Scheduled Downtime

[sk8Joyful]

Before I abandoned my old account a couple years ago,
I gave away 4-million blessings to one person.

only 4 million?

The other day I blessed a cf-friend with 8,532,428,000 blessings all at once

 

[icarusforde]

Let's make the posting aspects work first, and then consider games. I'm all for a new arcade, as long as everything else works first. (I consider the blessings system to be a posting aspect)

Default access to the Women's forum for all girls. We're missing so many people from that forum because they don't even know there is a Women's Forum. This has been the case for a couple of years now... still continues to be not cool.

On a side note, what happened to the blessings? Offline again?

On the default forum access for females/males - the only way to do this is to, on registration, have a profile field, like we have now for gender. This is then scripted into the registration as a usergroup identifier, so that when someone fills it out and they register, they are placed into two groups. At the moment, this would be Users Waiting for Authentification, and their Gender. Then, once an administrator has reviewed their registration, they would then have to be moved into the Registered usergroup.

This, in and of itself, isn't an issue, because permissions operate as a stack-down system, i.e. Member usergroup doesn't have permission to view Women's forums, Female usergroup has permissions to only see Women's forums, then because it's stack down then the primary usergroup, Member, is augmented with the permissions of Female.

The issue is simply someone fixing what there used to be that put it in place, which is harder than it seems, since there's essentially no-one who's currently proficient with this version of vBulletin, since it's so old and massively modified.

I am sure that without the arcade you are also missing many people and it is a function that is easily provided and would require little effort. An easy fix that I hope will be done, still check in from time to time hoping soemone will do it.

Far from it to be that I sound like I know what happens at the upper levels of this site, but putting an arcade in place isn't such an easy thing anymore.

When vBulletin 3.7.X (the version this forum runs on) was released, it actually was. You installed a plugin, uploaded some files, and went on your merry way. That's it.

Now, however, since 3.7.X is so out of date, it's not that easy. We've now got to consider far more security issues, far more changes in the way plugins are written, etc. The problem is also such that there probably isn't a 'clean' copy of this plugin around anymore, per say. It'll all be modified and changed around to suit, so there's no uncorrupted base, because no-one writes for 3.7.X unless specifically employed to.

The only real arcade scripts out there now are for 4.X.X, which operates on a completely different hook and permission system, making it essentially useless for CF. Not to mention the fact that databases between 3.X.X and 4.X.X are about as similar as a tree and a space shuttle - there's no correlation between them, you can't simply install a 4.X.X forum script onto the 3.7.X website.

Added to that, there's the potential security pitfalls of allowing flash games to have write access to the database for high scores, etc. The simple fact of that is that it's so insecure that I could breeze right through into writing myself into the administrator usergroup in about half an hour and a little bit of injection into my browser. Not that I would, just putting that out there to the powers that be, but it's possible.

only 4 million?

The other day I blessed a cf-friend with 8,532,428,000 blessings all at once

This was potentially in the days when having over a million blessings was an achievement, and the blessings currency actually meant something.

Anyway, I realize this has been a terribly long post, so I'll go back to writing an exegesis.

tl;dr, women's usergroups are complicated, arcades are coding nightmares

 

[Radagast]

The current manual system probably suffices, as long as there's some kind of message letting new users know they need to apply.

 

[icarusforde]

The current manual system probably suffices, as long as there's some kind of message letting new users know they need to apply.

Yes and no....

Every person that applies, an admin, in my days a blue hat member of staff, had to go into the admin control panel, look up their profile, and manually add them to the gender usergroups.

It's still going to be like this. I can be sustainable, but there's far better ways to do it.

 

[Puptart]

The current manual system probably suffices, as long as there's some kind of message letting new users know they need to apply.

That's the thing.. there ISN'T a message letting users know. You have to get lucky if you just happen to go into the Questions about CF section and you just happen to notice the sticky about it.. but if you don't know there's a women's forum to begin with (and if you're legitimately new, then you wouldn't), how would you ever know you were missing anything?

I can't remember if you just can't see the forum or if the forum just appears empty.. but either way, a new user wouldn't necessarily understand anything was wrong.

That's the problem.

