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Post by Political Incorrectness on Jun 21, 2006 19:35:38 GMT -8
Mac's is as dead as ever, if you ever feel the need to I can reccomend a thing to do if you dont like it here, get out while the great weather lasts!
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 3, 2006 8:06:46 GMT -8
If you want to have your post deleted from a thread, here's what to do:
1) Write in a style that is very difficult for a reader to comprehend. ie. don't use any punctuation, use 1 long run-on sentence, and have an overabundance of spelling mistakes. (commonly known by some as "MSN Style").
2) Ensure that the theme of your post has little relation to the ongoing topic of the thread.
3) Ensure that your post adds little value to the ongoing thread.
4) Develop a reputation for posting in the style that's described in #1, 2, 3 above.
All of the above will usually result in a post being deleted. We want to maintain the quality of this board, and so the criteria listed above is a good guideline for us to use.
We are not looking for picky-circumstances to wrongfully delete or modify a post. What we are doing is eliminating the posts that really are impossible to read, and that really detract from the quality-goal of this board. ================================
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Post by Balfour on Jul 4, 2006 20:43:05 GMT -8
Right now I'm considering some design improvements, but I need the help of members.
I am particularly looking for good ferry photos to use as header images that I can easily transform into 990x210 pixels as a resolution. I'll do an example later tonight for what I want.
Please send me links to your images via PM and then I'll create a poll for which one will be used. I'll do this on a monthly basis to keep things changing.
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Post by Political Incorrectness on Jul 4, 2006 20:46:05 GMT -8
I can do the down sizing of images if you need me to. Check the thread "Forum Flagship" for ideas of what ship and then look through the albums.
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Post by Ferryman on Jul 4, 2006 21:06:19 GMT -8
Sounds like a good idea. We should use the forum picture as a "Ferry of the Month" posting.
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Post by Balfour on Jul 4, 2006 21:33:26 GMT -8
Does anyone remember where the thread "forum flagship" was posted. It's not coming up in the search. It's as as if it does not exist.
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Post by Retrovision on Jul 8, 2006 0:14:25 GMT -8
Question: Why do I see a new headline-pic (the one where members were asked to submit their own) of the forum before I've logged in, and the old, original one of the Queen of Vancouver once I've logged in?
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Post by Balfour on Jul 8, 2006 9:59:52 GMT -8
I've been using it to test out the codes for it.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 15, 2006 18:12:45 GMT -8
From the "poster hall of shame", here's an example of a horribly written post that I copied from a totally unrelated forum. This is one entire post, and this "quality" is typical for this poster. I think that the lack of sentences and other punctuation makes this very hard to read.....and the spelling mistakes are a distraction too. If nothing else, let this gem be a little bit of entertainment and education for us folks. The lesson that communication must be understood by the receiver, in order for it to be effective communication. =========================================
Ok the prep talk is over and they both understand what lies ahead and they have chosen to go forth with the master plan that I have devised knowing all to well the danger that awaites Becouse it is my plan I will be the one barking the orders on this salvage oporation folks this is not your average back yard fun in the sun play time it seems the boat has sunk in a hole yes a hole in a creek where most of is only 3 ft deep the known hole depth is more is at least 14 ft we know this becouse we stuck a 14 ft peace of of wood trim down it and did not touch bottom again no one has the guts at this time to dive that deep with out knowing what is down there so tonight we will drop an underwater light down it to see what we can see . Sinking in 3 ft of water is just to easy it had to find the deepest part to sink in 3 ft would have to damm easy this is just how my luck goes all the time . in case your wondering I am also an inventer and I did built the lights we will be useing tonight When tim comes out to go for a boat ride I will allow him to take some pics of them for you they can be built very easy . At this time the crew is fishing untell it gets dark at that time we will put the plan into action
==================================
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Post by Balfour on Jul 15, 2006 18:31:09 GMT -8
It is impossible to grasp what this guy is saying.
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Post by Ferryman on Jul 15, 2006 20:03:31 GMT -8
well im tahnkful we dont have ne horrybal poesters who say their inventers, wit whryting lik tat on tis furam!!!#~
--Translation...Well, I'm thankful that we dont have any horrible posters, who claim to be inventors, and write like the example HMCS Nanaimo pointed out to us, on this forum!....--
But really, wow, people who actually seriously write like that, really need to get a few grammer lessons.......
