Thanks for making the effort to adapt. I’ll try to keep making little improvements too where possible. It looks like I urgently need to make a FAQ post about some of the most common features that exist and are easy to use but are not very obvious.
You can jump to the first or last post in a thread with these controls:
There are a ton of ways now to see what posts you were reading, to notify you of new posts, and to monitor specific categories. I’ll try to explain more in a future post, but I’m pretty sure it will work even better than before for that usage scenario that you describe.
In general I’d recommend to simply keep using it, browse threads, reply to somebody, etc., and then when you come back after an hour or the next day you’ll see how it helps you pick up where you left off and follow up on new replies.
Not a classic car show, but cars were involved. The old airfield had become Gimli industrial Park and Gimli Motorsports Park…a road race course, a drag strip and a go-kart track. The Winnipeg Sports Car Club was having a weekend of amateur road racing. The races for that Saturday were over but the grounds had people cooking/eating dinner, camping and hanging out, waiting for the sun to set. There were about a hundred people present, myself included. It was eerily quiet until the plane touched down with a thud and then a lot of scraping.
Wow Don, what a coincidence that you were there. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like to watch an airliner silently coming in like that!
If you would, please describe a bit more from what you remember from that day, like when the plane was first noticed, how far away was it and how much time did you have to process what you might need to do if it would have actually crashed. Also, was the report true that some boys were riding their bikes on the former runway, turned drag strip, then to a makeshift emergency runway as the plane was close to touching down? Thanks! - JC
BTW, this story appeared as an episode of one of favorite TV programs, Air Disasters" produced in Canada.
Yes, there were young teens riding bikes close to where the pilot was heading for. I have been told by a friend from those days, that one of them still has the bike he was riding that day along with photos and other memorabilia.
Yeah, though my thinking was more along the lines of “what a coincidence it was that the plane ran out of fuel on a race day” as I spent many weekends up there at sports car club and a few drag race events. We had a '60 A-H Sprite we raced.
I did not see it approaching. I used an old milk truck for hauling the Sprite and it had developed a “clunk” sound in the drivetrain on the drive up. I was under the truck re-installing the shaft when the non-scheduled flight arrived. I heard shouting about a “f’ing big plane” and heard an impact sound and felt the ground shake, then all sorts of scraping noises. I bumped my head scrambling out from under and there it was several hundred feet away just coming to a stop with the tail high. It landed straddling some Armco guardrail and wiped out a bunch of the Armco. A small fire broke out in the nose area but was quickly extinguished by the race crew.
I like the change. Old site was very dated. Of-course many people dislike changes because it requires effort to re-learn but you also have the pleasure to learn and discover!
It took me a while to get used to Discourse, but now (for me) it’s about as good as Drupal.
Both Discourse and Drupal have their pros and cons, but overall, they both work for me.
Since BLF is sticking with Discourse, I’ll be okay with it.
I agree. The first day or so I cried like a lot of people. I like this better and since I have so much time on my hands I just surf all the different categories and options and learn how to use it even better.
I think the biggest challenge for me was the lack of thread pages. But it only took a day or two to get used to the slider bar to the right. Discourse seems to be a major improvement for the mobile browser as well. I belong to many forums with different topics and they all have had to do the same thing. Change. They have to keep up their security due to all the vulnerabilities that are out there. There is nothing you can do about it except roll with the changes.
Being in IT for 34 years and as a Systems Engineer for most of that time, I have seen the challenges of when upgrades cause change for end users. It will take some time to get used to the changes, but it will happen.
Thanks a lot to everyone for their patience and for re-learning some new muscle-memory habits.
I still haven’t had to time to write a follow-up to my initial post that explained the justification and necessity for this move, but suffice to say that there were definitely some important reasons for doing so.
I would say that the usability and discoverability of the old forum UI was marginally good, but not ideal. As proof of that, I would receive multiple PMs every month from new users asking “How do I post a new thread?”. Of course not everything is perfect here yet either, but it’s important to differentiate between usability and familiarity. And as for functionality, Discourse has the old Drupal platform beat hands-down, at least as far as forum functionality goes. Its functionality does apparently need to be made a lot more discoverable though.
Hello! How do I jump to “Last read” ? Or “first unread” post? I really liked the old version better but oh well. Will try getting used to this new version.
