phpBB Weekly

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Episode Duration: 1:18:23
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and David Lewis (Highway of Life)

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News from the phpBB front has been somewhat limited recently, so we dug deep into our coffers to uncover some things to chat about on this “potpourri”-style episode.

David first brings up that phpBB.com has now been enhanced with some of the new features from the recently-released phpBB 3.0.3. New users on phpBB.com will now have their first post send to the moderation queue for approval, but once they have one approved post, they will then have free access to go on posting like normal. The teams are hoping that this will allow them to catch spammers more easily and ban them on sight. Speaking of banning, David also shares how much he loves the new one-click ban feature, making it possible for administrators to ban users straight from their profile.

David and Douglas than discuss a question which has been often brought up recently: “Will phpBB write/release a book?” Well, as is the case with most things from the teams, there’s no definite answer, but David and Douglas both have their own separate opinions on the subject, which they spend some time discussing.

Finally, David and Douglas talk a bit about the new request class that Nils Aderman (naderman) committed to the Ascraeus SVN repository last week, which brings a number of enhancements to phpBB3′s request_var() function, and what it means for MOD authors. They then step back and go over the importance of securing user-submitted variables in PHP in order to prevent SQL injection vulnerabilities, which request_var() makes very simple for phpBB3 MOD authors. As Nils quoted in his commit log,

“Given a choice between dancing pigs and security, users will pick dancing pigs every time.”

The MOD of the Week is Smilie Creator by Dr.Death, and the Style of the Week is proChristmas by topdown. If you have any suggestions for MODs or Styles to highlight on our show (particularly any holiday-themed styles), please share them with us!

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Episode Duration: 1:01:20
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples) and David Lewis (Highway of Life)

Douglas returns from picking up around the Bay Area, and after telling an interesting and disappointing story from his excursion (which has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with phpBB3), he takes the reins and very thoroughly goes over the topic of banning. Covered on this show is why would you want to ban users? How do you ban users using phpBB? What are the differences in banning controls between phpBB2 and phpBB3? We also talk about how the phpBB3 warnings system can fit in here and discuss the importance of having set rules and guidelines on your forum, along with a cautionary warning about not getting carried away with banning users. (After all, you want to attract users to your forum, not send them away!) And then, Douglas selects two MODs of the Week which bring some of phpBB3′s enhanced banning functionality within the grasp of phpBB2 administrators. David also gives us the latest lowdown on recent changes to the phpBB teams, including a brand new Support Team leader, and then we announce some of the exciting episodes that will be coming up.

The two MODs of the Week this week are Ban Reasons and Temp Ban, both by eviL<3 for phpBB2. The Style of the Week is Thor by Wizardly for phpBB3.
If you would like to recommend a MOD or Style of the Week to us to be featured on a future episode (subject to our approval), bookmark it on del.icio.us with the tag “phpbbwmod” or “phpbbwstyle”.

phpBB Weekly is a proud member of the Tech Podcast Network. Check them out for other great technology podcasts.

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Download MP3 Episode (12.1 MB)

Episode Duration: 30:14
On This Episode: Douglas Bell (Fountain of Apples)

Some people say that moderation is overrated. Some people can be wrong, but nevertheless, this episode is dedicated to all of you moderators out there.

What’s new on phpBB.com? Well, the dev team has another new member: Kellanved, former MOD team member, has been promoted to a developer. Furthermore, the Knowledge Base appears to be finished and under way–we’re just waiting for the teams to populate the new Knowledge Base with articles. You can still find some of the old articles on this team member’s website. The new MOD and Style Databases are also starting to take form–but they’re not finished yet.

Douglas shows off the new Moderator Control Panel in phpBB3, including the ability to receive reports, warn users, ban users, and write notes about users, and much more. (Again, the number of panels your moderators see depends on how their permissions are set.) If you’re going to be a future moderator on a phpBB3 board, this episode will teach you about everything you’ll be able to do and how you do it.

Finally, the MOD of the Week is Simple Mod Resize Images by sancious, and the Style of the Week is What is Real? by Graphic.

There will be no phpBB Weekly on May 5th; episode #017 will be on May 12th at the same time.