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 15, 2006 20:09:27 GMT -8
If I told you that the poster was a "Bigfoot Hunter" from the deep-south, would that make more sense to you?
[ftp]http://www.bigfootforums.com/index.php?showtopic=15644[/ftp]
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Neil
Voyager
Posts: 7,172
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Post by Neil on Jul 16, 2006 14:20:48 GMT -8
Don't know if I'm imagining things, but there seems to be fewer of those barely coherent, teeth grindingly confused offerings on here of late. Since pretty much the same people are posting, 'good on ya' to the ones who are obviously taking a bit more time to properly let us in on what they're thinking.
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Post by Mac Write on Jul 18, 2006 23:03:07 GMT -8
Sorry for the long post, but here are my ideas:
ProBoards software wise is extremely limited but you really can't complain as the price is free (for software and hosting of the board). Since it is free design wise beyond a header/footer and colors, you can't change the look and feel of the forum. Now to move to another forum software while retaining all the posts - at present just isn't possible since you can't get a database dump.
We can move to a paid hosted solution (instead of the current free hosted solution with little to no control) with a paid board and domain while no member of the community having to pay a dime or charging people to access the forum. This wouldn't mean popup/under ads and crappy ads like that.
I recommend vBulltina as it's the #1 forum software around. with vbulletin doing annual upgrades (well that's the trend anyways) the software is always improving at a extremely speedy pace. The software is limitless and is extremely flexable via the extensive template and plugin system. The list of features is extensive, so here are just some of the features that we could use.
Vbulleitn offers advanced modern moderator features via AJAX (inline editing without reloading the webpage or going to another page to do the moderation stuff). Just some of the inline moderation features: Splitting threads, moving individual posts, using check boxes to quickly select threads/posts to move/delete/etc, quick title edit and more. The possibilies with vbulletin are endless, like locking threads after being X old to prevent old threads being brought to the top (I think this requires a plugin).
Security wise, vbulletin is second to none, with image verfication for guest posting, to hiding all e-mail addresses (even if public) to prevent harvesting while still allowing members to send e-mails to other members without them seeing the other members e-mail address. Also on the e-mail front, with vbulletin since it wouldn't be on free hosting, people's e-mail addresses would be protected against selling of your e-mail address to spammers and stuff (we really don't know what ProBoards does with our e-mail addresses do we…).
We can also host all signature, avator and user pictures inside vbulletin as well as allow for attachments so images and stuff can be attached to threads without worry about free image hosting bandwidth exceeded messages and not relying on other servers (and with an add-on we can also offer a photo gallery).
But before we look at moving to a new forum, we need to ask ourselves is, where do we want to see this community go? Do we want to be well-known and a household name where we have thousands of active members on the forum? Or do we want to stay small and not attract many people (which I am sad to say the color schemes of this forum (most styles) don't help bring in new users as the default scheme isn't eye catching).
As for deleting inactive users, with vbulletin (at least) only active users can be displayed. Is there an option in ProBaords via the templates to remove the in-active users from the total members count?
My dream is to see a community with other 1,000+ new posts/day 100+ new members/day, be the first to be called when the media wants info (or first site they go to) etc. My viison is extremely long-term but completely possible if we work together.
But again the big problem we have is to switch software we will have to leave the current posts until we are able to get a Database dump of this forum. We can close this forum to new posts and keep it open as an archive and link to it from the new forum, if people decide to go that route. So all this information wouldn't be lost (well as long as ProBoards is around).
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Post by Balfour on Jul 18, 2006 23:54:16 GMT -8
I don't feel we need to move forums. This one is perfectly acceptable, and it is well established. It definetly continues to grow in activity. We get plenty of guests, and regular posts, and a strong base of regular members.
As for all the operational things mentioned. We may not have all those fancy features, but we do have enough to moderate things sufficiently.
With looks, we have many skins to choose from, made by staff members on the forum. The Proboards Support forum provides an excellent database of codes to enhance the look of the forum.
