Tips for using the new forum

[John Collins]

Hey, I wasn't complaining about your avatar - just interested to know if it represented some of your thoughts about the mechanics behind Bessler's wheel. My own avatar does incorporate some of my own thoughts in some ways.

JC

[Sevich]

The only interesting part of "Yin & Yang" symbol in my opinion, is the "S" line running through the middle. That, on it's own represents two "mirrored opposites" as one.

"S" symbol can represent free energy...(waves) mechanical, electrical...




This being the wrong thread for this discussion .......moving right along!

[scott]

Some among us may think that the reputation system is a "frankenstein" for which I should apologize, but I believe wholeheartedly that it has actually done wonders so far to mitigate the deleterious effects of fraudulent and antisocial behavior here on the board.

I'm not saying that the system is perfect, of course it is far from it. But I do believe it has led to an overall improvement in the quality of discussion.

I have always strived to make sure the system is as fair and transparent as possible. Toward that end I have just added some high level statistics about the reputation system to the main statistics page.

http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/statistics.php

Hopefully this will help ameliorate some people's lingering concern that the reputation system is some sort of nefarious plot. Nothing could be further from the truth. (But the conspiracy theories are quite amusing.)

Also, as it says in the FAQ,

your reputation can change slightly whenever the administrator adjusts the categories to even out the distribution pattern of members among the various levels.

That's all that happened today.

-Scott

[graham]

Sometimes I see that visitors are "hidden". Why is that?
Also if you check the profile of some members you see "last visit" also "hidden"

Why are they hiding and how do they do that,are they just shy?

Graham

[scott]

Hi Graham,
That is a built in feature of phpbb. See http://www.besslerwheel.com/forum/faq.php#3 .

I'm not really sure why some people use it. I guess it gives them a sense of privacy. I would estimate about 1% of members use that setting.

-Scott

[graham]

Thanks for the info Scott. To be honest I personally don't like the idea at all. Heck if you're hiding then you are probably up to no good . It just seems kind of silly and sneaky to me.
Maybe some of those who do practice "hiding" could explain why they do it.
If no one comes up with a rational reason I think you should disable it Scott.Or maybe at least a poll.

Graham

[hopeful]

Hidden settings.

I imagine others do it so that they can avoid being stalked by people they'd like to avoid, or haven't gotten around to replying. Some went hidden after they threw a fit and said they weren't going to play here any more, but then could still visit without losing face.

I want one less way for my employer to track me, in the unlikely event I'm visiting on company time. :)

Chris

[graham]

I want one less way for my employer to track me, in the unlikely event I'm visiting on company time. :)

That's a good reason Chris , you have my permission to continue hiding.

Graham

[graham]

I just took a look at the visitors stats at the bottom of the "Forum Index "page.and I see the following count as of 12:30 EST . That's a lot of guests and we still have six members who are hiding !!!

Visitors today: 325 :: 33 Registered, 6 Hidden and 286 Guests,

Graham

[Mac]

I think spiders and bots also show up as "guests" on most board software. ;)

Mac

[BootCamp]

I just looked at 'who is online' and saw this, Graham.

There are 26 Guest users online
Guest Wed Oct 11, 2006 7:50 pm Posting a message

How can a guest post a message? About 21 of the 26 guests were posting messages.

Hopeful, that is a good idea. I could get fired if my boss knew I was using her computer and time to look at this site.

BC

[scott]

Yes, search engine bots show up as guests. There's no easy way around this that I know of. I could probably write some code to filter out the main ones if I had time.

As for all the guests posting, those are probably spam bots *trying* to post spam messages on the board. But since guests are not allowed to post here, they are not succeeding.


See the phpbb faq http://www.phpbb.com/support/documents.php?mode=faq :

6. According to viewonline a user is doing/reading something they should not be able to!

No, they probably are not. phpBB uses sessions to keep track of users as they move between pages. The session information tells us who this user is. Therefore in order to determine what a user can do on a page we first need the session details. Once this data is available we can check whether the user is permitted to do whatever it is they are trying to do. This can result in it appearing as if a user is reading a topic in a forum they should not be able to access. Or perhaps viewing private messages when they are only guests, etc. In practice the user is not doing these things, they are viewing a "You are not permitted to do this" type message. The session data has simply been updated before we were able to determine what the user could or could not do.

[rlortie]

Just a quick note to say that the old pop up, about your password will expire in XX amount of days upon logging in is showing itself again!

I noted that now it even has audio, a clap of thunder greats you when it opens.

It has hit me three times in the last two days of logging in.

Ralph

[scott]

Oh boy, thanks for letting me know Ralph. Sorry for the trouble. In the meantime just close it (don't enter any data in the fields). Tonight after work I will see if I can slay that beast for good.
-Scott

[scott]

OK, I have now (hopefully) removed the password expiration feature completely. Please let me know if you encounter any problems. Also LIB, I hope this will finally solve your password problems too.
-Scott