Although you might not see the difference the forum was upgraded to the latest version if effort to keep our site from getting hacked by those derilicts in Turkey that like to play with our forum.
I have also turned on the visual code during registration so scripts are not able to create accounts automatically. This should greatly reduced the number of "casinos" and "drug" vendors creating accounts on our forum.
Thanks to Ken Andrews for getting the updates on the server.
Forum Upgrade
Moderator: Chip
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JT
Old Stuff
Has anyone decided when to clean up the forum? It looks as if everything that was ever posted (except the "sensitive" discussions between Larry and Chris) is still here. I think 60 days is long enough for everyone to get to the postings.
And if anyone from the management is reading this:
How about posting a summary of the BOD meetings? Someone is taking minutes, right? Don't you use Word? Just copy and paste it into a dedicated spot here in the forum so that club members know what you're up to. Maybe you'd get a little more expression of appreciation from everyone if they new how much time you spend in the meetings and chasing around to get mundane but important club tasks completed like getting the port-a-potty dumped and opening up Lukens and Big T on permits. What happened to that, anyway?
And if anyone from the management is reading this:
How about posting a summary of the BOD meetings? Someone is taking minutes, right? Don't you use Word? Just copy and paste it into a dedicated spot here in the forum so that club members know what you're up to. Maybe you'd get a little more expression of appreciation from everyone if they new how much time you spend in the meetings and chasing around to get mundane but important club tasks completed like getting the port-a-potty dumped and opening up Lukens and Big T on permits. What happened to that, anyway?
Great Suggestion
Jim,
That's an excellent suggestion. I'll make a section that they can get to and post the minutes of the meetings. Obviously executive session stuff won't be there but a lot of other content can be.
That's an excellent suggestion. I'll make a section that they can get to and post the minutes of the meetings. Obviously executive session stuff won't be there but a lot of other content can be.
Good topic for discussion.
It seems to me that old posts should remain indefinately, especially Amazing Flights. They're still fresh to new visitors to the forum and they tell about our adventures here, from beginners level to advanced. They are the written history of the flights of club members who take the time to write them for others. If you're thinking of visiting Kagel-- from Santa Barbara or London, England-- they're a great resource, a continuing story of people and conditions here, season by season.
They have practical value. For example, one Soboba flight report, now deleted, gave specific instructions about the route up the mountain--after two Kagel expeditions in a row got lost trying to get to the top.
The Crestlne forum pilot reports goes back to Aug. 2005. The Oz Report goes back more than seven years--everything's still there.
Why edit our own history?
It seems to me that old posts should remain indefinately, especially Amazing Flights. They're still fresh to new visitors to the forum and they tell about our adventures here, from beginners level to advanced. They are the written history of the flights of club members who take the time to write them for others. If you're thinking of visiting Kagel-- from Santa Barbara or London, England-- they're a great resource, a continuing story of people and conditions here, season by season.
They have practical value. For example, one Soboba flight report, now deleted, gave specific instructions about the route up the mountain--after two Kagel expeditions in a row got lost trying to get to the top.
The Crestlne forum pilot reports goes back to Aug. 2005. The Oz Report goes back more than seven years--everything's still there.
Why edit our own history?
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JT
History
Christian,
Your point is well taken but... your glider for sale in October of last year is a bit moldy as periodical ads go. And I don't think Dave wanted us to be forever aware of his tribulations with the eye docs. Maybe we should designate an archive section to move "keepers" into and dump the rest.
Any other ideas? Chip? BOD?
By the way, Chip, the new sections are a great addition. Now, will they use them?
Your point is well taken but... your glider for sale in October of last year is a bit moldy as periodical ads go. And I don't think Dave wanted us to be forever aware of his tribulations with the eye docs. Maybe we should designate an archive section to move "keepers" into and dump the rest.
Any other ideas? Chip? BOD?
By the way, Chip, the new sections are a great addition. Now, will they use them?
I'll update the ad (The glider's still for sale). Chip has the pilot forum running really well, but there is a continuing evolution of overall club communications--how email blasts, website and forum fit together, and how they can better serve the members. We have one of the classiest website operations in hang gliding, it's only begun to prove its value. Look for more information, and way to participate, soon.
