Contacting Admin

[Crocodile]

I noticed today that the banner ads at the top of the page appear inactive, ie "click here" does nothing. I was interested in an ad but couldn't pursue my interest. I guess the advertisers wouldn't be too impressed either. In the absence of a PM system I e-mailed the WHF generic account. So far I've received no acknowledgement & the ads still don't work.

Then this afternoon I tried to report an abusive post & got:

Server Error in '/' Application.

The resource cannot be found.

Description: HTTP
404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies)
could have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily
unavailable. Please review the following URL and make sure that it is
spelled correctly.

Requested URL: /errors/404.aspx

Didn't bother e-mailing again. You may want to look at a more efficient method for contacting the forum admin urgently.

As a side note, why does carriage return produce a double linespace, indented by one character?

May as well go for broke. I think the lack of a thread subscription option is a mistake.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Your email was passed on to our Digital Media Team, who I thought had replied to you to say they are investigating further

Apologies if you didn't receive that email.

As the target of the abuse I assume you wanted to report, I am as keen as anyone to get the abuse link sorted. I will pursue it again tomorrow morning, as you can imagine.

The thread subscription omission isn't a mistake, but a function of the software we are running at the moment. We are lobbying hard to get things changed.

In the meantime, please use the Contact Us email link for any problems - it's monitored all the time I am awake and working on the site, which currently means about 18 hours a day.

And please believe we really are doing our best...

 

[idc]

FYI, I got the same error message about 10 minutes ago when clicking on 'Forums' to go from a thread back to the forums list.

 

[Crocodile]

Andrew Everard:
Your email was passed on to our Digital Media Team, who I thought had replied to you to say they are investigating further

Apologies if you didn't receive that email. As long as it's WIP.

Andrew Everard:The thread subscription omission isn't a mistake, but a function of the software we are running at the moment. We are lobbying hard to get things changed. vBulletin takes some beating.

Andrew Everard:And please believe we really are doing our best...Don't doubt it Andrew. Having moderated a forum myself I know how much work is involved first hand.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Crocodile:vBulletin takes some beating.

If only it were as easy as just buying and implementing some new software.

I spend too much time looking at demo versions and dreaming, but in the context of a major company developing a corporate user content strategy, and planning digital roadmaps going forward - and yes, they do talk like that! - it's not quite that simple.

 

[nads]

Andrew only 18 hours, you slacker.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Yes. I know. Must try harder.

 

[JoelSim]

Andrew Everard:
Crocodile:vBulletin takes some beating.

If only it were as easy as just buying and implementing some new software.

I spend too much time looking at demo versions and dreaming, but in the context of a major company developing a corporate user content strategy, and planning digital roadmaps going forward - and yes, they do talk like that! - it's not quite that simple.

Never work with children, animals or computers. Rule number 2.

ÿ

 

[John Duncan]

Andrew Everard:and yes, they do talk like that

Yes we do, Mr Stakeholder.

 

[John Duncan]

And to the OP - I'll reply more fully tomorrow morning if I may?

 

[Andrew Everard]

JohnDuncan:Andrew Everard:and yes, they do talk like that

Yes we do, Mr Stakeholder.

Actually, JD, I was referring to people on the stakeholding side, not those on the receiving end of the pointy bit of wood and mallet!

Very aware it's not your fault...

 

[John Duncan]

Crocodile

As you may know I'm the Development Manager for Haymarket Digital Media now (poacher/gamekeeper), and as such am responsible for the technical aspects of the site.

Firstly adverts - ads are provided to the site by our Sales team, and this is a particular issue with some Flash ads that are not passing clickthrough information in Firefox only (unusually). The Ad team are looking into it and I'll report back as soon as I have some more information.

The Report Abuse link is a concern, yes, but only for Anonymous usage - if you're logged in you should be able to report abuse correctly. This is a feature of our forum hosting software, and is not likely to be resolved soon, seeing as it remains a feature of the latest version! Admittedly the handling of an attempt to report abuse anonymously is not always graceful (sometimes errors occur, sometimes you are taken to the login page, but it told me that I'm banned

) and is something that we'd like to take a look at. however, if you got this error and you were logged in, let me know as that's more of an issue to me.

Subscribing to threads is not a feature of the current version of forum software that we use, but is a feature of the latest version, along with the other main alternative for forum software we're considering, so expect it at some time in the future. As you can imagine, the use of forum software across our various different websites needs to be all things to all men, both from a functional and technical point of view, so as Andrew says it's not quite as simple as picking one and changing it (which is a polite way of saying vBulletin isn't currently on the list

).

Similarly, the rich text behaviour for those of you who have it enabled (it's not default - I myself prefer the non-formatted version so type formatting in by hand) is not perfect, no - especially if you use Safari - so carriage returns aren't great, but the latest version is better (including Safari support). I haven't tried formatting on the other forum 'candidate', so can't comment yet.

Lastly, as Andrew says, if you have any issues, mailing is usually the quickest and safest way to contact us - I'm mulling over the advantages of having a specific "technical issues hotline", but am concerned that that may a) dilute the focus of queries into the editorial team and b) make matters worse, since my team don't provide 24/7 support, whereas Andrew does

.

