PING Bjarne and FrightFoo: Site Rewrite

From its inception, this site has been really good in that it is very open (anyone can post) and lots of topics are covered. Over time things have degraded somewhat (lot of junk now).

Here’s some things which I think if changed would be beneficial to the site:
1. protect the e-mails of registered users. i have a feeling many are being spammed to death from having their e-mails world-readable for spam bots. (which is one of the reasons i haven’t registered so far yet)
2. require users to use gspot or avicodec or videotoolbox (now videoinspector) before posting on the board. also request some basic info in posts, like os, player used, codecs in use, filename and extension. i think that would greatly reduce the number of posts on the board. I’d say a quarter to half of the posts come from people who haven’t even tried any diagnostic tools and just come on and whine.
3. make posts movable so you can move messages from one board to another if necessary. often times people will post audio questions on a video board and vice versa. besides, what does sexy beach 2 have anything to do with file extensions?
4.a. make posts deletable. that includes off-topic posts, offensive posts or spam. i know you filter them as time permits, but if you go back and read the older posts, many have slipped you by, and the board is littered with them.
4.b. is it possible to make parts of threads deletable? say a, b, and c post something in the same thread, is it possible to delete b’s comment?
5. make posts in the miscellaneous section expirable. Lots of those questions regarding kazaa, cd burning, sexy beach, making money, or people being lonely are totally off-topic, and should have some set expiration date.
6. another suggestion i have is - use google to do your searches. the 60 second limit per searches is terrible. i know how much of a toll searching takes on web sites, but you can let google do that for you. for instance just submit the field of the search request to google and add site:moviecodec.com.
to be clear, if you were searching for iv50 you’d type
iv50 site:moviecodec.com
in the google search box
another way to actually code this is if someone types keywords 'indeo' and 'codec'
you’d return this url (just copy and paste the first half)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=site%3Amoviecodec.com+indeo+codec
for every additional search word you’d type + and that word

for organization
maybe include an index with frequently used keywords dx50/divx/xvid/iv50/indeo/wmv3/rmvb/cue/bin etc

I’ve been working on indexing the solutions for the posts we’ve seen (like solution for each fourcc, what to download, etc. if you’d like to see some of the results of my work feel free to ask and I’ll e-mail it. (it’s not complete yet)

P.S: KC softwares has renamed VideoToolBox VideoInspector. You might want to reflect the change on your how-to-tell-the-codec page.

Hey Bjarne, I noticed you popped back to life in thread 3744, so I thought I’d bring this thread back to the top for you to read.

1. protect the e-mails of registered users. i have a feeling many are being spammed to death from having their e-mails world-readable for spam bots. (which is one of the reasons i haven’t registered so far yet)

Registered users can post without having their email displayed.

2. require users to use gspot or avicodec or videotoolbox (now videoinspector) before posting on the board. also request some basic info in posts, like os, player used, codecs in use, filename and extension. i think that would greatly reduce the number of posts on the board. I’d say a quarter to half of the posts come from people who haven’t even tried any diagnostic tools and just come on and whine.

True, but it’s difficult to force people to do so.

3. make posts movable so you can move messages from one board to another if necessary. often times people will post audio questions on a video board and vice versa. besides, what does sexy beach 2 have anything to do with file extensions?

Yeah, posts are already moveable. I just havent done enough moderation :/

4.a. make posts deletable. that includes off-topic posts, offensive posts or spam. i know you filter them as time permits, but if you go back and read the older posts, many have slipped you by, and the board is littered with them.

True

4.b. is it possible to make parts of threads deletable? say a, b, and c post something in the same thread, is it possible to delete b’s comment?

Yes it is.

5. make posts in the miscellaneous section expirable. Lots of those questions regarding kazaa, cd burning, sexy beach, making money, or people being lonely are totally off-topic, and should have some set expiration date.

Yeah, but I kinda like the freedom to say whatever you like (to some degree). More moderation will be upcomming.

6. another suggestion i have is - use google to do your searches. the 60 second limit per searches is terrible. i know how much of a toll searching takes on web sites, but you can let google do that for you. for instance just submit the field of the search request to google and add site:moviecodec.com.

Good idea. I will look into this. Google indexes my message board very quickly and precisely anyway.

