Potential problems in a browser checking community

[tedster]

On a previous thread [webmasterworld.com] theboyduck came up with the idea for a browser checking community. We all know how challenging it is to check our sites in all possible combinations of browser and OS, so this is an idea with some appeal!

It's also an idea with some pitfalls. In fact, that's why WebmasterWorld didn't launch such a forum, even though Brett did work on some code for it.

So, this thread is to discuss whatever pitfalls people see, and their possible solutions. A couple ground rules:

1. This is about brainstorming the idea itself. It is not a place to submit a site for review on various platforms.

2. This is not a recruitment thread. No sticky mail solicitations, please - keep the discussion about problem solving and completely out in the open where we all can benefit.

With that said, a good way to kick off the conversation might be to quote Brett's comments from the original thread:

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Brett_Tabke:

"When we first started WebmasterWorld the topic of a screen shot exchange forum came up repeatidly. I thought it was an excellent idea. Code was written to manage it all and is still here on my disk.

About a month before I was ready to put it online last year, Nimda hit. Many forums and sites that allowed people to upload files (such as avatar files) were severely hit by hackers using the upload feature to inject scripts/code on to disk.

The hardest thing for a hacker is to get code on to a target sites disk. Once there, standard exploits can be run to execute the code and more-than-likely, open the system wide up.

It became pretty obvious that allowing people to upload data - any data - is a major security risk regardless of the precautions. Even those utils that upload straight to a database such as SQL is a risk (they can use db exploits to get the data back out).

The other problem, is that of whisper promotion, and other "optimization" tricks. The head CTO for Yahoo says, "..any where you give people the opportunity to contribute content or rate items, you will have someone that exploits the system." Even though we are one of the friendlest communities on the web, we've already seen much of that here with post counts, and "over optimized" posts (including: hidden text and hidden links within posts).

So, based on those two things, we've passed on the screen shot exchange."

[tedster]

One issue to be clear about is that gamma is different between mac and pc. That means a screenshot taken on a mac will NOT look the same when it is viewed on a pc.

Likewise, a screenshot cannot test functionality - which is much more of a make or break proposition for a website.

So screenshot exchange would only catch layout issues. And where is the community building around that? It's a service, from what I can tell, either exchanged between friends or done on a for-pay basis.

I've dropped a lot of my obsessiveness over browser testing and OS testing as I've grown in understanding through this community's discussions. I have access to an all-Mac recording studio that's only 100 feet away, and yet I barely check my sites on Mac, even though I do go over there all the time to listen to music.

Why don;t I check? Because I'm comfortable that valid code plus the knowledge we share here covers almost everything.

My main reason for checking (when I still do) is functionality, and most especially the DOM.

And my growing lackadaisical attitude has not netted me ANY surprises so far. Valid code works wonders. And Netscape 4 is a free download - I don't need someone else to do that broken-browser check for me.

[brotherhood of LAN]

How about some sort of knowledge base that lists all the differences in rendering between browsers, perhaps laid out like the glossary at SEW. Differences in browsers could surely be categorized to some extent? Sort of like an ask jeeves layout....i.e. Why does H tag have margin - ....the answer would be under the H tag section....under whatever browser it looks "different" on...if that makes sense!

I am sure everyone in here knows something that looks different in a different browser etc etc...to the point if we put them all "down on paper" we would have a respectable reference.

Could lay it out nice...sorta like a theme pyramid :) My 0.02 suggestion

[Purple Martin]

It looks as though most people think it would be too impractical.

But, just for the sake of it, if a "browser-ring" community of the sort theboyduck talked about existed, presumably each browser-ring could be focussed on a specific type of site. For example, there could be dedicated travel browser-rings, dedicated e-commerce browser-rings, dedicated adult browser-rings (you can imagine the screenshots :o) etc, and the members of each ring would be able give a more detailed opinion based on their expertise.

[theboyduck]

Woe is me.

From my point of view I think its an interesting idea to develop, to try to make it work, and I certainly would gain something from seeing screenshots from different systems to my own (well just a Mac really - which Tedster's point about the gamma differences kind of puts a dampner on that).

Like everyone else here, I'm happy with testing in my own environments, it just seemed like there might have been some worth in and demand for a screenshot exchange community, but the comments here have convinced me that that worth and demand is not as significant as I first thought, and I can see why.

I think brotherhood of LAN has had the least abuseable and easiest to implement idea so far though - the definitive reference to browser differences.

[tedster]

the definitive reference to browser differences

It would be a full time job, but I've often dreamed about it. CSS and DOM differences alone are huge, to say nothing of the regular HTML quirks!