State of the Forum

Ron Earp · 05-02-06, 10:38 PM

A New Forum - with teething troubles......

Dear Folks,

The migration to the new forum software is coming off pretty well, considering. In the 11th hour Al Hirsbrunner (meet your new Gt40s.com moderator and Admin!) sent in some of his research on forums and the software he'd investigated was a bit better than the stuff I was going with. So, we looked into it and everything was a go. We were able to get a programmer to help with migration (one is needed, the old forum has TOO much custom stuff to make it work) at an affordable rate and he's working on some of the larger issues while Al and I work on the other things we can handle.

At any rate, there are a lot of issues that are not resolved so please have a look at these before you fire off an email to your trusty admin:

*On the old forum users had a Display Name which was shown near their posts. On this forum it seems there is only a Login name and that is what is displayed. We might have lost the Display Name feature on the old forum, or the info might have been lost in migration. We're working on this - could be tough and we have to live with it. Folks that are now upset that their "Real Name" is showing up - not much I can do short of deleting you. We hope to have some sort of fix, but there was little that could be done on this one. It was an add in feature, like everything on the old board, and was not easily importable. I don't like being "rlearp" any more than you like being "sexybluesmurf", but you picked it, we're sort of stuck here.

*To subscribe to the user support groups like Gold, Silver, Bronze or to buy a Crystal one needs to go to their own User CP and have a look at groups you can join. I hope to have a button for it shortly when I get to making it.

*Gallery is NOT up yet, when it is you'll be able to upload photos.

*Check your PMs in your User CP - likey it is full due to migration glitch and you need to delete everything out and clean house. Until it is not full you cannot receive new ones.

*Colors - all buggered up but Al has a plan.......

*New forums will be added for some cars and some old forums consolidated with others

*User flags all messed up for forum supporters, we'll get it going. I'll also be adding Gold supporters for crystal buyers.

There are always postive and negative aspects of a new forum, but all in all, I'm happy with this one. Sure, there are bugs, but we'll work through them and get it handled - mostly. Some we might have to live with or get over.

And lastly, EXPLORE! There are a lot of new features on this board like referrals, printable formats, ratings, email notifications, tracking, reputations, online notification (useful for coming chat), summary on mouse over, etc. - click anything you see and investigate what it does or where it takes you.

Ron

John · 05-03-06, 08:16 AM

Ron,

I am a computer consultant and was about to congratulate you on the stability of the GT40s.com web server - it was always up doing my roughly 8 months of membership.

Then I was surprised by the remake - it would have helped if you would had notified all members by email that the changes were coming. The site's organization is not very intuitive and the user choices are not always obvious. I will reserve final judgment until you fix all the features.

I do miss the animated figures!

John

Ron Earp · 05-03-06, 08:21 AM

Hi John,

the old software did not have the ability to email all the members as a mass group, and I've not enough time to parse and make a email directory. Sorry. This software does have that ability though. I hate that we've disappointed a member, but, maybe it'll be to your liking in a few weeks. As far as animated figures, animated icons are still permitted if folks want them. Watch... and animated emoticons will be up when I have time to upload them, dead horse and all of that. However, old posts on the forum might not show them correctly.

Best,
Ron

Keith Hardy · 05-03-06, 09:49 AM

Hey John, might it be better to wait until the changes have all been made before dissing it? Personally, I like the VBulletin Forum software - it is much more versatile. Plus, Ron does this for free and anything that will make his job easier, such as an Admin friendly software suite surely must be better for all?

Ron Earp · 05-03-06, 10:05 AM

Actually, John, a question:

What part of the organization is difficult? The main page here:

http://www.gt40s.com/forum/

Is exactly the same and in the same order as the old forum here:

http://www.gt40s.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php

There are a lot of other features and buttons to do more things while posting, that is for sure, and the admin control panel is light years ahead of the code intensive UUBthreads panel, so that is one of the biggest reasons to swap.

Ron

Ron Earp · 05-03-06, 02:13 PM

To Top, have a look at remaining issues.
Ron

Ron Earp · 05-03-06, 03:20 PM

Post to the top

Peter D · 05-04-06, 05:16 AM

Ron, don't waste time on the next aspirant to Oliver's position !

The new s/w is great & anyone with some common sense wil realise that it takes time to tune out all the bugs (specially if you are not being paid $200/hr) !

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

Ron Earp · 05-04-06, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ron Earp

A New Forum - with teething troubles......

