AS for the board customization assistance, I am DEFINITLY a volunteer. THough my idea wasn’t originaly for differnt mods to have their own boards that they decorated to their hheart’s content. I thought perhaps we could get a background option in the personal options part of the profile tab on the dashboard to modify the astronomical object we see in the background of the pages we visit, sort of like how the color scheme thing there affects our view of the zone as well. *breathes*. It’d probably have to be one selected background image for all forums, so we don’t clog up the server with persobnal options, but I think people would be okay with that.

I don’t know if Ican be a mod (too busy with college), but I could definitly help around the zone with stuff.

As for my status of Senior Poster, is that status visible on the profile page? All I see is editor on the bottom right of the page.

The difference in what I see vs others is hard to say without seeing but I understand that others have a member list visible on the dashboard, I don’t.

If you check and find out that I am definitely a senior poster the we can do the temp password thing.

I’ve long thought it’d be cool to let people customize the Zone, particularly with planetary/astronomical photos, being who we are. That old design used those images a lot, and featured a different image on each forum.

The new software can do that, again. It’s possible to customize the design of each board individually, and I envision that as we get moderators for the boards (again), the mods might want to customize their forums. You sound like a volunteer…

Yeah, the blog page is currently pretty fu, though not so bar after I fixed the layout. It’s currently displaying everybody’s posts, not just the page’s author. More work to do there.

What’s the “original blog format” you want back?

I agree with you on the subject of IP addresses. Including them in HTML comments was the custom for a long time, in a more innocent age, because it was held to provide accountability. And because Zoners couldn’t resist using IP geolocators and the like as part of the identity games they used to play before we had registration. But you’re right that disclosure is a risk, and I’m not going to resume doing it.

Keep the ideas coming, VRB, I appreciate it.

Two holy cows…I really screwed up the author page when I copied its design to the rest of the site. Got the design straightened out, but wtf happened to the list of your own blog posts? More to fix there.

Second cow, no, I’d kind of assumed that your problems were the same as everybody’s, so fixing the site generally should’ve fixed you. But it sounds like you’re having, if you’ll forgive the word, “special” interface problems?

Don’t read that as scoffing. The latest software takes into account who you are when it decides how to lay out pages, so it is actually possible for a person to have uniquely personal problems with the site. I looked into that initially and didn’t see anything special about your setup. You’re a “Senior Poster” just like everybody (once upon a time you were a moderator. Wanna moderate something again?).

I need to get this straightened out, Frank. Sorry you’re still having trouble. I’d like to get a more detailed list of problem areas, or even better, one thing I can check that seems to be representative of a lot of places.

On the password thing, the system uses one-way encryption, so even the otherwise godlike system administrators can’t read out your passwords. (The seeming paradox is resolved by using the same one-way encryption on passwords you enter while logging in, and it’s the resulting gibberish that’s compared.)

I just recently figured out that it’s better for me to send you a temporary password that I enter into your account, if I need to do that, and we both use that while I test. The reason is, human nature being what it is, people reuse passwords even knowing they shouldn’t, so giving it out one place can blow a major hole in your security. Better I give you a password you can throw away and then you can resume using your old familiar password.

I think I chose well when I chose a “Mission Accomplished” motif for my big announcement eh?

As for the color scheme, the “olive drab” doesn’t really stand out that much from the gray to me (then again, considering I’m a tad colorblind, I’m not the person to ask on color schemes). Still, the black-white-grey format seems more appealing to me. Reminds me of the stars. However, if we wanted more color, then we could ad a planet to the background, reminiscient of the Zone shown in podrock’s “The Way We Were” post. I suppose an option to change it to different planets and/or other celestial objects (I can gather up pcis for you if your want), or to remove it entirely, could be implemented (again, in the dashboard – I’m thinking all these options could be under the profile settings).

As for the matter of posts, having the ones with the most recent activity on top does seem appropiate. No complaints there. I DO however, hold objections torwards the display of IP addresses torwars anyone short of mod or ubermod here on hte zone. I trust you guys, but I do NOT trust anyone who randomly pops in and goes “Oh hey! a whole directory of computers! Let’s go jack their s*** up! (Why yes, I AM paranoid on this issue, why do you ask?)

As you may or may not know I am still having major interface problems, and it appears that the blog function is screwed for everyone based on a comment by podrock.

When I click on a user name to go to author page, I find myself at some mega page that has all forum posts.

As for my personal problems they are significant but not life threatening. Feel free to log on using my ID if you wish to see what I mean. I assume you have access to my log on,if not I will email to you.

I can do all the basic things but it is like having a new car with a crack in the windshield. You can drive it but it is annoying.

All things come to he who stands and waits, so I will do that.