I have to beat this drum every year or so.
→ https://brutalist-web.design/
<curmugeon rant="begin">
If you ever find yourself making something that’s web-based, I encourage you to keep it simple and allow the content to be the focus above all else. I like this community for the people, not the software it runs on. Discourse is cluttered and too slick for its own good.
</curmudgeon rant="over">
They say older browsers will be able to read the site in a basic HTML mode and post via email; I don’t understand why they don’t just allow posting through the basic HTML mode too. Fancy CSS is nice and all, but a textarea and a submit button is a lot better than just locking people out, and then people can use anything back to Lynx if they really want to.
Yea, but if we can’t login it will become practically difficult to keep up with new posts in large threads. I’m not viewing it as a viable option for me. And I certainly wouldn’t trust posting by email.
Oh yeah, it doesn’t seem like a viable solution as it stands. But it seems like it could be viable with just a bit of developer effort, so I’m confused why they haven’t done that.
Not sure if there’s any demand for this, but is there any way for the forums maintainers to create RSS feeds?
Right now there are JSON feeds for everything on the site (eg. for this thread) but JSON is not widely supported in RSS, reader, and email clients.
It wouldn’t help with posting but it would make it easier for people to watch threads without a forum account.
I’m over here in Linux land and thus don’t have to worry so much about software arbitrarily requiring newer hardware I can’t afford or being force fed a choice between software that’s bogged down with the latest UI fads or running outdated software that might have unpatched and well known security exploits, but I consider it bad form for a website to use any amount of JavaScript or other rich web content that isn’t essential to providing functionality, setting cookies for any reason other than maintaining a user log-in, and to refuse to load in a web browser that isn’t on the web designer’s arbitrary list of approved browsers.
And I’d totally trade in Firefox for Links the chain, Lynx the cat, or another text-mode browser if I could, but I’m not aware of any that provide navigational hotkeys like Orca does in graphical browsers, and too many websites either don’t work in minimal browsers(even GUI minimal browsers) or refuse to load in anything that isn’t one of the mainstream browsers and of a recent version.
It is a real shame we only learned about this now. The discussion thread on Discourse Meta has been closed since mid April to new posts. So we can’t give feedback there. I signed up there just now, intending to give feedback, and say “Oy! My device is just 3 years old from new, and won’t run iOS 16!” But the thread is closed.
I wonder if any of the intfiction forum admins could pass on feedback from folks here? I’m particularly exasperated that the discussion from March onwards has totally overlooked the iPod touch, whose latest generation (7th, first released in 2019) is much newer than the iOS 15 limited things they do talk about there.
Just very disappointed. And yes, would be very grateful if that could be passed onto the Discourse head honchos.
Thanks!
Mannnn, I have a 1st gen iPhone SE, which continues to serve me well even with a battery that drains pretty rapidly; I have no plans to buy a new one anytime soon, so I guess soon it’ll be no more forum on mobile for me…
Just managed to direct message a couple of the Discourse Meta head honchos myself. So I have given them feedback. It won’t change anything I expect. But at least I’ve been able to give some comments 
@Mewtamer
You reminded me of a cool feature for reading news websites that removes all ads and just gives you the content. F9 in Firefox (and other browsers, I assume) enables Reader View. Even this site tries to support it (for those with working eyes, an icon that looks like a page should be visible in the address bar). If you ever read news articles, use this “brutalist” feature.
It’s too bad that Discourse doesn’t do it properly though. It lists everyone’s replies like one big post so you can’t discern who is saying what… and it’s only a small group of posts if you haven’t scrolled though all the replies first to load all the conversation content. That’s a shame. Well, at least they get to check the feature box off and pat themselves on their backs for looking the part. 
Just put .rss after any URL:
https://intfiction.org/t/this-sucks-my-browser-is-no-longer-compatible-with-this-community/75322.rss
(But not the individual post URLs.)
You can add url https://intfiction.org/latest to Inoreader. Unfortunately, it doesn’t thread, but it does keep track of what you’ve read.
(But not the individual post URLs.)
Thanks, I guess that’s why I couldn’t get it working earlier
For regular users, I think a month would be okay. @vivdunstan suggested two months. However, there are a lot of people that only pop in occasionally. If they are affected by the Discourse changes in the next release, then they will not know until it is too late. Is it possible to send an email to all users to warn them of the impending changes?
In the future, I imagine that some first-time visitors will not understand why they can’t access the site and they’ll just go elsewhere.
@Draconis: If they are affected by the Discourse changes in the next release, then they will not know until it is too late
@Warrigal: If they are affected by the Discourse changes in the next release, then they will not know until it is too late. Is it possible to send an email to all users to warn them of the impending changes?
What’s wrong with leaving people unable to log into the site? People can log back in whenever they find a way to do it or upgrade their PC.
It’s inconvenient, but users failing to upgrade their PC/browser in time for the forum upgrade isn’t going to lock them out of the forums permanently.
As for keeping people aware of the change, viewing still will be supported, as noted. It seems like the admin(s)/@Dannii should create a sticky post explaining the situation.
(The sticky post should probably have a support email address so people can request account credential changes, or account closures if they really want to, assuming either of those are possible from the admin side).
Then, if support for viewing the forums ends later on, the admins can redirect users with incompatible browsers to a static page with the same instructions.
Discourse Meta is pretty strict about automatically closing threads after inactivity, but I’m sure there are thousands of Discourse implementations that don’t monitor their forum and there will be new threads as problems happen, which I believe is preferable to them. They don’t like thread-necro as they want to prioritize current active support issues.
As always, In the event of a critical issue or urgent matter affecting this site, please contact support@intfiction.org.
You can request an archive of your account activity and preferences from the Preferences>Account section under your profile.
We can anonymize accounts on request. This will disallow login and randomize the user’s personal contact information including email, IP, and username so it will not point back to an individual, and freeze their content in place on request.
We can close an account via anonymization no problem, but we prefer not to completely delete long-established users’ content that would rip holes in the historical fabric of time and space unless it’s a severe matter of personal security, copyright, or safety.
We will work with members to remove any specific personal information and content of concern, but “delete my account and all the content I’ve posted over the past nine years” is a huge ask that we try to avoid as much as possible.
Thinking about the timing of this more, it would probably be convenient if IF Comp authors can keep getting support here over the next few months without having to do an upgrade.