Proposal on Reorganizing The Information in the Forum

[Arnox]

This is actually kind of related to this thread I made a little earlier about curating threads. We never really answered the dilemma, so the matter was dropped. Having thought about this some more though, I think what I propose below will be a really nice compromise.

I figure now that what we really need is not actually a way to separate "quality" or "well-liked" threads from other threads but simply to separate the threads which have information in them from the other threads. Basically, this means any threads that aren't stories (non-fiction or otherwise), opinions, or questions. This both allows one to get straight to the information that Sanctuary offers while still remaining fully impartial on what threads are deemed worthy of separation from the others or not. For this, we would simply make a separate child sub-forum for each of the main sub-forums that would be designated, for example, "Information (Appealing Design)".

The one catch to this though is that it makes our already quite long sub-forum list even longer (though child sub-forums will not take up any extra space on the forum list). What we could do instead is just make one extra sub-forum and then just use prefixes for easy filtering. This would VASTLY reduce sub-forum count, but it would also render the whole system somewhat inflexible for possibly needed expansion or contraction in the future. Prefixes, once set, cannot be easily subtracted from.

If a prefix is removed, once again, every thread that used that prefix now needs to be relabeled. If we ever do decide to go back on this entire idea, it will be easier for me to move threads from individual sub-forums back to their respective parent sub-forums instead of having to go through every prefix in the information sub-forum and put threads back that way. And finally, some third-party thread sorting tools will probably have a much easier time filtering out sub-forums per individual user preference as opposed to prefixed threads, but I could be wrong.

 

[gaijinkaiju]

stop micromanaging. give the forums a title that make it apparent what they are, and leave it at that

 

[Houseman]

I think it's fine to separate the general chatter and funposting from the "informative" threads.

 

[Arnox]

stop micromanaging. give the forums a title that make it apparent what they are, and leave it at that

I actually totally understand why you would say this, but consider that once Sanctuary starts getting a flood of threads in the future, this is going to be much harder to do, or at least, a whole lot more long and annoying to go through all the past threads and sort them into information categories. If we were ever going to do this, the time is now while it's still relatively easy to do, and if we don't like it, we can just put the threads back into the main sub-forums and that will be that.

 

[gaijinkaiju]

here's wild thought. You could just do what every other forum does, and just pin important threads

 

[Arnox]

here's wild thought. You could just do what every other forum does, and just pin important threads

lol We already talked about this. See the old thread on curated threads. You already brought this objection up.

 

[gaijinkaiju]

lol We already talked about this. See the old thread on curated threads. You already brought this objection up.

And my point still stands. If it's important, pin it.
problem solved

 

[Arnox]

And my point still stands. If it's important, pin it.
problem solved

And my point still stands. We have WAYYY too many threads to pin for that. Pinning is only for 10 threads per sub-forum at MAX. And even then, that's getting into absurd territory. Too many pinned threads clutters up the sub-forum view too.

 

[gaijinkaiju]

And my point still stands. We have WAYYY too many threads to pin for that. Pinning is only for 10 threads per sub-forum at MAX. And even then, that's getting into absurd territory. Too many pinned threads clutters up the sub-forum view too.

>10 Threads Max
>Absurd
You're absurd. Just pin stuff, then when it's no longer relevant, unpin it. Most of the stuff in that thread shouldn't even be there anyway, half of it would fit better in other threads.

 

[Arnox]

>10 Threads Max
>Absurd
You're absurd. Just pin stuff, then when it's no longer relevant, unpin it. Most of the stuff in that thread shouldn't even be there anyway, half of it would fit better in other threads.

Ok, you know... Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're asking here... Or you're misunderstanding me or something?

What I'm saying in this thread specifically is that any thread that has real information in the OP should be put into a separate sub-forum. You are saying that that's stupid and we should just pin threads that have such information. Is that what you're saying then or... ?

 

[gaijinkaiju]

Ok, you know... Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're asking here... Or you're misunderstanding me or something?

