The State Of AntiOnline 8/19/2002

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Originally posted here by JP
Greetings All:

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the current state of AntiOnline. Particularly, I am interested in the answers to the following questions:

1. What NEW features would you most like to see added to the AntiOnline website?

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The forum pages should tell the thread's overall AP status as the main page already does.
Suicidal threads should have some other icon than just the normal lock.

PM's should have a Quick Reply box.

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7. What is your opinion of the current AntiPoints System? How would you change it, if at all?

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Well, the 'Assign towards even' suggestion made by Terr sounds good.

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10. What is your current opinion of the way that I'm personally running the site? What would you do differently if you were me (I can take criticism, so don't worry about voicing your true opinion)?

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You didn't reply to any Site Suggestion for a month or two but now that you replied to them all it's fine -> nothing to complain about. :) We could have a 'JP status' in the front page under 'Site Status' (it has currently only got the Intrusion Attempts) where you could put an one liner about what you're doing.

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Originally posted here by JP
Greetings All:
1. What NEW features would you most like to see added to the AntiOnline website?

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Features specifically for the website? Perhaps a simpler method of accessing technical documents, with perhaps a large grouping of member-submitted items? The newsletters should also have their own docs section, IMO. The 'Security Text Files' link doesn't seem too attention-drawing.

Also, personally, I liked it when the member login information was on the left side of the page, and the navigation bar was on the right side of the page. That makes it a lot friendlier for site visitors (I generally ignore that piece of the page).

As has been pointed out, AntiOnline's main page seems nothing but a front for the forums. There's not a lot of content like on other sites. There's very few news things, that sort of thing.

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2. What CURRENT features would you change, and how (excluding the antipoints system)?

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Well, perhaps the site could be less forum driven and more site-driven. I don't like the way the forums have become a place for people to stop by, ask one question, and then leave. If they need that, they could read the site for it, and then check the forum if they can't find the info they're looking for.

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3. How would you describe the current mood in the forums, does the mood need to be improved upon, and if so, how?

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I dunno, I'm hardly a visitor here anymore.

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4. How would you rate our current ability to keep flames and spam to a minimum in the forums?

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Perfect, I hardly visit here. :)

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5. How often do you read posts in the forums? What might make you want to read them more often?

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Once every 10 days or so, and I would visit more if there was more interesting technical discussion going on.

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6. How often do you make a post to the forums? What might make you want to post more often?

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Once every couple of weeks, and see question 5.

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7. What is your opinion of the current AntiPoints System? How would you change it, if at all?

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The system is handy, but outta whack, perhaps a reset of all APs would be good, I don't know. It seems to me kind of insane that one bad post can ruin a whole thread. Perhaps making it so that a post only gets deleted if it receives enough -APs, rather than the entire thread. Perhaps some kind of posts-killed : thread gets killed ratio (say 40%) would be good? IE: if 4 posts in a thread of 10 get killed, the whole thread gets killed?

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8. How would you rate the speed and availability of the AntiOnline website?

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Pretty good.

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9. If you had $10,000 to spend to further improve the AntiOnline website, how would you spend it?

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Perhaps another webserver to speed requests up a bit?

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10. What is your current opinion of the way that I'm personally running the site? What would you do differently if you were me (I can take criticism, so don't worry about voicing your true opinion)?

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I like that you're very responsive to user comments/suggestions JP, but a little more communication when it comes to IRC would be handy. At least talk to your IRC Opers on a regular basis (regular consisting of more than once a week), if not talk to us ChanOps as well. You have our email addresses.

Personally, I'd like to see you answer emails more often, and that sort of thing. Basically your accessibility is a big problem, IMHO. I understand that you can't do everything, and that's okay, but you have to delegate that communication to someone. A lot of members have become cheesed off and left because of a combination of your inaccessibility, and the lack of quality discussion in both the IRC channel and the forums. I'm reaching that point myself, and I can understand why they'd find another place to go to.

1.) Formalize the tutorials and/or write articles that are of interest. At this point, AO seems just like a giant forum. There needs to be more front page advertising for things such as tutorials and/or articles to make it more of a legitimate information site.

