[proposal] forum subdomains

[franky1]

very simple idea,
the current forum url to get to meta https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0
have
meta.bitcointalk.org aswell that redirects to board=24.0

for main bitcoin discussion https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=1.0
have
main.bitcointalk.org aswell that redirects to board=1.0

for for economics https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=7.0
have
economics.bitcointalk.org aswell that redirects to board=7.0

and for Development & Technical Discussion https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0
have
ass-kiss-dev.bitcointalk.org aswell that redirects to board=6.0

last one was a sarcasm joke.
but the point is it would make things easier to link to different sections using a easy to remember addresses
im not suggesting redoing the whole set-up nor changing the board numbering system.
its not about editing or changing SMF software/database

 im suggesting adding extra url re-directs to the domain management

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[Charles-Tim]

I use google for this and it work as good. Example is when I searched for 'meta Bitcointalk' or 'Bitcointalk meta' and it will bring meta link as the search result. I use it for other boards and child boards and the searches are accurate. You can try it. I mainly use google for this.

[dzungmobile]

I am not a developer amd don't have deep knowlesge about security but because I saw many projects apply this style for pages on their websites, assume it is good and safe in security.

Even so, I see one disadvantage of this proposal.

It will be harder to know how many boards are existing in Bitcointalk.

If you search with a link with board id at the end like

Code:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=279

and if there is no board with that board id, you will get a notification

The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.

I can use a smaller board id for searching. With this proposal, it is impossible.

[Mate2237]

It is good to know but that will be a long process to do it instead you just login normally and navigate to any board you like. And if I want to find out any topic nor board, I normally use Google Search Engine to get the job done. Because in most cases the forum search bar didn't give me the actual results I needed. Though this your method is also directing me straight to the board you want to visit but will be double navigation because once login with meta.bitcointalk.org, you can't go back to another board unless you click the main menu (home page) button. Therefore I will prefer login with normal website and navigate to any angle.

[NotATether]

I don't think SMF software supports linking boards to subdomains.

[ABCbits]

I like the proposal. Stack Exchange also does that which result on more neat topic and easier to use with search engine.

I don't think SMF software supports linking boards to subdomains.

I did quick search on SMF forum, but couldn't find information about multiple subdomain for each forum section/category.

[franky1]

my proposal is not about messing with SMF

its about subdomains of the hosting domain.. that redirects to the right page of SMF board numbering system

[NotATether]

my proposal is not about messing with SMF

its about subdomains of the hosting domain.. that redirects to the right page of SMF board numbering system

But that's the thing... you can't make a (sub)domain redirect to some page *inside* the domain the way SMF is set up. With a normal website it's possible, but on the forum everything is generated by an index.php.

When you go to a board, the url is index.php?board=x.x . For a topic, it's something like index.php?topic=x.x with no board number. If someone clicks a link to some Bitcointalk topic and it were to show the appropriate subdomain in the address bar, the only way to do that would be to perform a database lookup, which will be expensive since there are almost 5.5 million topics as of now.

And to do the reverse (as described in your quote) would either require a new design for the URLs for the subdomains e.g. meta.bitcointalk.org/proposal-forum-subdomains OR you'd have to stick the topic number at the end, which means meta.bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5477847 is the same as bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5477847 which would make subdomains redundant.

[franky1]

no just no.. sorry NotATether, but just no

you dont need to edit or change or move index.php to create subdomains
you dont need to edit or change SMF forum code within index.php

subdomain stuff is done at the website hosting management system, not the contents of index.php file

as for you then exaggerating into the "topics" now your just going overboard

...
the forum software is within index.php...
but you dont need to touch that at all

you do not need to use a HTML/PHP editor of the index.php to create subdomains. to then also not need to upload a edited index.php file to the hosting site to activate subdomains
emphasis you do not need to touch the forum software

instead its done within the hosting sites management tool. such as cpanel(or whatever one theymos uses) where you can set the hosting management to redirect subdomains to board numbers of the index.php depending on the subdomain

you made some extreme exaggerated and pointless counter arguments about millions of topics..
which has no effect on subdomains nor subdomains on topics

you lost a few respect points i had for you as a dev due to your weird counter argument to not want to even think its worth doing..

