TECH’s bylaw requires that we make reports any time that public-facing changes to the site software are made, in order to document exactly what was changed. Here’s everything that has changed since the last report that was issued on May 10, 2019:

Version 1.6.2 - May 12, 2019

More Awards Changes

• Awards Nominations form now tracks who submitted
• Only one nominations sheet per user (old nominations are overwritten)
• Updated template text to explain this
• “Cancel” on Nominations form now redirects to front page.

Version 1.6.3 - May 23, 2019

Smaller bugfixes

• PDept may now reject multiple applications from the same email address as non-responsive
• Rejected Non-Responsive applications may now be viewed
• The most recent Non-responsive rejected application is shown for frequent fliers
• Fixed spelling mistake in the blurb on the front page.

Version 1.6.4 - June 3, 2019

Security hotfix

• Upgraded to Django 1.11.21 to fix a security issue.
• Disabled Awards module pending redesign and next Awards season.

Version 1.6.5 - June 10, 2019

Updated the tracker link for then new OpenSupports based issue tracking system.

Version 1.6.6 - July 5, 2019

Upgraded to Django 1.11.22 to fix a security issue.

I said in my previous report that priorities were going to shift towards updating the Library. That did not happen because in between then and now, spambots had figured out how to use the Issue Tracker. So, TECH diverted attention to replacing the issue tracker. Which, we have now replaced. Matt has mostly done the work there and he can expand upon that with additional detail if necessary.

Looking ahead, we have a number of things on the horizon:

Some of you in Discord a couple weeks ago may have heard me say that something cool was going to happen on June 23; that cool thing was going to be the WeBBSpace archive. Unfortunately, that work is delayed because the computer I was developing it on suffered a CPU failure and had to go back to the factory for warranty work. Although I have all of that code backed up, I cannot set up the WeBBSpace database on the machine I still have at home, so… that will have to wait to be wrapped up after the computer comes back. That is expected on Tuesday, so the WeBBSpace Archive could appear as early as next Sunday.

I know I said that the WeBBSpace archive was going to be a lower priority than other work. It turned out that as part of routine updates to Django (the web development framework that the site depends on), it was necessary to test its compatibility with our version of MySQL before attempting to deploy that update on the server. Setting up a test for that was also half of the effort required to do the WeBBSpace Archive, so since I had already set all that up, I figured it would make sense to just finish the archive off, especially because some of you have been waiting very patiently for it. Once that is complete, we will go back to the priorities stated earlier.

One additional task has been added to our pile. The CMM has asked us to develop functionality for sending the new STF newsletter out to members who opt-in to receive it, and it seems as though they want this sooner rather than later. We are currently ironing out the requirements for the requested features, and so far they seem fairly modest. So, we may just implement that immediately after the WeBBSpace Archive just to knock it off the list quickly.

Finally, I would like to make one comment about usability problems with the website. It has come to my attention during the Awards that there were issues with how usable or not usable various pieces of functionality were, and how usable the site is, generally. Unfortunately, nobody has yet brought any of these issues to my attention, so I don’t actually know what they are and thus cannot fix them. I am only aware because of offhand comments people make while engaged in some other complaining about some other issue. Whenever I try to follow up with those people afterwards I usually just get silence.

I don’t know why people do not report problems. The benefit of having totally-custom site software is that it can be changed easily if we don’t like what it does for some reason. If people don’t complain about what the software does not do well, then we don’t get to benefit from being able to change it easily. I would rather deal with lots of people saying “Hey Joe, the site sucks!” than I would deal with this avoidant behavior. “The site totally sucks because of X!” would be even better than “The site sucks!” because then I can actually, you know, do something about whatever X is. I deal with software not doing what it’s supposed to do for a living; it’s not going to hurt my feelings if you tell me that the software sucks because it doesn’t do what you want it to do. So please, if you have problem, let us know about it so we can fix it.

Joe