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Forum: General
Thread (Discussion): question about the new forum
Message 120023
Posted by simon
on Oct 17, 2003 05:14 PM | Also by simon
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: 30 - 39,
State: Oregon,
Country: United States |
"After you submit your post it will be automatically validated. If it passes validation it will be displayed for you to review and you will be able to edit it, submit it or cancel it. "
What is "validation"? What will cause a proposed post to fail validation ("If it passes validation... ")?
I tested "validation with a couple of swear words and it allowed them. So at that point I could have clicked "submit". Would the validation process be an appropriate place to filter a list of prohibited words? They could be flagged and the author given a chance to edit the words before submitting the post.
Just a thought.
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Message 120026 (In Reply to Message 120023)
Good suggestion
Posted by steve
on Oct 17, 2003 06:33 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: 30 - 39,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
simon, at this point the validation just checks that the message isn't blank (and if applicable the thread title). I was planning on check for HTML code too (right now only hyperlinks are allowed), but I like your idea about profanity and will try to implement a check for it. It'll probably just result in a warning, not actually prevent the post from being submitted, since it would be hard to prevent false positives.
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Message 120048 (In Reply to Message 120023)
Flat View
Posted by dp1
on Oct 18, 2003 04:09 AM | Also by dp1
| Gender: Female,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Florida,
Country: United States |
Steve, How can I do a flat view? I hate having to click on each post. Also, why does the term "Unread" continue to appear even after I've read the post? Lastly, I signed in as DP10 because 4 characters were required but it looks like I am back to being DP1....thanks.
It looks like a lot of hard work went into building this site. Thanks.
DP1 (formally DP10)
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Message 120052 (In Reply to Message 120048)
Posted by steve
on Oct 18, 2003 05:08 AM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
I coded flat view for the beta site, but had to remove it from the production site because of a bug. I promise I'll re-enable it by early next week.
The unread issue is b/c I changed your name for you from dp10 to dp1, but since you've still been logged in as dp10 for the last few hours your posts were recorded as that user as were the posts you viewed. It looks like you logged out, then in as dp1 before this post though so it should be fine now.
BTW, I sent you an email a few hours ago to tell you I did that. And for everyone else's benefit, usernames as short as 2 characters are now allowed. If anyone wants to shorten theirs contact me.
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Message 120071 (In Reply to Message 120052)
EMail Alerts
Posted by dp1
on Oct 18, 2003 04:11 PM | Also by dp1
| Gender: Female,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Florida,
Country: United States |
Thanks Steve for all your hard work. Can you help me with this one? I got an email alert stating that certain posts were posted. I clicked on the posts and I got a blank screen. Then I went back to the board to see the new posts and they were in fact not posted. Did my computer wake up on the wrong side of the bed?
DP1
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Message 120073 (In Reply to Message 120023)
Posts Not Posting
Posted by dp1
on Oct 18, 2003 05:25 PM | Also by dp1
| Gender: Female,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Florida,
Country: United States |
Steve....I don't see any posts dated Oct 18 on the board but my email alert tells me people have posted...DP1
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Message 120074 (In Reply to Message 120071)
Fixed
Posted by steve
on Oct 18, 2003 06:11 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
The automated script that generates the email had some code from the beta site so the URLs were wrong. I fixed it and re-sent the notification. If you still have problems let me know.
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Message 120075 (In Reply to Message 120073)
Wasn't entirely fixed, now is
Posted by steve
on Oct 18, 2003 06:13 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
The notifications were providing info. about all submitted posts, not just those that had been approved. Since there were some queued for approval the notification email announced them before they were actually visible on the site. I fixed the code.
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Message 120103 (In Reply to Message 120075)
Posts in Queue on Email Alert
Posted by dp1
on Oct 19, 2003 03:20 PM | Also by dp1
| Gender: Female,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Florida,
Country: United States |
Steve,
The posts in queue were in my last email alert.....can you check it out? On the site they are listed as being in moderation still with no access to them. I also sent you an e-mail so you know which ones I was talking about.
Also, is there a search feature on this new board?
DP1
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Message 120107 (In Reply to Message 120103)
Posted by steve
on Oct 19, 2003 04:35 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
> The posts in queue were in my last email alert.....can you check it out?
My mistake. I fixed the notification code yesterday in the development version, but didn't in the production version (this site). Messages waiting moderation or rejected should not be listed in the email notification as of tomorrow. In any case, if you did click them it shouldn't have actually displayed them (did it?).