What I'm saying in this thread specifically is that any thread that has real information in the OP should be put into a separate sub-forum. You are saying that that's stupid and we should just pin threads that have such information. Is that what you're saying then or... ?

that is exactly what i'm saying

 

[Arnox]

that is exactly what i'm saying

Well I'm telling you that that's stupid because there's way too many threads to pin, and cycling threads in and out of pinned status doesn't allow people to just browse or search through even a large portion of the informational threads we already have.

 

[gaijinkaiju]

Well I'm telling you that that's stupid because there's way too many threads to pin, and cycling threads in and out of pinned status doesn't allow people to just browse or search through even a large portion of the informational threads we already have.

Show me them. Show me what threads you consider informational, because if you just say "the official content forum" I'm going to reiterate you're absurd and most of the stuff in that thread is redundant and/or belongs in other threads. Heck some of its not even content. How the fuck was this worth being "official" content?
Also, you could just pin a "master" thread, that links to threads deemed important and have a handful of other high-priority important threads pinned.

 

[Arnox]

Show me them. Show me what threads you consider informational, because if you just say "the official content forum" I'm going to reiterate you're absurd and most of the stuff in that thread is redundant and/or belongs in other threads.

I'll address your post soonish, but really quick...

Heck some of its not even content. How the fuck was this worth being "official" content?

lmao Yeah, that thread is part of the content that I felt was worth saving from my old Imgur account before I scrapped it entirely. I simply didn't want to lose track of it all at the time so I put the old Imgur content I cared about in that forum. In any case though, I don't think any of those Imgur threads actually merit any place in this hypothetical Information sub-forum(s), so don't worry about that.

 

[Battousai]

Just remember to pin this thread.

 

[Arnox]

Just remember to pin this thread.

First thing I'll do. Absolutely.

Show me them. Show me what threads you consider informational, because if you just say "the official content forum" I'm going to reiterate you're absurd and most of the stuff in that thread is redundant and/or belongs in other threads.

Here's fifteen threads found on just the first one and a half pages of Technophiliacs and Technophiles.

Info Thread 'On Google Chromium Components in Firefox'

Feb 22, 2025

@Vendor-Lazarus posted these links to show how much Chromium code is in Firefox:

https://archive.ph/odk9n, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC, https://archive.ph/3zDI5, https://archive.ph/pdS87, https://archive.ph/kqYWs, https://archive.ph/RtCSO, https://archive.ph/nPaeN, https://archive.ph/lt9T7

I will be going through this list and seeing what is what.

Manifest v3.x

Firefox is indeed incorporating this standard BUT they are still supporting the Manifest v2.x standard and they have also made their own significant...

• Arnox
• Replies: 1
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'The Top 10 Best Wikis to Download for the Data Hoarder'

Jan 25, 2025

For those who like collecting stuff and preserving it, I thought it would be quite fun to round up a ton of online wiki resources and see which ones would be the best to download and keep on your hard drive. The list is in no particular order. Almost all of these can be downloaded through Kiwix except two which I will detail below. Also, all of these will be assuming you are wanting to download the english full version (including pictures) of the wiki.

1. Wikipedia - 102 GB

Duh.

2. Wikiversity - 2.3 GB

A wiki that has college course style tutorials for a wide array of...

• Arnox
• Replies: 2
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'List of Alternative Twitter/X Web Frontends'

Jan 10, 2025

Need to access something on Twitter? Don't want to wade through Elon-Musk-ville? Then boy, have I got a solution for you. All these below are basically using the Nitter software and running their own instance of it. Now, I know some of you already know about these and that's fine, but sometimes, one instance will be bogged down or even just not be reachable, so it's good to have a nice list of backup instances you can use.

Note that these are only for browsing. You can't login and post with them, nor should you do so even if you could because you are basically using somebody else's...

• Arnox
• Replies: 4
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'A Dump of Some Dark Web Links and Information'

Jun 6, 2024

Dark Web Directories
https://tor.taxi (tortaxi2dev6xjwbaydqzla77rrnth7yn2oqzjfmiuwn5h6vsk2a4syd.onion)
https://dark.fail (darkfailenbsdla5mal2mxn2uz66od5vtzd5qozslagrfzachha3f3id.onion)

Dark Web Forums
Dread: dreadytofatroptsdj6io7l3xptbet6onoyno2yv7jicoxknyazubrad.onion

Black Market
Archetyp: 4pt4axjgzmm4ibmxplfiuvopxzf775e5bqseyllafcecryfthdupjwyd.onion

Though I've validated these links as much as I can, you should still do your own research and ALWAYS be on the lookout for phishing scams and make sure you're at least using Tails before going to any...