if you instead said something smarter like that subdomains might have some affect on theymoses cloudflare settings and security, where he would need to add some extra stuff to cloudflare to ensure the subdomains are also cloudflare protected i would have respected you as a dev for having a legitimate counter argument.. but even so its just again just adding a few details to the cloudflare management tool, but atleast you would have had a bit of better understanding of website hosting

[Churchillvv]

I like the proposal. Stack Exchange also does that which result on more neat topic and easier to use with search engine.

I don't think SMF software supports linking boards to subdomains.

I did quick search on SMF forum, but couldn't find information about multiple subdomain for each forum section/category.

I also did a quick search on it too but I found something that kinda relate to it.

You can setup SMF with your new domain and update SMF using 'Repair Settings' to fix any paths and urls.

For the old domain you can add a 301 permanent redirect to the new domain, search engine's will see the permanent redirect and update all your search results, it should have a very minimal impact on your search engine rankings.

So if someone goes to http://www.olddomain.com/forum/thread/1/ they would be redirected to http://www.newdomain.com/forum/thread/1/

Search engines are intelligent enough these days to handle these type of instructions.
Best

source
The bold area shows it could be possible for subdomain too but it will require the admin to do a whole lot of job to fix it.

[examplens]

This is not a bad suggestion at all. I think it would also mean a lot for local boards and simplifying the navigation.

But that's the thing... you can't make a (sub)domain redirect to some page *inside* the domain the way SMF is set up. With a normal website it's possible, but on the forum everything is generated by an index.php.

When you go to a board, the url is index.php?board=x.x . For a topic, it's something like index.php?topic=x.x with no board number. If someone clicks a link to some Bitcointalk topic and it were to show the appropriate subdomain in the address bar, the only way to do that would be to perform a database lookup, which will be expensive since there are almost 5.5 million topics as of now.

Adding a subdomain does not require any change in the code structure of the forum script. It's all about adding certain records as part of DNS settings. You will get the same result if you enter meta.bitcointalk.org (or even bitcointalk.org/meta) or https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0 in your browser. It's just that this solution with the subdomains that franky1 suggests is much simpler for humans.
This does not mean that a subdomain should be created individually for each topic.

[NotATether]

This does not mean that a subdomain should be created individually for each topic.

Yes I knew that, but what do you guys plan on putting after the domain name, for threads in that board?

e.g. meta.bitcointalk.org/<what will go here?>

Because I think just making it so that this subdomain redirects to a board is not useful enough.

[franky1]

This does not mean that a subdomain should be created individually for each topic.

Yes I knew that, but what do you guys plan on putting after the domain name, for threads in that board?

e.g. meta.bitcointalk.org/<what will go here?>

Because I think just making it so that this subdomain redirects to a board is not useful enough.

baby steps
first of all you have to quash the idiots counter arguments opposing the simple idea
by showing that it can work without affecting the service.. but allowing more convenience of linking to boards
= done =

next you then introduce the next level of adding the GET parameters to direct to more specific pages

[electronicash]

basically, you just want to link a subdomain going to the real board.
so once you want to give a link to someone who was accusing someone in the forum of scamming, you can just give away the link where he can go like scamaccusations.bitcointalk.org without having to browse the main to copy the link.

that's easy to do in the cpanel and i think an html code will do to redirect. that's got to be hundreds of subdomains including the locals

[aoluain]

This does not mean that a subdomain should be created individually for each topic.

Yes I knew that, but what do you guys plan on putting after the domain name, for threads in that board?

e.g. meta.bitcointalk.org/<what will go here?>

Because I think just making it so that this subdomain redirects to a board is not useful enough.

for instance this thread address could look like....

meta.bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5477847.0
or
meta.bitcointalk.org/[proposal]_forum_subdomains

I think franky1's idea is actually good and a step in the direction of simplifying the addresses,
easy to read and easy to get to a page straight by just typing the "board" address in.

