Topic: [proposal] forum subdomains (Read 450 times)

yes that is another way too.. theymos buying a new domain/tld which is just used for tiny urls
maybe

 meta.btc.talk
amazon is the registrar of .talk TLD

where other things can then be utilised, where people could then do further things in later updates like

topic.btc.talk/5477847 (this topic)
user.btc.talk/459836 (loyceV)

however many will question if a different domain can be trusted to use . hense why i went with the idea of doing it using bitcointalks actual domain using subdomains

Not really necessary, but sounds posh. Unnecessary because: 1) you can bookmark sections in your browser, 2) if you visit certain sections frequently your browser will automatically recommend them as you type couple letters in address bar.

Edit: I read comments after making this post and well I agree to some extent. It'd be easy if there were subdomains, at least in f2f talk, on Internet communication I don't think it'd have much value, here you can well, just copy link to meta?

This is easy to implement actually, no need to mess the codes in the current software, admin just needs to set a redirection in cpanel (only if this forums software use it). Admin only will create subdomain then redirects to a certain URL with or without www.
About the SEO, no need to configure for that since this forum use canonical tags which is Google sees first if ever there's a redirection in the URL.

I fully agree with you. Though how many developers do you see working on the BitcoinTalk forum? I'm not saying that it won't happen, also not saying it can't be implemented...I'm just saying, there is barely any development happening in this forum.

I think the most ironic thing about BitcoinTalk, is that it's centralized. If the forum was open source (as it damn well should be considering the "new forum software" debacle), then new developments would be constant.

This however, isn't barely even a case of development...It's a redirect. It's a matter of if it gets implemented, not if it can.

That sounds a lot like a made-up problem, instead of a real-world situation. How hard can it be: go to the site, scroll a bit.
A more likely scenario is wanting to show a specific thread instead of a board, in which case a DNS shortcut isn't going to help you.

I don't know anyone who learns those URLs by heart. You could of course create meta.bct.name, and forward it to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0/ (and do the same for any other subdomain).

That's not a bad idea to be honest, keeping that bitcointalk already have subdomains, which mean bitcointalk.org can have more sub-domains (without any extra cost, i think so).

ip.bitcointalk.org

Is being used for image proxy

Simplifying the URLs with easy-to-remember addresses like meta.bitcointalk.org and main.bitcointalk.org would indeed enhance user experience and make linking to specific sections more convenient.

This redirection approach can be a practical improvement without altering the existing structure.

I can also see below sub-domain, but not sure if these are still up or where it's being used.

images.bitcointalk.org
beta.bitcointalk.org
omail.bitcointalk.org

Nice suggestion franky1.

Yeah, I also think that if something that can happen on the forum then it would be more convenient for the users. Someone has to visit meta board directly can type meta.Bitcointalk.org in the browser will reach directly to meta board instead of visiting the home page and manually clicking on the Meta board's link.

I believe Franky's proposal is one of the unique proposals that would make it easy for users. I don't know how hard task it would be for Theymos or other developers to implement this feature but I'm sure it will improve the forum. I hope Theymos, PowerGlove, or someone else with proper web coding knowledge and web management knowledge reaches this topic and say something about the possibility of this proposal's implementation on the forum.

I can understand the reason behind OP's proposal.
I for one had many conversations with some of my clients (for campaign management) and had to send them direct links as to where they should post their announcement threads, the boards they should be aware of, where this post is, and that post is located, etc. With OP's proposal, it would be easy enough to type the board/section and send it to the clients (e.g. gambling.bitcointalk.org).
I would love to see this proposal take shape as it would be more convenient (conversation-wise) and well as newbie-friendly.
Since admins made recent changes in the forum, maybe this proposal along with the much-needed Cybersecurity & Privacy board can be approved as well.
cybersecurity.bitcointalk.org got some nice ring to it. 

i guess you dont understand linking things to other people
yes you understand personal bookmarks for yourself where you can label things in your own web browser...  

but when your sitting at a coffee shop having an old fashioned human vocal conversation, face to face in the real world..
trying to remember the board index to describe a link to someone is not as easy as just saying meta.bitcointalk.org
telling them to go to bitcointalk.org scroll to other click on meta. is also not as simple as meta.bitcointalk.org

a simple analogy.. the usefulness of tinyurl.com, people do want to use shorter easy to remember addresses

Basically what the OP is suggesting is an entry link, which redirects to a certain location on the forum. Afterwards everything continues to function normally.