2.) Other than the current state of IRC, I wouldn't change anything (excluding the AntiPoints system)

3.) The overall mood is somewhat poor. A lot of people are afraid t post (myself included) because of fear that someone with leprachauns carrying their antipoints will get me banned. I don't like the idea of thinking to myself, "Hey I might get banned if I post my opinion of the two IRC chat rooms." I seem to think that quite a few people that post on here post for no other reason than to chit chat about nothing, rather than talk about security, or even general computer issues. I remember back in the day before the new forums that there was a much smaller community, but it was much more heavily focused on computer security, and general computer issues.

4.) The ability to keep flames and spams down is adequate, but I still see quite a few members who have unbelievable amounts of antipoints flame newbies just for asking a question, and then that newb ends up being banned.

5.) I read posts all the time. I'd be more interested in reading posts if they had some sort of value to me, which the vast majority do not. I understand that this is a community, and as such you can't talk about computers all the time, but that happens to be where my interests lie, and right now on the front page I think it is about a 1/2 - 1/2 split between computer related threads and random threads, not to mention the fact that computer security related threads make up a small portion of the 1/2.

6.) I'll admit I don't post to the forums much, as is evidenced by my 120 something posts even though I was one of the first to sign up for the new forum. Basically I only post to two kinds of threads, ones that are intellectually stimulating and ones where I can answer questions. As you can tell by my post count those don't happen to occur all that often. I don't just post to say, "Hey, good post," and I think the only way to help me to post more is to have more meaningful threads.

7.) The AntiPoint system is fine, if you try not to consider it the AO populations popularity rating. I'm not going to mention any names because i think they are genuinely good people, but I'm quite sure that the reason they have a boatload of AntiPoints is because they are female, and not because their topics are intelligent or of value to the community. I mean the whole point of the system was to show whose posts are worth reading, and whose are worth skipping, and I gotta tell you I don't use AntiPoints to do it. I would change the AntiPoint system to take into account only posts made in relevant forums (ones related to computers and security, not made in general chit chat or cosmos), and I would also take into consideration post count (in the relevant forums) and how long you've been a member. Let's face it, any chump can post a topic in the General forum about how his girlfriend dumped him and how he feels girls like guys that are asses, and he'll get positive antipoints for it, but does that add to the Computer Security community? No, so why should that be represented in his AntiPoint count?

8.) The speed is excellent, especially considering it is all PHP based. Uptime can be flaky sometimes, but that most likely can't be helped.

9.) If I had 10K dollars I would start an AntiOnline security conference, and/or use it to make some genuinely original articles and tutorials and/or start a wargames server for established members of the community.

10.) I think the way you admin the website and IRC is fantastic. As a member, however, you don't make any posts that help us learn from you. I doubt many members can say they do research for the government, and while you might not be able to go into specifics, I'm sure you have more than a lot of lessons that you've learned the in the process.

11.) The only other comment is that I think that AntiOnline should start diversifying rather than just piling onto the forums. The forums are definitely the focus of the community, and that is fine, but you seem to be putting so much time into the forums that you don't put time into other projects. I think it'd be fantastic to have wargames, or some articles/tutorials posted on the main page (i.e. actually commisioned by AO, not just from the forums). Or maybe an AntiOnline security conference! The opportunities are boundless, but you just gotta lay off adding wierd, and obscure features to the forums first.

Also, going along the lines of the tutorials/articles, I really really liked it the way it used to be with the old AO when there was a lisiting of computer related news and articles and such at the top of the main page along with the mailbag.

Regards,
Wizeman

1. What NEW features would you most like to see added to the AntiOnline website?
You add them faster than I can think of one.

2. What CURRENT features would you change, and how (excluding the antipoints system)?
I would change the 'receive updates to this thread' function, so that one:[list=a][*]receives an email when someone posts something to the subscribed thread.[*]can read the body of the added post in the email.[/list=a]
Furthermore, I would delete the 'tech humor' forum. It's unrelated, off topic, and it takes to much space. Delete all threads that handle jokes. Those are not what I hope to find here.

3. How would you describe the current mood in the forums, does the mood need to be improved upon, and if so, how?
I don't think that trying to steer the mood in one direction is a good idea. Let people speak out their minds, regardless of what they have to say. If one has to fit to a certain profile, everyone will be starting to say the same kind of things. Diversity is good! I started noticing some behaviour that I called 'witch-hunts'. Basicly, one person makes some unfunded statement, and like chickens without heads, 80% of the community follows his/her lead. In one occasion, it hurted one of the newer, but already well-respected member of this site, in another, a newbie was on the verge of being banned from the site, both because they were being accused of something they didn't do.

