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Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back, in response to overwhelming public demand, The Dancing Banana!
Yes, all the old emoticons are back. So you can now express all of the emotions you've been keeping bottled up since the recent forums software update.
More significantly, we have turned the tide in the war on spam. The spammers, bless their hearts, are still bringing their A-game, but we have stepped up our response, and the good guys are winning. Some of you have volunteered to serve as deputy admins, and while we sincerely appreciate the offers, this is not a war that can be fought manually by even an army of deputies. To give you an idea of the volume we're dealing with, on November 24 the spammers set a PR with over 8,000 spam posts in one day! The best way you can help is by simply reporting spam when you see it.
We're also continuing to work on improving the performance of the software. However, the performance problems have been sporadic, and it has been hard to identify the bottlenecks. If you can consistently reproduce a performance problem or any other bug, please send me a PM with the details - what you were doing, what browser you're using, whether or not you were logged in - anything that could help an engineer reproduce the problem. Reproducable bugs generally get fixed.
We're doing all we can to make the software usable in the near-term. At the same time, we are evaluating other software packages. We have narrowed the search to a short list of promising candidates.
Last week we implemented a new view-tracking feature in the forums. You can now see how many people have viewed a thread. Since we introduced the feature five days ago, there have been over 700,000 views in the Beginners forum alone.
The cool kids are still here. So is dancing pink elephant.
Two things:
1. Publicly declaring that you have won the war (or "turned the tide of the war") on spam is one of them MISSION ACCOMPLISHED things. The smart person does not state that publicly.
2. Look at that last bit about 700,000 (read that number carefully) page views since last week. "The cool kids are still here". Hey, that may be... I still look over there; I wanna be a cool kid. But I'm telling you from experience, that number is either outright bogus or is counting a whole bunch of that spam he played up earlier in the note.
#2 really ticks me off... not that he's saying "we're still here!" because that's fine. But it is SO off that you'd think he'd doublecheck that shit before posting it. Given the number of people actually posting and the number of new threads started in the last week, it makes no sense. Unless it is all that invisible spam.
Sloooow.
I've been to the forum a couple of times in the last few days; to view peoples linked RR's.
There was still spam, but thank God for the returned emoticons!
Don't call me Buttercup!
Hey, I asked for that banana back! Apparently there IS a Santa Claus! I guess I should have asked for a BQ while I was at it...
Slow and steady wins the.... wait a second! I've been lied to!
Also, heads up....
They have turned the "subscribe to a thread" dealio back on, wherein if you check the little box, it will email you when someone responds to a thread you to which you previously responded.
However, being RWOL and outright 'user hostile' when it comes to usability features, I guess they shipped it where the default is ON. So be aware that if you post something there, you need to look at the bottom of the text editor. Underneath is a box you probably want to uncheck if'n you see it checked.
In a related story, General Franco is still dead.
Run to live; live to run
Marjorie
That 700,000 number sounds too high to me. I would go and add them up but I can't scroll down to the bottom half of the damn pages. The WTF thread has over 54000 views, the IMTPT has over 52000, but WTF is almost a year old, and I didn't bother checking IMTPT. Most threads have just a few hundred...
There is no way that a thread like that has had 54,000 hits in a week. Nope. My guess is that a large portion of these hits are spammers testing the defenses. Are those "the cool kids"?
Shakedown Street
Cute.
I have not been back there since posting for Scotty...
world is still going round.
Started-5/12, RWOL refugee,5k-24:23 (1/12/13),10K-55:37(9/15/12),HM-1:52:59(3/24/13)
I thought we were the cool kids. I'm fine the way it is here. I like it here and my seat is now warm. I'm not going anywhere. I know where to find my friends that have stayed behind.
Running is my mental-Ctrl-Alt-Del.
I guess you're not one of the "cool kids", Stevie. Or, are you?
I check there. Once a day, lately. I do not feel cool.
"I don't feel turdy".
Runs the streets
I haven't been there. I like the sweet satisfaction of KNOWING I'm not cool. Being uncool is the new cool.
I should go over there and say "sure, the dancing banana is here, but he can swear like a seaman at the uncool over there"