Changeset 153 Bug List

[3dKiller]

Changeset 153 Bug List:

>> See a working demo here: www.outboxnews.com <<

> Download the latest Pligg (changeset 153) here.

I installed the latest changeset #153 this afternoon (July 28, 2006), and this is what I found:

Bug List

htaccess - The htaccess.default, renamed to .htaccess, gives error 404 (see thread: http://www.pligg.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1102).

Friendly URL's Broken - Google omits search results when friendly url's are used. It happens because Pligg stores each story at three different address', and Google defines this as SPAM. The 3 address' are:

> 1. www.mydomain.com/story/545/
> 2. www.mydomain.com/trackback/545/
> 3. www.mydomain.com/category/story-name/

Ideally, friendly url's would use this address only: www.mydomain.com/category/story-name/

Search Engine Metatag Problem - Google, Yahoo, MSN and others are not indexing our sites correctly. In Google, type: 'site:hollywoodscoops.com' to see what I mean. Notice the page descriptions are all wrong. Fix this by doing the following:

> a) Add <meta name="description" content="This is my page description."> to every page.
> b) Use z-index in .css to load content order.
> c) I recommend doing both a&b

Change 'Story' Title - Please change the story title from 'story headline / pligg' to 'pligg - story headline'. This is important, and is not a feature request, but a bug.

Queued Category Click - Queued category click url's broken. http://www.outboxnews.com/queued/category/pligg gives error "404 not found".

Comment Edit - Unable to edit comments in URL Friendly mode, gives error 404.

User Profile "Homepage" URL - Click a "Homepage" URL in someone's profile it appends the base_url to the beginning which gives 404 error. (eg. http://www.outboxnews.com/user/james...amesphelps.com)

Karma - Karma not counting.

Tag cloud Page Headings Mislabeled - Incorrectly reads 'max 100 tags' should read 'tag cloud', 'tags', 'keyword tags', etc.

Top Tags Not labeled - There are a list of top tags on the tag cloud page which are not labeled.

Top Users Page Headings Mislabeled - Incorrectly reads 'statistics' should read 'top users' or 'top user statistics', 'user stats', etc.

Admin Logout- If in 'Category Management' I logout, I get this message "not for you! go away!" with nothing to click on, thus booting me out of the website.

Submit Step 2 - When server times out on submit step 2, a popup box in FF asks if I want to "save submit.php to disk".

Submit Step 2 URL Title - Step 2 does not grab correct Story Title. Title is always '1'.

Trackback Broken - Looks like a fix is here: http://www.pligg.com/forum/showthread.php?t=563

Features Request

New Admin Panel - MIA

Separate Design from Code - see http://www.pligg.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1206

Default Error Page - CrabApple created an example 'default error page' which I think we should modify and use. Thanks CrabApple.

SideStory/Related Stories - You should display 'Related Stories' in the 'SideStory box' on the Story/Comment Page.

Who Voted Image - Avatar/Gravatar image should appear next to username in 'Who voted for this story'.

Comment Box '|' - Comment box displays avatar/gravatar image followed by '| written by...' Please remove the '|' as it is not necessary.

Show/Hide Comments - text reads '| show/hide this comment' Please remove the '|', it's not necessary.

Hidden Comments - If a comment is hidden, a message displays 'show/hide this comment'. Why would it say "hide this comment"? Please change to 'hide' when visible, and 'show' when hidden.

Visible Comment - No option to 'hide' comment.

Comment Verbage - Should read '+# Votes' or '-# Votes'. Use digg as a reference. Thanks.

Search - Search should list results newest (most recent) to oldest. I can't figure out what order search is listing results?

Editorial/blog - Please hide this feature from anyone but Admin's, or users w/admin rights. It's too powerful (and possibly confusing) for normal users.

Editorial Embedding - Since this is a blog, we should have the ability to embed images/movies/podcast's, etc.

Submit Spell Check - Please add spell check to submit step 2, thanks.

~3d

[Rodney]

Change 'Story' Title - Please change the story title from 'story headline / pligg' to 'pligg - story headline'. This is important, and is not a feature request, but a bug.

Actually, this would be better as a configured option, because I think the way it is now is much better. I think the story headline should come first

[3dKiller]

I think the way it is now is much better. I think the story headline should come first

Rodney,

Actually no, and here is why: Imagine someone posting a story on your site using the exact same title as found in the source story, let's say from cnn.com.

Here is CNN's story title "FAA clearing the way for mini jets - CNN"
Now here is your story title: "FAA clearing the way for mini jets" / mypliggsite

OK, now let's imagine, that the CNN story originated from the Associated Press. That means that hundreds, perhaps thousands of other news agencies ran that same story, and many of them used the same title.

