The /admin page used to have a wonderful version section. Where did it go?
I’m self hosted. I’d tell you what version I’m on, but… ah… that’s the problem.
4 Likes
Is the Dashboard improvements upcoming change enabled on your forum?
Without that I still see
There are also other options to find you Discourse version:
4 Likes
you can see it on the admin -> update discourse page too for commit hash (it matches the dashboard when the upcoming dashboard changes are disabled)
4 Likes
Thanks. I’m not a fan of the change, but I guess I will get used to it.
2 Likes
The new dashboard is now limited to usage statistics? Since the dashboard is the landing page when going to the admin area, I’d prefer to have many more partials to select from for the dashboard. None of the current views options is interesting to me on a daily basis. I guess there are more users like me that prefer the dashboard to be more technical, less marketing?
5 Likes
As discussed previously
Better insights into your community with the redesigned admin dashboard
(I do agree, and posted there, that for me this feels marketing-led and many of us are engineering-led.)
2 Likes
I don’t like that us thinking. Are us those how are answering or who are asking helps here? Or does us mean nature of issues in tech support forum, as this is? Or does that refer to role of Discourse admins? And if that is true are we talking about big enterprises with IT-division or selfmade selfhosters?
Outside main revenue of CDCK, Discourse as a platform is heading toward non-engineers, as WordPress did, just mentioning one. Here is a lot of pure hightech talk, but really big part of topics comes from people who are very far away from engineer level — and my guess is they are more interested of how that community and discussion works and lives, than technical details.
I heard a lot stories how good support is somewhere. Sure, it is cruicial to fix issues as fast is possible, but the real metric is how little is support needed. It tells right away how good a product is. Part of that is easy customizations, and part of that is possibility to choose what to see on admin page. If someone needs some tech details, like seeing what version is in use day after day, then that is fine. If that need is more sales category, as fine that too.
But building some borderlines and saying that we are one homogenous group with same needs, is really dangerous. I’m not afraid of tech, but for me it is just a tool, not a purpose.
An small example. For me is really important to see how many (possible) human visits my forum gets and from where. That I need everyday. That is more sales things (even I dislike that term). I need amount of bots too, because those create unwanted load, but I don’t need that piece of data everytime, but every now and then, and that’s why I’m totally happy to do extra clicks, as long that information doesn’t clutter my environment every time. That is such tech-engineering info, I guess.
So, even engineers have tendency to do if-then-else thinking with zeroes and ones, we have overlapping needs. And that’s why we need options to choose from.
1 Like
it’s designed for “community managers” now, not admins, because Discourse targets their hosted customers as much as possible. but apparently the dashboard is more customizable now, i just haven’t taken the time to explore this aspect yet.
i expect we can use data explorer to get a lot of the info that isn’t there now? idk 
i was never one to spend much time on the dashboard myself but i suspect a theme component or plugin could be developed to augment what is there for those of us more admin / engineering inclined (and even bring back the old dashboard perhaps?).
1 Like
Exactly. What it has become is “reports” or “stats”. All of that is well and good. But these are not admin responsibilities.
This feels really overblown. All communities that are not hosted by discourse need to have an actual admin that is responsible for keeping the site functioning on a technical level. The “us” that @Ed_S referred to is a real group of people who administer Discourse forums. No one is saying that stats aren’t valuable. They just aren’t that important to the technical administrator of a forum. And by administrator I mean the type of user who is granted the ability to keep the forum software functioning.
2 Likes
(Indeed, in this case by ‘us’ I meant people who click on the Admin button to get the dashboard.)
2 Likes
ok but Discourse is a business and hosting is their business, so i get it. since the reorg at the end of last year they have had to refocus their efforts and resources on that business. it makes sense that the out of the box dashboard is for community managers.
also, if it’s customizable and a dev-minded admins can build on it to get the info they want, then i really don’t see a problem. perhaps there are improvements there that can be achieved with a bit of code grunt work? if they are putting the onus on admins to build what they want and it can be done, i’m ok with that. the Marketplace is still a thing 
for me, what i don’t get and don’t like is when their time spent on what are (IMHO) pointless and even detrimental things like boosts, me-too buttons and discourse rewind. those features in particular will never see the light of day on any of my forums. but we will not always like what they build and that’s ok too. it’s basically a matter of opinion and priorities.
1 Like
Ah, I see. If someone is paying for hosting with Discourse.org, then you don’t need to know the upgrade information because you don’t control it.
I guess my point is that the way an admin gets into the admin interface is by clicking on “Admin” in the sidebar. I think it has always been the case that this opened to an admin page that included the information that an admin needs to, you know, administer the site. But I guess I’m beating a dead horse.
Yeah, the boosts seems silly to me. I get the “me too” button if your forum is for tech support, though. No need to have dozens of people posting that they are having the same problem. Spending time here on meta has made me realize how many different ways people/communities use the software.
And at the end of the day, I do appreciate the need to have a funding model that keeps the software in development.
1 Like
yea but there’s no guarantee it’s the same problem. a lot of the time it isn’t. like boosts, that feature promotes lazy posting when IMO, Discourse should do the opposite - promote quality posting engagement.
1 Like
I am an admin, and the only admin in my forum, and those metrics are important for me. So was it really overblown, because you just excluded me and quite many other admins from a bit fabricated and a lot generalizing group us?
Instead I reckon Lilly’s analyze isn’t totally wrong. And yet we need tools to customize.
1 Like
But what I really think now is this a real issue or just another bike shed 
Is this info still available in the admin somewhere but I somehow missed it? I looked at the dashboard and update pages.
1 Like
i think it is if you disable the dashboard improvements in admin-upcoming changes
i still get the old dashboard when i disable the dashboard improvements
I don’t see this as being about designing for customers on our hosting vs. designing for people hosting themselves or elsewhere.
I see this being about designing for people wearing different hats, regardless of where the site is hosted.
A single person may wear multiple hats, but that’s not always the case.
Even in the self hosting world, we see people here whose focus is on running their community, and leaning on a friend or someone else they find to help with more of the technical parts.
Even if you’re doing it all yourself, it may be helpful to be a bit more conscious of when you’re wearing your “sysadmin” hat vs. your “site admin” hat vs. your “community manager” hat.
We’ve been attempting to tease apart this distinction here in our docs and discussions as well.
The latest round of changes have indeed shifted the focus on the admin dashboard to things of concern for people wearing the “community manager” hat.
But within /admin as a whole, we still need to address the needs of all of these different hats.
I can see a future where /admin is even more customizable, possibly with personal choices for what is on the landing page there for individuals in a single site.
But in this latest round of changes, we’ve been teasing things apart within existing pages.
The “manage updates” page is where we’re currently consolidating more of this version information, and adding more info like update history and links to changelogs.
I think a way to go about thinking of contributing there would be to:
- (a) consider how to make that page itself more useful
- (b) consider how to make that page more discoverable
- (c) consider what information there could/should also be surfaced elsewhere (possibly related to (b) if we assume anytime we do this it should link to the page itself)
2 Likes