PUBLIC-NOTICES: Forum Changes/Fixes. Any Questions?

[TheCotMan]

Forums are going to be down for maintenance ~2 hour (maybe less) starting at 7pm pacific time.

Back up at 8pm. Please let us know if you notice any problems or bugs.

[Deviant Ollam]

Back up at 8pm. Please let us know if you notice any problems or bugs.

the little graphic "SSL / NO" indicator is gone for me. i mean, that was just there for testing purposes so i didn't imagine it would be permanent... but has it been officially removed or is my browser doing something odd?

[TheCotMan]

the little graphic "SSL / NO" indicator is gone for me. i mean, that was just there for testing purposes so i didn't imagine it would be permanent... but has it been officially removed or is my browser doing something odd?

That was removed one or two days ago before this maintenance last night.

[TheCotMan]

We've been informed that the server will be unavailable while things are being moved around.

At around 2:30pm (Pacific Time), the forums will be closed, content will be saved, and then copied to an offsite location.

Assuming this event is not postponed, the server may be completely unavailable at around 3pm (Pacific time) and may remain that way for several hours. (Back, perhaps at around, 4, 5, 6 or 7pm depending on how long it takes.)

[TheCotMan]

A change has been made to the rules due to my mistake in not handling an exception:

Under Spamming, the following was removed:

Do NOT add a new post to tell about a correction, EDIT your posts with mistakes.

and replaced with::

Replying to your own posts can be viewed as spamming.
To fix your post, edit it; unless you are banned, or a thread is closed, you may edit your post for up to 24 hours after it is created.

People who have been around the forums know that there are exceptions the this:
People running events may reply to their own posts in the thread they started with updates on the event. (Value)
Technical threads, or discussions may include inaccurate information posted more than 24 hours prior, but needs to be fixed anyway (value to readers looking through the thread later.)
And there may be other exceptions too.

Rules may be refined even more in this space, since all of the mods may contribute to decisions on rules.

I'm going to start a new thread for users to ask questions about the rules.

[TheCotMan]

Bad Email Addresses

Cleaning up the Bounced e-mail messages...

Since forum email was fixed (ability to reset passwords, get notification of changes to threads you have subscribed, etc.) We've been seeing more bounced messages due to bad hostnames, or nameserver lookup failure, bad MX records that point to IP that do not have SMTP servers, and a whole list of problems.

(We get about 20 bounced messages per day-- most from a few users/addresses.)

I've been changing forum accounts that have bouncing e-mail messages to the usergroup "requires email confirmation." (There are about 80 of these accounts to date.)

Most accounts being changed have had no activity for over 1 year.

If you suddenly find you can't post even though you are not banned, and your description is changed to "Lurker" you can request a change in password be sent to your address, or re-request email account validation. If you can login, you may be able to edit your e-mail address.

If you can't get this to work, send an e-mail including your forum username to defconforums@gmail.com asking for a new e-mail message to activate your forums account. This activation email will only be sent to the address that is presently associated with the forum account in question.

Though we can edit forum accounts and their e-mail addresses, we don't tend to do that because of the risk for SE and theft of accounts.

We can re-send email activation messages to your registered e-mail address, but it is up to you to ensure that your present e-mail address may receive e-mail.

If you still have access to your account, then you should be able to change your forum e-mail address.

Some of you that have "currently active" accounts will be receiveing forum Private Message from me, letting you know that your e-mail address is broken.

Future bounces due to bad domain names, no user mailbox on host, relay errors or other non-temporary may result in offending forums accounts changed to "waiting for e-mail validation."

8 accounts with active posters were sent PM with no change yet to usergroup.
5 accounts were previously deleted
19 accounts had email address bounces that were "temporary in nature" -- these bounces are ignored for now.

45 account have not been used in over 1 year (set to be purged is they have zero postcount, or require email confirmation otherwise)
12 accounts were created within the last year, with no future activity, or posts. (set to be purged if they have zero postcount, or require email confirmation otherwise)

[TheCotMan]

We're working on simplifying the forums. Things may get moved around a bit over the next week or so.

[TheCotMan]

We're working on simplifying the forums. Things may get moved around a bit over the next week or so.

Moderators discussed adding simplicity to the forums, and came to a solution without disagreement:
Dump the threads from "Tech News" , "Computer Security" , "Wireless" , and "Got Questions" into the single "Community Talk"

Now You all will probably see two spaces for posting:
DefCon Stuff
Not-DefCon Stuff

Stage 1 is complete.

We'll be dealing with the tsumani of stickies in Community Talk over the next few days.

What is Stage 2? I don't know yet. :-)

[converge]

Sticky reform started in the relocation thread.