For example, I can create a forum.talkimg.com that when typing this in the browser automatically takes the user to the topic dedicated to TalkImg. As soon as the user enters the forum, everything works normally.

Is this what you were thinking @franky1? The idea isn't bad, I just don't see its usefulness, but maybe there is one.

That's something your webbrowser can remember for you. If I type "Meta", it knows where I want to go. If I type "Service", I get the 3 most likely options even before I finish typing the word.

if devs had a mindset of "coz we havnt done it yet, lets just not do it".. nothing would progress
not a good mindset to have

I think you're over analyzing. You can easily setup DNS records to redirect to the subdomain to the board URL, or create a blank index on the subdomain (which wouldn't be interfering with BitcoinTalk's SMF directories) and have a redirect setup there.

I see the use case here after Franky's further explanation, namely:

It's not a bad idea, and it's definitely easy enough to implement....
...
But so is a cybersecurity and privacy board but that hasn't been decided on in almost 12 months, while a good suggestion that's easy enough to be implemented, it hasn't been decided on. If that's any indicator, I wouldn't hold your breath franky

its not about SEO. however yes using other rest stuff like POST
and/or old fashioned subdirectory organisation to direct people to board indexs is another option

however the idea is when having conversations with people
instead of having to describe
go to 'bitcointalk.org' then scroll down to 'other' then click 'meta'

also if just linking people to meta, instead of memorising board indexes or looking it up

you can just say meta.bitcointalk.org

I don't get what's the goal for this idea, if the idea is to have better SEO on the site, then the right way would be:


That, with the right metas on the site, would bump it on the Search Engines.

But your idea to make subdomains isn't good for SEO, maybe the goal was to make it look pretty and it would be easy to implement, they only have to create the subdomain and add the next index.html


But i don't find sense on doing it, the plan B would be to split the forum, and make each subdomain run each branch, but that would be a bad idea because you will have to run a copy of the software on each branch, so, doesn't sound as a good change at all.

for instance this thread address could look like....

meta.bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5477847.0
or
meta.bitcointalk.org/[proposal]_forum_subdomains

I think franky1's idea is actually good and a step in the direction of simplifying the addresses,
easy to read and easy to get to a page straight by just typing the "board" address in.

basically, you just want to link a subdomain going to the real board.
so once you want to give a link to someone who was accusing someone in the forum of scamming, you can just give away the link where he can go like scamaccusations.bitcointalk.org without having to browse the main to copy the link.

that's easy to do in the cpanel and i think an html code will do to redirect. that's got to be hundreds of subdomains including the locals

baby steps
first of all you have to quash the idiots counter arguments opposing the simple idea
by showing that it can work without affecting the service.. but allowing more convenience of linking to boards
= done =

next you then introduce the next level of adding the GET parameters to direct to more specific pages

Yes I knew that, but what do you guys plan on putting after the domain name, for threads in that board?

e.g. meta.bitcointalk.org/

Because I think just making it so that this subdomain redirects to a board is not useful enough.

This is not a bad suggestion at all. I think it would also mean a lot for local boards and simplifying the navigation.


Adding a subdomain does not require any change in the code structure of the forum script. It's all about adding certain records as part of DNS settings. You will get the same result if you enter meta.bitcointalk.org (or even bitcointalk.org/meta) or https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0 in your browser. It's just that this solution with the subdomains that franky1 suggests is much simpler for humans.
This does not mean that a subdomain should be created individually for each topic.

