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Beta Forums added to Menu bar
staff_Jim
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Posted: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 - 07:28 AM UTC
You might be noticing a new link the in the main menu bar. It's to the new Discourse-driven forum that we are going to be using/testing as an eventual replacement for our aging script (it's just about to be able to drive!). There is also a beta site up for Model Shipwrights as well so if you are curious about where we are headed with all these changes you can check that out as well. There is an article I posted on the new MSW site that goes over a lot of the details if you want to read more:

https://new.modelshipwrights.com/news/welcome-to-the-new-model-shipwrights

Cheers,
Jim
md72
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Posted: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 - 07:48 AM UTC
Neat, Thanks.
Johnnych01
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Posted: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 - 09:13 AM UTC
I had a look and tried to login to it but I haven't received the confirmation email ? I tried 3 times to get it resent but nothing yet in the inbox or spam ?
ArtyG37B
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Posted: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 - 10:24 AM UTC
Ya, looked at the new forum format. Not liking it.
justsendit
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Posted: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 - 12:06 PM UTC
Thank's Jim! Just hunting and pecking around for now, but things are looking pretty good. Testing on a MacBook Pro using Safari (default browser), FireFox and Google Chrome. Pages also load on iPhone X and iPad Pro using Safari (default browser).

Cheers!🍺
—mike
staff_Jim
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Posted: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 - 01:42 PM UTC

Quoted Text

I had a look and tried to login to it but I haven't received the confirmation email ? I tried 3 times to get it resent but nothing yet in the inbox or spam ?



Hmmm... well this is the second report of this issue. I did a test account and was sent and email right away earier today so I know they are going out. I will check into additional mail sending (SPF) records to see if that helps keep the mail from being stopped by your provider. Not sure why they would be distrusting this sender though as they are one of the top rated in the industry. I know you can opt to use different emails so if you have a secondary I would try that.

Thanks,
Jim
staff_Jim
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Posted: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 - 01:44 PM UTC

Quoted Text

Ya, looked at the new forum format. Not liking it.



Hi Ian,
I am not expecting everyone to love it at the start, but as a 20+ year web developer and internet user I think it's about 100x better than this piece of crap (and I wrote most of this thing). I can't please everyone though. I know for a fact a lot of people don't like this forum though so there is no path to a win-win here.

Thanks,
Jim
Kevlar06
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Posted: Wednesday, September 30, 2020 - 04:02 PM UTC
Well, ok, but can you spell out in plain English for us poor old “nin-com-put-ers” out here what this means? What it does? How to use it?
VR, Russ
staff_Jim
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Posted: Thursday, October 01, 2020 - 01:25 AM UTC
Since Discourse is so widely used by many groups, organizations and companies (large and small) there is a lot of information out there on how to use it. Here is one example:

https://blog.discourse.org/2016/12/discourse-new-user-tips-and-tricks/
justsendit
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Posted: Thursday, October 01, 2020 - 02:40 AM UTC

Quoted Text


Quoted Text

I had a look and tried to login to it but I haven't received the confirmation email ? I tried 3 times to get it resent but nothing yet in the inbox or spam ?



Hmmm... well this is the second report of this issue. I did a test account and was sent and email right away earier today so I know they are going out. I will check into additional mail sending (SPF) records to see if that helps keep the mail from being stopped by your provider. Not sure why they would be distrusting this sender though as they are one of the top rated in the industry. I know you can opt to use different emails so if you have a secondary I would try that.

Thanks,
Jim


Having the same issue when creating a new account: No confirmation e-mail.

Also, how do I change my user name?