> Also, is there a search feature on this new board?
I'm working on it. But it'll probably be the end of this week before a basic version of it is added to the site.
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Message 120125 (In Reply to Message 120023)
unread messages
Posted by simon
on Oct 19, 2003 09:04 PM | Also by simon
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Oregon,
Country: United States |
Could you change the color of the "unread" indicator so that it stands out. For me anyway this would be easier on my eyes. There is a lot of information to filter in the thread list when looking for new unread posts. Thanks.
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Message 120137 (In Reply to Message 120125)
Posted by simon
on Oct 20, 2003 12:49 AM | Also by simon
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Oregon,
Country: United States |
Very nice. Thanks.
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Message 120138 (In Reply to Message 120125)
Time
Posted by orolan
on Oct 20, 2003 12:55 AM | Also by orolan
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: N/A,
Country: United States |
Great idea simon about the color for the "unread" text. The new bold red is great.
Steve,
What sets the time for messages? GMT?
For an example, I'm replying to simon's post, timestamped as 8:04PM on October 19th. But right now it is only 4:50PM in his location.
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Message 120140 (In Reply to Message 120125)
Posted by simon
on Oct 20, 2003 01:19 AM | Also by simon
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Oregon,
Country: United States |
Now if you could put an UNREAD on the main thread list so that I know exactly what threads have unread messages in them without haveing to rely on my imperfect memory or searching through each threach. This kinda' goes back to the horizontal line tht I wrote about before. The line would demarcate read/unread threads in the thread list.
Sorry to be a pain.
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Message 120166 (In Reply to Message 120023)
Questions for Steve
Posted by Silverthorne
on Oct 20, 2003 05:47 AM | Also by Silverthorne
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Arizona,
Country: United States |
Steve,
I'm working on "Silverthornes story" to post here. Its.... ah.... kind of ...... long....... and I wanted to check if there was a limit on post size or anything? Im typing it up in Microsoft word so I've got access to a word counter.
Thanks,
Silverthorne
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Message 120185 (In Reply to Message 120023)
not the brightest bulb in the box
Posted by myoung
on Oct 20, 2003 01:48 PM | Also by myoung
| Gender: N/A,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Pennsylvania,
Country: United States |
Hi Steve, if I am in PA, which GMT selection do I use? I apparently did not pick the right one:)
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Message 120187 (In Reply to Message 120185)
Posted by steve
on Oct 20, 2003 02:15 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
You're in the EST timezone like me so GMT-4. I'll add some text or a link to a page explaining how to pick the timezone later. Unfortunately in a few weeks it won't be accurate and you'll have to change it to GMT-5 because of daylight savings time. Unfortunately I can't handle it automatically since some places use daylight savings time and some don't (even in the U.S.) and those areas that do don't all make the switch on the same date.
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Message 120189 (In Reply to Message 120140)
Posted by steve
on Oct 20, 2003 02:16 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
I'm working on a solution. Hopefully it'll be done in a few days, but no promises.
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Message 120190 (In Reply to Message 120166)
No character/word limit to worry about (yet)
Posted by steve
on Oct 20, 2003 02:35 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
There is a limit, but it's so high that legitimate posting purposes should never come near it. The longest message so far is 9,259 characters (not sure how many words) and a post 100 times as long wouldn't hit the limit. Incidentally the average so far is 1,080 characters.
Given the attention span of most people on the web though, you may want to do like Orolan did and post your story in several parts. Once part 1 has been approved you can post the other parts as a reply to it in the same thread.
Just a heads up - such threads may eventually be moved to a new forum so they're better organized.
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Message 120191 (In Reply to Message 120138)
Posted by steve
on Oct 20, 2003 02:44 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
> What sets the time for messages? GMT?
Dates and times are saved in the GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) timezone. Greenwich is in London, England.
> For an example, I'm replying to simon's post, timestamped as 8:04PM on October 19th.
> But right now it is only 4:50PM in his location.
If you're not logged in or didn't set a timezone in your user profile the times you see are GMT, otherwise the times you see are based on your timezone.
So for example, I'm in Richmond which is currently 4 hours behind GMT (will be 5 hours come daylight savings time). So if I post a message at 3 PM my local time it's 7 PM GMT which is how it's recorded in the system. If someone in California (who set their profile to GMT-7) reads the message I posted they'll see 11 AM, I'll see 3 PM and those who aren't logged in or didn't change their timezone from the default of GMT will see 7 PM.
