Alpha Bugs

Post bugs and issues here. Do not hyperlink to the pages, please provide that information separately to the devs for now.

Bugs

Bugs affect the operability of the site.

• Some (most?) saved changes to settings on the "You" pages are not reflected following pressing "save"
• Karma score of -1 means you cannot post as yourself, meaning you essentially remain at -1 forever.
• Posted by user link under the story heading always points to the current page (whether from the front page or story page)
• Remove ALPHA_SERVER/help page (See Section Titled "Broken Links not Found in FAQ" for more information)

Issues

Issues don't affect the operability, but are inconvenient or undesirable

• Firehose
• Many 404 errors on Help and Preferences page

  Preferences page /users.pl?op=edituser not saving most changes, Real Name, Homepage, Mobile Text Address, Sig and possibly others I didn't test

• Email links and registration email are all NCommander's personal address
• Create account - check for availability gives no response
• Categories (section and topics) for new submissions need expanding. - (current suggested list is here: http://www.soylentnews.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=33&start=20#p486 - mattie_p)
• Is there a way for users to make posts on submitted stories, or is that an editor-only thing.
• FAQ links don't work when directed to slashcode. Internal links work fine.
• Altering comments settings (You --> Comments ==> Make a change ==> Save) will re-display your old, unwanted settings, but if you leave and come back, then your new settings will show. (Apparently, settings really are saved.)

 - Trying this in Chrome.  Settings activate immediately, but will not save for a return to the page.

• On the password page, the 'login session' link 404's.
• Achievements - I got the "You've posted a comment" achievement which is very nice, and then the same for journal, but the links take me to a page ( /~ancientt/achievements ) where there are no listed achievements
• On my 800X600 screen there is a horizontal scrollbar. Small issue, but it is there
• Instances of the word 'Slashdot'
  • The comment creation / reply page (comments.pl op=reply) shows "Slashdot Comments" in the page title (the [html][head][title] element)
• The Lameness filter is not working. With a comment that triggers it, (a) pressing Preview just reloads the comment-creation page, and (b) pressing Submit just reloads the comment-creation page. No error message is printed.

Security Problems

• There is no sanitation of URLs containing potentially malicious code. A comment can be a vehicle for a XSS/CSRF attack. (of course it could be wrapped up in a shortened url and then posted anyway)

Serious Usability Problems

This is reserved for things that might completely baffle a new user, due to such problems as required fields not indicated as such, error messages that point the wrong way,wrong labels, etc.

• There is no clear indication on the journal edit page that comments must be enabled for these to even show up for the user himself, if it is unselected. The comments selector is labeled 'Comments cannot be disabled once enabled' which suggests a cautious approach may be wise to a new user. If a journal entry is made and submitted, the only message that indicates something may be wrong is the text 'You must enable comments for all users if you've marked your submission as "publicize" or "publish.' This text appears in no way like an error message, it is in normal, not even bold text, and refers to a function which does not appear to exist ('publish').
  • Thanks to mattie_p and CommonJoe for helping me track this down.
• Friend / Foe seems to be best changed by clicking on faces next to names. This is not intuitive. (Found a couple of others places to click on but I don't find them intuitive either.)
• Generally users expect changes to take place immediately. Where this is not the case (cron jobs,etc.) there needs to be a clear indication in the text. Specific cases listed below:
  • Friend / Foe can (sometimes) take at least 20 minutes to propogate. There is no warning about this and it can be confusing since you save one setting and it immediately shows the old setting again. Note: A job seems to run every 20 minutes starting at the top of the hour.
• Passwords sent to email address upon registration: warn it could be in spam folder.

Pure layout, appearance, and css problems

This is mostly for future use, as the work on layout, theme, etc has not yet been integrated into the site yet. Completely missing elements should not go here, this is just about formatting issues.

• Needs new template

Suggestions

• Having the comments section work in a slightly less retro way would be awesome. Specifically: a) clicking on a comment URL shouldn't make the rest of the thread vanish. b) have the site automatically return you to the view you came from following posting of a comment.
• Would like to be able to click on the title, as well as 'Read more...', to go from the main list to an individual story page.
• "Dupe detector" at submission time. Use submitted title to search previous stories for dupes and get user to confirm that what they're submitting really is novel. (partial solution here, in that if you base the submission off a URL, that must be unique - mattie_p)
• Can we get the ability for logged in users to edit their own posts (as themselves, not AC)?
• Just submitted an article to make sure that function worked ok with no javascript - it does. However, I noticed that the articles are always surrounded automatically with quotes
  • AudioGuy writes "blah blah blah"
  • but if your article happens to begin with a quote it winds up like
    • AudioGuy Writes ""blah blah blah""
  • which looks kind of odd. Maybe the outer quotes could be left off and something like italicizing the initial text used instead:
    • AudioGuy writes: blah blah blah
    • So quoted text would look like this
    • AudioGuy writes: "blah blah blah"
  • Editors will have to check for quotes and make sure they make sense. I'll keep my eyes open for them - mattie_p
• When a reply to a reply is submitted, instead of there being a " Comment Submitted. There will be a delay before the comment becomes part of the static page. What you submitted appears below. If there is a mistake...well, you should have used the 'Preview' button! " notice, maybe the reply should be submitted to the static page, but 'lightened' or 'greyed out' to show it is not yet a part of the regular page.
  • Also, maybe the default should be 'nested' for viewing replies (what slashdot users are used to seeing, i believe)

Broken Links not Found in FAQ

• Navigation --> About
  • OSTG (www.ostg.com) does not exist
  • CmdrTaco (http://cmdrtaco.net) leads to a database error
  • Krow (http://tangent.org/~brian) leads to 404
  • Note: Suspect most of this page is outdated.

• Remove ALPHA_SERVER/help page (Is used by a number of "Return to Help and Preferences links"; Common Joe is still trying to hunt these links down)

• Is this the exact same or different page?
  • Navigation --> Journals ==> Messages : ALPHA_SERVER/my/inbox/
  • Navigation --> Messages : ALPHA_SERVER/messages.pl
  • Note: This matters because of the “Return to Help and Preferences” link that needs to be removed.

• Navigation --> Messages
  • ==> Message Preferences ==> Return to Help and Preferences: Link needs to be removed