• Arnox
• Replies: 6
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'SimpleX Chat - A Replacement for Telegram and Discord (Maybe)'

Oct 9, 2024

Mental Outlaw pointed this out recently and it looks pretty damn cool. Basically it's chat with complete and absolute privacy. No identifiers of any kind needed whatsoever. And of course, it's fully open source.

But there's some caveats. The three biggest I can see are, how does the app fare under major group load, how well does it handle video streaming, and finally, how well does it handle notifications? (I've heard of people having major problems with them.)

• Arnox
• Replies: 5
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'How to Shut Down Drone Surveillance and Attacks'

Aug 26, 2024

Did you know you can make drones go bye-bye? You don't even need to crack them. Unless the drone is completely autonomous (in which case, it's pretty much a fancy missile at that point), they should be able to be brought down by signal jamming or with a laser, and there are a few ways you can do this.

1. GPS Jamming

Many drones use GPS as a way to navigate through areas. Jam that signal with any good GPS jammer and the drone will spaz out and probably crash.

2. Frequency Jamming

Be aware that the FCC does NOT like radio frequency jamming, generally for good reason, and they will get on...

• Arnox
• Replies: 5
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Thread 'The Dumbest Company Press Conferences/Events/Keynotes'

Aug 26, 2024

Thought this would be a fun list to do.

4. Almost Anything with Steve Ballmer

From the first second Steve steps out onto this stage, he's already shrieking and jumping around like a fucking mad man pumping himself up to stab some peasants while ranting some nonsense about "developers". Thankfully, no peasants were harmed in the making of these press events. I think Steve is probably the OG guy when it comes to making utterly ridiculous, if admittedly very memorable events. Could be wrong there though. Let me know if I am.

3. Intel's Completely Robotic 2021...

• Arnox
• Replies: 1
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'RedFox (People Behind AnyDVD HD) Has Gone Down, Probably For Good'

Aug 2, 2024

For those who don't know, AnyDVD HD is a software tool that lets you bypass blu-ray and DVD DRM protections, but most notably by far, UHD blu-ray protections. They also made a tool called AnyStream that allowed you to bypass the DRM on any streaming service.

I am soooooo fucking pissed at this. Was gonna buy a lifetime license this month, and what do ya' know, right when I decide that... They're fucking gone!

I knew this shit was gonna happen. Somehow, I just knew. "Arnox, you should get AnyDVD HD before they fold... " And I told myself, "Nahhhh. They'll be fine." And...

• Arnox
• Replies: 4
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'On Cellebrite (Smartphone Cracking Tool) and GrapheneOS'

Jul 19, 2024

Privacy circles have been abuzz with talk of how the police, using Cellebrite, were able to crack the protections on the shooter's Android phone in about 40 mins. This got me very curious as to the capabilities of Cellebrite in terms of getting into a phone with GrapheneOS.

Luckily, I was actually able to find this post by the GrapheneOS devs on Mastodon. It's a year old or so as of this writing, but it should still be very applicable. The full text of the post is below.

Cellebrite and others in their industry use logical extraction to refer to extracting data from a device after...

• Arnox
• Replies: 4
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'How To Convert YouTube Shorts to Regular Videos Easily'

Jul 8, 2024

Doesn't really "convert" the video so much as it just allows you to play it in a non-cancerous format. Stumbled across this solution given by Tiaabiamillan on Reddit.

Take the video's id which comes after https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ and put it at the end of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

I just go to my history, "watch" whatever, paste the whole url of the yt short behind what's in the address bar, delete what I don't need, and press enter. Done.