— — — — — — -
Overall I am thinking about how to relaunch/remake the site. And thinking of exactly what I want the site to contain. Ie. should I make it a message board only site, but have more boards/sticfky posts with critical information etc. Let me know what your thoughts are.

How to post images - Video posting discussion
Image Rules - General Rules

Omnipotent Overlord of MVC

anonymous, if you are interested in helping moderate the message board please let me know!

Email me at *deleted* and PLEASE include your IP address, so I can confirm compared to your message who I am speaking to :-)

To be a moderator you would also need to register a useraccount.

How to post images - Video posting discussion
Image Rules - General Rules

Omnipotent Overlord of MVC

done.

I don’t know any html, so I can’t make web pages, but I can contribute articles or guides if needed.

My vision for the site:
- a quickstart section - how to tell the codec and get what you need (gspot, avicodec, etc) (that’s mostly for the people who yell - HELP I can’t play my video!!!)
— maybe an index of the commonly asked questions (FAQ?) (DX50, XVID, WMV3, indeo, class not registered, error C00D11CD, etc)

- reference info
— what is a container? avi/mpeg/wmv/quicktime/ogm/real/mkv
— what is a codec? (within container, diff way of compressing audio/video data)
— - fourcc
— - audio tag
— - maybe talk about a few compression themes, like lossy/lossless, interframe compression, intraframe compression, keyframes, etc.

- CORE of the website
— solution by fourcc/codec + tag + containers - should be indexed (like have a main page)
— for each topic list as many solutions as possible (ex. mpeg-2 with mpc or vlc or others)
— - encourage feedback or corrections in the feedback section of the board, not here!
— - for unsolved topics - mark “unsolved - we need your help”: example: AJPG codec

message board - request people run gspot/avicodec/videotoolbox before posting!!!
- video codecs
- audio codecs
- file extensions
- related questions (players, performance, etc)
- editing/conversion
- off-topic
— cd burning
— file sharing
— everything else
- feedback and corrections (remove that list of per-codec feedback - those should go under video codec!)
- to be deleted - things I want to delete - maybe moderator-viewable only - I just want you to review them before you delete them (like a recycle bin)

- advanced topics
— changing fourcc
— manual installation of codecs


- (optional) - glossary


links:
fourcc.org (of course!)
microsoft’s fourcc list

- maybe sites that review codecs?

I’m going through the posts and I’m thinking there’s no way to re-order everything cleanly. There’s just too many posts, and also there’s a tendency of posts to switch topic in the middle of the thread, in which case it’s hard to decide which board they belong on.
One idea is to rebuild the site in reverse. For example once you post an article for dx50 solution, delete all dx50 posts, then do it incrementally for every solution we index.
Or we could just start from scratch, put up all the answers then empty/restart the board. (This may be hard to do if you feel some attachment to the work you’ve put into building the board in the first place)

Sorry about the slow reply anonymous. The thing is, I’ve been without internet for 1-2 weeks but I am back fully online now again (after moving physically) on my new cable modem ISP

(Had to access the internet over the last ~10 days over the GPRS modem in my cell phone which costs an INSANE AMOUNT of cash in Denmark, so only did minimal updates/checked email)

I have some things I need to catch up on and then I’ll start working on a redesign (contents-wise) of moviecodec. When I got a layout/plan I like I will mail you something so you can give me some feedback

How to post images - Video posting discussion
Image Rules - General Rules

Omnipotent Overlord of MVC

Bjarne can you create a new board entitled “solutions”? I just want to do experimental posts on it. I want to start posting accumulated solutions by codec (fourcc) and by container formats. I’d like that board to be as tightly moderated as possible. I’ll post a rules sticky as soon as the board is created.

Did we get all these changes made?

Did we get all these changes made?

Stop necroing threads Boo! Look at the post date on this stuff, this is back before The Lounge even existed. This thread is essentially the creation of the very first Moderator on MVC, why must you tarnish it by necroing it back to life? Let it live in the archives untarnished.

THE KING HAS RETURNED!

Holy crap! 4-year old thread!

MvC Chat needz moar people
http://xat.com/chat/room/60567900/

Almost 5 years, it was created in October 2004.

THE KING HAS RETURNED!

Oh cool

King Boo wrote: Oh cool

Do it again and I’ll report you for spamming.

THE KING HAS RETURNED!

The King of MVC wrote:

King Boo wrote: Oh cool

Do it again and I’ll report you for spamming.

That’s nice