[seoincorporation]

for main bitcoin discussion https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=1.0
have
main.bitcointalk.org aswell that redirects to board=1.0

I don't get what's the goal for this idea, if the idea is to have better SEO on the site, then the right way would be:

Code:

https://bitcointalk.org/<Board name>/<Sub-board>/.../<Thread tite>

That, with the right metas on the site, would bump it on the Search Engines.

But your idea to make subdomains isn't good for SEO, maybe the goal was to make it look pretty and it would be easy to implement, they only have to create the subdomain and add the next index.html

Code:

<html> 
  <head> 
    <script src="jquery.js"></script> 
    <script> 
    $(function(){
      $("#divId").load("https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=1.0"); 
    });
    </script> 
  </head> 

  <body> 
     <div id="divId" style="display:none;"></div>
  </body> 
</html>

But i don't find sense on doing it, the plan B would be to split the forum, and make each subdomain run each branch, but that would be a bad idea because you will have to run a copy of the software on each branch, so, doesn't sound as a good change at all.

[franky1]

its not about SEO. however yes using other rest stuff like POST
and/or old fashioned subdirectory organisation to direct people to board indexs is another option

however the idea is when having conversations with people
instead of having to describe
go to 'bitcointalk.org' then scroll down to 'other' then click 'meta'

also if just linking people to meta, instead of memorising board indexes or looking it up

you can just say meta.bitcointalk.org

[BenCodie]

my proposal is not about messing with SMF

its about subdomains of the hosting domain.. that redirects to the right page of SMF board numbering system

But that's the thing... you can't make a (sub)domain redirect to some page *inside* the domain the way SMF is set up. With a normal website it's possible, but on the forum everything is generated by an index.php.

When you go to a board, the url is index.php?board=x.x . For a topic, it's something like index.php?topic=x.x with no board number. If someone clicks a link to some Bitcointalk topic and it were to show the appropriate subdomain in the address bar, the only way to do that would be to perform a database lookup, which will be expensive since there are almost 5.5 million topics as of now.

And to do the reverse (as described in your quote) would either require a new design for the URLs for the subdomains e.g. meta.bitcointalk.org/proposal-forum-subdomains OR you'd have to stick the topic number at the end, which means meta.bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5477847 is the same as bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5477847 which would make subdomains redundant.

I think you're over analyzing. You can easily setup DNS records to redirect to the subdomain to the board URL, or create a blank index on the subdomain (which wouldn't be interfering with BitcoinTalk's SMF directories) and have a redirect setup there.

I see the use case here after Franky's further explanation, namely:

its not about SEO. however yes using other rest stuff like POST
and/or old fashioned subdirectory organisation to direct people to board indexs is another option

however the idea is when having conversations with people
instead of having to describe
go to 'bitcointalk.org' then scroll down to 'other' then click 'meta'

also if just linking people to meta, instead of memorising board indexes or looking it up

you can just say meta.bitcointalk.org

It's not a bad idea, and it's definitely easy enough to implement....
...
But so is a cybersecurity and privacy board but that hasn't been decided on in almost 12 months, while a good suggestion that's easy enough to be implemented, it hasn't been decided on. If that's any indicator, I wouldn't hold your breath franky

[franky1]

It's not a bad idea, and it's definitely easy enough to implement....
...
But so is a cybersecurity and privacy board but that hasn't been decided on in almost 12 months, while a good suggestion that's easy enough to be implemented, it hasn't been decided on. If that's any indicator, I wouldn't hold your breath franky

if devs had a mindset of "coz we havnt done it yet, lets just not do it".. nothing would progress
not a good mindset to have

[LoyceV]

but the point is it would make things easier to link to different sections using a easy to remember addresses

That's something your webbrowser can remember for you. If I type "Meta", it knows where I want to go. If I type "Service", I get the 3 most likely options even before I finish typing the word.