I build lights. And drivers. And whatever else I take a fancy to make. That said, I am very forgetful with virtually no sense of time. So I used to use stored posts and pages to refer back to when my memory bonked out on something I did daily . Like building a driver for example. There was a glitch in high power applications and there were posts with pictures that I could quickly check when I’d forgotten what to do. All that is gone now. With a horrid memory it often was difficult enough to find those posts/pictures. Now? I have no clue. This is so alien to me it’s frustrating. So not only will I be more likely to stay out due to the frustration, I will also fail at future builds, unable to find my memory (BLF as I knew it)
Background: I have had a Conversion Disorder for 24 years. Stress related, spasms tear me up when I delve too deeply on the wrong subjects (ie: loss of my firstborn at 17 years old in 2005) or if I get a chill. This is precisely why I have built 1000+ flashlights, taking my mind off harmful things by busying my hands. Almost 21,000 post’s because it was an escape from agony.
Now, I of course know the forum had to change. It’s the way of things. But for me, it’s a sad blow to a lifestyle that saved me… from myself.
It is what it is.
Thank you SB, for all your efforts. Much appreciated that you gave us this site and how far we were able to go together.
I will try. Until I learn or until I just can’t anymore.
Toykeeper and Comfychair and MattAus and OldLumens and TexasLumens and ChicagoX and Foy and Siata94 and dozens of other helpful family made this an escape hatch that was not only comfortable, but also very productive. The forum engine is only the latest change. Everything has been changing all along, and I, for one, am happy to have been a part of it.
Maybe try and view it positive: it’s something new you can tinker with. I can almost promise that - after you learned your ways around this new software - you will enjoy it even more than the old one. It offers many more possibilities, once you got used to it.
Not gonna deny it’s quite different from your classic forum and very alien at first, but it’s worth giving it a try.
As in bookmarked with your browser ? The links still work.
If you mean stored in the BLF account I didn’t even know we could save posts lol, only subscribe to threads.
In any case if you have some critical stuff that were saved on your BLF account then you can still ask sb if he can access them for you.
It takes memory to remember what was saved and where. Good news is that the search capability makes it easier to find information instead of remembering where it was stored.
Plus this forum software is better at keeping track of topics where you’ve interacted.
And you can bookmark not threads but specific posts to pinpoint what you want to remember.
Change can be jarring, and it might take a moment to acclimatize, but the vast majority of the differences are actually likely to make things easier and more helpful for users.
Hey @DB_Custom , thanks so much for sharing that and for your sincerity. And thank you so much for all your time and knowledge and friendly personality that have contributed so much to this place becoming what it is. It’s humbling for me as the administrator of what has grown into a rather large forum over the years when I hear about how it’s helped great people like yourself to get through hard times. Out of respect for that I made a big effort to preserve as much of the old forum content as possible, even very very old and obscure stuff.
This new forum was a necessary upgrade, although I appreciate the fact that it wasn’t requested or welcomed by everyone. On a completely objective level there shouldn’t be anything normal that you could do before that you can’t do here. It sounds like in your case finding all of your previous threads and private messages is a priority. So I’d recommend starting here:
And as @phouton mentions, this forum software is actually much better at helping you keep track of what you’ve participated in and what you haven’t seen yet, or even monitoring for specific sorts of new posts, especially from this point forward as you continue to use the forum. So I would encourage you to just try those links for getting back into the swing of things with your old posts, and just simply use the forum and hang out as time permits. Just try to enjoy yourself above all, and I really think the new software will start showing its more helpful side to you with a bit more use.
Take care, and know how much we appreciate having you here.
I am sorry. Not sure I ve made myself clear with my question. I have several threads bookmarked in my phone ( i am a mainly mobile user) and when I click on a link, the convoy thread for example, I used to log in and there was a button to go straight to my last read post that someone posted. If I was away for a couple of days, I could resume right where I left off. There was two buttons on top, “last post” and “first unread”. The “first unread” is the one I’m having trouble finding it. Thank you!
Ah, sorry. It will take you to the last read or first new post automatically. In addition it will draw a horizontal red line -----last visit------ where you last were viewing a thread.
I’m sure there are others like me who would like to help you stay rather than see you go.
How about your own thread where you post something about the info you’re looking for, no matter how vague, so i/we can help you find it?
