New forum and development

[Exowildebeest]

Does anyone know if I can set a higher amount of posts per topic page?

10 posts per page makes me feel a bit claustrophobic.

[Arsenic]

Does anyone know if I can set a higher amount of posts per topic page?

10 posts per page makes me feel a bit claustrophobic.

I've already asked about this in this thread : http://www.reasontalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=7490448

[deepndark]

Yo, what happened to the old forum? Did something happen?

[eusti]

Yo, what happened to the old forum? Did something happen?

D.

[Exowildebeest]

I'm worried spam is going to spiral out of control.

Any ideas on how that's going to be handled?

[ScuzzyEye]

There are plenty of anti-spam mods for phpBB. It's just a matter of figuring out how heavy handed they want to be, and installing and configuring the right ones.

The first I'd suggest is not allowing new users to post links until they've successfully made 10 posts. But some stumbling blocks in the sign-up process should also be installed.

[deepndark]

Ah ok - I see. 30 dollars package and there's a limit? Wow! I have 1 & 1 hosting and I have unlimited bandwidth for under 10 dollars a month.

[eusti]

There are plenty of anti-spam mods for phpBB. It's just a matter of figuring out how heavy handed they want to be, and installing and configuring the right ones.

The first I'd suggest is not allowing new users to post links until they've successfully made 10 posts. But some stumbling blocks in the sign-up process should also be installed.

Well, I'm still amazed that I couldn't really get a new password going for 12 hours and those spammers can get in so quickly!

D.

[ScuzzyEye]

Ah ok - I see. 30 dollars package and there's a limit? Wow! I have 1 & 1 hosting and I have unlimited bandwidth for under 10 dollars a month.

I'm sure they have something similar now too. But now they have to run the site themselves, and handle things like anti-spam measures directly. It's a matter of figuring out what ones time is worth.

Personally, I like doing everything myself. I don't even use a web hosting service. Instead I rent a virtual machine that I install my own Linux on, and configure everything from scratch. I pay for the CPU time/max RAM, disk space, and bandwidth that I use. It works out to be very inexpensive, but a lot of effort on my part.

[deepndark]

My board had a spam-attack even i used CAPTCHA. But, when I added a custom registering question, the spamming stopped.

[ScuzzyEye]

Well, I'm still amazed that I couldn't really get a new password going for 12 hours and those spammers can get in so quickly!

You're not a machine designed to break captchas. (Actually spammers are now paying people a fraction of a cent to decode captchas, rather than designing AI to do the work. It's easier, and cheaper.)

[deepndark]

Ah ok - I see. 30 dollars package and there's a limit? Wow! I have 1 & 1 hosting and I have unlimited bandwidth for under 10 dollars a month.

I'm sure they have something similar now too. But now they have to run the site themselves, and handle things like anti-spam measures directly. It's a matter of figuring out what ones time is worth.

Personally, I like doing everything myself. I don't even use a web hosting service. Instead I rent a virtual machine that I install my own Linux on, and configure everything from scratch. I pay for the CPU time/max RAM, disk space, and bandwidth that I use. It works out to be very inexpensive, but a lot of effort on my part.

Whatever works for you. BTW, do you have to have your computer on 24h/ a day?

[ScuzzyEye]

My board had a spam-attack even i used CAPTCHA. But, when I added a custom registering question, the spamming stopped.

That works well. The question here could be as simple as, "What is the name of the company who makes Reason?" That'd probably stop 99% of the spammers.

[ScuzzyEye]

Whatever works for you. BTW, do you have to have your computer on 24h/ a day?

I do usually keep my workstation on all the time. I have a media PC that sleeps when not in use. But if you're talking about my virtual machine, it's located somewhere else on a real server (that is obviously on all the time).

[deepndark]

My board had a spam-attack even i used CAPTCHA. But, when I added a custom registering question, the spamming stopped.

