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dingus
Dec 26, 2013, 4:28 PM
Post #376 of 430
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cracklover wrote: Gmburns2000 wrote: dingus wrote: Gmburns2000 wrote: dingus wrote: One doesn't need permission or approval to upload photos to facebook or photobucket. DMT Yeah, but that's your personal site. You're not uploading to your personal site here on the knob...and I'm glad we have editors to help ensure this stays somewhat of a climbing site, even if their recent record is spotty at best. I'm not uploading any photos to this site. It has a lousy track record for respecting user copyrights and have you LOOKED at the quality of the photo presentation on this site? HELLO???? Lol. DMT I know, me neither. I'm just saying I'm glad there are editors as opposed to FB or other sites. As one of the photo editors here, I'm quite interested in hearing any constructive feedback. I don't have the power to change the software that we use to load pics, but perhaps there are other issues? You mentioned that our track record recently is "spotty at best". Could you clarify what it is you'd like to see done differently? Thanks! GO
Here you GO, go, sincere input from a guy who can crank out readable TRs and the reasons I won't use this site for it.
POST EDIT: The text below is formatted in the post editor. I have indents and spacing so that it makes my outline readable. When presented... it LOOKS LIKE SHIT. So fixing the actual post presentation to something newer than 1999, is a necessary step too, to get to easy to create trip reporting with rich photo support, bulk upload bulk delete.
POST POST EDIT: Lose the nested quotes. That is one of the stupidest features I've ever seen and it is abused on this site to stupid extents. LOSE IT.
Here are the features I need in order to make photos useful:
1. Easy way to hotlink to a photo storage site like photobucket or flikr. Rather than build your own.
2. If you want to host images:
a. Bulk upload
b. Accept modern image sizes and store them in the original size
c. Resize the images as a function of the screen display, offer thumb, medium and large formats with a simple tag parameter
d. Provide a 'my photos' WORK area where a user can select and bulk delete photos and they are actually removed from the database and deleted from the system
e. D is import so that if a resulting Trip Report is deleted for some reason the linked photos stay behind. Its up to the user to maintain her own photos, and she decides to delete or not, but she must have the basioc tools to do so.
f. Add mobile device image upload support or leverage the tact that FB et al are used this way. Make it easy to upload a photo from the field, simple stupid and app for that
g. So create a Rockclimbing.com mobile TR App that lets adventuerers snap pics and input captions and write and create postable reports as they go. It needs good image sizing and presentation fo higher image res on the site is vital, images need to be bid and beautiful, that's what social media is FOR!!! Make that mobile TR app...
3. Editors should be behind the scenes and should only be employed to remove images that violate TOS. A casual copyright infringement for non-profit purposes... leave those be. Now grabbing someone's commercial iomage and claiming it as one's own... those should be deleted when necessary. Its not the job of editors, imo, to comment on anything else such as the quality of the image, etc. Butt out.
4 Images should not require approval for posting to the site. From anyone. If an image violates TOS, an editor may delete it (without explanation, imo). If a user continues to flagrantly violate TOS delete the user. This is a workl habit thing - I write TRs around images. I stack the images the way I want them and then visually story tell around them. So my stories grow like paintings, adding a line here and there to get the scene I want.... its interactive for me and I have to have instant access to the presentation layer as I write. I want to see what my readers are seeing, real time.
So the only job of a photo editor is to delete unwanted images. Editors should have no say as to what images are posted to this site. I think a combo of votes and clicks (eyes) on any goven image should make it float to the top of the stack - most popular, etc.
Editing the photos for the front page... now that is an editor's job. Simple votes not good enough, or are eyes. Where an editor can show her discerning eye and present the images we SHOULD HAVE BEEN SEEING.
I can't stress it enough - until there is bulk upload and true bulk delete (of both one's own photos and one's own posts), HARD delete mind you, out of the DB, I won't use this site much. That bulk delete function should provide a SELECT ALL option. Click delete, click again to confirm and BAM, hard delete all posts, out of the system
There ya go, just to show you I'm sincere in my many criticims of this bankrupt Animal Farm.
(This post was edited by dingus on Dec 26, 2013, 4:43 PM)
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cracklover
Dec 26, 2013, 5:28 PM
Post #377 of 430
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Hey Dingus,
Thanks for the feedback. I agree on nearly all of your points. Frankly, all of the software around the photo upload process on the front end, and the editor approval process on the back end, could use a lot of improvement. I don't know where this stuff sits on the massive priority list of the new owners, but I'll bring it up with them if we wind up chatting any time soon.
