Site Quality (newsposting issues)

[TSFX]

Now as we all know maintaining quality code on a dynamic site espcially one as active as ngemu.com is hard but i had to say something hehe.

Originally Posted by Bobbi

Lots of changes happening at NGEmu right now. First off, I decided that it's about time to clean up the lousy XHTML compatibility of NGEmu (roughly 450 validation errors), and I'm happy to announce that the mainpage is now http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=www.ngemu.com100% XHTML 1.0 transitional compatible! I'm working on cleaning up the remaining bugs in the page code, should be done early next week.

FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL.

ANyways i think half the errors are because alt tags havent been used in spacer imagers, however this is actuall yprobly the most common thing on the web as spacer gifs are to small to display alt text.

In defense a couple of the errors are the validator itself being funky.

Windows encoding is fine, if your using windows, however if thats vBullitens default encoding stick with it its easier and as we all know BOBBI has better crap todo, UTF8 without BOM and unix style endings is most compatible.

Anyways not to knock BOBBI or ngemu, alot of time is invested into life and non life. Ive recently found out how hard standardized coding is and why it doesnt make sense due to browser support versus written standards. The Validator probly has some complexity issues outside of the alt tag problems that are just an annyoing requirment.

I KNOW ILL GET FLAMED 150 TIMES, bobbi doesnt have time... I KNOW LMAO

[FLaRe85]

Since when does standards compliance == quality? I could turn out the ****tiest design you've ever seen, but make it standards-compliant and it's automatically better than this one?

They're meant to guarentee uniformity between compliant browsers and by no means a sign of superiority.

[TSFX]

Originally Posted by FLaRe85

Since when does standards compliance == quality? I could turn out the ****tiest design you've ever seen, but make it standards-compliant and it's automatically better than this one?

They're meant to guarentee uniformity between compliant browsers and by no means a sign of superiority.

Reread my post up to 100 times till you find that i covered atleast 51% of what you said!

Maybe this was it "Ive recently found out how hard standardized coding is and why it doesnt make sense due to browser support versus written standards."

Anyways I should have used compatability rather then quality but i think you can flame "Standard Compatabilty" Because it doesnt equal browser compatability. In fact the most comon link specifications in the body tags were not ever in html 3 or 4 and never will be in any specification outside of the "Netscape Classic" Spec.

I only chanegd to html 4 trans because its close and very little has to be done with CSS, i can still write to that standard and be 90% IE4/NS4/OP3 compatible and 99-100% IE5 NS6 OP7 compatible. I will have to admit im the most stubborn person when it comes to using CSS, or html strict or xhtml at all...... screw XML...... unless its RSS or a flatfile tdatabase ive accepted XML superior for both.

EDIT - BTW have u run the acid2 test in Opera 7 its perfect... not so for just about any other windows browsers lacking css support. SOme of the CSS2/3 commands that opera 9 supports are highly desirable but wont be used for years due to compatability.

EDIT - CSS itself is ofcourse flamed for its advertised cross compatability which is about 80% BS and about 20% Crap. Its like communism cute idea but it just doesnt work.

EDIT - Dont get me wrong i love css especially the abilityto use classes (im an OOP programmer classes are everything) but compatabilty as a benifit is such BS.

[refraction]

you might find its the newsposts causing the problems now rather than the actual site, some (if not all) of those errors are comming from within news posts.

but at the time that was done the site was perfectly compliant

[TSFX]

Originally Posted by refraction

but at the time that was done the site was perfectly compliant

Well i figured that as for the newsposts u notice some of the erros arent even valid, its the sgml parsers design while yes some of the posts ar ecausing problems

However the spacer images that dont have alt tags is something i didnt bother locating the exact places wether its in the page or the posts anything autmaticly generated by vBulliten or a script written for the site,

it would be a goal to have it output properly any script calling a print or echo for an image should have an alt tag, Outside of html code inputted by the user the entire idea is to output text from the mysql database through the php scripts into an html displayed output that is valid tot he parser however it works in the browser so who cares.

Error Line 415 column 76: there is no attribute "TARGET".

...k.net/showthread.php?t=34748" TARGET="_blank">this thread</a>, a new "final b

This is actually a default in the PHP code all or most links that link to somethign external are given a Target = _blank which means new window. The site is purposly designed todo this and no modification has been made to the php scripts to output valid xhtml.

I actually have no clue what the frame target replacment is but anyways alot of these news post errors are caused by legacy html generation by the bulliten boards code. Some of the scripts werent written for xhtml and some of those havent been modified yet. Its not something to waste time over unless youre making xhtml valid claims. And when you make such claims on a dynamic page where the code behind it has code for legacy tags not supported in the stanbdard then you already know the enxt day the oage wont be valid. The best way to make sure of this is to make a list of each of the scripts that page associates with then do a text search for any particular html tags u know were eliminated in that standard. This sounds easy by can be tedious... thats what the validator is for when it sees a legacy tag itll point it out but checking every page is also tedious and there for probly a waste of time if your trying to operate a large site.

[Cid Highwind]

Indeed, it's not the site itself, it's the news, I've been complaining about it for ages and nothing seems to be done. A choice had to be made: A new system, or recruiting new newsposters who will work with the current 'defunct' system that still seems to work.

