That’s me as well. Rarely read on my phone (at least since Tapatalk jumped the shark), never post. Read and post on my tablet, occasionally. Mainly post on my main PC.
80-90% of my reading here is from my phone. I tend to avoid posting from the phone and do it on the desktop. But I don’t always have a choice, like now.
In that case, I tend to keep my answers short, avoid links and formatting.
But between work blocking non development sites, a long commute and wanting to know what’s happening on the board, the phone is usually my best bet when I’m on a break or traveling.
The mobile version of the site is quite decent and readable.
Wendelius
Actually, having checked, the mobile site is pretty decent on my iPhone 5. I don’t really know why I hadn’t checked it recently. I was spoiled by Tapatalk, I guess.
My work computer blocks Qt3 so I browse from my phone while at work. I try not to post because fuck virtual keyboards, but sometimes in a pinch…
As I recall, the mobile vBulletin site does not show you “subscribed threads” and has no ability to do so without dropping through to the desktop design.
Looks like many of the OS X programmer converts were coming from Linux, but I was surprised Windows did not dip year to year more than it did. I personally have never had a problem with Windows, hell I even liked Windows 8, but Windows not being Unix is increasingly a giant pain in my ass in so many scenarios. More and more every passing year.
(adding up the survey numbers, Windows was down 3.5% over last year, Mac was up 1.2%. Note also survey Q was “most used” which may differ from actual browser reported OSes of people accessing Stack Overflow, etc.)
But like smartphones, the trajectory of the graph is the whole story.
Sure, which one is growing faster than the others.
Sigh.
Isn’t it all kind of moot, when most of them are coding with java, javascript, PHP and python - high level cross-platform languages where the coding and run-time platform is irrelevant? You could probably add SQL in there as well, since it likely includes mySQL et al.
It is interesting the lead C# has over C++. What is weird is the complete absence of .NET in any responses.
But the reality is the preferences reflect what is leading the charge in modern application development for commercial and enterprise - cross-platform, web and mobile fronted applications, able to run anywhere, anytime.
Actually this is interesting with posts from users that use the site on their phones due to various reasons, we have this recent upswing in mobile veiwing use of websites, so everyone is redesigning stuff for that, but from a number of people here they say they use the mobile to view the site for convenience, but don’t post on mobile, or try to avoid it. So is this mobile trend simply going to reduce meaningful content eventually? rather than enhance it, it sort of shifts the focus maybe away from contribution to pure consumption?
Do they post less on other forums, or only on this forum?
I contribute far less when on any non-desktop device (I do count my work laptop, situated on a dock, with triple monitors, a mechanical keyboard, and a mouse, to be a desktop device, however). It’s just far less convenient, whatever the nice MS employees around here might want you to believe about using a Surface on your lap on a train through the hinterlands of Bangladesh (I kid guys, I kid).
It’s just too damned annoying/slow/inaccurate to use screen-based or even flat, chiclet style keyboards for any serious writing. If the internet’s lucky, I just give up and move on; but sometimes I think about it till I get to a real computer and start typing ;)
Theres no reason why a forum should limit “input” to a single source. It would be fun, and doable, to accept a post from email* ** (generating virtual email address by thread, so emailing to that address post in the thread) or even accept voice and pass the voice from some voice2text program***. The only problem with this is… quality would suffer.
*authentification there will be a bit tricky, since SMTP is so a loose protocol. Maybe have a hash somewhere in the body or the subject, people will still find ways to break it ( clients will break the hash in two in random places inserting characters of their own and shit). Is less practical if you have to type a hash manually.
** the cool thing would be able to post even from a place withouth www access, where only email is available.
*** there has to be some opensource project for that, I guess.
When Wumpus was talking about Discourse, he mentioned replies from email: Forum shrinkage? - Everything else - Quarter To Three Forums
So that kind of feature is definitely a thing in some projects.
Wendelius
“This forum requires that you wait 600 seconds between reporting posts. Please try again in 593 seconds.”
Good fucking times.
You can’t continue to gripe on a given forum software because of a choice an admin has made in configuration.
Unless you had another point.
I am betting that is a default though.
Looks like it is tied to “email flood check” which is ridiculous, how is reporting a post related to email at all? Does reporting a post send an email? What if I find three spam posts in a topic, I need to wait 10 minutes each before reporting the other two?
https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/acp_settings_options_email
Oh you can install a plugin to fix this, I guess?
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=214386
Well, have fun, two guys telling each other to fuck off, because I could only report one of your posts.
Sounds like an admin choice to prevent a troll from reporting lots of posts, just for the fun of it.
More importantly though: how many times do you report posts around here in general, and when did you ever need to report multiple posts? Apparantly this is the first time since 2002 that you encountered it, so is it really such a big problem?
Then again, that doesn’t matter does it, as long as it gives you a reason to once more show your already very obvious dislike of vBulletin. Don’t you think people get the picture by now? Seriously: you’re turning into the Rachel Brown of vBulletin…
vBulletin may be a terrible software, but any software is terrible, the one redeaming feature of software is to not get in the way and to not look like a weird australia animal that put eggs but looks like a mammal.
other opinions
Most software is bad => Theodore Sturgeon law.
I would uninstall the OS, If I could. The features people enjoy where made 2 hour before release by a intern. => Sometimes users like a application for different reasons that devs, and the feature the most enjoy are not the harder to make.
What is a spleen and why the body have one, anyway?.=> Sometimes a very important feature (that will kill you if you don’t have it), is almost unknowm.
Democracy is a pretty idea, but the implementation is a whore that think is a saint. => Theres a long distance from a idea to a implementation. Implementations mater, ideas are overrated.
Everybody can cook their own crystal glass, but they buy them instead, and filled with liquors. => Comfort over everything else. Also people buy wine, not glasses.
All of the above can be bullshit depending who use them and for what.
I’d buy “The musings of Teiman” if you ever released it.
Or to put it another way, if Firaxis ever got serious about doing a proper SMAC sequel, they should employ Teiman to be one of the faction leaders and create all the sayings for them :)