Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Site News => Topic started by: Spriggan on November 19, 2006, 11:02:29 AM
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Welcome to the new Official Time-Waster’s Guide Forums! It’s been quite a while since we started talking about upgrading the forum and we finally got around to it. But it’s not just the backend that’s been changed but the look of the forum as well which I guess you could say is a “preview” of the new front page look of the site.
So why did it take so long? Well there were lots of features we wanted to make sure carried over, such as the leveling system, as well as features we wanted to implement and that took some time to code since many of the new features are custom made just for TWG. There is lots of new stuff we’ve added for everyone, some where things that people have requested (though lots of those features were things innate to SMF) and some stuff we’ve wanted to do.
These new Features are:
Finished class titles for all classes (ya not really new but hey, we got it done finally)
A Staff Bio for those that are staff members-If you see a bio section in your profile then you know you’re a staff member.
Award and trophy system- You may notice this things next to my avatar, I’ll explain them below.
Fell Point System
So Since I’m sure there are lots of questions I’ll post what I’m sure are to be most of them in a FAQ type question and answer so you can pick out what you want to read. And feel free to post new questions in this thread only about the new forum.
Why did we transfer? The old forum was running off of a pearl forum that used text files to save all the information and we wanted to switch to a PHP based forum so it could be easier integrated into TWG as a whole and we needed a Database forum since, as you’ve probably noticed, the old forums have been running really slow for quite a while.
So all my user info transferred? Yep, well…everything but your class. The importer we used didn’t transfer that info and I didn’t want to hack that just in case something went wrong. But don’t worry, you can go to your profile and choose whatever class you want, think of it as a one time free respect.
What about all the user attributes and the fighting system? Sorry, well ok not really, to say it’s gone. It wasn’t something we wanted to transfer over in it’s current version.
So there’s going to be a new one to replace it? Maybe, but don’t get your hopes up. We’ve got some ideas on what we’d do but it’s a lot of work and not very high on the totem pole.
So what’s up with the staff bio stuff? Well first off lets talk about what are staff members, which is if you’re an admin, section editor, moderator or staff then you have a bio. The last classification “staff” there is very general but it’s more or less something we give those that write enough articles or support the site in other ways. If you have a bio visible in your profile then your bio will appear on the staff page and it’s also used to display a bio at the end of your articles.
What if I write a bio as a staff member then have that designation removed? It’s possible to un-become a staff member, but your bio at the time of your “un-staffing” will still be displayed at the end of your articles but it wont show up in the staff page or your profile.
So I have one or two articles submitted could I add a bio even if I’m not a staff member? Dono, I might be able to swing something for you. PM me.
What’s the difference between Moderator, Editor and Staff? Staff have no special privileges outside of the staff bio and being able to see the staff board on the forum. Editors are over a specific section of the forum that corresponds with a section on the front page. So if you’re a Video Game Editor you can moderate the VG board and edit VG articles. Moderators can moderate any forum board and any section on the front page but don’t have any admin rights (so they can’t ban users, edit user info or change any forum setting info).
Can I be an (insert staff group here)? We haven't finalized Staff grouping yet outside our normal Admins but we should have things done sometime after Turkeyday.
But it say's I'm a (insert staff group here)! That's just a bug from the forum transfer, as soon as you post it'll go away.
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AWARDS and Fell Points
What’s up with the Fell points and Awards? Well we wanted to create a reward system that encourages people to support the site in more ways then just posting in the forum.
What are Fell Points? Fellfrosh Points (FP) are the currency of TWG, you use them to buy stuff in the store, right now the only things for sale are Awards but we might add other stuff.
How do I get Fell Points? Well there’s several ways. The first way is by submitting articles and having those articles published on the site. You get 3 FP for every article of yours that’s published. The second way is by leveling, now before you groan about this we’ve thought this through, you get 10 FP for every 10 levels you gain, so basically 1 point per level but to avoid abuse we only award this every 10 levels. Lastly Admins, and only Admins, can award a single FP for an outstanding post, contribution to the forum or anything else that you do to support the site outside of the previously described methods. Now these were listed in order of easiest to get to hardest, Admins are not going to be awarding FP out like candy and they can remove FP for those that are annoyances (like asking us for them, quickest way to get sent to –10 FP there is).
