What's wrong with the threads and posts count?

[Mike]

question:
The post and thread count at the top of the forum index page is going up like mad. Who's posting so insanely?

answer:
None of your business (yet) :D

[Mithrandir]

I think u are posting like crazy and hide ur action cause u are a moderator and can do that. U do this because u feel like it. :p :D ;)

[Mike]

Hehe, the truth is that the forum has grown with a little 1500 threads and well over 13.000 posts...


question
What the hell is going on?!


answer
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

[Cypher]

Yeah, I was wondering where those 572 new threads and 3154 new posts were, I was going to have fun reading them all day long :) well, too bad there aren't that many guess I'll have to go find something to do other than wotism.net :p

[Mike]

Find something other then wotism.net :confused:

*thinks*

*thinks some more*

Like what?!?!?!

[Cypher]

Catch up on some much needed sleep, that's what I'll do. And u won't be able to wake me until you finish correcting the new post/thread count.

[Ulk]

i bet i know what it is! there's another board or something merging with us.. or something!.. no? really? ... well, i'm gonna go eat my sandwich

[Mike]

Umm. No on the merging, but not quite.

Who cares, as long as there's food :D

[Mithrandir]

Did u use some herbs that are legal here today??

Tell us. Tell us. :p

[Jacob]

You have all figured out what it is by now I hope? :-) It's read only for now, until we feel certain that you'll all behave etc :rolleyes:

If you think that you want to post (once we allow that) and have the time (of course you do), please read the netiquette (http://www.newsreaders.com/guide/netiquette.html) for newsgroups as newsgroups are quite different from forums/bbs's and different rules are needed to keep it clean. What is a good post here may well be spam to a newsgroup etc.

[Mike]

There are some issues to be resolved (like dates are not being translated properly from the usenet posts)

But more later :)

[JoJo]

wow, guys. you really have outdone yoursleves this time. bravo for this addition, its a great resource, im my opinion. while i myself haven't exactly been the usenet type of guy myself, maybe this will let me see the other side of the tracks.

[Mithrandir]

It is a nice addition to the page http://www.wotism.net/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif but i think the ppl one those newsgroup aren't relax the way they treat eachother. I think here on wotism there is a much better sphere

ps. is it the different vbulletin why those post on those newsgroups look a little bit strange?

[Mike]

usenet has it own set of rules or netiquette, and it's kinda strict. That's one of the reasons why we are holding back on letting our members post to those newsgroups through are forums. Especially when you consider that people who post through are forums, will be posting under our name. You simply HAVE to understand what usenet is all about and agree to stick to the rules before we let anybody post.

People who use usenet, usually have a newsreader which they use to read and post messages. Very much like email, except that the messages are stored on the newsserver. they are not sent. If you want to view messages, you'll have to download them.
In this case we do that for you, and store the messages on our forum.
Those posts look different, because they are imported from newsservers. What you see is more or less the default "look" of messages in a newsgroup.

To clarify something, we do not own those newsgroups, we do not have anything to say about them at all. They're completely indepedent, public newsgroups. We just download the publicly available messages for easy viewing.

Did I mention we want people to understand what usenet is all about before any posting will be possible?

When you post a message in one of the newsgroup forums, that message will be sent to that newsgroup. For a preview, here's what that message in the newsgroup looks like when read with a newsreader (Outlook in this case):

[Mike]

All the stuff under the "blah's" is added automatically to every post sent to a newsgroup from our forum. You don't have to type that.

[nightfairy]

Originally posted by Mithrandir
It is a nice addition to the page http://www.wotism.net/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif but i think the ppl one those newsgroup aren't relax the way they treat eachother. I think here on wotism there is a much better sphere

Woah, I just TRIED to check out one of these new things, and boy am I glad to be back here! Those people are vicious & unabashedly unwelcome to newbies. It might be interesting to hear what they had to say if they could stop berating one another long enough to say something worth hearing.

Mike, as always, I am in awe of your efforts & talents, but ... are they going to be as abusive to us as they are to one another? I'm not sure I'm in favor of bringing that kind of influence into our wonderful world of WOTism. It could lead to a Clash of the WOTitans. (sorry, I couldnt help myself ;) )

[Running Wolf]

I too read those new newsgroup boards.
Give me an f'ing break. What elitist crapola!
I guess if you werent fortunate enough to read all the books at the same exact time as they did, and join a discussion group to talk out all the subplots, then you just are a big peice of dog shit.
What a huge superiority complex a ton of their members seem to have. They even argue that its not possible to ignore a post that repeats something they've already discussed, its just to bothersome to ignore. F them!
They scream about netiquette and group rules, but they act like hormonal teenagers throwing a 2yr olds temper tantrum.
Jumping on grammar, punctuation errors, and anything thats already been discussed in the previous 5 yrs or whatever. Who really wants to deal with that kind of BS?
I for one, will not even open that link again.

[Beowulf]

Well I'm an elitist so I can't hold that against them too much, but I was wondering if there was a way that I could kind of ignore that part of the new forums.

Is there is an option I can enable so it doesn't show up in my new postings area? I'm more interested in what's going on at wotism, and less Robert Jordan's other online cliques.

The one group (rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan) still appears to me to be in an extremly juvenile stage. Complaining about monotony and then defeating the purpose by complaining endlessly about the stupidity of newbies. To me as an outsider it's just not worth reading.