I think it's working properly. If I didn't explain it well or you think it's not working right let me know.
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Message 120193 (In Reply to Message 120187)
Posted by simon
on Oct 20, 2003 03:10 PM | Also by simon
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Oregon,
Country: United States |
Why not just use one time? GMT. Maybe there's a good reason, but in other venues (aviation, marine, military) everyone works off of one time. GMT or UTC...
If people want to translate a time to local they apply a timezone....which they would supposedly know.
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Message 120194 (In Reply to Message 120193)
Posted by steve
on Oct 20, 2003 03:41 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
Just to make it easier for users to interpret the times. It's optional though so if a user wants posts shown in GMT and doesn't want them converted or wants to convert the times in his/her head that's fine.
I don't think there's any downside. If users don't want the administrators to know their timezone they can leave it as GMT and the timezone I pick for myself isn't visible to other users and doesn't affect the times they see in posts I make.
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Message 120197 (In Reply to Message 120190)
Autobiography
Posted by Silverthorne
on Oct 20, 2003 04:26 PM | Also by Silverthorne
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Arizona,
Country: United States |
Actually what I'm planning on doing is just posting my autobiography from therapy. There too I did it in several parts (0-10/10-20/20-25/25-32/33-now) as it covers certain "critical times" in my life. I have to edit it heavily though as it uses my real name, locaitons, the names of my abuser and such.
Silverhtorne
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Message 120200 (In Reply to Message 120052)
Flat view re-enabled
Posted by steve
on Oct 20, 2003 07:42 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
> I coded flat view for the beta site, but had to remove it from the production site because
> of a bug. I promise I'll re-enable it by early next week.
Flat view has been re-enabled. If you view a thread in flat view all messages in that thread at that time will be flagged as being read.
You can "jump" to a message's parent message (message it is in reply to) by clicking the "Jump to Parent" link under the message and it will scroll up/down to that message without reloading the page.
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Message 120202 (In Reply to Message 120194)
post times
Posted by orolan
on Oct 20, 2003 08:02 PM | Also by orolan
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: N/A,
Country: United States |
When I log in and go to the main forum page, I scan the times of the "last post" in each thread. Since I know what time it was last time I logged in, this tells me quickly if there are new, unread messages in the thread.
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Message 120208 (In Reply to Message 120194)
GMT Time
Posted by simon
on Oct 20, 2003 09:45 PM | Also by simon
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Oregon,
Country: United States |
I checked the user profile just now and set the GMT offset. I must have overlooked it the when I initially edited my profile.
Using the offset does make it quite a bit easier to discern new messages on the thread list. I've changed my mind and agree with you Steve - it's worthwhile. Thanks.
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Message 120216 (In Reply to Message 120197)
Word Document
Posted by dp1
on Oct 20, 2003 11:47 PM | Also by dp1
| Gender: Female,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Florida,
Country: United States |
Why can't we post word documents?
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Message 120218 (In Reply to Message 120216)
Posted by steve
on Oct 20, 2003 11:59 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
I don't think I said Word documents can't be posted, but right now there's no method for posting files. In any case, not everyone can open Word documents. Why do you ask?
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Message 120219 (In Reply to Message 120216)
Posted by simon
on Oct 21, 2003 12:00 AM | Also by simon
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Oregon,
Country: United States |
Some possible reasons:
1. Not everyone has the necessary software to open and read them.
2. They are suseptible to viruses.
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Message 120224 (In Reply to Message 120218)
Word Docs
Posted by dp1
on Oct 21, 2003 12:29 AM | Also by dp1
| Gender: Female,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Florida,
Country: United States |
I was just thinking it might be easier for someone like Silver who has a lengthy story. It would save a lot of time on his part.
Steve, another issue is...what happened to the quote function from the old board? Can we have that back?
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Message 120228 (In Reply to Message 120224)
Cut and Paste
Posted by Silverthorne
on Oct 21, 2003 12:52 AM | Also by Silverthorne
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Arizona,
Country: United States |
Copy/Paste works great I'll just do that. I think its best to keep attachments off the board.
Silverthorne
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Message 120259 (In Reply to Message 120219)
Word
Posted by orolan
on Oct 21, 2003 03:57 PM | Also by orolan
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: N/A,
Country: United States |
I wrote my story in Word, then did the copy/paste. Worked great, and I agree that we should keep attachments off the board. Too risky.