Ok, so I get FP but what about Awards and Trophies? Awards are Icons you either buy with FP in the store or are awarded for various reasons. Trophies are Awards you’ve decided to display (Max of 3).
What are the Award Types? There are two categories that awards fall under:
1) Award Methods
1) Purchasable – Can be bought for FP
2) Awarded – Awarded for participating in something
3) Achievement – Awarded for reaching a goal
2) Award Types
1) Normal – Doesn’t expire, so you can always earn/buy it
2) Limited Edition – Time frame involved (most common on Awarded)
3) Unique – Only on for the whole Forum (usually earned from contests)
A single award can have two classifications, one from each type so you could have a LE Achievement or a Purchasable Normal. Note that no Purchasable will ever be a Unique, though it may be a LE (not that often though).
So how do I get each award Type?
Purchasable- Bought in the store with FP, that’s the only way, most are around 10 FP though that doesn’t mean any other price will show up.
Awarded- You earn these for participating in forum events or activates, these are mostly LE since the events will usually only last for a time. These are, as the name implies, only awarded by the Admins and how you can get them is displayed in the Award Forum Board (more on this latter). Examples would be winning NaNoWriMo or helping EUOL out on Warbreaker.
Achievement- These are awarded by completing goals and are hard coded into the site itself (meaning admins don’t/can’t give them out). Examples of these would be having a certain number of articles ran on the site. When you gain an achievement you get a PM from Cecile B. Bagsworth (the proprietor of the store) letting you know you got one and why.
Uniques- I’m not going to cover the other two here since they’re fairly straight forward but Uniques require some mentioning. What we’re doing with these is setting up contests to gain them, such as best holiday name or best review of 2006 and then allowing users to vote on them. They’re going to be almost always Awarded and something that anyone should be able to have a chance at getting if they participate.
Contests: Contests are special events that are run by forum moderators and admins to encourage posting on the forum and doing things as a community. Examples of LE awards are winning (not just participating) in NaNoWriMo, giving feedback on Warbreaker, getting 60%+ of your Oscar Predictions correct and anything else we think of. Examples of Unique awards are winning best Christmas name, wining best review of 2006 and stuff like that, all Unique contests are ones where people can vote on the final outcome.
Cool, so I have an award idea or a contest idea. Wana hear about it? We do, but there’s only one place for it and that’s the Award board that’s inside the suggestion forum and the designated threads for them there. Any threads anywhere else about this will be locked and possibly deleted.
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I wrote that a few days ago and wanted to add a few more things to it.
1) We have not added Fell Points for articles currently in the database, until Fell and I have a chance to talk about retroactive Fell Points from articles you won't be seeing them, well let you know.
2) Spoiler tag, ya I'm installing a spoiler tag it's [hide][/hide] in BCC and how it works is you can't see the info until after you post in that topic. Not exactly what I wanted but it was the only premade one for this version of SMF (all the others are for a beta we won't be upgrading too).
3) Not everything is finished on the forum, we still plan on some stuff, like experience bars for users. Just didn't get done in time.
4) The store doesn't do anything, that's not done yet either, but will be.
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Looks great, Sprig! Question: will there be a way of telling on the front page if there's a new post in each forum? I'm wondering if it's just because I'm looking at the forum main page for the first time, or if there's no star or bold or something to tell me if there are new posts since the last time I went there. I'd rather not have to click on each forum to figure out if there's something new (I often just glance at the page, and if there's nothing new, go do something else).
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Well, the book images next to each of the forums are sometimes bright, and sometimes dark, which, judging from which are illuminated, I'm pretty sure show you which forums have new posts.
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Question: will there be a way of telling on the front page if there's a new post in each forum?
There's two ways of doing this.
1st) As Lighting Eater said, the News Paper Icon next to each board is bright when there's a new post you can see examples of this at the very bottom of the front page before the info center.
2) The Brown background of each forum section (ie General, Games, Local Authors) will be lighter if any of the boards in that section is new.
In addition to this in your user info box (at the top of the screen) is a link to show all post since your last visit but I think you have to have logged in at least once before that works.
Not only that but you can subscribe to threads and you'll be notified when ever someone replies to you or just replies to the thread depending on the settings.
