Mini-questions and mini-answers about this forum

[RubyDuby]

what is the + next to some member's names on the active users list?

[cobweb]

what is the + next to some member's names on the active users list?

Doesn't that mean they're your 'friends'?

[RubyDuby]

oh, right thanks!

[Korn]

Hi all,

I got this today:

I would like to post a general question on vegan fitness but also have a link to a charity I am a trustee of, and.... [...]


I just wondered if this is ok to mention as part of a broader topic.... [...]

Sure. It's fine to promote vegan sites and similar etc, but please look at our board rules first. Here's a short excerpt:

Links to relevant sites are welcome. Please post your link only once: No product/opinion/company/organization/spam, or religious (or atheist) preaching, please.

No ads or similar in signatures or avatars, please.

Members who only come here to promote other sites/do this repeatedly, are put on moderated/delayed posts. We gave a message to a member some weeks ago who just did that. He was put on moderated posts, but was back last week only to promote other sites again. This certainly won't help him getting off moderated posts, especially since he has been doing only that and done it repeatedly.

Also, please don't use company names as user names. We offer accounts to individual members here, but not to companies. We did that to some degree in the beginning, but learned soon that people who register with a company (etc) name as their user name, usually only are here to promote that company/group or whatever, and not participate in the forum as such. Even if someone does not register to promote his company (etc) in messages, having their company (etc) name next to all their messages is too close to sneak advertising/spam for us to really want it.

So - if you want to promote a group/site/company called XYZ, please don't use XYZ as your user name. If you already have done that, just create a new account.

[Korn]

Also in today:

hi

im having trouble logging in.

Hi,

Usually that's not enough info to help someone, but please try to reregister and see if that helps....

[harpy]

This might be just me but I had trouble posting a new thread with IE8 (it didn't pop up a window to type in) - was fine with Chrome though.

[RubyDuby]

The newest forum won't open on a Droid. Never had this problem before.

[Korn]

The newest forum won't open on a Droid. Never had this problem before.

Which skin/style are you using?

[RubyDuby]

I type the address in and it's just blank... no chance to see skin.

[Korn]

I type the address in and it's just blank... no chance to see skin.

I changed your style to the Mobile style.... can you try again now?

[RubyDuby]

It works! Thanks

[Korn]

I just noticed that it seems my number of posts, and the number of posts of others, has dropped. I was wondering why this might have happened?

It happens whenever I click 'Update Post Counts' in the Admin Control Panel. In order to keep the database file slim and efficient, old/outdated (etc) threads are deleted on a non-regular basis, but the post counts won't go down until I use the function. Almost 300,000 posts have been removed since 2003!

[Korn]

I just noticed that it seems my number of posts, and the number of posts of others, has dropped. I was wondering why this might have happened?

It happens whenever I click 'Update Post Counts' in the Admin Control Panel. In order to keep the database file slim and efficient, old/outdated (etc) threads are deleted on a non-regular basis, but the post counts won't go down until I use the function. Almost 300,000 posts have been removed since 2003!

[Bearshark]

I was just wondering if it is possible to view this forum on iPhone forum apps like TouchBB or Forum Runner? I don't want to buy them and then find out they're useless, but seeing as I am not often on my computer, viewing on the little screen and zooming and dragging gets quite tedious! Apparently a plugin has to be installed by the Forum admin or something, I don't really understand

[Korn]

Hi,
I haven't looked into these solutions yet, but have you tried the mobile style/skin?

[Bearshark]

WOAH!! No, I didn't even know it was there, but it's waaaaaay easier to read threads! Thanks Korn, you're ace

[Korn]

What happened with the London and UK Meetup subforums?

In the process of reducing the number of subforums, the third and last Meetup subforum has now been removed (the US and 'Europe/Other Meetup subforums have already been removed). As usual, old/outdated threads have been removed, and the other threads have been moved to the UK subforum.
The 'Vegan London' subforum has also been removed, and the threads have been moved to the UK subforum (the other subforums dedicated to certain UK cities have already been removed and had their posts moved).

[Korn]

WOAH!! No, I didn't even know it was there, but it's waaaaaay easier to read threads! Thanks Korn, you're ace

Good! There will be some updates to the mobile style, and when these are released, the old version won't be updated, but deleted, and a new version will be installed. This means that you may need to manually select the mobile skin when this happens.