Hope that answers most of your questions, but if not please do contact us either here or through the mail link - I want this site to be the best it can be from a techical point of view, and your input is invaluable.

cheers

JD

 

[Crocodile]

Thanks for the detailed reply John.

JohnDuncan:Firstly adverts - ads are provided to the site by our Sales team, and this is a particular issue with some Flash ads that are not passing clickthrough information in Firefox only (unusually). The Ad team are looking into it and I'll report back as soon as I have some more information.Sorry, should have mentioned in my e-mail that I'm using FF 3.0.8. I did check the specific ad in IE7 also & that didn't click through either. I've just looked at IE7 again & click throughs do seem to be working although the ad I was trying (Purina) seems to have finished.

JohnDuncan:The Report Abuse link is a concern, yes, but only for Anonymous usage - if you're logged in you should be able to report abuse correctly. This is a feature of our forum hosting software, and is not likely to be resolved soon, seeing as it remains a feature of the latest version! Admittedly the handling of an attempt to report abuse anonymously is not always graceful (sometimes errors occur, sometimes you are taken to the login page, but it told me that I'm banned

) and is something that we'd like to take a look at. however, if you got this error and you were logged in, let me know as that's more of an issue to me.Just tried again while logged in both with FF & IE & got the same error.

JohnDuncan:Subscribing to threads is not a feature of the current version of forum software that we use, but is a feature of the latest version, along with the other main alternative for forum software we're considering, so expect it at some time in the future. As you can imagine, the use of forum software across our various different websites needs to be all things to all men, both from a functional and technical point of view, so as Andrew says it's not quite as simple as picking one and changing it (which is a polite way of saying vBulletin isn't currently on the list

).
Good news about subscription. Just hope that whatever is chosen looks a litle more professional that the current software. Has a distinct shareware/WIP feel to it at the moment.

JohnDuncan:Similarly, the rich text behaviour for those of you who have it enabled (it's not default - I myself prefer the non-formatted version so type formatting in by hand) is not perfectI haven't altered anything since signing up. Wouldn't know where to look to enable/disable RTF as there's no Control Panel?

 

[russ74]

I had the RTF for my first few posts but it disappeared when I changed my avatar. Not a big issue as I've mastered basic self formatting through PJ Pro's thread but would be interested to know how you turn RTF on and off as it's not an option when replying to a thread or in the forum section of the user profile settings.Regarding the abuse button. I pressed it when logged out, logged in and got the banned message. Tried reporting abuse again and got the same message (banned for 0 seconds). I then logged out & logged in again & all was fine, didn't report abuse but had access replying to threads & User Profile.

 

[idc]

I am logged in and have just tried to report abuse for russ74s post (just playing) and got this message;

Server Error in '/' Application.

The resource cannot be found.

Description: HTTP 404. The resource you are looking for (or one of its dependencies) could have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please review the following URL and make sure that it is spelled correctly.

Requested URL: /errors/404.aspx

 

[John Duncan]

Whereas I've just reported you for abuse and it worked. And I see that Andrew managed the same earlier. What's your browser, out of interest (not that I seriously believe this is the issue, but would like to rule it out).

 

[idc]

JohnDuncan:Whereas I've just reported you for abuse and it worked. And I see that Andrew managed the same earlier. What's your browser, out of interest (not that I seriously believe this is the issue, but would like to rule it out).

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Think JD and I may be on to at least the cause of the problem, if not the solution...

 

[John Duncan]

Andrew Everard:Think JD and I may be on to at least the cause of the problem, if not the solution...

Yes, one can report abuse if one is an administrator, but not if one is a member of the proletariat. So we're gonna set you all up as administrators*.....

 

[Andrew Everard]

* one part of that statement was a blatant lie.

 

[Crocodile]

Power to the people....

Interesting concept. If only Admin can report abuse, who do they report it too?

 

[Andrew Everard]

Yes, I know - very Catch-22, isn't it?. If only we'd designed it that way rather than having just discovered it!

But fear not, Mr Duncan apparently has a plan so cunning you could tie a white ensign to its backside and call it the HMS Cunning.

Trouble is, it'll now have to wait until Tuesday, as it involves a staging environment, which I think is a bit like those old movies where Cliff Richard looked at a desolate scrapyard and said "Hey kids, let's do the show right here".

Or something...

 

[Cofnchtr]

Hi,

Who's Cliff Richard?* Lol.

Cheers,

Cofnchtr.

*Another blatant lie...

 

[idc]

JohnDuncan: .......but not if one is a member of the proletariat.....

So if you are from Dundee, you can't be on the forum, or did I get mixed up again? I always wanted to meet one of the proletariat, but mater and pater would not let me, lest I caught something................................

 

[Crocodile]

JohnDuncan:Similarly, the rich text behaviour for those of you who have it enabled (it's not default - I myself prefer the non-formatted version so type formatting in by hand) is not perfectcrocodile:I haven't altered anything since signing up. Wouldn't know where to look to enable/disable RTF as there's no Control Panel?

Never did get an answer....