—mike
staff_Jim
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Posted: Thursday, October 01, 2020 - 07:39 AM UTC
I have added some SPF records for the domain forums.kitmaker.net so hopefully some of these email providers will stop rejecting them outright. Apparently (as I checked the logs) companies like mac.com and hotmail.com are still using the Spamhaus project to flag things as potential spam. God I hated this stupid 'project' back in the day and am sorry to see it's still in use. All it does is flag IPs that have sent spam sometime in the past. They don't care about who is using that IP address 3 years later or if the email WAS ACTUALLY SPAM. It's a stupid way to determine spam in my opinion. Google has the right idea. You let reporting and people figure that out. Sadly Apple and Microsoft don't really care about their users. They just want to make you think they are doing something about spam. Whew... rant over.

To change your username (or email, etc) click on your icon in the upper left and click the little avatar head and shoulders icon. Then click "Preferences". All your settings are in there.

Cheers,
Jim
justsendit
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Posted: Thursday, October 01, 2020 - 08:10 AM UTC

Quoted Text

... Whew... rant over.

To change your username (or email, etc) click on your icon in the upper left and click the little avatar head and shoulders icon. Then click "Preferences". All your settings are in there.


Rant understood... Oh, we're not done here just yet.🤬 I've been all over the "preferences" but for some reason changing my "user name" is not available to edit.

—mike
staff_Jim
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Posted: Friday, October 02, 2020 - 02:17 AM UTC
I would think then that they have that feature locked out until an account is fully activated via email confirmation. As I wrote on the new forum (and for the benefit of anyone else reading this here) let's try to sort out the email blocking and that might resolve some of these other issues. If I have to I will change mail service providers. The reason I chose to use companies like Mandrill/MailChimp and SendGrid is that they are a hell of a lot less likely to have spammers vs. typical server IPs (like mine) so I would have hoped more mail would get through (not less). This site we are on now uses Mandrill though and I assume you do get emails from KitMaker like for forum subscriptions and such?

Thanks,
Jim
Johnnych01
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Posted: Friday, October 02, 2020 - 02:34 AM UTC
I think you may of sorted that issue Jim. I just tried again using my original Hotmail email again and got the confirmation email straight away so have now managed to register and log in on the beta forum.
I still don't know how it all works so I think a steep learning curve may be coming lol
staff_Jim
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Posted: Friday, October 02, 2020 - 02:51 AM UTC

Quoted Text

I think you may of sorted that issue Jim. I just tried again using my original Hotmail email again and got the confirmation email straight away so have now managed to register and log in on the beta forum.
I still don't know how it all works so I think a steep learning curve may be coming lol



Thanks that is very good to hear. I thought I would try to setup a test email account on either Hotmail or @mac.com email... but... both of those have been phased out and they don't allow new people to sign up. That should be telling you guys something.

Cheers,
Jim
Johnnych01
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Posted: Friday, October 02, 2020 - 11:24 PM UTC
Am I correct in thinking that these beta forums are intended to eventually replace this Kitmaker site due to move on's in technology etc and all that goes with it ? If so, is there a time frame for thisl transition from old to new ?
staff_Jim
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Posted: Saturday, October 03, 2020 - 01:38 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Am I correct in thinking that these beta forums are intended to eventually replace this Kitmaker site due to move one in technology etc and all that goes with it ? If so, is there a time frame for this to transition from old to new ?



Correct. I have 5 or more content sites to get going, but I hope to finish this process by years end.

Cheers,
Jim
staff_Jim
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Posted: Saturday, October 03, 2020 - 01:41 AM UTC
Mike - Have you had luck getting the resend email confirmation sent to your @mac.com account?

You shouldn't have to setup any new accounts btw, as the system allows for resends and also even email changes on the preferences/settings page.

Thanks,
Jim
justsendit
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Posted: Saturday, October 03, 2020 - 02:28 AM UTC
Jim, I just checked and the editing fields are available to me in preferences now. I was able to reset my user name back to ‘justsendit’ as before — not sure about the e-mail issue you mention. I’m setting-aside some time today in order to do some more testing on my other devices and browsers.

—mike
staff_Jim
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Posted: Saturday, October 03, 2020 - 02:39 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Jim, I just checked and the editing fields are available to me in preferences now. I was able to reset my user name back to ‘justsendit’ as before — not sure about the e-mail issue you mention. I’m setting-aside some time today in order to do some more testing on my other devices and browsers.

