For Administration!

[zubbly]

I have noticed lately that all the comments i make to other peoples posts don't seem to get through. Kinda hard to help someone when i can't get the info through. Would you please look into it.

Thanks-zubbly

[kurt]

hmmm is the little box next to Spellcheck text (will force "Preview"): got a checkmark in it if it does your post will not go through.

 if after you click [post] you do not get a page showing your post that says "thak you for posting" your post did not work.

usualy there will be an error message in red and it will let you correct the problem and retry.

i hope this helps you with the problem your having

 Kurt (editor)

[TomW]

zubbly;

I have to chime in here with Kurt. Its more than likely a user error on your part.

Always remember that if you don't get a page saying "comment Posted" your comment did NOT get posted. There will usually be a reason given if this is the case, however.

Of course then there is the "Anti Canadian conspiracy" theory held by some.

Anyway keep up the good mill building and watch closely next time you try to post a comment and it should be apparent whats going on.

Cheers.

TomW

[DERFMOOSE]

             CDN conserance  never had trouble with site or posting just make sure you hit right key.ome time these thingslike to screw up on their own ..thanks for a great site I learned a lot spelling not included

                                       derF

[RobD]

Dan's,

I'm losing posts. I replied to a post and now I can't find the post. Are you pulling posts?

RobD

[BrianK]

RobD    

   I also have replied to a post just to have it vanish from the front page for no reason.

[TomW]

RobD;

The Dans are on Guemes Island at Hugh's seminar and have no network access so I will respond to your comment.

We are NOT pulling any posts except the very rare foul language post [been awhile on one of those]. We are, however, making some stories display in section only lately trying to keep things focused on the front page area.

Scoop is far from perfect and occasionally things can get lost or just do not display with the story it goes with. I have seen this a few times myself and a reload seems to fix it.

Anyway, you can find all your own postings by clicking on that link to the right that says either "Your postings" or "Your Comments"

Cheers.

TomW

[nothing to lose]

I have had ALOT of mystuff go missing!

Mostly comments to other posts. I have noticed one thing though that is causing some of it. When you post replies often the subject line is near the limit, when it adds the RE: to the subect line that makes it to long and you get an error and the post you just typed was not posted. If you don't watch for error messages you then lose the post! If you see that happen, just delete the RE: form the begining and click post again and it works, if you don't then you lost it!

I am on a slow dialup connection at home. Often I have several windows open at once, like one or more loading pages while I type a message since typing uses no bandwith till you click the post button is speeds things up considerably for me. Sometimes I am in 2 or 3 forums and shopping newegg for pc parts ata the same time.

But then if I am jumping windows alot, it is very easy to not look at that error message and just move on to another post to read. That is what caused a few of my lost posts I am sure. The rest I don't know what happened to those.

[DanB]

Ahh... were back home  now!

The board seems to be working fine to me, so this is all a bit odd.

There have been a few issues while we were gone.  Im not sure if it has to do with slash dot, or what, but there have been a few days were we evidently got clobbered by lots of visitors and things got very slow.  Our server is being updated with better hardware.  One thing I know for sure though... it can't possibly be the board, computers never make mistakes. ;-)

and were not censoring anything unless it contains foul language or personal attacks.  This rarely ever happens!  We will however make a few changes soon regarding topics, and what's allowed on the front page.  This is a bit of a personal choice - somewhat based on our own feelings, somewhat based upon email complaints.  Were not yet sure howe well deal with it, but probably well have some "voting" on each story - unless a story gets voted on, it will show in catagory only - not on the front page.  (Stories will have to be popular to be on the front page)  This will keep the popular discussions up a bit longer and other stories (which may be redundant or off topic - political - opinionated - simply wrong - or... related to perpetual motion/free energy which is a topic that I find tedious) and discussions will continue to go on, but only within their own specific catagory.

Back to the main point though - short of running a bit slow at times over the last week, I don't think there are any issues with the board itself.

[Parameter]

Then as a security admin I would recommend all of the board admins to look at their password with very critical eyes. I know it suck to have to do this but It could be a little funny that uses an admin password.

You may use composite phrases like: 'I ate all the donuts and coffee this morning' would bring you "Iaatdactm" as password. Maybe check the logs of the board posts?

Drink milk! Changing passwords is good for you!

Well, i hope you guys get it fixed.

Para

[TomW]

Para;

My password looks like line noise so i doubt if anyone will guess that one.

Cheers.

TomW

[bob g]

YES!!!

thank all of you that are responcible for this board.

i am optimistically awaiting the changes to the board,

how did you like washington state?, been pretty nice so far this spring, hopefully the islands offered as nice as we have had a bit south of there.

bob g

[DanB]

Hi Bob - yes, it was very nice up there (just North of Anacortes on Guemes Island)-  a little rain, but lots of sun every day!  Lots of our "work" was done outside - it was very nice.

Well get a page or two up about it all soon!

[ADMIN]

Howdy folks. Great to be back home, we missed reading the board every morning!

Since I spent a total of about 38 hours stuck in the car with the bosses, we had time to discuss what direction we think the board should go. And we've been paying attention to all the comments we've got, from volunteer editors TomW and Kurt, and other users also.