Now this is the problem. Google indexes every site running that story. They see CNN, Foxnews, ABCnews, and hundreds of others, and lists them in order of pagerank. Now here is the question, where do you think 'mypliggsite' is going to rank? Near the top of the list, or closer to the bottom?

You see it's a sorting problem every bit as much as it is a uniqueness problem. Since you have little control of how unique the title is going to be, there is little you can do to get Google's attention, unless you alter the way the title reads. The only way to control this is to add your website's name at the beginning of the title, and then it's always going to be different from other sites.

Example:

mypliggsite - "FAA clearing the way for mini jets"

CNN - "FAA clearing the way for mini jets"

This is not necessary for any other page (home, login, about), but it is necessary when the content could be the same as other sites.

That is why it must be changed, and is a big deal.

~3d

[jitgos]

"Top Tags Not labeled - There are a list of top tags on the tag cloud page which are not labeled."

What's that mean? That tags on the cloud page are not showing up in the new sidebar tag cloud? I was going to make a ticket for it but I'm unsure of what the defect is.

Thanks,
Jitgos

[daveyc]

i agree - this sort of text similarity without a site stamp could really hurt a growing or increasingly popular pligg site...however, how important are 'friendly URL's' to all of this (in terms of working with search engines etc)?

[3dKiller]

Originally Posted by jitgos

"Top Tags Not labeled - There are a list of top tags on the tag cloud page which are not labeled."

What's that mean? That tags on the cloud page are not showing up in the new sidebar tag cloud? I was going to make a ticket for it but I'm unsure of what the defect is.

Thanks,
Jitgos

Jitgos,

If you look at the tag cloud page, you will see some misc tags at the top of the page. That is what I was referring to. I think they should be labeled "top tags" or removed from the cloud.

~3d

[Rodney]

You see it's a sorting problem every bit as much as it is a uniqueness problem. Since you have little control of how unique the title is going to be, there is little you can do to get Google's attention, unless you alter the way the title reads. The only way to control this is to add your website's name at the beginning of the title, and then it's always going to be different from other sites.

I understand your explaination, but I still don't see it as that much of a problem.

If the story title's match, then the story titles match. Your TITLE tag will still be unique with the yourpliggtitle addition.

If they are posting a link to a source story at CNN and google ranks the CNN /Reuters source stories first, I don't see that as a problem. They are the SOURCE, so they should be first if all things are exact.

I don't see an issue with it being an "option", because clearly not everyone shares the same view of its importance. I don't think it would be called a "bug" at all. Either way, making it an "option" makes it a non-issue. Everyone can be happy

[3dKiller]

I understand your explaination, but I still don't see it as that much of a problem. If the story title's match, then the story titles match. Your TITLE tag will still be unique with the yourpliggtitle addition.

Rodney,

Google truncates titles longer than 66 characters. 66 characters is not a lot, and it is likely that users will exceed this limitation. When you add your website name at the end of the title it 'may' get cut off by Google and thus not matter. The only way to assure a title be unique is to append the story title to the website name.

I suggest you read the following from about.com:

There are no hard and fast rules for writing titles but there are some guidelines you might want to follow. W3C says on their website that ideally a title should be 64 characters or less and that titles may be truncated if it’s longer than that. Google show 66 characters in their search results listing...

If Pligg is serious about building an application that helps its users it will consider this issue a bug and fix it.

~3d

[3dKiller]

Added to the bug list 8/2/06:

Friendly URL's Broken - Google omits search results when friendly url's are used. It happens because Pligg stores each story at three different address', and Google defines this as SPAM. The 3 address' are:

> 1. www.mydomain.com/story/545/
> 2. www.mydomain.com/trackback/545/
> 3. www.mydomain.com/category/story-name/

Ideally, friendly url's would use this address only: www.mydomain.com/category/story-name/

~3d

[stephencarr]

Originally Posted by 3dKiller

Added to the bug list 8/2/06:

Friendly URL's Broken - Google omits search results when friendly url's are used. It happens because Pligg stores each story at three different address', and Google defines this as SPAM. The 3 address' are:

> 1. www.mydomain.com/story/545/
> 2. www.mydomain.com/trackback/545/
> 3. www.mydomain.com/category/story-name/

Ideally, friendly url's would use this address only: www.mydomain.com/category/story-name/

~3d

I agree, the URL structure should go something like this:

www.mydomain.com/ <= home
www.mydomain.com/category/ <=category home
www.mydomain.com/category/story/ <=story home
www.mydomain.com/category/story/trackback/ <=trackback

This is semantically correct. I am interested to know how WordPress gets by on Google as they also have multiple ways of linking to a story, including trackbacks.

Whatever the problem is it needs to be addressed as priority, I am sure pligg admins want their sites correctly indexed.