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Ah...y'know, I like the fighting system and would love to see it come back, but what REALLY bothers me is the lack of the EXP bar. Levels are just meaningless without an EXP bar like we had before.
EDIT: Whoa, when I posted this, it kicked me back into the forum view instead of the thread view! Let's see if it does the same thing when I edit it. (Will assume it does unless I say otherwise.)
2ndEDIT: Okay, it didn't. This is really weird.
3rdEDIT: Whoa, this forum is now fixed-width? I really hate fixed-width forums. :-\ So much wasted space on my screen.
4thEDIT: I can't find the option to hide my post count in the left column.
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#3 sorry has to be fixed width due to the design, no way to get the top part of the forum to work right on percentage.
#4 that's because there is no option to hide your post count, no would I know why you'd want to.
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Are we not allowed to have spaces in our login name? 'Cause I tried to log in several times the usual way and it took me a few minutes to figure out I had to ADD an underscore to my original login name to get it to work. I'm just a little bit grumpy about this; it's a personal pet peeve about using underscores for spaces.
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Not sure, I do know the original forum added underscores to all usernames for spaces as a default (your's has one) so it's more this forum doesn't count spaces and _ as the same thing for logging in.
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#3 How about just centering the top part of the forum and letting the rest of it be non-fixed-width? Is having a nice flush right and left border worth wasting so much space and making this forum less user-friendly?
#4 Well, I want to hide my post count. My post count never showed before. The EXP bar was much better.
The text in this text entry box is pretty dang small.
EDIT: Getting kicked out to the forum screen after replying is very, very, very annoying.
EDIT3: Okay, I found the preference to not do that, but shouldn't that be the default?
EDIT2: A lot of people in my private messages with vastly different post counts seem to have the same rank: "Movie Editors"
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#3 yes it is. If you really want it to take less space then use FF's or IE7's zoom to shrink the whole page in half.
#4 eh, true, I'll look at removing post counts when the EXP bar gets added in.
#5 getting kicked out is just how the forum works, don't think there's an option for changing it so it's just something everyone is going to have to live with.
#6 I mentioned this above, it's a bug and will get changed as soon as someone makes a post but they're not actually editors.
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#5 Just check "Return to topics after posting by default." in your profile settings and it will work as expected.
#3 Um...do you mean grow rather than shrink? I use Safari.
Anyway, design is not an excuse for bad usability. Fixed-width forums are a bad idea. They have always been a bad idea and they will continue to always be a bad idea. No one is going to be driven away from a site because it uses a non-fixed-width forum. But people ARE going to be driven away from a site because it DOES use a fixed-width forum. So therefore there is no good reason to design the forum to be fixed-width.
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It's all personal preference Ookla it's not good or bad design since everyone has their own opinions, I personally hate fluid websites and prefer fixed, but if someone is so petty that the fact a website doesn't resized based off their browser size that they get so worked up over such an insignificant thing that they won't want to visit that site then that site doesn't need that person because no matter what that site does it will never satisfy that person because all they care about is complaining and trying to find things to nit-pick about.
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I do not appreciate insults.
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I didn't insult you, I said if you can't play nice then don't play at all.
You're the most negative person on this forum, heck you're the most negative person I know, and all I ever see you do is complaining or talking down to people over their personal tastes trying to tell them the only correct way to do something is they way you'd do it and they're stupid for not doing it your way. I personally am fed up with spending all my free time doing things for people only to have you come in and try and tear it down, and who are you to do that? What makes you better then everyone else? What gives you the right to bitch and moan about a FREE site and how people who spend their time with no compensation do things? If you want to pay me lots of money do be the designer of this site then I'll consider listing to your demeaning talk but until then shut up and if you can't go away.
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You said I was petty and only concerned about nit-picking. That is an insult, or two.
Whatever. I don't come here for you, and I don't know anyone who does come here for you. But you may well drive me away. And if no one here wants me around, then I may very well go.
EDIT: If I go to a website and what shows up on my screen looks like this (http://www.toriyamaworld.com/admin/ookla/screenshot.jpg), there is no way you can say that is good design and good implementation.
I like TWG because it is where my friends from The Leading Edge hang out. You didn't go to The Leading Edge, so clearly we have different tastes in friends.
