Aptera forum improvements

[len]

You are kind…like the audience we have of knowledgeable Aptera followers and new ones too …anxious to learn together… Delta coming, which will “ cross the Ts and dot the Is”…

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Len Nowak.

[JRWiley]

And thanks to Riley for bringing this up. I was just thinking about this yesterday, but was too lazy to post it. We used to often stumble into spam and extreme political perspectives. It has all pretty much disappeared. Thank you Len and Ray and to others who are helping out with this. Much appreciated.

[joe-lyddon]

It would be very nice to see THE LINK to said “Reply” that John Doe made so we could see Main Subject posts in full context containing his Reply.

Right now, we know the Subject Name and General area (“Discussions”), and the reply.

We cannot easily find Where the Reply was made so we can see it in full context.

Just add a Link to actual Reply… Would sure make it better.

Thank You!

[FoggyOptic]

Click the xx hours, xx minutes ago link.

What gets screwy is when that reply is not on the latest page of the thread, in which case you have to replace the page number in the URL until you hit the right page.

[colen-thomas]

Same goes for me. Most of the time when I click on the link I get a 404 error.

[paul-schultz]

I have evolved an avoidance behavior on this forum. If any forum thread with a new post has hundreds of replies it is simply a hassle to open and scroll to the last window. I only open these types of threads if I feel the topic might have some new insights. If I feel the topic has been played out, I pass. Lately, I have been doing this more often. Are others doing the same? It does potentially lead to either limiting the exchange of ideas and/or missing a new and insightful idea. I wish Aptera would invest in a better forum platform. With their growing popularity as a company this issue is only going to get worse.

[alain-chuzel]

I more than agree. I also feel the apparent “moderation” is hypocritically heavy handed. Just within the last couple of hours my comments pushing back on climate science deniers are gone yet the denier’s nonsense still viewable. Heck, this comment will likely get “moderated out”.

[Russell]

True. Sometimes it’s a pain to sift through trying to find the most recent posts. But still, it was awful nice of aptera to build this thing for us. It’s a nice place to come and hear people’s thoughts on the vehicle without having to sign up on one of those other ‘social media’ sites. And personally, I’m glad they aren’t wasting a bunch of time and talent on refining this forum software, I want them to stay laser-focused on getting their vehicle finished and out on the road.

[Tom]

One trick that helps (maybe you’re already aware of it) is that the top of the thread shows who last posted and when, for example “Chris Anthony updated 3 hours 25 minutes ago…” The “3 hours 25 minutes ago” is a link that takes you to that (most recent) reply. For me it doesn’t always work (for some reason), but usually it does. Of course, that gets you to the MOST recent reply which may or may not be close to other recent replies.

If Aptera were to migrate the forum over to a more robust platform (they may be limited to what the platform they’ve chosen for their whole website offers), it would be important to migrate the existing content over to that new platform, which may not be trivial. Nothing’s impossible (except lighting a match on a wet bar of soap), but I suspect they have bigger fish to fry right now. Even finding and populating an exisiting commercial alternative would suck away some resources for a while.

[ROMAD]

That link only works when the post is either in a thread with a low number of posts or if the post is at the very end of the thread that has a high post count. Also, if the post is deleted, the link still remains until a NEWER post is made.

[OkieKev]

One user here, and unfortunately, I don’t remember who to give props to told of a helpful trick when the link doesn’t take you to the latest post. Change the page number in the URL, and if the post is on that page, it will lead you to it. Another method is to click on the forum member’s name and go to their profile. Click on the “Timeline” tab and you will see their posts in reverse order, newest on top. Click the post in the timeline and it will take you to it in the discussion.

I know, not convenient, but it’s quicker than scanning each page in the thread till you find the one.

[Mr-Wonderful]

It would also help if there were instructions available about how to post on a thread, insert pics etc

[ROMAD]

To post a picture, click on the camera icon in the lower left in the compose window and follow the instructions.

[paul-kirchner]

I’d like to see a new top banner photo.

[ROMAD]

This site should use vBulletin or phpBB.

BTDT No T-shirt.

[ROMAD]

It would also be nice to go to a decent forum software like the free and open source phpBB. The poor threading is so annoying that I stop reading threads that have more than 100 posts as the “updated” link at the top of large threads doesn’t take you to what it says. Also, I don’t know what they did yesterday but today the forum text is all washed out and slightly blurry while the main area of aptera.us is nice and distinct.