*On the old forum users had a Display Name which was shown near their posts. On this forum it seems there is only a Login name and that is what is displayed. We might have lost the Display Name feature on the old forum, or the info might have been lost in migration. We're working on this - could be tough and we have to live with it. Folks that are now upset that their "Real Name" is showing up - not much I can do short of deleting you. We hope to have some sort of fix, but there was little that could be done on this one. It was an add in feature, like everything on the old board, and was not easily importable. I don't like being "rlearp" any more than you like being "sexybluesmurf", but you picked it, we're sort of stuck here.

Everyone, thank Al for the upgrade, he picked this one and it was the right decision!

There is a fix for this and I'll be installing it later on today. This "missing feature" has caused more trouble than anything I've seen to date - I probably had 20 emails over it alone.

Al is still sorting the Avatars and we're not sure if we can get the grandfathered avatars downsized automatically. In the mean time - those of you with big avatars, and you know who you are, take the time to resize it an re-upload it. You are taking the time to post on the forum, take 5 minutes and resize your avatar to 80x80 and re-upload it.

For those people affected with passwords or they forgot their login name again, have you tried the automatic password emailer? It works, as long as you have your correct email address in your profile. Just try to login, when it fails click the Forgot Password link and input your email address, your info will be sent to you.

Thanks,
Ron

Bob Childress · 05-06-06, 07:44 PM

Hi Ron,

Looks like many forum bugs have been successfully resolved. I think the new forum is going to be great and I am sure everyone appreciates all the work effort you and Al must be putting in. That said, here is another symptom for your list when you have time.

On my CAV-Part VI posts there are currently 21 entries.
A friend who is not a registered member only sees 20 posts.
Sure enough, when I logged out and tried, only 20 posts are presented.
When I am logged in, all 21 entries are shown.
Seems like there is a restriction setting somewhere that applies only to guests and the magic number 20.

Bob

Ron Earp · 05-06-06, 08:01 PM

I imagine nothing is wrong, it is simply how they have their User CP setup to "Number of Posts to Show Per Page". Did they click to Page two? Tell them to explore the options in the User CP or to explore the options on the thread, like clicking to the next page. I have mine set to 30 posts before going to the next page, I think the default is 20.

Actually, just logged out myself and tried it, only had 20. Have no idea on that one, it'll be added to the list but pretty far down - still some much bigger issues to sort and I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow. Hope to have a look when I return.

Ron

John · 05-06-06, 08:37 PM

Ron,

Sorry I haven't gotten back to regarding your questions on my comments. I've decided to wait until you implement all the planned functionality and then give you my further comments.

Good luck and keep up the good work!

John

roaldin · 05-08-06, 02:01 AM

See pic.
Seems as though the moved forum message shouldn't appear when on the new forum.

Tim.

Alex Hirsbrunner · 05-08-06, 09:55 AM

Hi Tim,

I agree. The forum moved graphic appears to be in the same directory as all of the advertiser banners and the new site picks a banner at random as you load a new page.

The problem is, if I just remove this graphic, I'm afraid that the moved link will break on the old site, and I don't have access to update the old forum (and I really don't want to either :-).

I'll discuss with Ron when he gets back. Until then, at least if you click on it, it just takes to right back to the new forum.

Thanks

Al

JohnC · 05-08-06, 11:41 AM

Al, under each person's post count there is something called "Rep Power". What does this mean?

Also, under the "Rep Power" there is a little box, that when moused over, shows that some people are "on a distinguished road", others are "offscale", and a few are "in an unknown state" What is this?

TIA,

John

Alex Hirsbrunner · 05-09-06, 12:16 AM

Hi John,

I haven't used this feature of vbulletin yet, but my understanding is that a user can click on the "scales of justice" icon in each posting if they want to improve the "reputation" of a particular user.

I'm guessing that Rep Power is a factor applied to the "value" of your click based on your user type. These are probably currently just the default settings, so this is probably another item for Ron and I to add to our to do list.

Best Regards,

Al

Keith Hardy · 05-12-06, 05:19 AM

Ron, I have sent you an email via the forum.

Paul W · 05-24-06, 07:05 PM

I just tried posting on the for sale section but don't seem to have permission - another one for the fix it list ?

Ron Earp · 05-24-06, 10:16 PM

Hi Paul,

As normal the For Sale sections are limited to forum supporters. I know there are some people that were supporters on the old forum and it didn't transfer here, but I can't get to the old forum now due to hackers from Monday. I know you were one though so I can fix you easily enough.

Ron