Tomasz P. Szynalski's profile - activity

After installing Askbot with (1) pip, (2) easy_install, or (3) untarring and running setup.py, you're supposed to run startforum (which resides in the same bin directory where the python executable is).

startforum is called a deployment script.

1. What exactly does it do?
2. Why is it needed? Why can't we just unzip Askbot in a directory and run it?

After two days of hell I managed to install Python 2.6 on CentOS, along with all the Askbot dependencies (I think).

I cloned the github repo into /var/www/html/askantimoon (askantimoon is my git project name). Most of the Askbot files are now in /var/www/html/askantimoon/askbot. Is it a good idea to put my repo in a directory which contains Web-accessible files?

I ran python2.6 setup.py develop and created the MySQL database. Now it seems I have to run another setup script called startforum (why? I already ran setup.py).

When I run startforum, it asks me "where to deploy (in which directory?)". What does that mean? I thought Askbot was already in /var/www/site/askantimoon. And what is a good directory to choose here?

Did I miss something or is it impossible to upvote comments in Askbot? Both StackExchange and OSQA have this feature, and it seems like people use it a lot.

If not, what happens during an import from StackExchange? Is the comment vote information discarded (that would be a shame) or is it stored in the database for future use?

Hi,

What moderation tools are available in Askbot? Specifically, I'm interested in the following:

• Suspend user for X days
• Destroy user (automatically removing all his posts, revisions, etc.)
• View IPs from which a user has posted (sometimes spammers/trolls use a couple different accounts - this helps figure out which accounts to ban)
• Can regular users flag posts as spam/offensive, leading to the posts' deletion?
• Ban IP address

It's a well-known problem with OpenID, and I haven't seen a satisfactory solution. Putting the information on the main user profile page might help. I'm assuming most users visit their profile page from time to time -- if they see "Google" every time they visit the page, that would help reinforce the information in their memory. (Although I have to say this issue is low-priority for me -- there are much bigger problems to tackle.)

You can change user's status to suspended and blocked, there is no term for either as the feature was never requested.

Blocked users can only log in and send feedback, suspended users can only edit own previous posts.

There is no way yet to destroy a user.

Regular users with certain reputation can flag offensive. When a particular number of flags accumulates the post is hidden.

No IP address bans yet.

These missing features can be implemented quite easily.

For the "destroy user" you have to decide what to do with posts where others followed up by either answering, commenting, or editing the post. Ideas about that?

Django can host multiple applications on the same site, where apps work like lego blocks - parts of the whole, for example - an online store and an askbot forum, etc.

All django sites have four project-wide files:

• settings.py - the main settings configuration file
• urls.py - main url configuration
• __init__.py - often empty but needed for Python
• manage.py - the hook allowing to run management commands

So what startforum script does - adds those files to a directory you select (and some more things specific to askbot.

If the directory is empty - the files will be just copied from askbot/setup_templates/, it won't overwrite any existing project files.

In the case you already have a django site you will not want to use startforum, because you don't want to just overwrite your existing settings.py.

"python ../manage.py compilemessages" returned an error on my system (CentOS). I had to install "gettext". ("apt-get install gettext" or "yum install gettext"). You might want to put that information somewhere.

Excellent! One small gripe is that the arrow is overlaid on the karma score in an ugly way (at least in Firefox). It should be displayed to the right of the score, as on StackOverflow/Exchange. I think the horiz separators should also be wider, running over the arrow and score. See http://ask.antimoon.com/questions/1339/is-it-cell-phone-or-cellphone/1346#1346

I forgot my password to Askbot yesterday. The lost password feature e-mailed me a link which let me log in again (BTW, the message contains a few spelling mistakes).

I expected it to redirect me to a change password page. Instead, I was logged in but I still didn't know my password. This is not normal behavior for a Web app.

So I had to look for the change password form. It wasn't obvious how to find it. I had to go to my profile page (that one is pretty obvious), then "manage login methods" (not obvious, but not too bad).

Now here's the most confusing part: there is no mention of changing password on the login methods page. I had to figure out that I have to click the Askbot logo (what is "Askbot"? How are my users supposed to know that name??). The text above mentions "re-validating a login method". What does that mean??

Suggested fixes:

1. The lost password link should redirect to the login methods page.
2. The login methods page should contain a clear "change password" link.
3. The login methods page should clearly differentiate between password login and OpenID login. Right now, password login ("Askbot") is listed like it's just another OpenID provider, which is misleading. The page should basically be split into two parts.
4. The login methods list shouldn't say "local". That doesn't mean anything to the user. It should say something like "Username/password".
5. If the user uses only password login, then the lost password link should redirect immediately to the change password form, as that is the expected behavior for a Web app.

Page redesign suggestion:

---

You can currently log in to this site in the following ways:

Username/password   [change password] [remove this method]
OpenID (Google)                       [remove this method]
...other login methods...

Add a new way to log in:

[Google] [Twitter] [Yahoo] [LinkedIn]  ||  [Username/password login]
...other OpenID icons                  ||  (displayed if not already avail.)

startforum script creates the django site - it is a deployment script, while setup.py installs the python modules where they belong on the python system tree.

In that case - if your current directory is /var/www/site/askantimoon, answer with "." (a dot - current directory). There may be an error message, ignore it.

The question "where to deploy" means - where on the file system to install the django site.

After startforum runs, you will get settings.py, urls.py, etc. - files necessary for the Django site.

I assume most people use Askbot as a standalone app, not a Django module. Therefore, wouldn't it be better to include settings.py, urls.py, etc. in the git project so people can easily pull changes to these files from the dev repo? It seems like a major pain to have to check these files every time I do 'git pull'. (And there's no way to know which files changed.) You can add these files to .gitignore only if the user specifies explicitly (in startforum?) that they want to use Askbot as a Django module.

edited Done in 0.7.2, please take a look. Possibly the UI can be abjusted.

Testing anonymous posting