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OTN Forums Update - Take Two

Looks like Oracle updated the Forums software over the weekend. So far, this round has gone much better in the past.

I do have one major gripe with the new point system. Everyone is a Newbie now, which kinda sucks for those who have posted hundreds or thousands of times. Sure, quantity does not infer quality, but we all know that there are a core group of regulars on this Forum who are anything but Newbies.

My main concern is how your status is actually elevated. You only get points if someone marks their post as "answered". Looking at this weekend's posts, many of them are answered in the thread, but not actually "set" to answered. Thus, the person who answered the post correctly is no closer to a Guru than they were before. I imagine that this will come in time, as people get used to the new software and policies, or at least I hope that it does.

This feature does have some promise, as there are definitely some benefits - looking at the list of posts, you can immediately see which ones are already answered, thus saving time if you're either looking for an answer or looking for questions which to answer. I think that the objectiveness of it may end up helping overall, as someone who posts a lot of "chatter" would ultimately not advance in the standings, whereas someone who posts less frequent but more correct posts would. I guess only time will tell.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hey Scott, the new forums wont even load for me. Have you had any issues with it?
Scott said…
I can get to it, but it seems to be very slow now that it's getting hit by everyone in Europe and most of the US at this point.

Perhaps I spoke too soon!

- Scott -
Anonymous said…
I just got a 404 error when trying to load it again.
Scott said…
Best bet is to try in a couple hours, as there's nothing that you can do until it's resolved, which will typically take some time.

- Scott -
Dan McGhan said…
Scott,

Has any body figured out a new greasemonkey script?

It might become standard practice to add a line along the lines of "If this answered your question or solved your problem, please (do whatever)"...

Regards,
Daniel
Scott said…
I don't think it's been up long enough for that! :)

Seriously, I think that this will just take some time for people to get used to, and many will be happy to update the status of the question, while others will not. In the long run, I don't think that it's going to make those who do take the time to answer questions work any less.

- Scott -
Anonymous said…
Daniel,

The existing greasemonkey script only needs a line changed to work (well it did in my case), if you change -

var lTextarea = $x('body01');

to:

var lTextarea = $x('textEditor');

it should work.

John.
Anonymous said…
and once again this morning the site isn't working again.
Scott said…
That, and some of the handles have been altered. I am now know as "Scott3", and John Scott (Jes) is now "Jes2".

Not sure how or if they can fix that, as if you try to edit them, it claims that the originals are in use.

Again, time to sit back and hope that it all gets sorted...

- Scott -

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