So far nothing has been done.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

Indeed, it's not the site itself, it's the news, I've been complaining about it for ages and nothing seems to be done. A choice had to be made: A new system, or recruiting new newsposters who will work with the current 'defunct' system that still seems to work.

So far nothing has been done.

I wanted a new system.....just keep on complaining to Bobbi....he's the only one who can do it

I posted this in the admin board a while back:

A few days of brainstorming came up with this:



at the current moment, newsposts are made through the homepage's AdminCP, where only a limited amount of people have access. Once the newspost is created, a thread is created in a hidden "News comments" forum, well for....comments

My new idea:



basically, all this is saying is to take threads from the "Emulation News Submissions", and copying those as newsposts for the mainpage automatically.

Advantages:
1) helps us lazy admins
2) some people have been worried that they are not getting the proper recognition for their time and effort
3) news can be posted by pretty much anyone, instead of only a selected few

Disadvantages:
1) Quality Control - I have looked into this problem, and maybe set some sort of moderation restriction for normal members below a certain postcount.....and created a 'trusted' usergroup for the normal members we can trust
2) Format - we will have to get strict about making members post news in a specific format. For example: proper capitilization in title, complete changelog, NO DIRECT DOWNLOAD LINKS!!!, ect.
3) Could make NGemu's file database obsolete? - since normal members won't have access to edit the file database, they can't post direct NGemu download links in their posts.

Implementation:
--> create a secondary usergroup for trusted members
--> create moderation restrictions for members under a certain post count.
--> create some sort of category system....so the news will be displayed under the right tabs on the homepage
--> create a format guideline example post for members to follow
--> for the "Posted by:" field in each mainpage post, put the thread starter in there instead
--> for counting the comments, just have it read the replies # column on the forums

that's it for now. I wanna see if anything like this will be even possible before I start wasteing my time on the details

[Cid Highwind]

And who's in charge of recruiting new newsposters?

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

And who's in charge of recruiting new newsposters?

admins and mods can confirm new newsposters, but Bobbi is the only one who can implement the user into the adminCP

[TSFX]

Well I guess youre kidna right I assumed because of the fact that all post links are external that it was the automatic interpretation of BB code to html that was generating the target="_blank" but when i ran this page there were no target links so either your correct in its the news posts or the codes different.

This page still failed with 27 errors but 50% are validator BS, 10% is omitted tags, 10% wrong order nesting, and the rest well hard to say and i just closed the darn thing so im not bother going to look for anything specific.

But yeah are the newsposters able to use raw html if so then that would cause problems ofcourse. But if the html is php script generated its still hard to blame them, all im saying is im failing to see where the newsposters are allowed to use html versus we arent if they arent either then what could they be doing to cause errors?

Originally Posted by FLaRe85

Since when does standards compliance == quality? I could turn out the ****tiest design you've ever seen, but make it standards-compliant and it's automatically better than this one?

They're meant to guarentee uniformity between compliant browsers and by no means a sign of superiority.

Sadly Quality doesnt always mean good looking, try volvo mid 80's. Wait screw the box lets just take a 1962 design box it call it a 73, safe as hell and built to last but damned ugly. Dont get me wrong the 62 was decent (ugly to some) and the bonnet and head lights are a classic british item, volvo worked with the BMC on the mid 60's models and it kinda stuck into the 70's as they started to uglify the car.



And heres the 62 not bad looking eh?

[hushypushy]

standards based doesnt matter. bobbi has already come in and said this, since some other dumbass has made a thread "hey this site isnt standards compliant omgwtf!"

anyway stimson, you're a loser, stop coming back.

[Kirby]

I'm reopening this thread to continue discussion about the newsposter problems....any mention about the W3C Validator crap, I will close it again

[Keith]

The TARGET is fine .. xhtml just doesn't like it in all caps (or any html code for that matter). An easy fix for someone with access.

I also agree with others that compliant code is not all that important but clean code is. I always find it easy to get cross platform compatibility even without it being compliant. There is no performance increase with using compliant code over non compliant code, but there will be a performance increase with cleaner code. I find that more important then sticking with standards.

As for news posters they just need to use code that is compliant if that is the goal or just stick with what works. I personally see nothing wrong with the way it is now, works across browsers just fine.

Also why hijack this thread for ways to change how news is added to the main site .. blah start a new thread

[Cid Highwind]

The problem with the news is that Chrono simply can not keep up with all the news all by himself, as I have pointed out in a thread some time ago. It's been addressed before, and I am sure there are enough members willing to help out, but the administration simply does not make a decision on what to do.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Cid Highwind

The problem with the news is that Chrono simply can not keep up with all the news all by himself, as I have pointed out in a thread some time ago. It's been addressed before, and I am sure there are enough members willing to help out, but the administration simply does not make a decision on what to do.

if it's that bad, I guess I can force myself to start again....provided that Bobbi resets my password to the adminCP

but this system can't go on for much longer

[Kellicros]

The last time I tried to help on newsposting, I found my logins can no longer be used, now if only Bobbi could regain my access. I will try to catch him on #ngemu.