[Mike-Mars]

phpBB would also be my suggestion. It can be customised to tie into the Aptera website’s user list, etc (no need to have a separate login just for the forum). Pick a hardened version of the distro, make sure it gets updated regularly, turn off some of the unnecessary options (to reduce the attack surface), and then just let it do it’s thing.

There’s no reason to be wasting Aptera software engineer’s time to do forum stuff, that’s just reinventing the wheel for no particular advantage.

[joshua-rosen]

The forum software seems to have gotten much worse in the last few weeks. When typing replies I find that it just stops responding for a few seconds, it’s not buffering keystrokes it’s not capturing them. I don’t see this anywhere else on the web so it’s not the browser (I;m using Firefox Linux). Has anyone else noticed this?

[larry-kaiser]

I spent a lot of time composing a reply to a thread about options for Aptera. I hit post and that was the last I saw of it. Is there a place where drafts are located? I would like to get it back and edit it a little and try to post it again.

[harry-parker]

I’ve been burned by that problem, here and on other forums as well. I’ve learned to write any longer posts in a text editor or word processor first, then copy and paste it into a forum post.

I agree this flakey forum behaves like no other I’m familiar with.

[joshua-rosen]

Try copying your text before hitting post, if it gets lost then you can do a paste and try again.

[IA-1]

Does anyone know how can I delete my forum account?

[Mike-Mars]

I think the nearest is to simply delete your posts / replies. Go to your profile page, follow the forum link, then you should be able to see a list of your posts. There is also a tab for replies. (3rd along, or something like that?). Then you should be able to go through and delete each, using the ‘…’ menu on the upper-right of each post.

[IA-1]

I have tried deleting my posts from my Profile, but that only deletes the Timeline of my posts.

So whoever is the Forum Moderator, since some of my posts have been deleted by you, can you please delete all of them? Here is a screen shot of my post from today that was also deleted.

[ROMAD]

As a former spam moderator on a forum, just a shout out to whomever is the spam moderator here for removing the recent electric lock-pick spam. Thank you.

[colen-thomas]

Someone needs to do some work on this site. Every time I click on a link in one of my email notifications I get a 404 page not found error. If I log in and try to access one of the discussions I get a message asking me to log in or if I am new to the site, create an account. There are serious errors here that need to be addressed. To me, this forum site is worthless.

[randy-j]

I have a different problem. I haven’t received an ATERA email notification about a new post in several weeks. I wondered what happened to the site. I logged in now to find that all the threads I subscribe to have many new posts. Why would that be. I haven’t blocked anything on my end.

[Biker]

If you subscribed to a thread which was merged with another, the notifications may be lost.

[JRWiley]

Well, first, how do you subscribe to a particular thread?<div>

Second, I haven’t gotten an email notification in months.

Third, in the last 2 or 3 days I have to log back in every time I pick up my phone or ipad. It used to stay logged in for days at a time before requiring a new login. Annoying.

</div>

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by  John Wiley.

[Biker]

There’s a Subscribe button right below the Reply button.

[JRWiley]

This appears to be another glitch related to using my iPad and/or google chrome with the forum software – there is no Subscribe button below the Reply button. Thanks for the advice.

[ROMAD]

I just switched web browsers and want to mark all the discussions re as read so I start where I left off in the other browser. Any way that?

[harry-parker]

As a programmer, I know enough about how browsers work to say, no, there is no way to get your browser to lie to you about what has been clicked on in that browser.

So I suggest you use the old browser to check what you haven’t read yet. This forum site presents everything in date order so you just need to do that once in your old browser to see where you left off.

[ROMAD]

It is not a function of the browser; rather a function of the forum software. Other forums I use have standard tools such as “Mark all threads as read” and “Mark all forums as read”. But then they use good quality software such as vBulletin or phpBB, not what is used here.

[Mike-Mars]

It’s custom code I believe. The forum runs into issues when there are too many posts etc, which is why the moderators are eternally trimming it.

Personally I think they should migrate to phpBB.

[Mike-Mars]

Is it possible to import the relevant cookie(s)?

[EarlyTrekker]

Same answer as for your previous question.

IMO Aptera is about to miss the window for being the preeminent site for its discussion if “standard” message board software is not implemented before launch.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by  John Bullock. Reason: Sp

[ROMAD]

I do have to give the administrator kudos for deleting the few spammers that post here. They are gone before I can report them!