• Arnox
• Replies: 0
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'An Actually Good Search Engine You've Probably Never Heard About'

May 23, 2024

US Version: https://baresearch.org/
EU Version: https://searx.be/
AU Version: https://priv.au
You can also find a list of instances running it here: https://searx.space/

SearX (now forked and continued with SearXNG) is an open-source metasearch engine that seems to do an eerily good job pointing you right to the site you want without the typical search engine bullshit cluttering up the results. I used to use Brave Search, and occasionally, I still do along with Google when I want a second and/or third opinion (and of course, we can't forget Bing for porn, can we)...

• Arnox
• Replies: 8
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'How to Return YouTube to Its Original Video Layout'

Apr 16, 2024

From: https://github.com/code-charity/youtube/issues/2178

Assuming you're using uBlock Origin, open the extension settings and head to your filter list and add in the following:

www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.kevlar_watch_grid, false)
www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.small_avatars_for_comments, false)
www.youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.EXPERIMENT_FLAGS.small_avatars_for_comments_ep, false)

Keep in mind, when doing this, the video will be cut off a tad on the right side and the bottom. Going out of fullscreen for the browser...

• Arnox
• Replies: 3
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'How to stop Google from violating your rectums'

May 24, 2023

https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/32635-disable-google-search-result-url-redirector/code

Stops Google from creating a tracking link when clicking on a search result among other stuff

So instead of this:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjvnJ2L74__AhWnIkQIHfXSAxIQFnoECCQQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPrivacy_concerns_regarding_Google&usg=AOvVaw1ln7mEe8g-2bIKHu1-k7fE

You just get this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_regarding_Google

...

• Gauche
• Replies: 9
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'The One Possible Advantage to VHS Camcorders vs. Digital Video'

Nov 10, 2023

In this day and age, we now have AI running over everything, and more and more things are becoming able to be generated by such. This creates very understandable suspicion with sources. But what if you recorded a video of something with an old-school VHS camcorder? Now you may say, "Oh, you can just down-convert digital video taken by any smartphone or generated by any PC into VHS video, so it doesn't matter, and this is true, but is it going to match the actual way that VHS camcorders record? Perhaps there's some specialized filter in a video editor you can use that mimics all the...

• Arnox
• Replies: 3
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

Info Thread 'Reputable Places for Online Shopping (that AREN'T Amazon or Ebay)'

Aug 21, 2020

I think one of the big reasons why people don't wanna switch from Amazon is that, understandably, they don't wanna go on a shifty site and get scammed. So, the good news is that I think this should be easy to fix, but it probably will require some testing. Specifically, we need to make a list of good online places to shop.

In order to meet the criteria as a "reputable" online marketplace, the site must meet these requirements:
- Must have a good return policy of some kind.
- Must have good customer service.
- Must stock a wide variety of the chosen type of product or products they sell.
-...

• Arnox
• Replies: 4
• Forum: Technophiliacs & Technophiles

And even IF there was only five threads in total in that sub-forum, sub-forums don't stay static. People add to them over time. And grouping them up into a pinned master list thread, while seemingly fine on the surface, would not be good for easy grouping and searching within those groups of information threads and their contents. By giving information threads category prefixes in a dedicated sub-forum of some kind, filtering and searchability is enhanced, which are some of the hallmarks of a forum in the first place.

 

[Signa]

I know know what you're all arguing about, but if there's any problem I have with the forums, is that there's too many subtopics. I don't think there needs to be any sort of reorg at all.

 

[gaijinkaiju]

Here's fifteen threads found on just the first one and a half pages of Technophiliacs and Technophiles.


And even IF there was only five threads in total in that sub-forum, sub-forums don't stay static. People add to them over time. And grouping them up into a pinned master list thread, while seemingly fine on the surface, would not be good for easy grouping and searching within those groups of information threads and their contents. By giving information threads category prefixes in a dedicated sub-forum of some kind, filtering and searchability is enhanced, which are some of the hallmarks of a forum in the first place.

And what is stopping you having the master thread, what you might call a "Directory" even, perhaps an "Index", and just linking to all those threads. Just because its "informational" doesn't mean its important.
Justify why each and every one of those threads you've shared are worth caring about.