I think the next stage will be releasing the floodwaters of /devnull .. take note of any existing stats we want, then dump them all into the main forum now that we have learned a thing or two from the event.

[TheCotMan]

I think the next stage will be releasing the floodwaters of /devnull .. take note of any existing stats we want, then dump them all into the main forum now that we have learned a thing or two from the event.

Yes, I guess it is good to let the public know that /dev/null is a candidate simplification* too.

*- We are considering dumping all threads in the /dev/null subforums into one superforum "/dev/null" (putting /dev/null back to the way it was) but there is disagreement on this.


Re-ordering the sequence forums are displayed is being considered too.

[TheCotMan]

Hello public members.

Phase 2:
1) Evaluation of Moved/Redirections for rules in the "Community Talk"
2) Evaluation of color coding the "Sticky" thread label with a different color. (Yes, the color sucks and hurts my eyes. It is a demo, and will likely change to another color or revert back to what it was originally. Feedback welcome.)
3) Evaluation of color coding for "Moved" and redirected threads (similar to above.)
4) Evaluation of funky datestamp kludging to enforce ordering of sticky/redirection notices, with the side effect of "Rules" always being listed as having unread posts, and the modified threads/posts appeaing in every search for new posts (nav bar option.) It appears there are dangers in sending posts from the future back in time. Before you ask, we take turns using the DeLorean.

Comments on these are welcome.

Phase 3 will probably be the flattening /dev/null unless it isn't. (heh)

[Ridirich]

Nice! I like the way the rules are set up now!

Shit man, if someone fucks up now, you can say "Read the rules, you fucking idiot! They were posted with style, flair and are extremely easy to navigate."

[Deviant Ollam]

i like the new setup all around... my only concern is that i don't want this forum to become similar to others that i frequent (like lockpicking101.com) where every single sub-forum is topped off with an assload of sticky threads, necessitating scrolling of almost a page or more just to read new content. my impression of making a thread sticky is that it is one of two things...

1. a thread that describes the purpose of a forum, rules, etc. thus, it stays at the top forever
2. important and deserves superior attention for at least a while... threads like this are often long-running conversations that are being added to sporadically. eventually, however, threads like this (this is just my opinion) deserve to be moved to a separate area (something like, i don't know... "guides and good advice") where they can live and continue to grow without blocking the new fresh posts and younger threads that appear.

i realize that it's difficult to decide when and how such moves would be made. but i really get annoyed when i check in with an online forum just for a moment and have to spend forever scrolling down to see two new posts. it would be a real dream if somehow there were a small button or link to click next to the table header that reads "Threads in Forum" which would be "proceed to new posts", linking to a hidden named anchor in the row with the first non-sticky thread. just an idea, likely not supported in the default vBulletin code.

[TheCotMan]

ii don't want this forum to become similar to others that i frequent (like lockpicking101.com) where every single sub-forum is topped off with an assload of sticky threads

We are in the process of cropping down the stickies in Community Talk. I think that 7 were unstuck, and the rest are being examined. "The Rules" and Chris' piece of art threads will likely remain (the two "moved" threads.)
The rest open for debate.

1. a thread that describes the purpose of a forum, rules, etc. thus, it stays at the top forever

Yep. The two that meet this are the Rules and Chris' thread.

The rest? I'm not sure yet.

2. important and deserves superior attention for at least a while... threads like this are often long-running conversations that are being added to sporadically. eventually, however, threads like this (this is just my opinion) deserve to be moved to a separate area (something like, i don't know... "guides and good advice") where they can live and continue to grow without blocking the new fresh posts and younger threads that appear.

At this time, we're trying to cut back on the number of forums.

We might put converge's thread on customer service into the rules forum because it is an example of a rules issue-- then again, it may become a sticky like Chris' moved post.

Threads like "ebooks" and "links you can't live without" tend to grow over time and if they were not sticky threads, would be overlooked.

i realize that it's difficult to decide when and how such moves would be made. but i really get annoyed when i check in with an online forum just for a moment and have to spend forever scrolling down to see two new posts. it would be a real dream if somehow there were a small button or link to click next to the table header that reads "Threads in Forum" which would be "proceed to new posts", linking to a hidden named anchor in the row with the first non-sticky thread. just an idea, likely not supported in the default vBulletin code.

Heh. Check out the navbar (across the top. the horizontal navigation bar) for the link named "New Posts"
You can click on that and see all of the unread posts, sorted by last post date. :-)

[Deviant Ollam]

Check out the navbar... for the link named "New Posts" You can click on that and see all of the unread posts, sorted by last post date.

heh... learning is fun.