Des-Lab
10-12-2008, 04:27 PM
Sunday afternoon and in 12 hours, I will be getting up for Monday morning back to work.
It's that time to keep you up to speed on what's going on with the site.
In the forums, nothing has been really changed. That's pretty much set in place and I can't think of much else I can do to it.
Instead, I have been focusing a lot of my attention on the new Front Page. I spent so much time trying to figure out how to make it work, that I didn't spend a lot on its actual content and layout. But I am working on it slowly and as time permits; even the most minor of changes can be extremely time consuming. Finally today, I just finished adding a banner containing some thumbnail images that lead to some of the forum. It just provides a quick snapshot on what the site is all about. As simple as it is, it took me close to four hours to do by the time I took the pictures, resized and cropped them, uploaded and connected the links. It's not hard to do, just time consuming.
And of course there is the ongoing image of the day. I go through each days posts and look for any picture I think is neat, well lit and focused, and conveys the essence of the site. Pictures that are out of focus, of poor quality, or are simply copied from an Ebay listing will not be given consideration. Any image of the day candidate must have taken the picture himself. If, during a days postings, I don't see anything interesting, I'll either pull one from the archives or else find one of my own to use. So keep them coming! It should be considered an honor to have your picture posted front and center of the main page for a day.
And lastly. I just want to revisit the subject of user registrations.
In order to become an active member of our online community, you must complete the registration process, activate it via your provided e-mail address, and then pass 'probation'.
When you are a probationary member, you have limited access to the site including viewing some attachments within posts and customizing your profile. Your initial contribution(s) to the site do NOT show up in real time. Instead, they go to a moderator queue for review. If approved, they will then be posted. This proces can take anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours. Once you have had a few posts approved, you will then be 'promoted' to "full" membership. That allows you to use all of the features that existing members enjoy including having your posts show up in real time, customizing your profile, and so forth. You will know you status by viewing your user title, which appears right beneath your username. If it says "New To The Board", that means you are probationary. Then, once you have been approved, it will be changed to "lurker". You can then customize it to whatever you want.
All of these measure have been put in place as a way to keep spam and spammers at bay. We've intercepted quite a few of them. And spammers and would-be spammers are automatically banned from the site without warning.
Because spammers tend to share a few common traits, you MUST provide some kind of coherent choice for a username. Examples of approved usernames would be names like "ReelLover", "SpeakerTweaker", "TeacX20R", and "MikeInTexas".
Spammers tend to use nonsense names. When I see them, I immediately deny them entry by deleting their accounts. They are not even brought to probationary status. So if you sign up with a garbled username like "Bliphyuro986", "ExYrZq123", and "FrimmaGpash53GL", forget it. You will be denied entry.
Some of them keep trying over and over. Obviously SOMEONE is determined to get in here and start spamming. Well sorry pal. Go pollute someone elses board. I wonder if me constantly kicking him off the site is making him feel Grumpy?
I guess that's it for the week. Enjoy your stay. Thanks
Matt
"Des-Lab"
Sunday, October 12 2008
It's that time to keep you up to speed on what's going on with the site.
In the forums, nothing has been really changed. That's pretty much set in place and I can't think of much else I can do to it.
Instead, I have been focusing a lot of my attention on the new Front Page. I spent so much time trying to figure out how to make it work, that I didn't spend a lot on its actual content and layout. But I am working on it slowly and as time permits; even the most minor of changes can be extremely time consuming. Finally today, I just finished adding a banner containing some thumbnail images that lead to some of the forum. It just provides a quick snapshot on what the site is all about. As simple as it is, it took me close to four hours to do by the time I took the pictures, resized and cropped them, uploaded and connected the links. It's not hard to do, just time consuming.
And of course there is the ongoing image of the day. I go through each days posts and look for any picture I think is neat, well lit and focused, and conveys the essence of the site. Pictures that are out of focus, of poor quality, or are simply copied from an Ebay listing will not be given consideration. Any image of the day candidate must have taken the picture himself. If, during a days postings, I don't see anything interesting, I'll either pull one from the archives or else find one of my own to use. So keep them coming! It should be considered an honor to have your picture posted front and center of the main page for a day.
And lastly. I just want to revisit the subject of user registrations.
In order to become an active member of our online community, you must complete the registration process, activate it via your provided e-mail address, and then pass 'probation'.
When you are a probationary member, you have limited access to the site including viewing some attachments within posts and customizing your profile. Your initial contribution(s) to the site do NOT show up in real time. Instead, they go to a moderator queue for review. If approved, they will then be posted. This proces can take anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours. Once you have had a few posts approved, you will then be 'promoted' to "full" membership. That allows you to use all of the features that existing members enjoy including having your posts show up in real time, customizing your profile, and so forth. You will know you status by viewing your user title, which appears right beneath your username. If it says "New To The Board", that means you are probationary. Then, once you have been approved, it will be changed to "lurker". You can then customize it to whatever you want.
All of these measure have been put in place as a way to keep spam and spammers at bay. We've intercepted quite a few of them. And spammers and would-be spammers are automatically banned from the site without warning.
Because spammers tend to share a few common traits, you MUST provide some kind of coherent choice for a username. Examples of approved usernames would be names like "ReelLover", "SpeakerTweaker", "TeacX20R", and "MikeInTexas".
Spammers tend to use nonsense names. When I see them, I immediately deny them entry by deleting their accounts. They are not even brought to probationary status. So if you sign up with a garbled username like "Bliphyuro986", "ExYrZq123", and "FrimmaGpash53GL", forget it. You will be denied entry.
Some of them keep trying over and over. Obviously SOMEONE is determined to get in here and start spamming. Well sorry pal. Go pollute someone elses board. I wonder if me constantly kicking him off the site is making him feel Grumpy?
I guess that's it for the week. Enjoy your stay. Thanks
Matt
"Des-Lab"
Sunday, October 12 2008