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Message 120260 (In Reply to Message 120259)
Attachments
Posted by steve
on Oct 21, 2003 04:06 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
I don't envision allowing attachments on the forums in the foreseeable future for the reasons mentioned by you, simon and others and because attachments would not work well with the search interface I'm working on.
The site will have a way to submit files which will be available in a document library (studies, reports, research documents, etc. - I've collected over 100). We'll do our best to screen them for viruses and to convert them to other formats like plain text, but users will need to use caution when accessing such files.
If there's a really good reason to let users make files available for others it'll be addressed when users contact me to explain why and I'll decide whether to setup a way for users to make such files available.
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Message 120523 (In Reply to Message 120023)
New Question
Posted by orolan
on Oct 26, 2003 06:22 PM | Also by orolan
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: N/A,
Country: United States |
Steve,
When I'm viewing a thread on page two and after having read the new posts in it, I have to select "forum home" to get out. This takes me back to page one, and then I have to select "next" to get back to page two to view the next thread, etc, etc.
Any way to be able to get back to the specific page of the thread I'm looking at without this, other than hitting the "back" button in my browser?
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Message 120529 (In Reply to Message 120523)
Posted by steve
on Oct 26, 2003 08:19 PM | Also by steve
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: Virginia,
Country: United States |
Good point. There is not a way to do what you want, but I agree that it's a little bit of a pain as is so I'll see what I can do. It'll just take some time and so it could be a while before I can implement it.
Here are a few things that are already on my to-do list for forum navigation - dropdown box for page number when viewing list of threads, when viewing message(s) a link to switch between flat and threaded view.
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Message 120533 (In Reply to Message 120529)
Posted by orolan
on Oct 26, 2003 11:03 PM | Also by orolan
| Gender: Male,
Age Bracket: N/A,
State: N/A,
Country: United States |
Steve,
Take your time. Not a major issue, just one of those things that would be "nice" to have.
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Thread
120023, simon, Oct 17, 2003 05:14 PM
120026, steve, Oct 17, 2003 06:33 PM [Good suggestion]
120048, dp1, Oct 18, 2003 04:09 AM [Flat View]
120052, steve, Oct 18, 2003 05:08 AM
120071, dp1, Oct 18, 2003 04:11 PM [EMail Alerts]
120074, steve, Oct 18, 2003 06:11 PM [Fixed]
120200, steve, Oct 20, 2003 07:42 PM [Flat view re-enabled]
120073, dp1, Oct 18, 2003 05:25 PM [Posts Not Posting]
120075, steve, Oct 18, 2003 06:13 PM [Wasn't entirely fixed, now is]
120103, dp1, Oct 19, 2003 03:20 PM [Posts in Queue on Email Alert]
120107, steve, Oct 19, 2003 04:35 PM
120125, simon, Oct 19, 2003 09:04 PM [unread messages]
120137, simon, Oct 20, 2003 12:49 AM
120138, orolan, Oct 20, 2003 12:55 AM [Time]
120191, steve, Oct 20, 2003 02:44 PM
120140, simon, Oct 20, 2003 01:19 AM
120189, steve, Oct 20, 2003 02:16 PM
120166, Silverthorne, Oct 20, 2003 05:47 AM [Questions for Steve]
120190, steve, Oct 20, 2003 02:35 PM [No character/word limit to worry about (yet)]
120197, Silverthorne, Oct 20, 2003 04:26 PM [Autobiography]
120216, dp1, Oct 20, 2003 11:47 PM [Word Document]
120218, steve, Oct 20, 2003 11:59 PM
120224, dp1, Oct 21, 2003 12:29 AM [Word Docs]
120228, Silverthorne, Oct 21, 2003 12:52 AM [Cut and Paste]
120219, simon, Oct 21, 2003 12:00 AM
120259, orolan, Oct 21, 2003 03:57 PM [Word]
120260, steve, Oct 21, 2003 04:06 PM [Attachments]
120185, myoung, Oct 20, 2003 01:48 PM [not the brightest bulb in the box]
120187, steve, Oct 20, 2003 02:15 PM
120193, simon, Oct 20, 2003 03:10 PM
120194, steve, Oct 20, 2003 03:41 PM
120202, orolan, Oct 20, 2003 08:02 PM [post times]
120208, simon, Oct 20, 2003 09:45 PM [GMT Time]
120523, orolan, Oct 26, 2003 06:22 PM [New Question]
120529, steve, Oct 26, 2003 08:19 PM
120533, orolan, Oct 26, 2003 11:03 PM
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