Webmaster's Blog

[methy sw20gt]

this is the max sig size as stated above



800x160

back on topic...
im so glad you have been able to get rid of the tens of thousands of spam bots
(welcome our latest user: Viagra_ParisHilton_Cialis)

[MoNk]

800x160

back on topic...
im so glad you have been able to get rid of the tens of thousands of spam bots
(welcome our latest user: Viagra_ParisHilton_Cialis)

That spam bot has 3 things I don't want or need

[mickeyduck]

Thank you all for your helpful comments.

However -

methy I used your pix cos I dredged the forum looking for cool stuff to use and decided on them being winners. I'd rather hoped you'd be proud they were chosen out of all the thousands of pics on the forum, to be featured on the club's home page in the most prime position possible.

If you had moused over them you'd have found that yes indeed I did give credit to the originator of those images.

I chose to repurpose them on the same club site to which you had posted them, for the benefit of the club.

I'm sorry you have an issue with that. I thought it wouldn't be a problem.

My bad. Sorted.

If you want them put back just let me know. They are brilliant pics and I still feel they deserve pride of place right there on the home page.

BTW there is a copyright notice at the bottom of the site.

Please keep it on topic too guys. This thread is for development of the club's site and forum. If it gets full of OT stuff I'll lose track of what matters under all the irrelevant posts. I don't have the time for that. I'm trying to get things sorted before our hosting stops in June. (anyone thinks that's a joke put your hand up to waste all your evenings helping me). So please clean up your posts regards signatures etc or I will remove them so I can keep track of what I am actually trying to achieve. Let's keep it on topic.

Especially if you have the privilege of moderator status.

Methy perhaps you would like to help me by wading through the remaining 1500 odd forum registrations to delete the bogus ones one by one at the rate of about one a minute, which is the best the current system can manage? (unquote) It needs doing.

You are after all, as one accorded the privilege of moderator, an assistant to the website administrator (that's me).

Other than that (sorry but I'm a tad annoyed here), a lot of really good suggestions, and as long as this thread is kept on topic so I can find them, I'll keep them in mind and do what I can a quickly as I can do it.

Thanks fellas.

[Benckj]

Keep the faith Charlie. None of us realised how bad the forum houskeeping was in the past. It is certaily running and looking better so your improvements are not un-noticed.

Wish I could help with some of the problems but I'm not exactly IT literate and I do have many restrictions at work including access rights.

[mickeyduck]

Thank-you Jim. Appreciated.

And MRtoo, thanks for the pointers. I'll investigate soon as I get a mo. The usual mods for phpBB2 refuse to stick as the registration system gets broken entirely. maybe your script will succeed where the usual mods failed... Hope so! I get about 100 fresh bogus registrations a day and this brilliant old version of phpBB has no way to mass-delete them.

Unless you use the database back end which is fine except that it's become extremely difficult now to target the remaining bogus ones without hosing real people. So yeah, thanks for the pointer and I'll give it a go. Cheers!

[Mad Murphy]

It's been many a year since I've run a forum but I have been involved in running some big ones before (not fun). Have you considered using vBulletin? I assume it still exists but as I recall it's got a lot more advanced controls than phpBB or phpBB2 (I've got no experience with version 3 so can't comment on it). Yes, it does cost money but it would probably make life a lot easier and I'm sure it would be worthwhile for a club that charges a membership fee to spend a small amount of it on good forum software.

As for everything else, it all seems to looking good, it's good to see there's an actual website.

[MRtoo]

Both phpBB and vBulletin are great stuff.

I (used to) frequent www.modernvespa.com which is phpBB-powered. The site owner is an Apple fan and if you visit the site on an iPod Touch or iPhone, it loads a small-screen optimised version. If you tilt the device on its side, it loads yet another version that makes use of the additional landscape space, and if you tilt it the other way it loads the "full" version that you would see on a desktop PC. I don't think standard phpBB comes with this mod or ability but I reckon it should be available somewhere.

[mickeyduck]

Hi guys. Today my main mission is to wade through the couple of Gigs and thousands of files still haunting the WCN server, and I'm going to try to cull it back to what actually needs to be there.

I'll move entire folders of what I think is obsolete stuff into a hidy-hole so to speak, then zip them all up.

That way if they are actually doing anything, stuff will vanish off the site. But I'd be able to readily reinstate whatever disappears too...

So please let me know (via PM please) if you spot anything has fallen off the face of the earth...

Basically the objective is to wrest this thing back to its essentials so I can in fact readily back it up and download it without destroying my monthly bandwidth allowance.

If anything does disappear, I expect it'll probably be old stuff linked to from somewhere on the forum... I guess we'll see eh?

OK, here goes...

[Dennis th'Menace]

Good luck, buddy. You're doing a great job on this. I think only a few people realise just how big this job really is . . .

[mickeyduck]

Thanks Dennis.

OK everyone, please see this thread for an update on the Calendar:

http://www.mr2.org.nz/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7056

I have changed the Calendar (unused it seems, of late) so any ok'd forum user can post to it. Well almost...

Any forum member can post to it, but their stuff will not show until OK'd by someone with the right privileges. It will be up to the Moderators & ACs to keep tabs on what has been submitted, ok what they feel can go up there and biff out the rest. They will need to use the "Validate Events" button at the bottom of their Calendar view to do so.

Any Club Member can post to it and their stuff WILL show immediately. Moderators or ACs can blitz their posts if necessary. Though I would urge discretion.

Please read my thread above, for "why" I'm trying this.

The only thing I can see may be a real problem is that it's all too easy to post something on the Calendar and get the date wrong. If you spot something there and want to question the date for the event, PM the forum member who posted it. Their forum ID shows up when you mouse over their event in the Calendar.

We'll see how it goes...

Cheers =)

[mickeyduck]

Yeah! I now have a zip of what I think still matters and it's only 200MB. Beats trying to download a 3 1/2 GB thing... Woohoo!

Let me know (preferably via PM) if you spot anything missing that needs to be put back.

Cheers. =)

[Rabid]

Great work Charlie, we all appreciate the massive effort you have put in here

[TOYMR2]

Great job Charlie

If you want to use any of my pictures that are floating around somwhere you are welcome to use them, it would be a privledge.

Keep up the good work

Carol

[Dennis th'Menace]

Charlie, I'm happy to pick up the bogus pruning job. It's pretty much what I was doing for a while, to help John. It will require admin rights, though. I still don't have 'em. Up to you.

[mickeyduck]

Hmmm... Dennis it looks to me as if you do already have admin rights. I certainly appreciate your offer of assistance mate so I'll look into where it's at. Thanks! I'll PM you. =)