That works well. The question here could be as simple as, "What is the name of the company who makes Reason?" That'd probably stop 99% of the spammers.

Yup. It oftenly doesn't have to be a difficult question at all.

[rvman]

Whew, my heart skipped a beat when I couldn't log on and didn't know what was happening.

I still have SO many complaints about Reason that I need to tell everyone about. (<--sarcasm)

Glad to see the forum rocking again.

[raymondh]

I got locked out for a day, after a series of reactivate attempts the last one worked, it's great to be back!

[Resonator]

im glad for the migration over to phpBB. Thanks to everyone who made it happen.

[hydlide]

Well I will just jump in to the topic just to bring you guys up to speed. I might admit, progress has been going slower then setting up the migration. Since I was kind of "forced" to get things up and running fast, so I am running at a lower pace at the moment. And the warm weather isn't a positive environment either.

Things I have done during the weekends:
- fix all post counters on the frontpage (since those were missing, you might have noticed the "guest" posts earlier this weekend).
- remapping older posts from user names that were missing (still there is an issue with this)
- when bumping up an existing topic, the topic title would be "re:" only. this issue still exists with some topics.

Issues that are known to me right now is that due to an encoding issue, the old posts are having a "chinese" look. In a way you can see it like this is that the export Lunesis delivered is in English while the server talks chinese when uploading them. I am still in the progress of fixing this. I already told Kenni what to do, we only need to do an impact analysis before attempting it (eg: do the newer post become chinese etc).

When this issue has been tackled, we will do a re-import (update) on the old posts (the once we already had).

Orthodox has been so kind to create a script that translates a lot of missing links (eg images that don't show up, links missing etc). So we'll be using that while fixing the malformed characters in some of those posts.

In short, on my todo list now (in order of priority):
- update the older posts so they display correct (another thank you to Orthodox for the fixed import)
as reported in: remote map template and All in One Rack Extensions
- import PM's (the private message on this board will not be overwritten!)
- Subscriptions on older topics from the old forum (I will need to investigate if this is an option)
As reported in: Topic subscriptions

When it comes to new features / look and feel / spam and stuff like those, I will let Kenni /Lunesis deal with those. Since at this point my main concern is "porting" things. I am bad at politics

if there are any issues you come across with, you can post them in the "suggestion / bugs" forum

[forensickbeats]

Great job, guys, site looks epic!

Yo, can`t you host that forum at home (dunno how it would go costwize) hooking some laptops rather then feeding the lynda piranhas?

[Raveshaper]

Amazing turn around time on this relaunch, terrific work! This version is very stable.

[Puckboy2000]

Wow. That was a fast transition. Great work and a million thanks!

[rvman]

Absolutely LOVE the way the forum looks on my Android tablet.

[Kenni]

Hi guys,

Here's my part of the update:

- Encoding fixed server side, so we're ready to do a mass-conversion.
- All support requests (158 of them) manually handled (usually about passwords )
- Updated captcha, using googles reCaptcha.. Also prepared plan B for this (Ie.: A new users first 3 posts are moderated)

Now, I did see a problem with the email server (again), a problem which has been persistent ever since reasontalk.com was first launched. It's been running on Google SMTP services which, apparently, have a daily maximum quota of 100 emails (yikes!). Imagine a busy weekend sending auto mails on users Topic subscriptions, PM notifications and so on and so forth, and spice it up with a relaunch where 1300 potential users constantly hammers the server simultaniously for password resets. Now imagine no mail is sent, and those said people hammer the password reset function 2-6 times

Needless to say, email server was busy, and on peak, the SMTP service from Google reached it's daily quota in a matter of 7 minutes...

We are naturally working on this. Solution has already been found, but the way DNS works, there's some redelegation time on a DNS level that we have to wait out.

That's all for now

[Soft Enerji]

I got locked out for a day, after a series of reactivate attempts the last one worked, it's great to be back!

Phew........glad I wasn't the only one! Glad to be back.......