Feedback & comment to the Administrators and Moderators

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Forum Moderators
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Feedback & comment to the Administrators and Moderators

Post by Forum Moderators »

The end user forums for VirtualBox have active administrators (names in red) who are Oracle employees and part of the VirtualBox team. There are also moderators (names in green), some Oracle employees and some drawn from the VirtualBox user community. You can see the admins and mods here: The Team Together we administer and support this site.

This topic is a companion to the Moderator Discussions topic to allow our forum general members to add their own comments and requests to the administrators and team.
GrumpyGuy
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Post by GrumpyGuy »

TerryE & Sasquatch: Great Job on the FAQ in the Using VB section! :D

Could I please make a suggestion? The title of it is "Forum FAQ". To be honest with you I didn't even notice it at first. It sounds like a FAQ about the forum (rules, posting,, etc) rather than a FAQ about VB. An average user visiting here with a question would probably breeze right past it. (Of course it really should be 48 point type, red, and flashing and it might get their attention. :twisted: )

Thank you both again.
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

You could have used the Forum FAQ discussion too to point this out. What name would you give? For now, I will change it to VB FAQ.
Read the Forum Posting Guide before opening a topic.
VirtualBox FAQ: Check this before asking questions.
Online User Manual: A must read if you want to know what we're talking about.
Howto: Install Linux Guest Additions
Howto: Use Shared Folders on Linux Guest
See the Tutorials and FAQ section at the top of the Forum for more guides.
Try searching the forums first with Google and add the site filter for this forum.
E.g. install guest additions site:forums.virtualbox.org

Retired from this Forum since OSSO introduction.
TerryE
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Post by TerryE »

I've touched on this one before. When a user first joins the forum, there is no "README FIRST" to give him or her a basic orientation. We are planning to upgrade to phpBB3 and this will allow us to introduce this sort of change.
Read the Forum Posting Guide
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GrumpyGuy
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Post by GrumpyGuy »

@Sasquatch - Sorry, didn't see that. :oops:
there is no "README FIRST" to give him or her a basic orientation. We are planning to upgrade to phpBB3 and this will allow us to introduce this sort of change.
Great idea! :idea:
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

GrumpyGuy wrote:@Sasquatch - Sorry, didn't see that. :oops:
Don't worry. After all, this is a top topic, and the discussion isn't, though there is a link to it from the FAQ. Any suggestions to improve it are welcome.
Read the Forum Posting Guide before opening a topic.
VirtualBox FAQ: Check this before asking questions.
Online User Manual: A must read if you want to know what we're talking about.
Howto: Install Linux Guest Additions
Howto: Use Shared Folders on Linux Guest
See the Tutorials and FAQ section at the top of the Forum for more guides.
Try searching the forums first with Google and add the site filter for this forum.
E.g. install guest additions site:forums.virtualbox.org

Retired from this Forum since OSSO introduction.
mpack
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Post by mpack »

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but...

Are the mods aware that there seems to be a bug with the "login" page of this site?

I joined up a few days ago, and after getting my confirmation email I tried to log in to the site using the "login" link at the top of the page. This brings up a page containing username and password (no "remember me" checkbox), but no matter how many times I tried I kept getting "Incorrect username or password" error message. I'm not that bad a typist!

Eventually I noticed a login link at the bottom of some pages, this links to a different login page (one which includes the "remember me" checkbox) and that page was happy to accept me.

Some kind of unofficial IQ test perhaps? :wink:
aquarius
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Post by aquarius »

No, there actually are two systems behind virtualbox.org.

1) the forums
2) the bugtracker (and possibly wiki etc, but you don't get write access here automatically)

You can/must register individually. I have done so using the same login for both. This is truely annoying.
(As I am in no way related to the mods or admins I can not help either)

cheers, aquarius
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

We moderators have no control over the real forum at the moment (or I don't know how to do that (yet)). It might be useful for other users to see who is a moderator and who isn't (though it is mentioned here).