 

[psalms 91]

I miss the arcade. I like the idea of getting a new one, perhaps?

Is anyone working on this? Or is an arcade now a thing of the past?

 

[pgp_protector]

Is anyone working on this? Or is an arcade now a thing of the past?

Reading the post about the Security Issues with the arcade, I'm thinking it's a thing of the past.

 

[psalms 91]

I hope not or I gess it istime to say goodbye. Perhaps this site has grown to old on its severs, I dont know

 

[contango]

I'm not hugely regular here these days (cutting down on time spent surfing generally) but some thoughts for what they are worth.

If people are here for fellowship the loss of the arcade isn't a big deal. If people are here for the arcade the loss of their users isn't a big deal. I'm sure there are better arcades online, if that's what people are after. If keeping an arcade opens up major security holes then lose it, but also lose the link to it.

Blessings seem largely pointless, when such huge numbers are thrown around with such abandon. Somehow I've accumulated over 3 billion of them and aside from giving them to someone else it's hard to know what I'm supposed to do with them. I noticed the bank interest dropped from 1% every week to 0% so I guess I won't be accumulating them at a rate of 30,000,000 or so every week but it's not as if those extra millions of blessings accomplished anything to speak of.

Reputation has also become meaningless. I've been on other boards (been a moderator and administrator on more than one) where, although reputation was little more than a bit of fun, there wasn't a situation where people would go from 0 reputation to getting a couple of people using the system to say "hey, welcome" and suddenly going off the scale.

Specific forums for men and women are good in theory but only if people know they are there. I've seen some boards where everyone can see all the boards but posts made by people of the wrong gender get deleted, and others where people can only see the appropriate gender boards. The latter case is great for smaller boards but for larger boards with lots of new users it's inevitable that sooner or later users will miss the existence of gender-specific boards, or that someone will sign up with an incorrect gender to cause trouble.

 

[Puptart]

Specific forums for men and women are good in theory but only if people know they are there. I've seen some boards where everyone can see all the boards but posts made by people of the wrong gender get deleted, and others where people can only see the appropriate gender boards. The latter case is great for smaller boards but for larger boards with lots of new users it's inevitable that sooner or later users will miss the existence of gender-specific boards, or that someone will sign up with an incorrect gender to cause trouble.

Back in the day (which was a Wednesday, by the way ), the gender-specific forums weren't hidden from each other, and people posting in one form or the other was strictly based on the honor system. I joined in 2003 so I can't quite remember when it made the switch, I just remember it being like this quite clearly in my head, back when the Women's Forum was an awesome place to be.

It worked really well. Now and again you'd have your stray man posting where he shouldn't post because he took the thread from the "New Posts" area and didn't look at the forum he was posting in, and that was no big deal, usually a mod would deal with it, and no one really freaked out over it.

The day the women's forum became this secretive "hidden area", I just don't know why we ever did that. The women's forum is a ghost town and the reason is that people can't see it. I don't personally care if men can see it or not, what I'd care about is that women can see it one way or another, whether they've "asked" to see it or not.

So I'd be just as happy to see it go back to the old days: Remove this "hidden" nonsense and just let people know it is there.

I want the arcade.

Please keep the arcade

Please care enough about this site to fix all these issues with the arcade and blessings, many want them back.

Please keep the arcade and get it running ASAP please

At the end of the day I just want an answer is the arcade and blessibngs coming back or should those of us who like these features find them elsewhere?

The arcade is a big part of why I come here and hopefully it will remain but if not as I said just give us a straight answer and I will look elsewhere if that is what is desired.

I just want to know if the features that many come for are coming back.

Bring back the arcade (snip) Please do bring the arcade back soon.

Thank you for getting blessings going again. Would it be possibleto get the arcade running as well? Please

Please give us an arcade, if you cant fix the old one then get a new one perhaps?

I am sure that without the arcade you are also missing many people and it is a function that is easily provided and would require little effort. An easy fix that I hope will be done, still check in from time to time hoping soemone will do it.

Is anyone working on this? Or is an arcade now a thing of the past?

We get it. I'm sure the people who over-see the site get it as well. It probably hasn't gone this far being said this many times without someone at least writing it on a napkin or something: Psalms 91 wants the arcade.