[Elzo]

I recently posted something and later on realised that my information was not accurate and struggled to find a way to delete the post. Eventually I emptied the post and added two brackets and a question sign and posted it again. I really was not happy about that but what could I do?

Can someone please tell me, in such cases, how to delete your initial post?

Much obliged.

[Biker]

Edit the post to say “delete” and a mod will take care of it.

[randy-j]

I’m subscribed to at least a dozen threads or boards, yet I’ve not received an email in several weeks telling me there’s a new post on any of them. I’m here today and I see many new posts on most of those threads.

Nothing in my spam folders and I don’t recall making any changes here or on my gmail account.

Anyone else having this problem?

[ROMAD]

I only get an email notice if there is a NEW thread created, none when there is just a reply in a thread. Unfortunately and fortunately, the heavy handed moderation causes: for the former, being unable to locate the thread because it has been merged with another thread without any directing notice/link; for the latter, spam posts are removed quickly.

[john-malcom]

In my opinion, there is no “Heavy handed” moderating on the Aptera forum. It is a private forum and can be modrated in the manner consistent with Aptera policy published as “Community guidelines” and, best technical practices which would dictate conservation of storage space, speed of access, and combining similar content into one thread for continuity of thought. Certainly there is no obligation to provide a notice or explanation for moderating activities.

[ROMAD]

However, other forums as a common courtesy post a note when they split or merge threads. When I get an email of a NEW thread, I can at least read the OP; when I click on the link and all I get is a 404 page, I have no way to read any responses without having to play a guessing game as to where the thread had been merged. I’m saying there needs to be more thought going into merging threads. Then again perhaps it isn’t the person(s) doing the merging fault but due to the software used which is not quality software like phpBB is.

[ROMAD]

OK, I LOG IN to the forum and can supposedly read any thread that is NOT LOCKED and there are 10 PINNED threads at the top 2 of which are LOCKED. HOWEVER, if I click on one of the 8 UNLOCKED threads, I’m asked to log in! I am already LOGGED IN, so why am I asked to log in again? To add further insult, there ISN’T any log in link! Perhaps these pinned threads are restricted for we hoi polloi? In that case then they should all either be locked or hidden so The Great Unwashed can’t see and be tempted to read them.

[Mike-Mars]

I think that ‘locked’ means that people are allowed to read them, but can’t post additional replies into the thread.

IMO simply a bug. The trouble with home-brewed forum software is that it’s never that reliable or capable. The #1 improvement I would like to see on the forum is to migrate it to one of the alternatives (which can handle hundreds of thousands of posts and threads before collapsing, and have lots of moderation features). They are usually capable of interfacing with existing accounts from the host site (custom software will be needed, but a lot less than trying to create a forum system).

[ROMAD]

That makes sense. I just went back and clicked on each of the pinned threads and EXACTLY HALF of them required me to log in even though I was already logged in! They are numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, & 6. Interestingly, #8 gives you a link to #1 that works, but clicking directly on #1 requires a log in?

As for better forum software, I was a moderator on a forum that used vBulletin but would recommend phpBB first simply because it is free and would save Aptera money. I don’t know how it compares to vBulletin from a moderator’s point of view, though.

[Kamakiri]

FWIW, it appears this issue went away for me today, right after I placed my (free because investor) reservation for an LE.

[john-malcom]

Congrats!

[Kamakiri]

Thanks! Excited to make it official, as 400 mile wasn’t my first choice.

[john-malcom]

👍

[Mookada]

I’m getting the same thing, I can’t view any pinned posts. I put in a support ticket to have them look at it.

[ROMAD]

I can view some but not all. I have a pre-order for an LE, so that doesn’t seem to be a pre-requisite to view them. However, I’m beginning to suspect it might be browser related. I use an iMac with Safari and have noticed more and more websites refuse to play nice with Safari. Perhaps those sites want to limit having to program for anything other than Google Chrome even though it is deliberately designed to harvest users sensitive data?

[JRWiley]

Have you tried Firefox?

[william-hester]

I use Firefox and don’t have any of the issues they’re talking about. And Firefox isn’t terrible when it comes to privacy (though not the best, either).

[ROMAD]

I USED to use Firefox but then they did an update several years ago that trashed all my settings, profile, and account so I went back to Safari, so I can’t trust Firefox not to do the same again. I previously looked at Vivaldi so maybe I should give it another look, ditto Brave. Does anyone here use Vivaldi with Mac OS?