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Computers selectors, pages, etc.
Curt, 1998 called and they want their message board technology back
By Navy2711
May 28, 2025 6:38 am
Category: Computers
(5.0 from 1 vote)
Rules of the Post & Tips.
SelectSmart.com SelectSmart.com SelectSmart.com SelectSmart.com


Does anyone have a good way of keeping track of conversations on this board? Maybe I'm the not-so-tech-savvy one here, but I'm currently using shortcuts on my desktop to mark topics that I want to go back to.

Again I say to you, it's 2025 and I'm keeping shortcuts on my desktop to keep track of conversations.

Is there a "messages" button, or a flag system, that I'm not seeing?

Curt, if you're still using phpBB, it has an alert system that will tell users when someone replies to them:

Admin Control Panel (ACP) > General > Board Configuration > Board Features > Allow board notifications

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Comments on "Curt, 1998 called and they want their message board technology back":

  1. by Curt_Anderson on May 28, 2025 9:13 am
    Navy,
    I don't like "the latest" programming as they are proprietary which means I cannot modify or improve it easily and without expense. Hence everything on this site is custom-made by me or per my directions and tweaked continuously by me.

    There are a few ways to follow and find old threads.
    1. For threads you started, click whatever image is at the top of the page, in this case a laptop. There you will see all your headlines and articles. The same goes for all members.
    2. At the very bottom of the page see "Find old posts & articles", there you search by most recent or most recent by general category.
    3. Finally, at the top of the page there is a square black button with a white magnifying glass icon. Click that to search, via Google, for articles by keywords or phrases.

  2. by Indy! on May 28, 2025 9:18 am

    There's no way to search for specific things like most boards. Your search function (at least the only one I see) is just a google search. Where is the search for this board ONLY where you can find specific words or phrases by specific posters?

  3. by Curt_Anderson on May 28, 2025 11:27 am
    Navy,
    Btw, on other sites which I subscribe to: The NY Times, WaPo, and an SBNation sports forum I don't see any way of searching for old comments that I or anybody else has made. Which forums have a comprehensive search function?

  4. by Indy! on May 28, 2025 11:37 am

    All of them.

  5. by Curt_Anderson on May 28, 2025 12:06 pm
    Ok, Indy, how do you search for old comments in the NYT or WaPo?

  6. by Navy2711 on May 28, 2025 2:14 pm
    Curt,

    I don't see the point of searching for past comments on sites that large, because no one knows each other. There are THOUSANDS of commenters. I've been commenting on Yahoo News for a year, and I don't know anyone. It's just a swarming mass of people and bots. I never engage with someone for more than three or four posts. The topics move too fast, and there's little reason to search for past comments. And frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if sites that large DIDN'T have a search function. Community discussion is not their thing. The comments section is more of an add-on.

    I was referring to social media like Facebook. In Facebook groups, which is an analog what's going on here, when someone wants to reply to your post, they click "reply" on your comment specifically. When they hit submit, it sends an alert to your account. You can go into your "alerts" or "messages" section (it's been a while, I don't remember the terms) and find alerts for everyone that responded to you. Click the link, and it takes your right to their reply, with your original comment right above it.

    But really, all talk about justifying inclusion of these elements by comparing to other sites is immaterial. If a system as primitive as phpBB has it ... and they've had it for years ... why not include it?

    Also, please know that I'm not ACTUALLY shaking my finger at you. It's your site, do what you want. We're all just here for the ride.



    (.... even if it means keeping links on my desktop. *barely suppressed eye roll* Hey, maybe I'll roll back to Windows XP. *more barely suppressed eye rolling*)

  7. by Curt_Anderson on May 28, 2025 2:34 pm
    Navy,
    So I went to THE phpBB website. I picked some words and random phrases used in a post and tried searching for them with quote marks and without. Nothing came up or it gave me a zillion posts. Also, I noticed the searches were "by Google".

    Anyway, my vision for The SelectSmart.com Post is that the primary emphasis would be on the articles, that is the opening posts. The comments are secondary.
    phpbb.com

  8. by Curt_Anderson on May 28, 2025 3:06 pm
    Navy,
    I didn't reply to one of your points. Namely about notifications. Ten or so years ago I stopped collecting peoples email addresses. Previously a person needed to supply their email address to sign up to make a selectors, et cetera.

    My no email policy was because of security issues and my intent that anything anybody shared here would be private and protected from hackers or even the government (unless they shared it themselves). Previously I was plagued with hacker attempts and disruption of service because of hack attempts on this site. Since I collect zero personally identifying information, hackers have no incentive to hack this site. So if by notification you mean a text or email notification like Facebook does, no can do.

    Perhaps the most important reason I changed from an out-of-box bulletin board forum (like I used to have) is that Google Adsense announced they wouldn't allow their ads on such a format. I prefer to generate a little money. So I made these pages more like some of the news and special interest sites which feature one big story with more headlines below or in a side column.

  9. by Indy! on May 28, 2025 3:14 pm

    The NYT and WaPo are pay sites, Curt. I don't pay for them. That's besides the fact the NYT is a corporate mole that has been busted lying many times and the WaPo has openly admitted they took $600M from the CIA to plant stories.