OTOH, I have just activated a feature which automatically should select the mobile skin for users of newer mobile phones. Please let me know if this new feature causes any problems.

[RubyDuby]

I actually hate the mobile version and have to switch skins every time I use the forum. The mobile version is default even before I log in on my home PC, Kindle and the Droid. It's kind of a huge pain. I have to scroll down and click "Full Site" then wait for a thousand videos to load in order to change skins since "settings" isn't supported on the mobile skin.

Is the mobile skin the default style for everyone? I shouldn't complain. At least I can use the forum on all devices now. Just my feedback.

[Korn]

Thanks for the feedback - that feature seems to assume that if you have a cell phone, you never use other computers. I'll disable it until it becomes smarter.

[harpy]

I use the non-mobile version even on my mobile but I can't remember how I achieved that.

I'm still having the problem I described above, where I can't start a new thread with IE8 but can with Chrome. Hasn't anyone else had that?

[Korn]

I'll disable it until it becomes smarter.

It is disabled now. If the problem persists, it is because the software remembers your last chosen skin even without that feature enabled. OTOH since the auto-switch to the mobile skin was enabled circa a couple of days ago.... Maybe the problem wouldn't appear unless you manually switched to the mobile skin? How long have you had the problem you describe?


@Harpy: IE has always had many problems with the vBulletin software, which this forum runs. Is it possible for you to only use eg. Chrome?

[harpy]

Yes, it's not a problem to use Chrome

[RubyDuby]

just since the switch. I think it's better now. Thank You

It is disabled now. If the problem persists, it is because the software remembers your last chosen skin even without that feature enabled. OTOH since the auto-switch to the mobile skin was enabled circa a couple of days ago.... Maybe the problem wouldn't appear unless you manually switched to the mobile skin? How long have you had the problem you describe?


@Harpy: IE has always had many problems with the vBulletin software, which this forum runs. Is it possible for you to only use eg. Chrome?

[Firestorm]

Hi
It might just be me loosing whats left of my marbles, but didn't there use to be a "Quote Selected Text" option when replying to threads?

[Korn]

Yes. That feature may not be compatible with an upcoming software update, but I hope I can re-enable Quote Selected Text again soon.

[Firestorm]

Yes. That feature may not be compatible with an upcoming software update, but I hope I can re-enable Quote Selected Text again soon.

Thanks, you have reassured me that I still have some of my sanity left.

[CoolCat]

The user info is above the posts instead of on the left side all of a sudden. Is this something I can change in my user control panel? I can't find it and something makes me think it is a forum wide setting. I much prefer to have the user info on the left and the posted comments much closer to each others (without having a big block of unused space between them).

[Korn]

Hi,

yes it's a forum wide setting - and just an experiment.

We don't need the space between posts, but since we don't necessarily need to have everyone's Join Date and Post Count listed next to each message either, I'm not totally happy with either of these two options.

For people who are used to read from left to right (most of our members), the forum could possibly be experienced as less cluttered when using the current mode, but I'm certainly not sure. I just want to try it for a short period.

Ideally, there should IMHO be a mode with the user name and the avatar at the top left corner of each message, and the text wrapped around those two elements (a bit like Facebook does it, but IMO better). Unfortunately there's no such option.

[pusskins]

Yeah, and there's a big gap in the middle between the avatar and details... I don't like it!

[Korn]

There's also a silly gap between the word "Posts" and the actual post count. But remember this is a mini Q&A thread only... ;-)

[leedsveg]

Hi Korn

When using the Ignore facility, is there any way to prevent the words of the 'Ignored person' coming up when somebody else quotes them in a post?

Leedsveg

[leedsveg]

I'll just assume the anwer is "no". (If I've been told in the past, I've fogotten the answer.)

Leedsveg

[Korn]

Ah, sorry... I had responded to that, but obviously forgotten to send the message. Yes, the answer is that it's not possible.

[Firestorm]

Was there a thread posted earlier about bracelets or am I just imagining it?

[Korn]

Let me Google that for you.