4. How would you rate our current ability to keep flames and spam to a minimum in the forums?
Balanced.

5. How often do you read posts in the forums? What might make you want to read them more often?
Lately, I'm less often on here. Since you/the site went white-head, most of the spectacular activity has fled away. On top of that, one of my mostly beloved items, the news, has been discontinued. Basicly, nothing really interesting is happening anymore. In the old days, I had a good laugh every monday reading the Weekly Mailbag, but that too has been discontinued.

6. How often do you make a post to the forums? What might make you want to post more often?
I post whenever I feel I have something that would benefit the community. Because I'm a complete dipshit in the security-area, that isn't that much :)

7. What is your opinion of the current AntiPoints System? How would you change it, if at all?
There's something wrong with the suicidal thread option. Some good threads hang themself because some ******* makes an unfunded post. The way that threads are rated is a little off too. The longer a thread lasts, the more it tends to stray off-topic. Thus, the first few posts should be counting heavier in the overall thread assesment than the last few.

8. How would you rate the speed and availability of the AntiOnline website?
I'm on 100mb/s, and it's as fast as turtle on downers, even compared with other much-visited sites.

9. If you had $10,000 to spend to further improve the AntiOnline website, how would you spend it?
News! Bring back the news! Pretty please?

10. What is your current opinion of the way that I'm personally running the site? What would you do differently if you were me (I can take criticism, so don't worry about voicing your true opinion)?
I think the way you write what you think is awesome. You don't seem to hide behind some corporate facage, you speak what's on your mind. What I do miss though, is your direct involvement in the site: although you created all this, you hardly ever participate. "Weekly Mailbag" is gone, and we hardly see any columns anymore, not even regular posts. Maybe part of those 10.000 should be spent hiring someone to take a little work out of your hands?

11. Free for all. Any other comments that you might have......
Thumbs up for being brave enough to ask the community what they think.

1. i would love to see more technical discussions. i love to read the jokes as much as anyone else, but sometimes i'll go for weeks without seeing anything that interests me. maybe a forum for people to post code or talk about networking, theory, things of that nature?

2. i'm kind of in the opinion that there are too many features...i would like to see some of the forums and features cut to promote more computer related discussions.

3. i haven't seen this suggested before: how about instead of investing $10,000 into the site, you make some kind of antionline scholarship? anything going to computer sciences or security related fields?

oh well just my two cents....i think that you're doing a great job with everything you're doing :)

1. What NEW features would you most like to see added to the AntiOnline website?

A (private?) forum only for newbies (a reverse version of the addict forum) in where they could express without be negged and without make "older" members angry.

2. What CURRENT features would you change, and how (excluding the antipoints system)?

The new similar thread feature could be limited, there's a lot of old threads restarted in the main page now.

3. How would you describe the current mood in the forums, does the mood need to be improved upon, and if so, how?

happy at the first sight, but in fact the AP sys has corrupt all.

4. How would you rate our current ability to keep flames and spam to a minimum in the forums?

good. there are flame sometimes but there are not a lot of spam.

5. How often do you read posts in the forums? What might make you want to read them more often?

during hollidays: 1 time each day. during work periods: 1 time each week. I really like tech news and tutorials

6. How often do you make a post to the forums? What might make you want to post more often?

1 or 2 at each visit. I posts when I have "interesting" (according to me) answer or info.

7. What is your opinion of the current AntiPoints System? How would you change it, if at all?

The curent AP system is not really good. It is poisoning all the site: it is not a security forum but an AntiPoint discussions forum. If the system stay, it will have to be really restricted. And I think it could more interesting to replace it with good moderators.

8. How would you rate the speed and availability of the AntiOnline website?

With a 56k connection in France the speed is not so bad, but sometimes it's a too slow and I have a lot of problems to send replies (with different ISPs)

9. If you had $10,000 to spend to further improve the AntiOnline website, how would you spend it?

In the servers and speed quality.

10. What is your current opinion of the way that I'm personally running the site? What would you do differently if you were me (I can take criticism, so don't worry about voicing your true opinion)?

You should be more present to forums. And not only for moderate but also for disscussions.