I don't see a whole lot of other people in here saying they desperately want the arcade, though. Most people admit it would be "nice", but the main reason they come here isn't for the arcade, it's for the posting, so I'm sure they just consider it a minor inconvenience, nothing more.

I hope not or I gess it istime to say goodbye. Perhaps this site has grown to old on its severs, I dont know

You've said specifically time and time again that you don't bother debating/posting here any more because it's the same people and nothing ever changes and that it is pointless.. these are things you've said. So you're not here for the Christian Forums, you're here for the arcade.

There are a million websites out there that can offer you games. You sound like you don't want to be here and I just don't get why you are so insistent on a feature that has little to do with the forums themselves. Just hit up Google and you'll find lots of sites that suit your needs.

I just don't get it. :o

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Originally Posted by psalms 91 I hope not or I gess it istime to say goodbye. Perhaps this site has grown to old on its severs, I dont know

The GT board is still functioning ok

http://www.christianforums.com/f80/
General Theology The forum for general theological discussions about issues that do not fit in any other forum, eg. Angelology

...

 

[psalms 91]

Yeah, I guess blessings and bank and arcade will be restored the second Tuesday of next week the way it is going

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Yeah, I guess blessings and bank and arcade will be restored the second Tuesday of next week the way it is going

Cheeky


.....

 

[contango]

Back in the day (which was a Wednesday, by the way ), the gender-specific forums weren't hidden from each other, and people posting in one form or the other was strictly based on the honor system. I joined in 2003 so I can't quite remember when it made the switch, I just remember it being like this quite clearly in my head, back when the Women's Forum was an awesome place to be.

It worked really well. Now and again you'd have your stray man posting where he shouldn't post because he took the thread from the "New Posts" area and didn't look at the forum he was posting in, and that was no big deal, usually a mod would deal with it, and no one really freaked out over it.

The day the women's forum became this secretive "hidden area", I just don't know why we ever did that. The women's forum is a ghost town and the reason is that people can't see it. I don't personally care if men can see it or not, what I'd care about is that women can see it one way or another, whether they've "asked" to see it or not.

So I'd be just as happy to see it go back to the old days: Remove this "hidden" nonsense and just let people know it is there.

I used to be a mod on another board and we had a number of female users who appeared to post everything in the women-only area as a matter of routine. It used to get quite frustrating seeing what looked like a good topic come up under "New Posts" only to see it was restricted to women only.

Inevitably we'd have men posting in women-only threads and women posting in men-only threads. It's not a big deal to remove the posts if they are flagged, and with a large user base they will be flagged sooner or later especially when people have a gender symbol by their name.

I think some folks regard the gender-specific areas as some kind of safe haven, and to be honest I think having them specifically hidden from anyone not registered as being of that specific gender is potentially harmful. If someone comes to believe that only their own gender can even see their threads they are perhaps going to post things they might not otherwise post, possibly not considering that anyone could create an account and claim to be whatever gender they want. I struggle to understand why people would do such things, but then internet trolls aren't usually known for doing things we might expect them to do.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

I'm in agreement with not having them hidden, for the above reasons. If a topic is interesting but is in a restricted forum, a member would be welcome to springboard that topic to a place where he/she is able to post.

 

[Puptart]

And it would just do SO much for that forum's activity level. I think we'd just get so many people back in there and it would become a thriving place again.. rather than the dead-zone that it currently is.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

25th March 2012, 06:58 AM

We're aware that the blessings isn't functioning at all at the moment. Pauler and the Advisors are aware of this.

Can you give us an update on this? Thanks


.

 

[relate4ever]

Thank you for this good forum!

 

[drjean]

ANY update on this and the blessings?
Is it an active discussion or in the works technically?
Is it dead and no one dare tell us?
I know there are but a few of us questioning... but it would be nice not to have to play at other sites.

 

[psalms 91]

We have all been aware that blessings and the arcade are not working nor have they been for months and of course when asked we get no response so please be nice and give us some answers and please fix the blessings and the arcade and if the arcade cannot be fixed then import a new one. Do you even care what members want? Doews anyone work on this site or does it just generate money from ads and is let go