vBulletin Problems and/or Suggestions

[Roy Karrde]

Hey why is the SMF down? Was it only going to be up for two days? And is there any way around the two coding rule, where like you can only do a Color and Font code and if you put in a third one like Center, it wont Center it.

[mr_pikachu]

I believe you have to do the tags in the proper order. (SMF allowed you to order your tags in any way you pleased, as long as the end tags matched up properly.) In this case, the "center" tag should be outside of the font tags. I have my sig formatted in this manner (with bold, italics, and later images), and it works fine.

[Blademaster]

A problem I've experienced a few times is this Shopzilla pop-up (Wrong word, maybe.) that appears occasionally when I open a new page, causing the screen to fill up with pixels and freeze. It's not a serious problem (I can just go Back and try again, and it usually works.), but it is kind of annoying and I don't know if it's harmful to the computer or not...

[mr_pikachu]

A Shopzilla popup? That's weird... I haven't seen any popups, and my blocker hasn't recorded anything blocked, either (aside from initially blocking a PM notification popup, which I allowed for future purposes).

Are you sure that's a TPM popup and not an ad that's appearing from a preference or something hidden on your computer?

[Blademaster]

Like I said, maybe 'pop-up' is the wrong word... ad, that may be what I was thinking of. No separate page; just a little rectangle advertising another site, like near the top of the homepage.

[mr_pikachu]

Oh, a banner ad? Yeah, I've seen the Shopzilla one, although it doesn't seem bad on my computer. If you want to abolish ads like that, you should probably ask Kevin how much money you'll have to give him to subscribe to an advertisement-less forum service. ^_^;;

Aside from that, you may want to check your computer for problems. Unless it's a very old model, that banner really shouldn't be causing so much trouble.

[Poryhedron]

People in PCG seem to be seething with Internet rage about the switchover, so I'll address a few common concerns in here because you guys seem much calmer.

• I'll try to import the posts made on SMF over the last week. Regardless of whether the import works, those posts won't be lost.

So what's the progress on this? Monotype Challenge people aren't very happy either, especially with the SMF backup gone after a mere two days.

[mr_pikachu]

This is just a minor thing that can wait for now, but would it be possible to add the [ table], [ tr], and [ td] tags again (or at least some equivalent)? Those were very useful for statistics and some games.

[Blademaster]

Houndoom_Lover says she can't post on the new site - she says she's logged in, but when she tries to post a box appears saying she can't post for some reason(s).

Any advice?

[Poryhedron]

It might help if she could tell us exactly, word for word, what the box says.

[Plantae]

I realize that these two complaints are probably irreperable. Nonetheless, firstly, I dislike the character limit on private messages (at 5,000 characters). I believe it was longer on the last boards and was wondering if this could be extended a little? If not, well, thanks anyway.

Secondly, the limit on private message send times. I run the Axis Mundi thread in the Polls, Clubs, and Games forum most of the time and it requires that I send at least twelve private messages each round. This means that it will take me roughly twelve minutes each time I send messages, whereas it took only as much time as it took me to type the message and press send on the old forum. This isn't even accounting for the additional time it takes me to type all those messages, double-checking a list for each one, and triple-checking to make sure I make no mistakes as sending a role incorrectly can ruin all the roles and force me to randomize them all over again. I can understand if this cannot be fixed, but I would rather not spend an hour on private messages each time I must create a new thread if it is at all possible that I do not need to do so.

[eevee-shayna]

On the Fan Fic form only topics updated since october made it to this new board. How may I get my two fics back (which are still in progress, I'm just not the quickest at posting chapters)?

[mr_pikachu]

Don't worry, the topics survived. Go into your User CP, choose Edit Options, and change the Default Thread Age Cut Off.

I don't know why the default is set so short...

[eevee-shayna]

It worked! Arigato Pikachu-Sensei!

[darktyranitar]

Okay... I still couldn't access to the smilies and tag when I click on "Post Reply". Any idea to fix this little problem?

[mr_pikachu]

You'll need to go into your User CP. Go into Edit Options, and change your message editing mode to either Standard Editor or Enhanced Interface.

[darktyranitar]

It work!

Thanks, mr_pika!

[mr_pikachu]

I apologize for requesting yet another aesthetic change... I know you admins are overloaded, but here's another suggestion to add to the end of your list, if you could.

Would it be possible to allow users to choose their default method of sorting the Who's Online page? It currently sorts people by username, but since I like to be able to quickly see who's active in the forums and threads of interest to me, that doesn't do me much good. I prefer to sort members by their time of last activity so that it shows who's actually doing something.

Anyway, yeah, another aesthetic option request. Sorry again. ^_^;;

[Alucard]

Is there anyway that [hr] can br brought back? (or is it on here under a different wording?)

It's just irritating seeing ---------------------------- rather then a clean line..