And as Aquarius said, there are two sites to log on, the Bug Tracker and the Forum. I have no problem loggin in using the Log In link at the top of the forums.
Read the Forum Posting Guide before opening a topic.
VirtualBox FAQ: Check this before asking questions.
Online User Manual: A must read if you want to know what we're talking about.
Howto: Install Linux Guest Additions
Howto: Use Shared Folders on Linux Guest
See the Tutorials and FAQ section at the top of the Forum for more guides.
Try searching the forums first with Google and add the site filter for this forum.
E.g. install guest additions site:forums.virtualbox.org

Retired from this Forum since OSSO introduction.
TerryE
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Post by TerryE »

With OpenOffice.org the community forum is actually run jointly by the community and Sun, and I am a site admin for this Forum, but even there we still have different identity domains. Unifying the two identity and authorisation schemes is entirely doable. It will just take doing, and the issue that we have here is the old one of limited resources and where we put our effort. As Sasquatch says, with modern browsers and cookies, in practice this is really a pain once you've set your accounts up.

We are in the process of preparing to migrate this site to pbpBB3 and this will allow us to tidy of few things up.
Read the Forum Posting Guide
Google your Q site:VirtualBox.org or search for the answer before posting.
mpack
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Post by mpack »

aquarius wrote: No, there actually are two systems behind virtualbox.org.
Thanks - my mistake then. It would help if the login screens were a bit clearer then on what you are logging into.
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

mpack wrote:
aquarius wrote: No, there actually are two systems behind virtualbox.org.
Thanks - my mistake then. It would help if the login screens were a bit clearer then on what you are logging into.
IIRC, the whole layout is different. For the forums, you clearly see the top like on every page here (End user forums for VirtualBox, FAQ, Search, etc.) as opposed to the bugtracker login page.
Read the Forum Posting Guide before opening a topic.
VirtualBox FAQ: Check this before asking questions.
Online User Manual: A must read if you want to know what we're talking about.
Howto: Install Linux Guest Additions
Howto: Use Shared Folders on Linux Guest
See the Tutorials and FAQ section at the top of the Forum for more guides.
Try searching the forums first with Google and add the site filter for this forum.
E.g. install guest additions site:forums.virtualbox.org

Retired from this Forum since OSSO introduction.
mpack
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Post by mpack »

Sasquatch wrote: IIRC, the whole layout is different.
I'm not sure how that observation helps a newcomer to the site who is by definition not familiar with the layout.

I just repeated the procedure to see why I was confused. Armed with username and password I connected to the www.virtualbox.org main page, and see a "login" link there at the top right in a prominent position. Since logging in is precisely what I want to do I naturally click that link, leading to a form asking for username or password, as expected. There is nothing I can see on the form to indicate that this is not the correct place for my username and password.

It's a small matter, but I bet I wasn't the first to make this mistake.
aquarius
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Post by aquarius »

mpack wrote:It's a small matter, but I bet I wasn't the first to make this mistake.
I should have made that bet :lol:
For you it's a shure win 8)

aquarius
Sasquatch
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Post by Sasquatch »

mpack wrote:
Sasquatch wrote: IIRC, the whole layout is different.
I'm not sure how that observation helps a newcomer to the site who is by definition not familiar with the layout.

I just repeated the procedure to see why I was confused. Armed with username and password I connected to the www.virtualbox.org main page, and see a "login" link there at the top right in a prominent position. Since logging in is precisely what I want to do I naturally click that link, leading to a form asking for username or password, as expected. There is nothing I can see on the form to indicate that this is not the correct place for my username and password.

It's a small matter, but I bet I wasn't the first to make this mistake.
You should have gotten a confirmation email when you sign up to the forums with a link to the correct login site. Given, it is a bit unclear where you exactly are logging into on the main site.
Read the Forum Posting Guide before opening a topic.
VirtualBox FAQ: Check this before asking questions.
Online User Manual: A must read if you want to know what we're talking about.
Howto: Install Linux Guest Additions
Howto: Use Shared Folders on Linux Guest
See the Tutorials and FAQ section at the top of the Forum for more guides.
Try searching the forums first with Google and add the site filter for this forum.
E.g. install guest additions site:forums.virtualbox.org

Retired from this Forum since OSSO introduction.
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