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How do I get Fell Points?
For those of us who aren't admins, is there a way we can nominate a thread or something a TWGer has done for consideration?
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How do I get Fell Points?
For those of us who aren't admins, is there a way we can nominate a thread or something a TWGer has done for consideration?
Dono, never came up in our discussions, I do know that we thought it was best to limit giving FP via forum posts to special circumstances. Until I comment I think I'll wait to here what Fell says since FP are more or less his juries diction.
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EDIT: If I go to a website and what shows up on my screen looks like this (http://www.toriyamaworld.com/admin/ookla/screenshot.jpg), there is no way you can say that is good design and good implementation.
Oh heaven forbid if that actually bothers you that you couldn't spend 2 seconds decreasing the width of your browser window so you don't have that blank space, you know like how most Mac users use safari since most websites out there (including apple's) don't extend to fill out such a high resolution. Heck if this forum extended to that resolution you'd be complaining that we're wasting space height wise. And here I am actually worried that I over reacted to your point but after seeing that screenshot I know I was right to say everything I did.
I like TWG because it is where my friends from The Leading Edge hang out. You didn't go to The Leading Edge, so clearly we have different tastes in friends.
hehe, that statement is funny. Glad we could end this argument with a good laugh.
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Sprig, he doesn't like the site design. That's fine, lay off him.
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I like the new site design. I have no problem using it. I am pleased.
My one suggestions would be, perhaps to center the entire thing. I don't know the code used so I don't know how hard it would be to make the top bar fixed width and centered, while the posts section is at 100% width, but I might, slightly, prefer that.
Oh, and also, I am having minor login troubles, reference: the call for articles thread.
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Ha ha... It's nice to see that while some things change, much remains the same.
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Also, because I forgot to mention it in my last post: many many thanks to Spriggy for getting this all coded and put together and live. Width issues aside, I think we can all agree that the new forum has a lot of really great features we never had before; at the very least, it's a lot easier to maintain from the back end. I especially like the old timey theme that he and 42 developed. Well done all around.
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My one suggestions would be, perhaps to center the entire thing. I don't know the code used so I don't know how hard it would be to make the top bar fixed width and centered, while the posts section is at 100% width, but I might, slightly, prefer that.
Humm...Shouldn't be to hard to do. I'll look into it.
Oh, and also, I am having minor login troubles, reference: the call for articles thread.
I've noted that and will look into it.
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New New Post Icons are up, let be know if that blue is too bright.
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Oh, that's much better. I was having a hard time figuring out whether it had really changed with the just darker/lighter combo.
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They look great.
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The store button isn't working for me. I don't know what the deal is, but whenever I click on it it just pops up a new window with the forum.
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I'm really liking the new layout. Especially those spiffy NEW! buttons.
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Well I'll be, you actually did it. Looks nice.
Hmm... I can see I'll have to hack the code again to make myself level infinity.
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I'll have to change it back, we've decided no admins get special levels or such.
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(I hope this is the right place for this.)
I noticed in one of the user profiles that their email is listed as Hidden. But when I put my mouse over the envelope icon next to the user's posts it shows me their email address. Is that expected behavior?
(Have you ever been in a writing group where some jerk looks at your whole story and can only complain about a typo, or the word usage in one sentence? That's a little bit how I'm feeling. Looking at the massive amount of excellent work and then complaining about the one little flaw I find. Sorry. I'll try to redeem myself.)
It looks great! Thanks for all your overtime to make the site work. I'm one of many that get a lot more out of the forum than I put into it. (Should I change my user id to Leech256?)
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Ok, the forum should auto-center now in IE7 and FF.
I tried Skar's suggestion on having the top bar stay centered and the rest expand but as the resolution goes up and the table expands the form posts stretch out a lot and the text, sigs and everything else just doesn't look good. Just imagine doing a document that's page was 24" wide by 5" high 12pt font and single spacing and that's what it's like. To get everything fixed that would require increasing the font size, image size and such based off of the resolution of the users and considering all browsers let you increase font size and the top 2 allow you to zoom the rest I don't think it's worth the effort.
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just an fyi, it also centers appropriately in IE6. Good job, Sprig, and thanks again.