I also did a quick search on it too but I found something that kinda relate to it.
source
The bold area shows it could be possible for subdomain too but it will require the admin to do a whole lot of job to fix it.

no just no.. sorry NotATether, but just no

you dont need to edit or change or move index.php to create subdomains
you dont need to edit or change SMF forum code within index.php

subdomain stuff is done at the website hosting management system, not the contents of index.php file

as for you then exaggerating into the "topics" now your just going overboard

...
the forum software is within index.php...
but you dont need to touch that at all

you do not need to use a HTML/PHP editor of the index.php to create subdomains. to then also not need to upload a edited index.php file to the hosting site to activate subdomains
emphasis you do not need to touch the forum software

instead its done within the hosting sites management tool. such as cpanel(or whatever one theymos uses) where you can set the hosting management to redirect subdomains to board numbers of the index.php depending on the subdomain

---

you made some extreme exaggerated and pointless counter arguments about millions of topics..
which has no effect on subdomains nor subdomains on topics

you lost a few respect points i had for you as a dev due to your weird counter argument to not want to even think its worth doing..

if you instead said something smarter like that subdomains might have some affect on theymoses cloudflare settings and security, where he would need to add some extra stuff to cloudflare to ensure the subdomains are also cloudflare protected i would have respected you as a dev for having a legitimate counter argument.. but even so its just again just adding a few details to the cloudflare management tool, but atleast you would have had a bit of better understanding of website hosting

But that's the thing... you can't make a (sub)domain redirect to some page *inside* the domain the way SMF is set up. With a normal website it's possible, but on the forum everything is generated by an index.php.

When you go to a board, the url is index.php?board=x.x . For a topic, it's something like index.php?topic=x.x with no board number. If someone clicks a link to some Bitcointalk topic and it were to show the appropriate subdomain in the address bar, the only way to do that would be to perform a database lookup, which will be expensive since there are almost 5.5 million topics as of now.

And to do the reverse (as described in your quote) would either require a new design for the URLs for the subdomains e.g. meta.bitcointalk.org/proposal-forum-subdomains OR you'd have to stick the topic number at the end, which means meta.bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5477847 is the same as bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5477847 which would make subdomains redundant.

my proposal is not about messing with SMF

its about subdomains of the hosting domain.. that redirects to the right page of SMF board numbering system

I like the proposal. Stack Exchange also does that which result on more neat topic and easier to use with search engine.


I did quick search on SMF forum, but couldn't find information about multiple subdomain for each forum section/category.

I don't think SMF software supports linking boards to subdomains.

It is good to know but that will be a long process to do it instead you just login normally and navigate to any board you like. And if I want to find out any topic nor board, I normally use Google Search Engine to get the job done. Because in most cases the forum search bar didn't give me the actual results I needed. Though this your method is also directing me straight to the board you want to visit but will be double navigation because once login with meta.bitcointalk.org, you can't go back to another board unless you click the main menu (home page) button. Therefore I will prefer login with normal website and navigate to any angle.

I am not a developer amd don't have deep knowlesge about security but because I saw many projects apply this style for pages on their websites, assume it is good and safe in security.

Even so, I see one disadvantage of this proposal.

It will be harder to know how many boards are existing in Bitcointalk.

If you search with a link with board id at the end like
and if there is no board with that board id, you will get a notification
I can use a smaller board id for searching. With this proposal, it is impossible.

I use google for this and it work as good. Example is when I searched for 'meta Bitcointalk' or 'Bitcointalk meta' and it will bring meta link as the search result. I use it for other boards and child boards and the searches are accurate. You can try it. I mainly use google for this.

very simple idea,
the current forum url to get to meta https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0
have
meta.bitcointalk.org aswell that redirects to board=24.0

for main bitcoin discussion https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=1.0
have
main.bitcointalk.org aswell that redirects to board=1.0

for for economics https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=7.0
have
economics.bitcointalk.org aswell that redirects to board=7.0

and for Development & Technical Discussion https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0
have
ass-kiss-dev.bitcointalk.org aswell that redirects to board=6.0

last one was a sarcasm joke.
but the point is it would make things easier to link to different sections using a easy to remember addresses
im not suggesting redoing the whole set-up nor changing the board numbering system.
its not about editing or changing SMF software/database

 im suggesting adding extra url re-directs to the domain management