Pruning the forum
Christian is correct about the forum being a good resource for historical information. I'll keep that in mind for the pruning aspect of certain area's in the forum. I believe that for sale items should be purged periodically.
Coming up with an agreeable timeframe will be important. Whatever the timeframe agreed upon I'll update the discription so there will be no surprises.
Coming up with an agreeable timeframe will be important. Whatever the timeframe agreed upon I'll update the discription so there will be no surprises.
Pruning old content out of the forum
Chip,
I like the criteria that you're using for deleting out-of-date material. If I read it correctly, you have no hard and fast age at which an item drops off, but you consider the archival value of the info, and keep stuff that you think has lasting benefit to forum users.
You could delete my post on "Website function" under a new criterion, "Dopier than shit."
I like the criteria that you're using for deleting out-of-date material. If I read it correctly, you have no hard and fast age at which an item drops off, but you consider the archival value of the info, and keep stuff that you think has lasting benefit to forum users.
You could delete my post on "Website function" under a new criterion, "Dopier than shit."
Soar With Prudent Passion
Larry Chamblee
Larry Chamblee
Forum Rules
Here's some of the settings that the forum is currently using:
Enable account activation. Current Setting:ON That means that after the user verifies the email sent to the new user the account is enabled and active. No need for the administrator to approve all users that create accounts.
Enable Visual Confirmation. Current Setting:ON Places a graphic on the account creation page that the user must confirm in effort for the account to be created. This prevents "bots" from creating accounts automatically. Until we updated the forum we had "bots" creating accounts periodically. You would see them from time to time (casinos and internet drug sales). This created administrative work to keep the forum from having too many accounts.
Allow automatic logins. Current Setting:Allow Determines whether users are allowed to select to be automatically logged in when visiting the forum
Automatic login key expiry. Current Setting:0 How long a autologin key is valid for in days if the user does not visit the board. Set to zero to disable expiry.
Allowed login attempts. Current Setting:5 The number of allowed board login attempts. If the user forgets his password the forum will only allow 5 attempts before it locks the user account.
Login lock time. Time in minutes the user have to wait until he is allowed to login again after exceeding the number of allowed login attempts. This is set to 30 minutes.
User email via board. Current Setting:Enabled Users send email to each other via this board, can be used to send the entire forum an email.
Pruning is turned off on all forums. This means no post is automatically deleted. I usually purge the forum evey 120 days. I have been removing posts that have not been reponded to for 120 days. If a topic is very active then the topic will not purge. It's worked OK in the past but as more people use the forum maybe we'll bump it up to 180 days. The database is plenty BIG so we shouldn't have to worry too much about space.
Enable account activation. Current Setting:ON That means that after the user verifies the email sent to the new user the account is enabled and active. No need for the administrator to approve all users that create accounts.
Enable Visual Confirmation. Current Setting:ON Places a graphic on the account creation page that the user must confirm in effort for the account to be created. This prevents "bots" from creating accounts automatically. Until we updated the forum we had "bots" creating accounts periodically. You would see them from time to time (casinos and internet drug sales). This created administrative work to keep the forum from having too many accounts.
Allow automatic logins. Current Setting:Allow Determines whether users are allowed to select to be automatically logged in when visiting the forum
Automatic login key expiry. Current Setting:0 How long a autologin key is valid for in days if the user does not visit the board. Set to zero to disable expiry.
Allowed login attempts. Current Setting:5 The number of allowed board login attempts. If the user forgets his password the forum will only allow 5 attempts before it locks the user account.
Login lock time. Time in minutes the user have to wait until he is allowed to login again after exceeding the number of allowed login attempts. This is set to 30 minutes.
User email via board. Current Setting:Enabled Users send email to each other via this board, can be used to send the entire forum an email.
Pruning is turned off on all forums. This means no post is automatically deleted. I usually purge the forum evey 120 days. I have been removing posts that have not been reponded to for 120 days. If a topic is very active then the topic will not purge. It's worked OK in the past but as more people use the forum maybe we'll bump it up to 180 days. The database is plenty BIG so we shouldn't have to worry too much about space.