,000+ posts and the other had 4,000+ posts. That's more than 14,000 posts using this method. And I'd be willing to bet my actual time involvement (number of years) has been fewer than yours.

So if this new format allows us to reply directly via E-Mail, it's a boon and will save time for me.

Sincerely... Rick

J

Jochem van Dieten

Inspiring

RoboWizard

Inspiring

Hi there

I'm going to have to don quadruple layers of Nomex underwear for this as I'm sure I'll be flamed big time. But here goes anyway.

I'm so confused about why loss of NNTP is such a huge ordeal for so many. My own experiences with NNTP led me to conclude that it really isn't all that much different from E-Mail. We have E-Mail with these new forums. E-Mail applications allow configuring of rules to allow sorting to occur. So instead of opening a separate NNTP reader you look in your E-Mail. If you are sorting, it goes to one or more specific folders.

So with NNTP you look in an area for posts. With E-Mail you look in an area for posts. I don't see much of a difference there. Especially if the forums are allowing us to reply back using E-mail.

I suppose if no NNTP is going to equal a loss of helpful people, I'd really question the motive. Are the helpful people only helping because they like using NNTP or are they helping because other users need help?

Okay, let the sparks fly into the tinderbox...

A

Anonymous

there ya go:

nntp: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc977.html

smtp: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2821.html

and now you know.

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