—mike



I noted your email is authenticated now so you should be all set in that area.

Cheers,
Jim
justsendit
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Posted: Saturday, October 03, 2020 - 05:52 AM UTC

Quoted Text


Quoted Text

Jim, I just checked and the editing fields are available to me in preferences now. I was able to reset my user name back to ‘justsendit’ as before — not sure about the e-mail issue you mention. I’m setting-aside some time today in order to do some more testing on my other devices and browsers.

—mike



I noted your email is authenticated now so you should be all set in that area.

Cheers,
Jim


Thank's Jim. As promised, I did some further testing regarding the edit fields in 'Preferences.'

Devices and Browsers Tested:
✅ iPhone X, iOS 14, Safari (default browser).
✅ iPad Pro, iPadOS 14, Safari (default browser).
✅ MacBook Pro, macOS 11, Big Sur (beta version 9), Safari (default browser), FireFox, Google Chrome.

As far as I can tell, all of the above are functional at my end.

Q: Is there a time limit set on editing original posts? I was able to do so yesterday in my FS post, but I don't seem to have that access today.

Thank’s again,
—mike
staff_Jim
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Posted: Saturday, October 03, 2020 - 11:46 AM UTC
Great. Sounds good. I know the forum site is pretty widely tested as it's a large development group. The content site was made by one guy (but on a popular framework) so it's probably going to have more hiccups.

There probably is a time limit as that's fairly standard for most of these types of forums. I can look to see if there is a time setting I can adjust or if it's forum based.

Cheers,
Jim
justsendit
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Posted: Saturday, October 03, 2020 - 01:05 PM UTC

Quoted Text

There probably is a time limit as that's fairly standard for most of these types of forums. I can look to see if there is a time setting I can adjust or if it's forum based.

Cheers,
Jim


Would be good to know, as one of the new Forums I chose to test is 'Buy, Sell & Trade' where I mirror a For Sale list which gets updated whenever items are sold. Not a huge concern for me, since my FS list is small by comparison to some others. So, I just try to imagine the members who have hundreds of items For Sale or Trade and need to refresh their lists. ... Well, just the old geezers like me, who can't type for beans.👨‍💻

—mike

PS: So far, so good.
justsendit
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Posted: Sunday, October 04, 2020 - 05:52 AM UTC
I did some more testing all throughout yesterday and this morning. At this time, everything looks to be working fine on my three devices.

I think you guys are gonna really love this new way of posting your work with way fewer frustrations!

Thank you, Jim!

Cheers!🍺
—mike
staff_Jim
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Posted: Sunday, October 04, 2020 - 07:25 AM UTC
The way a lot of the functionality of the new forum works is based on user "Trust" level. As you progress in the system the trust level goes up. So as an example with editing posts, you have like a day or two to edit it at Trust level 1 (which is what you were at). At Trust level 2 that goes up by a factor of like 10 (which is what you are now after me bumping you up). So you get about a week of editing. I think by default that is as far as it goes, but I many be able to add further permissions levels when I get a chance too look at it in more detail. Or I can change the minutes allowed after topic/post creation as well. They do have a "Wiki" type of post, and then really anyone can make changes, but that is not really ideal for this scenario. Suffice to say IF your Buy, Sell, Trade post was set to a Wiki article AND someone who shouldn't have been making changes did, Well the system tracks ALL those changes. And it can literally change everything back the way it was in a selected prior version. It's pretty powerful stuff. Sadly I didn't see any means to set categories as "Always allow topic creator to make edits". That is unless I make is so that all topics can always be edited. Which considering this level of change tracking I may well do. I guess the problem with that is that it can lead to abuse by malicious bots, scripts. Imagine a bot changing a topic over and over and over and each of those changed versions is saved to the database. Eventually... boom.... crash.

Jim
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