EpochTalk on Talksearch

[NotATether]

Hey guys, I am hosting an EpochTalk version of the Bitcointalk forum, using my own cached data from Talksearch to make the page load faster.

It's a read-only mirror of Bitcointalk for now, because I am not comfortable with handling users' login & registration data on my own server.

With this, I hope to utilize my experience in Talksearch to improve the abandoned EpochTalk forum software, and maybe possibly have a full-fledged instance of the forum running on it.

There is still a lot of work in progress, because I wired the forum to get posts from Talksearch instead of a local database, and the stock theme could use some work, but I think the fact that we have this thing working on actual forum posts again is a huge accomplishment.

https://forum.talksearch.io

[dzungmobile]

From this Beta of new forum software now officially open, several forum users run that forum software and there was a guide on how to do that.

9 years later, theymos announced No longer pursuing Epochtalk and it's impressive that you are still running the software for with improvements from your side.

Epochtalk installation readme.

[snipie]

The current version of the forum is just fine. It might requires some improvements , some fixes but it has been working as intended for two decades soon.

[libert19]

Am I supposed to report bugs? Or are you aware of 'em since you mentioned it's WIP? Cause, I encountered several in few minutes of surfing. On note, this actually feels pretty good on mobile, takes the cake compared to any mobile versions posted so far (not defaming 'em but this is factual observation).

[Royal Cap]

Well I'm a little confused, what is the purpose of this EpochTalk ? Is it basically a proxy server for the forum to use better on mobile devices or something else? Since you said that it will help our forum to load better and faster. Here I have a question, we can still access the forum very quickly, so why we need this?

And if the purpose is to make it mobile friendly, then a few days ago I saw a user script, which actually makes the forum very comfortable to use on mobile devices.
[SCRIPT][THEME] Bitcointalk Cards Style - Mobile Friendly

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

I just visited and surfed for the site for a while and although I can certainly tell that it looks like no modern sites in terms of style I still really don't like it as much as I like this original forum style. Besides stuff like signatures and mobile view there isn't as nice as it is on the original.

Like I said in Theymos'  initial post about the original epoch project, it's actually best we leave the forum as it is because of originality and compatibility.

[DYING_S0UL]

That create an account and log in button is just for the show, right? They aren't funtional, right!

Have been browsing for a couple of minutes and I noticed not all the posts were up to date! I mean my local section has around 700 pages of replies, and I see around 600. However other sections (mainly global section) are up to date (maybe 1 day late), I see nov 2, 2026. Furthermore, many of the images are broken right now (I guess that's normal), latest ones are visible though. Last but not least, when I visit a specific profile, I can see an unrecognizable signature, is that really necessary? Cause the look is broken like this below.

Btw does it archives both the original posts as well the edited ones? Like how Bitlist does? Or is it an one time save?

[NotATether]

That create an account and log in button is just for the show, right? They aren't funtional, right!

It's a read-only mirror. Well, supposed to be - the scraper wasn't running all the time so missed some posts but I fixed that now. You don't log into or register on this Epochtalk. They just redirect to Bitcointalk which is safer.

Also, this Epochtalk repo as it currently is on git is quite bad. It didn't even have a footer for anything, or a header (unless you are logged in).

My clanker is working overtime on at least making it look professional and the commits will be on my GitHub fork.

I'm not running epochtalk-server. Client only. This server is just running extra code for Talksearch. The server code that's already written was for dealing with a SQL database which I don't use in my setup.

I don't think Bitcointalk will ever change the backend related code hosted on its server just to accommodate new software, so I think the best approach here if someone wanted to make it a read-write forum is to introduce API keys in place of sessions (hard) or somehow making the session cookie safe to use?

[dkbit98]

What is the point of creating EpochTalk all over again?
I thought theymos clearly decided epochtalk project was not going to continue developing, and I honestly think not enough people was interested anyway.
I remember our local board tried testing new software few times, and majority of members didn't like it.

[alegotardo]

Well I'm a little confused, what is the purpose of this EpochTalk ? Is it basically a proxy server for the forum to use better on mobile devices or something else? Since you said that it will help our forum to load better and faster. Here I have a question, we can still access the forum very quickly, so why we need this?

I think you misunderstood, it is not a proxy to the current Bitcointalk, it is a complete and "standalone" forum software, more modern and open source, that was created perhaps to be a "next generation" of Bitcointalk!? (I am not sure about that), but I would like it.

I just know that I liked it a lot... a very responsive design both for the web and mobile, very fast loading too.... congratulations!!
I hope we do not have any more problems with BitcoinTalk, but if there is any unforeseen issue in the future, at least EpochTalk will serve very well for us to continue accessing the topics and content published up to that point instead of being left without full access to it.

[NotATether]

What is the point of creating EpochTalk all over again?
I thought theymos clearly decided epochtalk project was not going to continue developing, and I honestly think not enough people was interested anyway.
I remember our local board tried testing new software few times, and majority of members didn't like it.

I think with some heavy customizations, I can make it nicer to use in mobile and even desktop, but yeah that's about it since it's read only

[Decimation]

Hey guys, I am hosting an EpochTalk version of the Bitcointalk forum, using my own cached data from Talksearch to make the page load faster.

The EpochTalk site cannot be accessed, it is showing a dead state. Have you just purchased the hosting and done some basic design? Will you customize it gradually?

[NotATether]

The EpochTalk site cannot be accessed, it is showing a dead state. Have you just purchased the hosting and done some basic design? Will you customize it gradually?

No, I did not buy it just now. It must be a bug in the Epochtalk software 

Let me check.

[shahzadafzal]

https://forum.talksearch.io

Are you using the same version of EpochTalk that was last developed for Bitcointalk?

If so, I can see why theymos eventually stopped pursuing EpochTalk after years of development.

Within the first five minutes of exploring it, I came across quite a few issues and missing features. At some points, I honestly couldn't tell whether I was looking at a bug or an intended feature. 😂

For example:

- Why doesn't scrolling down automatically load more posts within a topic? Is there supposed to be infinite scrolling, or is pagination not implemented yet?
- Why does clicking on the latest post take me to the first post of the topic instead?
- The sorting functionality doesn't seem to work either.

Anyway, I'm not here to turn this into a full EpochTalk testing session.

I still appreciate your effort in bringing EpochTalk back to life and providing an alternative interface for users interested in research, exploring old discussions, and searching through Bitcointalk's history.

One feature I'd really love to see is compatibility with Bitcointalk's existing URL structure.

For example, consider this Bitcointalk URL pointing to a specific post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg67296272#msg67296272

Wouldn't it be great if we could simply replace the domain with your EpochTalk instance and land on the exact same topic and post?

For example:

https://forum.talksearch.io/?topic=178336.msg67296272#msg67296272

That would make your mirror much more useful, especially when browsing old Bitcointalk links or switching between the original forum and your EpochTalk instance.

That would be awesome!

[NotATether]

Are you using the same version of EpochTalk that was last developed for Bitcointalk?

If so, I can see why theymos eventually stopped pursuing EpochTalk after years of development.

Yes for the client, no for the server because that's designed for SQL databases whereas I have an Elasticsearch store and a bunch of scripts from LoyceV.

But even then, that shouldn't be breaking the frontend like this. Those devs were stealing a living