Regarding Reference Database

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Empath

Empath

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Our new software does not permit the deletion of individual postings the way the previous software did. Please refrain from making comments in the Reference Database. It's reserved for posting links to your mod information.

When we go through to clean up the improperly placed comments, we can't. Unless the reply is the final one within one of the threads, it's there for keeps. Eventually, at the rate it's going, it will be completely unfit for it's purpose.

If anyone has thoughts on how better to accomplish the original goal of the database, please let us know. Until then, make your comments in this thread instead of the actual database thread.
 
The only suggestion I can think of is to insitiute moderation for that one thread, if possible. (I know that it is possible in another BB product, but I don't know about this one.)

tomsig03.gif
 
Being a moderator, and not an administrator, I haven't access to all functions, so I couldn't tell you the capabilities at that level. From my limited field of vision, my educated guess is that a forum can moderated to the point of requiring approval for each message. I'd doubt if that capability could be designated for a single thread. Anyway, even if it could, it would take an executive decision to implement it, since that's such a deviation of our methods. It would seem excessive, too restrictive and too dang much work for the moderators to moderate a whole forum in order to keep one single database thread clean.

There's got to be another way.
 
Why not simply ask the CPF members who put in the off-topic comments to delete them? Seems simple enough - just a cut-and-paste PM to each of them?

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

A.
 
Thanks, ab. The one posting the off-topic comment can't delete them either, unless it's the last posting in the thread. They can go through the motions of deleting it, but it leaves a blank message field with their Name and info, along with their avatar and signature.
 
Hi Empath,

OK - not an optimal solution but far better than nothing, right? Why not try it - at least it's a positive step in the right direction...

A.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Empath said:
Thanks, ab. The one posting the off-topic comment can't delete them either, unless it's the last posting in the thread. They can go through the motions of deleting it, but it leaves a blank message field with their Name and info, along with their avatar and signature.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with ab, and I can say from experience that this can be done. I had a double post recently that I didn't discover until it was several hours old, and others had posted since I had put it up, and I wanted to get rid of it. If you click into "edit" to change your post, there is a button at the bottom to the right of the spelling button that allows you to delete the post. You can try it with any old post you have. Hope this helps.

---edit---
OK, before anyone says anything, this worked before! I just tried it again, and like Empath said, it still leaves your post block with your signature and avatar, and it also inserts the message "post deleted by ______ (your name in blank)". OK, never mind, sorry I said anything. I'll sit down and keep my mouth closed. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohgeez.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twak.gif
 
What about having a single thread, with a link to an html page. Lock the thread to prevent further posts, and have the html page link each entry of a mod back to the original post.
It would require editing the html page with each new mod, but it really wouldn't be a lot of work. The modder could post the mod, then PM the moderator to alert them of a new mod.
 
Geez, I'm starting to feel like the dumbest kid in class here. I hope not, but I still have to ask again - why not PM the members whose comments are incorrectly littering the thread in question and ask them to remove the comments?

I know that will leave blank posts, "deleted by" artifacts, etc... but seriously - isn't this still a step in the desired direction? Please someone enlighten me if there's a good reason not to take the one simple step that is available towards at least a partial solution. (I'm not asking sarcastically or trying to be facetious.) Seriously, why not do this?

A.
 
Here's what Darell thinks...

We should start that thread fresh. I had grand plans to go through and search and fix every single link. Ain't gonna happen folks. I just don't have the solid week that it would take to clean it up. Since we have comments littered in there, and some folks weren't really sure what the thread was for at first... and there are hundreds of broken links in there, I think we should really just start the thing again from scratch.

votes?

Aye.
 
I'll second that. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif
 
Everybody could just copy/paste their own post back into a new thread, and fix the links if they can. I'm ready to go. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I'm in for sure. My links are already fixed so it's a snap to copy/paste them in. Just say when!

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

A.
 
Bad idea. I for one would not post anything to that new thread. Atleast the old thread gives me a starting place to find the old threads, but trashing the thread to start over seems just to governmental in attitude. Do it once, do it again.........
 
[ QUOTE ]
lambda said:
Bad idea. I for one would not post anything to that new thread. Atleast the old thread gives me a starting place to find the old threads, but trashing the thread to start over seems just to governmental in attitude. Do it once, do it again.........

[/ QUOTE ]

But you DO realize that the links won't work in the form they're in, right Kevin? Since they all need to be edited, AND we'd like to weed out some of the non-mod posts, it would seem to me that starting over gives us the best chance. It isn't like we're doing it for fun - we're doing it entirely because of the forum software switch that trashed all of our links.
 
Hey Darrell, why not just start the new thread right away - call it "Modified Flashlights Database ver 2.0". No need to kill the original thread at all. Then folks like Kevin (whose stuff we need in that thread) can get a chance to find/edit/move their threads on their own time.

If it gets made clear that this new version can't have comments interspersed in it it seems like it will work just fine.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

A.
 
Yeah, we may do that soon. The problem is, I don't want to keep multipler threads pinned to the top here, so the old thread would start drifting away... and I think we all want to keep Kevin happy. Until we figure something out that makes our contributors happy, we should leave the idea open to debate. We aren't in any huge hurry here...
 
Darell,

Sorry to sound so negative, maybe I'm missing something here, but it if we start a new thread, and people post remarks to it, will it then too be deleted so the whole process starts over? That is what I'm getting at here. How will that fix the problem ?

I've held off on fixing the thread because I wanted to be sure there would be no more UBB software fixes that might undo the corrections.

I will admit knowing nothing about the code workings of the server, but can't this one thread be edited in HTML to remove the unwanted parts and then posted back to the server?

Help me here, I'm trying to understand. If a new thread will fix the problem, I'm for it, but it seems to only start the whole thing over with the same possible outcome.

???
 
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