I re-iterate the fact that we don't delete postings unless they are really foul and abusive. We DO however move them into more appropriate sections, and may flag them as "section-only" -- so if you are missing a post, check it's section first.

Also keep in mind that selling magnets and materials for homebrew wind turbines is maybe 10% of our sales at most--though it is about 90% of our personal interests up here. We do far more business in the weird science catagory....so that's why we want to continue to allow the weirdest of weird science on  the board.

Our opinion is that the best solution to the overwhelming volume of posts is to make ALL postings section-only, with voting  required to make the front page. Voting will be a learning curve for everyone I'm sure, but people will learn to do it with time. There's another line of thought here that I'm personally favoring -- keep wind-power related posts going to the front page, and make all the others section-only. Any comments?

I'm also in favor of getting rid of the Quarantine Zone. We don't use it much anymore since certain users who were abusive are gone.

DANF

[Gary D]

Not that it matters much, but my votes for the front page would be wind, remote living, and alternators. Seems this is the most of interest (at least to me). Your board, your choice, it's just nice to have a board at all! Thanks Gary D

[Wolfie1]

Hi Dan,

Before you change the board, do you know how people use your board?

For example, in the morning, I bring up the front page and then scroll through a few pages until I get to a page where there are only a few "New" comments. I then work my way up until I get to the top. I keep the window open on my computer and at lunch time, I refresh and work my way up again.

As such, I pay no attention to sections. I couldn't even guess at how many sections you have and what they might be called.

Am I typical, who knows.

If you were to change anything, I would like to see the following. List on the front page the twenty articles that have had comments added to them (or new articles of course). What is relevant, current or popular will remain on the first few pages, what isn't will drop off. It's a kind of auto-voting system.

Keep the sections if that is important to people but put an opt-out system rather than an opt-in system when choosing what people want to see.

A system like this will also help newbies. Newbies are encouraged to check the archives. If they find a hit that substantially covers their issue but they need to further clarify, what do they do? Answer, they post an additional comment. Problem is that no one is checking these articles and their question doesn't get any response. Eventually, they post their own article about their problem/issue and the response they get is 'Check the archive'.

I'll continue to use the board, however it may be changed but there are my ideas.

Martin.

[hvirtane]

I think that the problem of disappearing posts

has to do only with that 'spellcheck' thing.

I have never seen my post disappearing,

if I made the post the correct way.

About other things.

1) This board has become quite busy.

That has resulted many posts becoming

completely unanswered, because they

become so quickly buried under other posts.

Maybe one solution would be to change

the behavior of the board so that

a) All the posts, which get new comments

would remain on the top.

b) Completely unanswered posts would

remain under the posts in the category a)

but over the posts of the category c).

c) The other posts would go lower and

lower according to their posting date.

2) 'Quarantine Zone' has become really

silent. Maybe that zone should be changed

into a 'weird newbie on the board zone' or something like?

Maybe 'Search Zone'

would be another possibility.

I can imagine that doing a search on the board

for some ideas, which new people on the board

have got in their minds, will not result

much. But when lots of search commands have

been used by new people, that would create

lots of valuable knowledge for the others as well.

So publishing results of search commands

would benefit many people.

- Hannu

[Junkie]

I do the same, I never  click the sections at the top

[wooferhound]

As for what appears on the front Page, i would like to see the main topics discussed above (wind, remote living, etc) But I want to really see the Ideas that will save me money in some way. All of the Alternitive Energy Ideas, Including Solar home & water heating as well as Solar power.

[RatOmeter]

I vote for a "Newbies Corner" and all story submissions go there by default unless you change it once in your Preferences.

Probably outside the scope of Scoop, though.

[bob g]

i personally vote for the "section only" idea with "voting" to get to the front page.

even if i end up on the back page or the funny papers

one thing is for sure, those articles that end up on the front page will likely have some merit to the greatest number of folks, and the rest will just sit comfortably in their own section, where in my opinion they belong.

just because anyone (myself included) may not subscribe to some of the fringe sciences does not mean that there should not be a place for them, i think all trains of thought should have a section.

the way i see it and use this board, i can see me dealing primarily in the remote living, and power generation sections for the most part anyway.

whichever way you guys decide to go, i am sure it will improve with experience and ageing, as most things do.

thanks again for your board.

bob g

[KHB1]

"IF IT'S NOT BROKE DONT FIX IT"

I'm a newbie who found this board about a month ago and i think it's great the way it is. I visit at least 2 times a day and read all posts on the front page. I'm retired and active doing outside things weather permiting. Bad weather times I visit the archives. The changes you are talking about making would be a pain in the axx to me but like everyone else if i dont like the changes i am free to go elsewhere.

KHB1

Cecil

[John]

Please don't change the front page posting until/unless you have an option to access ALL new posting on one place. I like to see all the new posts, even if i just skim over or skip some.

John

[BrianK]

I also normaly scroll down the front page and check it out. I myself dont see alot really wrong with the way it is. Maybe just needs some tweeking.

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