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I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but the site seems to have trouble forwarding me from the login page. I usually get sent to a blank page where refreshing doesn't do any good, and the only way to get to the forum is to hit the back button a few times.
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The logout seems to have the same problem.
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I know I don't.
Give me the full details, what page your were on, what browser and which log-in section were you using (ie the one in the user info or the log-in on the menu, ect) so I can see if I can find the problem.
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when he says that, I think we should point out he needs the exact url you were using. *nod*
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Hmmm. It comes and goes. I didn't have a problem this morning. I wouldn't have mentioned it, but it's happened more than once.
I'm using Firefox on a Mac. The login page is the one I get when I click Login on the top bar (URL=http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?action=login). After I enter my name and password and press enter, it goes to that blank page. If/when it happens again, I'll try to catch the URL of the blank page.
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It did it again. Here's the URL of the blank page:
http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?action=login2
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And here's the URL of the blank page after I click the LOGOUT button:
http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?action=logout;sesc=80c8fdd1cfc52ee331a4ef3587d28e4a
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I think it's a javascript incompatibility with Macs/Firefox because I get the white screen for about a second before the JS redirects me back.
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What have you done to the JavaScript, Sprig? It used to only happen very occasionally. Now it's happenning every time I log in and out.
Jeffe has a Mac too, right? I wonder if he's having the same problem.
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Hmm... I can see I'll have to hack the code again to make myself level infinity.
Hah! I'm at a higher level than you, Tage. And you've been on here forever.
Now that's just sad.
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What have you done to the JavaScript, Sprig? It used to only happen very occasionally. Now it's happenning every time I log in and out.
Jeffe has a Mac too, right? I wonder if he's having the same problem.
Dono, haven't touched it yet. I won't have time to even look at it until this weekend, but if it's affecting Jeffe that could mean something. It also could mean you have JS disabled on your browser, which some workplaces mandate.
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Jeffe hasn't complained to me about it, but then we spent most of yesterday writing and playing with Gaia, so maybe he just hasn't had a chance to do anything about it.
As for Tage, he's too good for us nerds, remember? He has many un-nerdly things to do besides post at TWG. Such as play World of Warcraft, the nerdiest game ever
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Hmmm. JS seems to be turned on--and I don't have to worry about workplace requirements since I primarily access TWG from home. Would it help if the next time it happens I check the JS console for errors and post them?
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sure.
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Happened again, and this error appears twice in the log:
Error: uncaught exception: Permission denied to call method Location.toString
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ok, I know exactly what's causing the problem from that line so if I get the time today I'll fix it (got some final's projects to work on).
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I'm not sure if you've had a chance to work on this, but the blank page is still a problem. Every single time I log in.
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Try it now Oldie.
To be honest I'm not comfortable editing the redirect code the forum uses since it's used for everything (and not just log-in/log-out) so I enabled Meta redirects instead of header redirects. So we get ugly, and annoying, redirect screens but if it's not working you at least have an ugly link to click on to continue.
And the odd thing is you should be getting blank screens when you post too not just logging in or out which leads me to believe even more it's FireFox for Mac or your system and not us.
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It hasn't been a problem the last two times I've logged in. We'll see whether that continues. My Firefox has been having problems with other JS-based sites, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that it's a problem at my end.
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Were any of those two times before 3pm today (Tuesday) because I chaned the system then.
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Yeah, one of those times was before 3pm. The other was this evening when I posted. And it didn't happen again this time.
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To be honest I'm not comfortable editing the redirect code the forum uses since it's used for everything (and not just log-in/log-out) so I enabled Meta redirects instead of header redirects. So we get ugly, and annoying, redirect screens but if it's not working you at least have an ugly link to click on to continue.
So *that's* why I'm seeing that stupid link pop up. I thought it might be my stupid internet connection getting only url data somehow. This explanation makes much more sense.
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You know, I think that redirect page all over the forum is a *lot* more irritating than just having a dead page when I log in/out. Sprig, it's ok if you revert the code back to what it was.
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I have to say my new favorite feature is the "Show unread posts since last visit" linky thing. It's so convenient!
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Anyone else having the main page render funky? I noticed it this Friday despit it looking normal Tursday and I haven't done anything that would cause it (that I'm aware of).