[Pre-Release][Forum Software] Olympus Discussion | Bounty Entree

[SyphorSoftware]

Olympus Discussion
Beta Release Slated for Later.

This Project has been worked on behind the scenes for about two weeks by one of ours teams.  It is our entree for the 5500+ BTC bounty that theymos started in 2011 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50617.0), assuming he still intends to honor the bounty.  Olympus Discussion is designed to tailor what you see, to your specific needs, so your not surfing though piles up sub-categories and mindless jabber to read what you want to read.

Your feedback and suggestions are more than welcome, which is why we are posting this now, before we are completely ready for release.

Developer Features

• Threaded Processing
• Node.JS Platform (http://nodejs.org/)
• Precompiled LESS Support (http://lesscss.org/)
• On-Demand LESS Compliation (http://lesscss.org/)
• Embedded JS Support (http://embeddedjs.com/)
• Carte Blanche Framework
  
  • Node Cluster Management
  • Specialized Web Server
  • Object-based Database Structure
  • In-house HTML/LESS Framework

Board Features [Paused - In Development - Completed - Not Planned For Beta]

• Multiple Authentication Systems
  
  • OpenID Authentication (http://openid.net/)
  • Registration System
    
    • Email Not Required
  • Two-Factor Authentication Support
    
    • E-Mail
    • TOTP and HOTP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_One-time_Password_Algorithm)
• User Accounts
  
  • Custom Account Types
  • Permissions System
  • Web of Trust System
  • Messaging System
  • Weighted Stats
  • Avatars
  • Signatures
  • User Assigned Attributes
    
    • Bitcoin Address
    • Email Address
    • Website
    • Company
    • User Created Attributes
• Tag Based Content System
  
  • Advanced Tag Search
  • Default Channel Organization
  • Post Ranking System
  • Subscription System
  • Ignore System
  • BBCode-like Markup with Icon Fonts (http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/icons/)
• Multiple Interfaces
  
  • JS-based Interface
    
    • Compatible with all modern browsers
    • Reduces needed bandwith
    • Provides a smooth user experience
    • Automatically update content
    • User Color Scheme Support
    • Phone and Tablet Support
  • Non-JS Interface
    
    • Compatible IE7+ and newer browsers.
    • Zero Client-Side JS
    • User Color Scheme Support
    • Phone and Tablet Support
  • Crawler Interface
    
    • Provided to self-identified crawlers like Google, Bing, etc.
    • Significantly lowers bandwidth requirements for crawlers
• Advanced Analytics
  
  • User Analytics
    
    • Posts Over Time
    • Messages Over Time
    • Visits Over Time
  • Moderation Analytics
    
    • Post Removals Over Time
    • Post Edits Over Time
    • Post Tag Edits Over Time
  • Financial Analytics
    
    • Checks Donation Address Transactions
    • Collective Ad Revenue Data
• Integrated Ad Campaigns
  
  • Tag and User Attribute Targeting
  • Time Based Ads
  • Custom Analytics
• User-based Control Panels
  
  • Common Control Panel
    
    • Access to Profile Information
    • Access to Ad Campaign Data
    • Customize Color Schemes
  • Moderator Control Panel
    
    • All Common Controls
    • Access to Own Moderation Analytics
    • Access to Board User Analytics
  • Admin Control Panel
    
    • All Common and Moderator Controls
    • Access to All Moderation Analytics
    • Access to All Ad Campaign Analytics
    • Access to Board Financial Analytics

Screenshots [Outdated]
https://i.imgur.com/XoapFyrl.png

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[SyphorSoftware]

• Site Wallets (eWallets for tipping)

Theymos has stated he doesn't want the forum to become an e-wallet, so I am guessing this would have to be removed.

Which is why is was under "possible".  We haven't even implemented them, suspecting as much.  It's too much of a liability to the forum owner.

Also why no google 2FA email 2FA is bad, cause I am guessing many people have the same name even the same password as their email accounts. So yeah better to look into google 2FA as it be the best way!

Google 2FA is attached to your Google account.  We do offer OpenID login, which can use your google account, and thus activate your Google 2FA, assuming it's attached to your account.  Same goes for your Google E-mail, assuming you use Gmail.

Email 2FA, is better than no 2FA.  We would like to offer SMS 2FA, however that would require monthly fees to a API SMS service, which is obviously up to the forums owners.