11. Free for all. Any other comments that you might have......

Even if I have not given optimistic answers the situation is not so desperate. AO is really one of the best forum sites.

What NEW features would you most like to see added to the AntiOnline website?

What we've got seems pretty good - you don't wanna be trying to include to much stuff as it might make the site seem a lil crowded

What CURRENT features would you change, and how (excluding the antipoints system)?

Def the member spotlight - Msmittens we luvya really but come on lets hear about someone else!

How would you describe the current mood in the forums, does the mood need to be improved upon, and if so, how?

The mood among the more senior members appears fine - but everyone is gettin a lil sick of people bitchin about how they got neg'd for this - or flamed for that

How would you rate our current ability to keep flames and spam to a minimum in the forums?

theres always gonna be flames/spam - hell sometimes theres nuthin better than venting your anger with a flame :) though not too often and you gotta do it with a lil style!

How often do you read posts in the forums? What might make you want to read them more often?

As often as I can - I would read them more often if I didn't work as much....I don't think there is any feature you could add to make me want to read them more...i read them cause i enjoy reading the opinions and posts of other people.

How often do you make a post to the forums? What might make you want to post more often?

See last answer.....

What is your opinion of the current AntiPoints System? How would you change it, if at all?

The one thing that gets a lil annoying for me is it doesn't show who gave you ++greenies - i know you can't show who gave you negs but it would be nice if people signed their greenies or it showed who gave those.

How would you rate the speed and availability of the AntiOnline website?

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If you had $10,000 to spend to further improve the AntiOnline website, how would you spend it?

By buying some AO merchandise (t-shirts, keyrings lil stuff like that) and giving them out as gifts to the senior members....either that or start an AO store like thinkgeek.com

What is your current opinion of the way that I'm personally running the site? What would you do differently if you were me (I can take criticism, so don't worry about voicing your true opinion)?

You seem to be doing pretty well - and as i know nothing about running a site as large as this one i don't think i could give you any advice.

Free for all. Any other comments that you might have......

Oh one thing - the new system of rewards like banner free surfing etc...it would be nice if it showed you what the next award you can earn is....so that it gave you something to work for

v_Ln

Ahhh, Gawd damn it.... AO is addicting, LOL

1. A way to select what forums you do and dont want to see on the main page.... Forums with no rating system (AntiPoints, etc.) Current News forum, A forum that newbies have to post in until they reach a certain post level or AntiPoint leve so they dont ask theri questions in ChitChat =)

2. The IRC split, Hard to keep track of 2 IRC channels...The files section, Allow members (as a site benefit or something) to post files, code, and books. The AntiPoint balancing, 'nuff said

3. Yeah, Like Christina said, The mood is not that good... I can name about 10 senior members off the top of my head who want to leave AO or arent posting at all because of the balancing and other reasons....

4. Heh, Flames are low.... So is spam...

5. Not often at all.... Mostly just news, So a news forum would be perfect =)

6. 1 per every 2 or 3 days

7. Give us a point-free forum =) And the balancing also sucks, LOL

8. Fast, I have Verizon and AO is pretty fast, But then again I do keep it as my homepage :rolleyes:

9. Hmmmm, Put up a seperate site just for tutorials so people sont have to browse through the forums.... tutorials.antionline.com? Make a indes listed by OS, Language, And topic... A lot like negatives index, But more up to date and easier to browse through.

10. Your a fair OP/Admin, Ummm.... Maybe 7 OPs in IRC is too much =)

11. Maybe an AntiOnline remote for anyone that wants to keep up on AO news, Like the ticker but so it would work in Linux, Like a small windows that pops up if you want it to that scrolls through the new topics ;)

I would say, do the following:

1. Make a "lite" HTML version of the site which loads more quickly and doesn't have as many images/ bloat on - make it use CSS properly etc and be as minimal as possible. This would be really good. [replace graphical buttons with text ones, don't show avatars. Display antipoints indication as text instead of green blobs]
Don't use spacer images, don't use deprecated elements like font, and pay no attention to old non-standards compliant browsers.

2. Reinstate the javascript "you have new PMs" popup on the front screen. But take care that it only appears once each time you get new PMs

3. The antipoints system is pretty much ok as far as i can tell, it could be better but I'm not sure how.

PS: I like valhallens idea about the AO shirts and stuff =)