[Mewfour]

So.... new polls. What happened to 'em?

[Chris]

So.... new polls. What happened to 'em?

Could you elaborate on this? Are you not able to make new polls in forums?

Is there anyway that [hr] can br brought back? (or is it on here under a different wording?)

It's just irritating seeing ---------------------------- rather then a clean line..

I've tried adding this but since vB requires an opening and a closing tag for BB Code it's proving difficult. I'll hack it together over the holidays.

[mr_pikachu]

I think Mewf0ur's talking about the lack of polls being posted in PCG, although I could be mistaken.

(If that's the case, the easy way to remedy the problem is to post a new one. A few of us try to do that every once in awhile, but there are just too few poll starters to keep it up for long.)

[Mewfour]

Nope, you just can't make new polls. Well, on the Fanfiction forum anway.

.... we have forums besides FAnfiction here?

[Strider]

Hm.. haven't been here in a while.

Question, though. I'd like to change my email back to my hotmail one, but I get a message saying that my address was banned. Same with my Yahoo one. What's going on here?..

[mr_pikachu]

Hey, Strider. Welcome back!

Basically, we had some problems with some of the free E-mails awhile back (Yahoo!, Hotmail, GMail, etc.) in which accounts were being compromised through information received over E-mails. I won't get into the details; you can find most of the story around the forum if you're really interested. But to make a long story short, we're a bit more wary of insecure E-mail accounts now. I suspect that Chris decided to block further use of those addresses, which would explain your situation.

Do you have an E-mail account through a college, or maybe some other private organization? Those are usually more secure (especially the college ones), so I suggest you try something like that if you want to change your E-mail. You may also want to contact Chris to find out exactly which domain names are blocked.


EDIT: Mewf0ur, how did I miss your post? Well, anyway, I'm guessing that the problem, whatever is was, has been solved. Roy Karrde posted a poll in Fanfic recently, and he's not a moderator in that forum (though he is on the staff elsewhere). So unless there's something of which I'm unaware, it's been handled. But let us know if you're still having problems.

[Chris]

Question, though. I'd like to change my email back to my hotmail one, but I get a message saying that my address was banned. Same with my Yahoo one. What's going on here?..

I banned Hotmail, Yahoo and GMail because of two reasons:

1: Most people don't choose good passwords or secret questions/answers, which results in their accounts getting broken into, which results in their TPM account getting cracked. I'm certainly not calling you an idiot here, it's just for the good of the forums.

2: It takes a maximum of 1 minute to get an email address from all three of those providers. That's really not enough to keep out permabanned users.

[firepokemon]

Chris when did you ban them. Cause yesterday I forgot my tpm password and I use gmail and it was all fine.

[kainashi]

you can thank jay and his buddies for that, fp.

[mr_pikachu]

Hey, would it be possible to expand the character limit for PMs? It has a tendency to get in the way, especially when I and the other Hangman workers have discussions. When we're trying to come up with ideas to handle problems and improve gameplay, it helps to be able to have a quick reference for our chain of comments. If we're reduced to quoting one post before we're over the limit (which we often are), the conversation becomes quite tenuous.


EDIT: And by the way, the current limit is 5,000 characters.

[Lady Vulpix]

Brian, if you want I can make a tagboard for you like the one we have for AC/CC. It's handier than PMs for discussions.

[mr_pikachu]

Would it be a private forum? I ask because some of the discussions need to be kept secret by necessity.

[Lady Vulpix]

I guess I could restrict access if it's necessary, but it would be easier to just not let people know where it is. Your call (making it private would take a bit longer, but it's feasible; making it so that only certain members can post wouldn't be hard, you just need to tell me who those members are).

[kainashi]

just make sure you turn off post count in there too then.

[Chris]

Chris when did you ban them. Cause yesterday I forgot my tpm password and I use gmail and it was all fine.

It's no problem if your current profile email address is Hotmail/Yahoo/GMail, but if you try to update your profile from now on with an address from one of those providers you'll get an error.

[Lady Vulpix]

just make sure you turn off post count in there too then.

Are you talking about the tagboard? My tagboards never have postcounts. I don't see the use in counting how many posts someone has made.

[mr_pikachu]

Gabi's tagboards aren't tied to the TPM forums, kainashi, if you're worried about people spamming to increase their postcounts. She makes them herself on other websites.

[Strider]

I banned Hotmail, Yahoo and GMail because of two reasons:

1: Most people don't choose good passwords or secret questions/answers, which results in their accounts getting broken into, which results in their TPM account getting cracked. I'm certainly not calling you an idiot here, it's just for the good of the forums.

Didn't take it as such. I kind of figured, though. I recall when some moderator's accounts were hacked into through their hotmails quite a while back.

Thanks though, Mr. Pikachu and Chris. I just thought it was strange when my hotmail address switched around and was getting messages from here on my private address..