[SyphorSoftware]

Google 2FA has nothing to do with google accounts. They are separate things completely. If you have access to my google account you don't have access to my google 2FA cause that is on my phone. It is safer than giving out my phone number to a forum.

You are confusing Google 2FA, which is 2FA support implemented by Google to protect your Google accounts (https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/180744), and Google Authenticator, which can be used for Google 2FA.

The difference is, Google Authenticator isn't a process or service, it is a tool, that uses the TOTP and HOTP standards set by the Initiative for Open Authentication, and thus can be used by anyone following the same standards.

TOTP and HOTP support was not planned, as of the writing of this post, but if this is what you mean by "Google 2FA", then I'll be sure to let the team know of the request.

how you going to do that with no e-wallet unless you are going to host it.

Please read "Tipping" in the opening post.

[SyphorSoftware]

Yes that is what I am talking about, please pass it along.

I don't consider that tipping it is more of a profile field, but I guess so.

The opening post has been updated to reflect your request, and to better describe the teams' progress as of the writing on this post.

[GCInc.]

Very interesting. After release and possible adaptation by the Bitcoin community will this platform be up for sale or maybe become open source?

[SyphorSoftware]

Very interesting. After release and possible adaptation by the Bitcoin community will this platform be up for sale or maybe become open source?

According to the origional post by theymos:

It would be fine for you to sell your software after you make it for this forum.

However, that was almost 2 years ago.  Assuming we collect the bounty, we will talk with the forums administration about it.  If they agree to it, we would like to release the software as open source, for the community.

In the result that theymos does not award us the bounty, for whatever reason, we will put the software up for auction, at which point the winning bidder will have all rights to the finished product.  In the event of such an auction, should the community decide to come together to win the auction, we will release the software as open source.

We hope this answers your question.

[cedivad]

So you are creating a forum software out of nowhere?
Why would someone do it?

[TheButterZone]

So you are creating a forum software out of nowhere?
Why would someone do it?

It is our entree for the 5500+ BTC bounty that theymos started in 2011 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50617.0), assuming he still intends to honor the bounty.

[SyphorSoftware]

Olympus Discussion had to be built from scratch. Pre-made forum software could not be modified for the UI we have designed. Olympus Discussion is a collaborative concept of our development team to create forum software for the leading edge of modern web development. it strays from standard forum design by bringing in new concepts like a Tag Based Content System, Multiple Interfaces, Advanced Analytics, and other features that would be difficult to implement to pre-designed forum software and still meet our standards. As a company, Syphor Software is striving to create unique and unprecedented software that will not only impress but be functional and seamless in its design.

[cedivad]

Listen, i hope that you win the bounty because SMF sucks, but building a forum from scratch is not the way to do it. I've personally done it, all the major forum software (IPB, vB, XF, etc) can be modified to match the requirements. All of them. Also, it's something it would be easy to do.

[GCInc.]

Listen, i hope that you win the bounty because SMF sucks, but building a forum from scratch is not the way to do it. I've personally done it, all the major forum software (IPB, vB, XF, etc) can be modified to match the requirements. All of them. Also, it's something it would be easy to do.

Couldn't resist, I find this comment after OP's reply hilarious

About time we get modern forum software made from the roots up.

[cedivad]

Do you want a first world tested and bug free software or some mess made out of thin air?
Reinventing the whell, that is what is hilarious.

[TheButterZone]

Prejudice should not stop innovation.

[SyphorSoftware]

We have updated the opening post with a few screenshots.  There will be more to come as we reach the beta release date.

If there is something you disagree with, or would like to see some changes, please let us know.

[cedivad]

It's the most original forum "moockup" i've ever seen. It's something of the level i wanted to do for a website of mine for years now.
So, i'm positively surprised.

But again, you shouldn't start fresh out of nothing.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Not exactly a fan of the mock up UI. Individual posts take up too much space, and black on grey is not a good color combination for long reads. The <h2> or whatever makes the subject take up disproportionally more space - even through in 99.5% of the posts the subject of replies convey no additional information.

The topic list UI is not well designed. The user bar should have a constant width that makes it easier to skim through the subjects. There's too much clutter to the right that makes it hard to see replies / views at a glance, and there is no last reply message. The timestamp is also unfriendly - you should use relative time (eg 3 minutes ago, not dates unless it is very old).

Most people also generally read from left to right. IMO the sidebar would be better positioned on the left (and you should really get another default color palette).

The default theme should be minimalistic like the current theme. Nothing that looks "web 2.0": no speech bubbles, no significant space between posts, no significant hover effects, and few rounded corners.