    It's not that hard - I just want a search where I can search a word (or words) by a selected poster. There's probably less than 10 regular posters on the board - you could even have a simple drop down list with our handles to search. Can't be that hard - I make databases that do far more complex searches and I don't even know what I'm doing.

  10. by Curt_Anderson on May 28, 2025 3:33 pm
    "The NYT and WaPo are pay sites, Curt." ---Indy,

    When I asked about the NY Times, WaPo, and an SBNation sports forum, you said "all of them" had comprehensive search functions. I was wondering if you really knew that. Apparently not.

    Can you show me ANY forum where a person can search a word (or words) by a selected poster? I am interested in how they are doing it.

  11. by Indy! on May 28, 2025 3:58 pm

    Doesn't your site have some sort of database running behind it? Should work just like a database search - you have a few data entry points - hit the search button and GO! But if you're going to ask questions you don't want the NYT or WaPo anyway because they'll never get back to you and if they did probably would not want to give you website construction tips.

    Ahh... here - this is perfect. Looks like a small time operation - very simple yet effective search function - key words, author, posted date... Exactly what you need. You can probably talk to the webmaster and ask him what's up. Let me know what happens...

    https://kitty-kats.net/search/

  12. by Navy2711 on May 28, 2025 4:04 pm

    Curt,

    1. The alerts I'm talking about are linked only to the website account. So, I log in as navy2711, and in the upper corner I can check my messages and alerts. No emails, nothing outside of the website.

    2. Google ad sense works on phpBB.

    3. Because these forum pages are behind a password, and google can't crawl them, the ads that you're currently showing here don't help you in regard to qualifying for ad sense. Google requires that their ads be displayed on pages that are viewable by anyone, which most of your site is. You're in the green because all of your OTHER pages, outside this forum, have plenty of original content. ....... (and don't have porn, or vaccine disinformation, or plans to kidnap the governor of Michigan, etc etc etc)

  13. by Navy2711 on May 28, 2025 4:10 pm
    1. Lol @ indy's tap-dancing

    2. He is correct though. This forum is no doubt stored on a relational database. Your database — mysql, postgreSQL — already comes with search functions. And if you're running on a larger platform like WordPress, it has search functions as well. You just need to make a simple web page with a form that contains the search elements. The hardest part would be tying that form to the search daemon. You're a bright guy, though, and I guarantee you can do it. If nothing else it would be a fun challenge, if you like that sort of thing.

  14. by Curt_Anderson on May 28, 2025 4:24 pm
    Indy (you pervert),
    I went to that site, and the search function doesn't work. I went to their forum (second link below) and tried the different names listed and search words, but no results or a zillion results. I tried looking for comments by qwz76 and timmy52, frequent posters there.

    For example, try finding this post by the poster's name and keyword(s).

    timmy52: maybe they should add pop ups for the guests and no pop ups for the members

    It seems that you can find a headline word by poster (which you do here in various ways), but no searches by comment words by comment makers (just like here).




    kitty-kats.net
    kitty-kats.net

  15. by Indy! on May 28, 2025 4:37 pm

    So take the idea and make it work. Prove you are the better webmaster. 😉

  16. by Navy2711 on May 29, 2025 11:45 am

    Curt,

    I completely missed this earlier:

    "So I went to THE phpBB website. I picked some words and random phrases used in a post and tried searching for them with quote marks and without. Nothing came up or it gave me a zillion posts. Also, I noticed the searches were "by Google. Anyway, my vision for The SelectSmart.com Post is that the primary emphasis would be on the articles, that is the opening posts. The comments are secondary."

    1. I don't particularly care about search on this website, althouth it would be nice to have. Indy was the one talking about that.

    2. ... but FYI, I'm pretty sure phpBB has its own internal search engine. It has a running instance of mySQL, and it uses that for queries. It HAS to if you want your board to be private. I don't know why the public phpBB website (which DOES run on phpBB) uses Google, but when you run it privately, it doesn't. If phpBB relied on Google for search or you would have to expose your entire board to the internet so that google could access it.

    Here's a screenshot of my board, searching for keyword "Trump". The results are all from non-public-facing discusison threads.

    https://i.postimg.cc/ZY9mKR4T/phpbb.jpg

  17. by Indy! on May 29, 2025 1:18 pm

    Alternative solution... We could all move to your board, Navy. 🙂

    BTW, I know Curt's board is google searched because for one thing it says so when you search for something (🙂) and secondly I've done searches for things outside of Curt's board thru regular google and conversations we've had on SelectSmart show up in the searches if they are relevant.

  18. by Navy2711 on May 29, 2025 3:09 pm
    You're right. Curt must make these pages public so that he can run ads on them. I forgot he said this site is hand-made — I was still thinking in phpBB mode.

  19. by Indy! on May 30, 2025 7:12 am

    We could also use an editing option (maybe with a time limit) after the posts are posted and simple bold, italic, underline and strikethrough options so we don't have to check, double check and recheck whether or not our html is correct.

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