I know know what you're all arguing about, but if there's any problem I have with the forums, is that there's too many subtopics. I don't think there needs to be any sort of reorg at all.

finally someone else with some common sense

 

[Arnox]

I know know what you're all arguing about, but if there's any problem I have with the forums, is that there's too many subtopics.

I get what you're saying, but trust me. I've already compressed the sub-forums down as much as I can. Collapsing them down any more will mean a lot of frustration in the future if we ever have to separate the sub-forums out again due to too much activity. And you know, we don't necessarily need to make a sub-forum for each existing sub-forum. That was just one possible idea. We can just add one extra sub-forum and do category prefixes.

All that said, if you're really adamant about doing further sub-forum compression, we could also take this basic idea and apply it to the rest of the sub-forums. So at the end, we would just have three sub-forums. One for reviews, one for information, and one for everything else. And all of them would have category prefixes. The one big problem with that approach though is if someone or a group starts flooding the sub-forums with a lot of threads about one thing, it will probably be literally impossible for users to set XenForo to filter out threads from the Latest Posts list that have a particular prefix. You can do that right now though with threads from a particular sub-forum.

And what is stopping you having the master thread, what you might call a "Directory" even, perhaps an "Index", and just linking to all those threads.

And grouping them up into a pinned master list thread, while seemingly fine on the surface, would not be good for easy grouping and searching within those groups of information threads and their contents.

Just because its "informational" doesn't mean its important.

Just because you don't value any of these threads doesn't mean they aren't or wouldn't be important to others. Sanctuary serves a lot of roles, and one of those roles is as a library of information. In that sense, I fail to see why making the information that we have accumulated and will accumulate in the future much more convenient and available for browsing and searching would be a bad thing.

TOTSE used to host a huge collection of text files. Browsing it was a problem though because they had, like, a grand total of seven categories for thousands and thousands of files. When TOTSE shut down, there was a constant argument and debate in the community about even having a text files section and, if it was decided to have one, how it should be organized and run. Some argued that a text files section offered something unique, and others said it was a waste of time compared to the forum or even Wikipedia.

Skipping forward to present day, we already agreed a while ago that the forums should be focused on as the foremost place of Sanctuary for information and sharing it. This idea now about a dedicated information sub-forum is an extension of that focus. If this was done, I think this would be the peak and don't see how the forums could possibly be improved any further, mechanically speaking.

Perhaps what I'm most mystified about though is why you're so damn resistant to this idea. If you still don't agree, fine, but Christmas did not get cancelled. The forums will still generally be as they are. You will still be able to blast me for my poor admin choices.

 

[gaijinkaiju]

Just because you don't value any of these threads doesn't mean they aren't or wouldn't be important to others. Sanctuary serves a lot of roles, and one of those roles is as a library of information. In that sense, I fail to see why making the information that we have accumulated and will accumulate in the future much more convenient and available for browsing and searching would be a bad thing.

okay then

Justify why each and every one of those threads you've shared are worth caring about.

Perhaps what I'm most mystified about though is why you're so damn resistant to this idea. If you still don't agree, fine, but Christmas did not get cancelled. The forums will still generally be as they are. You will still be able to blast me for my poor admin choices.

Because I can't understand why you don't just make a pinned master thread for each forum which links to important/informational threads within said forum.
And who is even deciding what's informational/important? You? because that's not going to be biased in the least

 

[Arnox]

And who is even deciding what's informational/important?

Ok, you're completely misunderstanding me. I am not going to decide which threads are "better" than others. There is only two criteria for a thread to be in the Information sub-forum. One, the OP cannot just be a story, opinion, or question, and two, it cannot just be information that is found on a wiki of some kind. That is it. If it meets those two criteria, it goes into the Information sub-forum.

 

[Arnox]

Bump. Are there anymore objections then? Now's the time to bring them up.

 

[gaijinkaiju]

Bump. Are there anymore objections then? Now's the time to bring them up.

yes. your idea is bad.

 

[Arnox]

yes. your idea is bad.

Because why?

 

[Signa]

Because why?

Because the more you seperate topics, the harder it is to browse or even find a good place to start a new topic. Leave good enough alone.