The default theme must work well with all functionality and a reasonable page layout on text browsers without JavaScript. It should also work perfectly on browsers with unusually small browser dimensions. It should be at least somewhat usable (though maybe not pretty) on ancient and broken browsers like IE6.

Same color scheme as we have now: light with some blue.

Keep in mind that the audience here is much more technical, and are more power users. In addition, a much more significant amount of users runs with JS disabled or NoScript for security reasons (against code injection, using tor, whatever), your user interface should be virtually identical (like right now) for users without JS enabled. This reminds me of the disastrous Google Reader redesign - too much empty space, too much user friendlyless at the sacrifice of user functionality - or digitalpoint (that's a way better example).

Many users (especially power users) do not have an avatar here. How will that be presented?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

I also recommend to not go with major design overhauls to make it look web 2.0. I use Bootstrap a lot, but it's simply not what will work with the Bitcoin community. That means, don't start your project off with Bootstrap's large empty spacing, font size, large buttons, white/grey/black palette.

Making something more web 2.0 has disastrous results for a technical internet community. DigitalPoint migrated to the latest version of vBulletin which is like the direction your UI is going. Take a look at how they are doing:



You can quite easily see that after upgrading their forum to be more web 2.0 / shiny, their userbase stopped visiting as much. They had to move to another forum software that was more traditional, and better for "power users".

---

It should also be noted that Google will penalize you if you serve a different version to GoogleBot. See this video: http://searchengineland.com/library/search-engine-optimization/seo-cloaking-doorway-pages

Your crawler interface will get your forum software significantly penalized - Google cares if you serve it a substantially different HTML, it can't detect if what you are doing is "reducing bandwidth" or whatever - if a diff is significant, you get slapped with a hefty penalty.

[SyphorSoftware]

It's the most original forum "moockup" i've ever seen. It's something of the level i wanted to do for a website of mine for years now.
So, i'm positively surprised.

But again, you shouldn't start fresh out of nothing.

We're sure we will impress you again when the beta release rolls out, when you will have time to play around with the features, make posts, and report bugs.

The current slated release date for the beta is this Friday, Aug. 23.

Not exactly a fan of the mock up UI. https://inputs.io/beacon Individual posts take up too much space, and black on grey is not a good color combination for long reads. The <h2> or whatever makes the subject take up disproportionally more space - even through in 99.5% of the posts the subject of replies convey no additional information.

The topic list UI is not well designed. The user bar should have a constant width that makes it easier to skim through the subjects. There's too much clutter to the right that makes it hard to see replies / views at a glance, and there is no last reply message. The timestamp is also unfriendly - you should use relative time (eg 3 minutes ago, not dates unless it is very old).

Most people also generally read from left to right. IMO the sidebar would be better positioned on the left (and you should really get another color palette).

The default theme should be minimalistic like the current theme. Nothing that looks "web 2.0": no speech bubbles, no significant space between posts, no significant hover effects, and few rounded corners.

The default theme must work well with all functionality and a reasonable page layout on text browsers without JavaScript. It should also work perfectly on browsers with unusually small browser dimensions. It should be at least somewhat usable (though maybe not pretty) on ancient and broken browsers like IE6.

Same color scheme as we have now: light with some blue.

I also recommend to not go with major design overhauls to make it look web 2.0. I use Bootstrap a lot, but it's simply not what will work with the Bitcoin community. That means, don't start your project off with Bootstrap's large empty spacing, font size, large buttons, white/grey/black palette.

Making something more web 2.0 has disastrous results for a technical internet community. DigitalPoint migrated to the latest version of vBulletin which is like the direction your UI is going. Take a look at how they are doing:

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=340&h=150&o=flt&c=1&y=t&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=2y&f=999999&u=digitalpoint.com

You can quite easily see that after upgrading their forum to be more web 2.0 / shiny, their userbase stopped visiting as much. They had to move to another forum software that was more traditional, and better for "power users".

Thank you for your input TradeFortess.  You make quite a few great points, and they will be addressed by the team before the beta release on Friday.

We would still love to hear from others, and we intend to have updated screenshots ready on Aug. 21 that depict more of the software, including the user control panels, possible ad locations, and updated content.

[/dev/null]

jeez, dont mind but it looks ugly.

Even vanilla forum looks 10 times better than this.

[/dev/null]

look at esotalk http://esotalk.org/forum/