At this point we are so well established that it would be best not to switch software.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 19, 2006 6:42:25 GMT -8
My dream is to see a community with other 1,000+ new posts/day 100+ new members/day, be the first to be called when the media wants info (or first site they go to) etc. My viison is extremely long-term but completely possible if we work together. I don't share that dream.....that's way too big for my liking. 1,000 new posts per day? That would be way too much to read & keep up on, and the meaningful discussion and the current sense of community would be lost. Sorry Mac, re this issue, I'm definately not on the same page as you.
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Post by Ferryman on Jul 19, 2006 7:04:46 GMT -8
If it ain't broken, don't fix it!
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Neil
Voyager
Posts: 7,172
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Post by Neil on Jul 19, 2006 8:41:36 GMT -8
Most of that technical stuff probably doesn't matter much to most of us.
The reason that there aren't thousands of people participating in this forum is because there's not a lot of people interested in talking about ferries or looking at ferry pictures. It's not the structure of the forum. Most of us wouldn't want it that big anyway.
Does reading and posting thoughts about ferries on computer screens make us a 'community'? I guess the language is always evolving, in strange and interesting directions.
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Post by Political Incorrectness on Jul 19, 2006 8:52:51 GMT -8
We are a group with one common interest, there is simply no point in making it open to everyone because there are many other boards out there. We do not need the entire world watching us, nor would I want that. As chris said "If it ain't broken, don't fix it!" All I want is a bit of design improvement and that is about it.
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Post by Mac Write on Jul 19, 2006 11:55:29 GMT -8
Design I agree drastically needs improvement (and is part of the reason (in my opinion and the few people I have shown this site to) that many people come to the site see the design and leave (the harsh colors).
I do want to see a massive community but that will take years to build. So some of you want to see this be a closed community that is almost an invitation only? I just posted my thoughts based on what was talked about in this thread.
I can help with design if needed (to get the color schemes right for Expo colors, Dogwood, Original, etc). But we want to keep Proboards as the software of choice, there is allot of cleanup work that needs to be dome to make it look nice and attractive to visitors. This is why I suggested vbulletin as you can customize everything and not just the colors.
Maybe 2 communities do need to come out of this. We could cross link so that the other software forum could link to this forum and this forum could link to the other forum, providing choice to people.
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Post by Mike C on Jul 19, 2006 15:12:02 GMT -8
The colours are fine, however the Dogwood scheme could use a little work, and so could default. Mac: I've used and runned ProBoards forums as admins and mods, and I doubt they can be linked as easily as you think. For the rest of you, here's a sample of vBulliten with many, many users. This is the Family Guy community (Frickin Sweet Message Board): forum.familyguy.com/Invatations? I don't think so. I would have never in my entire lifetime would have been invited to this forum, and I quite enjoy it. I only know four of you in person, not including friends met prior. My opinion: Other then the minor faults listed at the top, this is a pretty damn good forum, and if you don't like it, THEN SCRAM. BTW, don't ry to attract more users.
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Neil
Voyager
Posts: 7,172
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Post by Neil on Jul 19, 2006 16:08:08 GMT -8
Some people leave because they don't like the colours? Boy, we're really losing some deep thinkers there, eh?
Come on, Mac. There's another forum that's dead because- duh- there's only so many people who want to talk about ferries. This isn't something that anybody needs to make into a big project. "Massive community"? Why? We're chatting about ferries, for gawdsakes...
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Post by Political Incorrectness on Jul 19, 2006 16:12:34 GMT -8
I don't understand you mac, why do you keep insisting us to get a new forum when we do not like the idea? We have told you multiple times and you have not listened. I take this as advertising a service and it is getting rather annoying. I am going to ask you to please stop this advertising, thank you. I can help with design if needed (to get the color schemes right for Expo colors, Dogwood, Original, etc). But we want to keep Proboards as the software of choice, there is allot of cleanup work that needs to be dome to make it look nice and attractive to visitors. This is why I suggested vbulletin as you can customize everything and not just the colors. Sorry, I think chief designer position has already been taken by a GM named Strong Skier.
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Post by Mac Write on Jul 19, 2006 17:56:29 GMT -8
How am I advertising by offering to help design a style for this forum?…thought so I am not advertising.
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Post by Political Incorrectness on Jul 19, 2006 19:32:45 GMT -8
This is the advertising which I think is one bunch of rubbish.
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