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

[TheCotMan]

Forum E-Mail tools seem to be fixed.

This means that users who never received an e-mail, or never responded to an e-mail, to validate their e-mail account will be required to validate their e-mail account. A mass e-mailing was sent out to all users with valid e-mail address but for which there was no record of account validation. That e-mail contains a URL that can be selected to validate your e-mail account.

This also means that users who forgot their password can have their password e-mailed to their validated e-mail account.

It also means that selection in the userCP like "email me when I get a PM" should actually "email you when you get a forum PM."

Problems? Send email to defconforums@gmail.com.

If you have changed e-mail addresses since then and have no way to receive e-mail at the address associated with the forum username, I won't help you. You MUST be able to receive e-mail at that address for me to help you.

[klepto]

What's up with vb 3.0.7? 3.0.9 is out, unless you guys are just putting a fake version heh.

[Thorn]

Thanks, CotMan! I'm getting those mail responses to subscribed threads that I haven't seen in six months.

[[Syntax]]

Hmm, I had inquired about the password recovery tool not working, but that was over a year ago, maybe almost 2.. is this the same problem that has just now been fixed?

Glad to see someone is on the ball.. although it may be barely rolling along..

[TheCotMan]

Hmm, I had inquired about the password recovery tool not working, but that was over a year ago, maybe almost 2.. is this the same problem that has just now been fixed?

Glad to see someone is on the ball.. although it may be barely rolling along..

It was working on the server just before the move, and stopped shortly after the move. (July/Aug 2005)

It may have been broken before, but this fix was for the move-related break.

[converge]

mail had been broken for a long time.. I can't even remember approximately when or what events/circumstances may have been, somewhere back in the era of Blackwave.

[Ridirich]

What's up with this new site certificate? Every time I log in now, it pops up.

[TheCotMan]

What's up with this new site certificate? Every time I log in now, it pops up.

It is part of the process for troubleshooting the https/http problem (where once you log in through https, eventually, a link will be made available that is http and take you away from the ssl side of things.) We'd like to see https logins remain https for all generated links and http logins remain http for all generated links.

The https cert is coming up because images are loading over https instead of http.

For the next few hours, issues with https login -> http session "bugs" are being tested. There may be temporary periods of downtime with the forums.

For the next few hours, issues with https login -> http session "bugs" are being tested. There may be temporary periods of downtime with the forums.

We are still working on the issues for making login and continued sessions with https work well.
As of right now, browsers that seem to work fine with https/ssl include:
lynx, firefox, mozilla, galeon, konquerer, Safari, Opera OK on XP, Safari 1.31 on OS/X, and Firefox 1.0 on OS/X

However, MSIE does not yet work.

Support is being tested right now that includes MSIE as well as the others. This is still being tested. Don't expect https to be reliable until it all seems to work as we desire.

Updates:
"The purge is coming" :: Accounts not activated by e-mail with zero post count will be purged in about three weeks.
Zero Post accounts not used within 1 or 2 years with zero post count will be purged too. Users who desire these accounts can always re-register if they really want their usernames back.

I received a question about Custom Avatars:
They were broken. They have been fixed, but are presently disabled. Re-enabling them is being discussed. Expect a decision next week.

I receved a question about "Attachments."
Attachments were broken. Now they "work" but they are disabled on purpose. If you need to include a file, consider a link with a URL or custom URL with the forum markup language. (See the FAQ for how to use custom URL when posting.) If you need custom file, consider registering with geocities or some other "free" web hosting system, pushing files to that site, and then linking to the files they serve.

https/http issues. Thanks to Dark Tangent and the other mods for working to resolve this problem with fixes and testing to make it work.
Summary: http users should not be prompted for a certificate anymore. https users should be able to stay in https session but may have mixed content when loading. (some images may be http instead of https.)
One more change with https/ssl is being planned by Dark Tangent to make it even easier to use. More on that later.

[astcell]

With all these names we have here, how many are active? Can we search to see how many users have posted at least 3 posts a month for the past three months?

[TheCotMan]

With all these names we have here, how many are active? Can we search to see how many users have posted at least 3 posts a month for the past three months?

I have plans on to automate building of reports, but here are some numbers:

11060 users (Universal Set. Those below are subsets that may or may not share entities)
639 awaiting confirmation
312 banned
1946 user active over the last 3 months.
5245 user active within the last year
9161 users active within the past 2 years

In order to find out how many users have posted an average number of posts since they registered would probably require a double query/compound custom query or intermediate table creation.

Potential to cut users during purge:
Users with zero posts and no activity in the past 2 years: 1255
User without e-mail validation: 639
There is overlap between those two groups: 278 (Intersection)
|A| + |B| - |A (intersection) B| = total number of users at risk for deletion: 1616

[Added:]
Users active within the past 3 months and at least 3 posts: 428

[converge]

What will be interesting is when post counts drop due to /dev/null posts no longer counting as valid/productive posting. I would suspect that this would drop many of those users down to 3 or fewer posts, most likely 0. Depending on age it could lend to just how inactive the account is...

[TheCotMan]

Forums will be going down for maintenance on Wednesday (Oct 12, 2005) at around 10pm pacific time. Forums should be back up by midnight (though they may be down for much less time.)

Forums will be going down for maintenance on Wednesday (Oct 12, 2005) at around 10pm pacific time. Forums should be back up by midnight (though they may be down for much less time.)

This maintenance might be postponed. More later.

In other news, after discussion, mods chose to re-enable custom avatars for members.

Max sizes: 64x64 pixels or 20,000 bytes -- whichever comes first.

Where to change? UserCP, Edit Avatar.

[converge]

Interesting the topic has come up.. it just so happens, after over two or so years of searching, that I recovered some of my previously used avatar images from before the forums went poof in the days of the 'wave (along with 85% of my pgp keys, and other interesting artifacts).

[TheCotMan]

Maintenance planned for tonight has been postponed to some future date. We are missing something necessary for this scheduled maintenance.

[converge]

.. now.. where.. did we.. put .. that webserver anyways ...

dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not an arp cache.