[Firestorm]

Sorry Korn, the reason that I asked was that I cant find it and wondered if it has been deleted for some reason.

[Korn]

Hi, the best way to find the answer out to go to Advanced Search, Select "Posts" as Search Type, and search for 'bracelets'. This will give you threads both in the Public and Member area. If the search doesn't bring the thread you're looking for, the thread must have been deleted.

PS: The far-from-ideal search feature will get an update in the not too distant future, hopefully making it a lot easier to use and understand.

[Firestorm]

Thankyou, I had already tried that but couldn't find anything, I have traced my way back through my history for tonight and the person who posted it now has a post count of 0, so it must have been removed. Thanks again, Ill stop bothering you now!!

[Korn]

No problem.

[CoolCat]

Thankyou, I had already tried that but couldn't find anything, I have traced my way back through my history for tonight and the person who posted it now has a post count of 0, so it must have been removed. Thanks again, Ill stop bothering you now!!

I noticed that poster too... he went in a whole number of threads to spam. I was annoyed with him/her messing up the "what's new" that I placed him/her on ignore, but that just meant that the post was marked with "You are ignoring this person" and they kept showing up (/ triggering) in "What's new".

If you are in the market for overpriced crappy bracelets I can probably make you one for a shitload of money

[Korn]

that just meant that the post was marked with "You are ignoring this person" and they kept showing up

I used to 'ignore' a poster on another forum, and the text in their messages was hidden with a message like that added.

Maybe threads still show up in What's New even if the only new post is written by a member on your ignore list (I haven't checked that), but the actual message itself should still be hidden.

There's a "Delete Posts as Spam" feature for moderators, and if a whole thread has disappeared (which shouldn't have disappeared), that could possibly happen if the thread was started by a person who was a spammer (or started to post spam after that thread was started). I remember getting a big surprise once, in the early VF days, when deleting a post - the first post in a thread - and found out that this meant that the whole thread was deleted. I thought that bug was fixed, but if it that behavior is around still, it's certainly not a good solution.

[CoolCat]

I used to 'ignore' a poster on another forum, and the text in their messages was hidden with a message like that added.

Maybe threads still show up in What's New even if the only new post is written by a member on your ignore list (I haven't checked that), but the actual message itself should still be hidden.

Yes to both accounts. The message text itself was hidden and replaced with "you choose to ignore this user" and then options to unignore... it was the first time I used the ignore function on vbullitin but it's not really helpful. I expected it to completely make me unaware of a user (except maybe when someone quotes him/her) but it doesn't work like that. Now we know

[Korn]

Making you completely unaware of an ignored member's posts could cause misunderstandings, as shown in this very silly example:

A: "Does anyone here want to marry me?"
B: "No thanks, but here's another question to the participants of this thread: is marriage as a concept outdated?"
C: "Yes!"

In your browser, these three posts would look like two messages:

A: "Does anyone here want to marry me?"
C: "Yes".

[Firestorm]

I noticed that poster too... he went in a whole number of threads to spam. I was annoyed with him/her messing up the "what's new" that I placed him/her on ignore, but that just meant that the post was marked with "You are ignoring this person" and they kept showing up (/ triggering) in "What's new".

If you are in the market for overpriced crappy bracelets I can probably make you one for a shitload of money

Thanks Coolcat but I'll leave it (I have enough crap already). I saw a new thread pop up (something like "Save the animals") with an ad in it for these bracelets, I had a look and they were indeed crappy. I then got an email about the Affluence/Meat eating thread a bit later with the same bracelet message in it. When I came back to the forum, the original thread was gone and the post in the Affluence/Meat eating thread was gone as well. I posted the question just to confirm that I hadn't finally lost whats left of my sanity.

[Gwydion]

Is the return (enter) key not doing it's job for anybody else on an iPhone or smart/mobile type device?

[Pob]

That's usually a problem on this forum if javascript is disabled.

[Gwydion]

As in on my device? All enabled here if so.

[Korn]

Is the return (enter) key not doing it's job for anybody else on an iPhone or smart/mobile type device?

Hi,
AFAIK this is a known bug that already is fixed - meaning that it will be gone in the next software update.

[Gwydion]

Ok, thanks Korn. Looking forward to that update!