[Mike]

Poor nightfairy, all trembling cause off unfriendly neighbours :(

But judging from the replies on this goodie (thank you very much for that!) you might be right. Guess if the two groups are that incompatible, then it's likely to cause trouble sooner or later.

And I agree. Reading through the messages, many seem to be bitching about rules and regulations. Some discussions are interesting though. And let's not forget that Teresa Nielsen Hayden from Tor Books posts there, rarely, but still.

Another thing, these newsgroups put quite a strain on our server, or to be more precise, on the database holding everything.
During the tests something didn't go as planned. There's no danger to what we have already, so no emergencies, but cleaning up the mess is going to take me days (or weeks). It might be smarter to build a new database and move what we want to keep to the new one. There is another possibilty though, and I want this process to be as transparent as possible. It's a good procedure anyway, for practice, and for straightening out other stuff in the database.

In any case, the second newsgroup is going to disappear. I've stopped the import already. There's not enough in there to justify the "costs". It's mostly a chatbox about all kinds of subjects. Nothing wrong with that, but we already have that, so it doesn't add anything to our forums.

I will think about what to do with the rec. group. Any comments and suggestions are welcome.

In the mean time I'll try and figure out all the possibilities of this thing

[nightfairy]

Lets just take a minute to look on the bright side of things. Seeing what goes on "on the other side" makes me really appreciate more what a great group we have here. In case I never mentioned it, & I dont think I have, the format here rocks! Jean, Jacob & Mike deserve their very own personal chocolate cakes for working this place out. And there's such a great group of members assembled here, you guys are all so cool, we meld together to create a wonderfully diverse & interesting crew. So hooray for us & double chocolate chip cookies all around!:) :cool:





(edit) ...and Mike - trembling? With rage, maybe. More like readying for battle! ;)

[Mike]

Battle? Hmm, think I'll have to rename your username to nightfiery :D

And what a load of compliments, hehe. Makes me all blush and glowy-eared.
A big YAY to nightfiery. And dig into the chocolate cake as well. I'm more then willing to share. But just as long as I get the biggest piece ;)

[Running Wolf]

" F a i r y ' s G r e a t"
"She Gives us the Chocalate Cake"
Yum

I concur with your post Fairy. Well said.
Not only that ...but, if you really want to post on that lame ass newgroup, you would have to join the "I Suck John Novaks dick and often Club."
This guy seems to have built his own little cult following.They kiss his ass in anticaption of his next bloody post. What I read of him wasnt very impressive either, in my mind. Oh well, enough about that shitty little corner of the web.
They live in a strange universe, much better over here:)

[Buckweet]

~~~tackles nightfairy~~

[Theoban]

I found one thread where they were bitching about online communities, and they seemed to be under the impression that using the internet is a really stupid thing, whilst blissfully unaware of the irony of that.

I find any place that dictates to you that which pseudonyms you can use because they are 'sad' or 'childish' is in fact, sad and childish.

[Beowulf]

God, I hate those mushheads. I saw that too, Theoban.

They were heavily implying how most WWW users are some meaty kind of inferior because they don't post on newsgroups, etc.

*must_resist_urge_to_flame* :mad: :mad: :mad:

[LaughingTurtle]

YAY! FOOD! :D

~~joins in on group hug~~

Hey Beo, have a cookie, take your mind off those (----) people.

$10 on Nightfairy for beating Buckweet!

[Mike]

Well, I guess the decision has been made.

The news thing will be removed (slowly).

Think we'll try to make something else out of it so we can still keep an eye on things over there without the added bull ;)

Another thing, we'll need to do some forum upgrading pretty soon, but I don't remember exactly what I changed and what not, so we might temporarily lose some added goodies. Not posts and messages, just some added features. And they'll be back.

[Beowulf]

Originally posted by LaughingTurtle
Hey Beo, have a cookie, take your mind off those (----) people.


*munches thoughtfully as nightfairy and buckweet throw down*

[nightfairy]

Not that there's anything wrong with a little friendly sparring, but Amelia Sedai won't hold it against me when I take Buckweet, right? :rolleyes:

[Aan`allein]

Woaw, you temporarily integrated rasfwr-j with this place? Neat idea! http://www.wotism.net/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif

Though I can understand it not working out. Usenet is indeed not for everyone, and they (we?) in RASFWR-J are even less forgiving than most. Though I don't post there all that regularly, and definitely don't agree with some of the more radical sentiments about how newbies should be treated.


Hmm, small suggestion for improvement of this place. Set up two new 'smilie' codes :up: and :down: and link them to the thumbs up and down icons. Those two images are really useful. :)

[Mike]

Yeah, we did have that up and running, but it didn't fit in with wotism, which is generally more used to, umm, anarchy. We admins get severly punished for every little bit of restriction we enforce here.
I'm fully aware of the usenet rules, but even then I did see quite some stuff in the messages that was beyond that. It's just too bad I guess.

A short description of how the thing works (worked):
I ran it once an hour to retrieve messages from the newsserver (and post messages to the newsgroup from our forum, which was disabled).
The retrieved messages are posted in a particular forum, and the subject of the messages was read to determine the thread they should be in.

Must admit that the first try failed somewhat, and our database now contains a few thousand messages that are "unlinked". I'll work on cleaning up later...

The thumbs, geez! That's something I've planned months and months ago. Good suggestion :D