Tips for using the new forum

[ovyyus]

Ralph, that's what the one month's grace period is about... brought into effect after they (in this case Darrell Vandusen) reach "this member should be banned" status. If anyone needs more time than that, then surely they're not seriously trying and they don't deserve the privilege and benefits of membership.

Placing notification on a persons account that they have in fact been banned isn't about "kicking a dead horse", as you say, but rather it's about making their status unambiguous for all to see - that big word again :P - clarity is a good thing!

Also, how would removing someone's account after they've been banned be of any use to anyone? I think you miss the point. A major part of this process involves identifying these predators in order to help make others aware of their scams. Isn't that the responsible thing to do? How can these freaks be made known to newcomers on the forum if they've been removed? Think about it.

It's not like this is going to be a common outcome. I think recent events (Claudio) have proven just how hard it really is to get the boot.

[rlortie]

Bill,

I understand your above statement. Maybe I should have worded mine a little different.

He is banned, deleted, he can no longer post or relate to the newcomers. He can no longer influence this forum. What I am trying to say is, why keep him on the books if he does not exist in the group inventory.

As for Claudio, he is playing with our minds by asking for us to push his red button. I did, but obviously there are those that have taken his request as a form of apology or sympathy.

I don't know what I am trying to say! :-) I am tired and had a long day.

Good night,

Ralph

[ken_behrendt]

Generally, I do not like the idea of permanently banning someone...as in setting things up so that any requests for page downloads from their IP address are ignored. Of course, if someone is genuinely offensive to other members languagewise or is posting "offensive" material then that is another story. This site is supposed to be G rated and we wouldn't want kids or adolescents with an interest in OU/PM being exposed to that kind of content when visiting and thereby getting a distorted perception of the kind of people who pursue this subject.

I think that seeing three red dots on one's status bar is more than sufficient to alert lurkers and members to where a person is coming from. If that person has to constantly see those red dots then he, most likely, will either drop out of active participation in the Discussion Board or, hopefully, make a effort to improve their status by making some positive and meaningful posts.

ken

[rlortie]

Question:

Jimmyjj and ken have stated that they have used up all of their alloted space for attachments, while Jonathan claims he has used only 6%.

How doe one find their remaining allowance? I do not find it in my profile or anywhere else I have looked.

Thank you,

Ralph

[jim_mich]

Ralph, click on your own user name 'rlortie' link on the left side of this page. Also under the Author column on any index page.

Mine says [Uploaded: 4.14 MB / Quota: 100 MB / 4% of total]

When I click on your link I see your user profile but without your upload statistics.

I've always tried to be conservative with uploading. My Daddy used to say, "Waste not, want not."

[rlortie]

Thanks Jim_mich,

I see where I have only used 1%, guess I do not have to worry as my attachments are few and far between.

Ralph

[ken_behrendt]

Odd...when I click on my username link, I see that it says: Uploaded 21.1 MB / Quota: 200 MB / 11% of total. Since I just had my limit expanded to 200 MB by Scott, I can only interpret this as meaning that I was already 21.1 MB over my initial default limit of 100 MB before the expansion so that the excess is now being applied to the new 200 MB total. It's as though the Board program is ignoring my first 100 MB of uploads in recalculating the % uploaded for the new 200 MB limit...


ken

[jimmyjj]

Mine says

"[Uploaded: 3.69 MB / Quota: 200 MB / 2% of total]

I am presuming Scott has increased my quota so hopefully i can go back to being just Jimmyjj Thanks Captain Ken and Scott.

I just gotta test it

Jimmy :-)))))

[jimmyjj]

yippee

This is a side view of a thompson coupling i would have liked to use this in my model but it is a little more complicated than a double cardan/hookes joint.

Thanks again Jimmy

[ken_behrendt]

That Thompson coupling looks complicated. Did you make a CAD model of it that worked?

ken

[scott]

Everyone,
There have been a lot of complaints over the years from people whose session has timed out while they were composing a long post. When this happens, after you press submit you are prompted to log in again. This has made most people believe that they have permanently "lost" their post, and more importantly the precious time and effort that they put into it.

In fact, if this ever happens to you, don't dismay! Just press your browser's "back" button. This will take you back to the posting form, where you can save your post in it's entirety with a simple select all and copy to clipboard (or better yet, copy to a text file). Then you can log in again and submit the post by pasting it into the submission form.

Hope this helps avert any more needless headaches and heartaches,
Scott

[scott]

I may have missed it, but does anyone else have a problem using the "view all" link in the threads?

For me it just keeps refreshing endlessly if there are more than 3 pages in a thread. It works ok for <= 3 however.

-Ed

Hi Ed,
As far as I can tell, the "view all" function is working properly. I just used it to view all 8 pages of this topic on one page. The thing is, it can take a while to download, especially if there are many images. So the "view all" feature should be used with care. E.g. I pity the poor person who tries to view the "Ken's latest progress updates" topic on one page. :-)
-Scott

P.S. I only added the "view all" feature to make it easier to do a text search within a single topic. Since this is a far less than perfect solution, I will look into adding a search box at the top of every topic page that allows you to search just within that topic. Then I could just disable the "view all" feature entirely.

P.P.S. After doing a little research into it, I now remember why I settled for the "view all" feature in the first place. Unfortunately this version of phpBB does not support searching just within a topic, so I would have to implement it from scratch on my own (a less that trivial task). Still, with the size of some of the topics on this board, I think it would be a valuable feature. I will dig into it and give it the ol' college try. No guarantees if or when I will be successful, though.

[scott]

OK, I got the "Search in Topic" feature working. Now at the top of every page in view topic there is a search box that allows you to search just within that topic.

In the meantime I have continued to test the "View All" feature and cannot find any problems with it. I even viewed Ken's progress updates topic on one page (it took forever, but eventually all the posts rendered properly on one huge page). So until I can reproduce a problem with it I am going to leave it there, because it could still come in handy sometimes, e.g. to print out an entire topic at once. If it causes problems for you, just don't use it. :-)

-Scott

P.S. by the way, at the request of a member I also added the .wm2d file type to the list of file extensions that are allowed to be uploaded.

[ken_behrendt]

Scott...

Sorry that my "...Updates" thread is causing problems for you. I don't know how it ever got that long, but I guess it can be used as an extreme test of your board's program to handle data.

I like the idea of being able to upload .wm2d files. Now, if we have a model that looks interesting, then we can immediately share it with other members who, if they have WM2D resident on their hard drive, can Open the .wm2d file and check out the model. I plan to use it in the future. Great idea!

ken

[racer270]

i think it only works, in working models 2 "if you have the "save" enabled.
gordy