Cheers,
GO
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ncrockclimber
Dec 26, 2013, 5:36 PM
Post #378 of 430
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ncrockclimber wrote: The first thing you see on the hompage is the photo. Have you looked at these photos? http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos/Profile/Me__122089.html http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos/Misc/Nic_and_Natalie_while_on_the_Bear_Mountain_Trail_122337.html http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos/Misc/80_degrees_tropical_humidity_and_lots_of_Mosquitos_ill_have_a_swig_of_water_to_that__122338.html Those three have NOTHING to do with climbing. http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos/Trad/Tahquitz__122186.html Honestly, this looks like a parody of a new climber who does not know what they are doing. There are 19 photos that rotate on the front page. I picked out the 4 worst, but some of the others are not that great either. Take a look at Supertopo or MP.com. Both sites have some great photos on their front page.
Nice to see that the three worst photos have been removed!
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cracklover
Dec 26, 2013, 5:42 PM
Post #379 of 430
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Gmburns2000 wrote: cracklover wrote: Gmburns2000 wrote: cracklover wrote: Gmburns2000 wrote: dingus wrote: Gmburns2000 wrote: dingus wrote: One doesn't need permission or approval to upload photos to facebook or photobucket. DMT Yeah, but that's your personal site. You're not uploading to your personal site here on the knob...and I'm glad we have editors to help ensure this stays somewhat of a climbing site, even if their recent record is spotty at best. I'm not uploading any photos to this site. It has a lousy track record for respecting user copyrights and have you LOOKED at the quality of the photo presentation on this site? HELLO???? Lol. DMT I know, me neither. I'm just saying I'm glad there are editors as opposed to FB or other sites. As one of the photo editors here, I'm quite interested in hearing any constructive feedback. I don't have the power to change the software that we use to load pics, but perhaps there are other issues? You mentioned that our track record recently is "spotty at best". Could you clarify what it is you'd like to see done differently? Thanks! GO Gabe, maybe you can better explain how the front page photo system works. The front page photos have been total crap for several months (some good ones in there, but the overall rotation is really weak). My understanding is that the pics in rotation on the FP are determined as follows: - They must be recent - They must have a high star rating - They must have enough ratings The exact levels each of those is set to - I don't know. But basically it's a popularity contest. It's not part of our job as photo editors to arbitrate which photos are better or worse. We do have the power to withdraw pics from FP consideration, which I've done when requested by the owner of the pic. In reply to: Do you guys have much influence over which photos can be on the front page (can you add a photo? can you remove a photo? do your votes count more than a non-editor? etc.) Beyond what I said above, no on all counts. In reply to: it surprises me with the supply of good pics that the front page has been boring at best for a long time (as in - when is that stupid troll of a profile pic going to get removed from the front page? someone can't change that?). That's my suggestion. Not sure what else you guys could do otherwise. The real problem is that next to zero really great climbing pics are being uploaded on a regular basis. That is probably mostly a factor of rc.com being a shell of its former self. GO I think it would be nice if you guys could get together and agree to remove anything from the FP that's clearly not a climbing pic. Not to say the profile pic wasn't a good profile pic, but it never belonged up there on the FP. I guess it's that kind of initiative that would help.
I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but it has happened, very occasionally, that completely non-climbing related pics have been removed from the FP rotation. Typically this happens when a terrible pic gets five-starred as a joke.
In reply to: Sucks you can't do anything other than that. Maybe lobby Jeff for more influence to include not-so-recent pics if the recent ones are getting boring?
I'm not convinced that including older pics is the solution. This would improve the quality, but decrease the variety. I think for a real long-term solution, we need two things:
1 - To make rc.com a more popular place to hang out. By increasing the number of users, you have more photos uploaded, a greater likelihood that some will be good, and a greater variety. By increasing the number of users, you also increase the pool of users who also happen to be decent photographers. And by making rc.com feel like a community, you increase the desire to share the cool stuff you've been doing with other folks here - part of which is posting photos.
2 - Streamline the process of uploading and approving pics.
GO
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cracklover
Dec 26, 2013, 5:46 PM
Post #380 of 430
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ncrockclimber wrote: ncrockclimber wrote: The first thing you see on the hompage is the photo. Have you looked at these photos? http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos/Profile/Me__122089.html http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos/Misc/Nic_and_Natalie_while_on_the_Bear_Mountain_Trail_122337.html http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos/Misc/80_degrees_tropical_humidity_and_lots_of_Mosquitos_ill_have_a_swig_of_water_to_that__122338.html Those three have NOTHING to do with climbing. http://www.rockclimbing.com/photos/Trad/Tahquitz__122186.html Honestly, this looks like a parody of a new climber who does not know what they are doing. There are 19 photos that rotate on the front page. I picked out the 4 worst, but some of the others are not that great either. Take a look at Supertopo or MP.com. Both sites have some great photos on their front page. Nice to see that the three worst photos have been removed!
I don't think they were "removed" by any powers-that-be. They just got enough attention that they got voted down off the FP by the masses.
GO
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Gmburns2000
Dec 26, 2013, 6:39 PM
Post #381 of 430
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cracklover wrote: Gmburns2000 wrote: cracklover wrote: Gmburns2000 wrote: cracklover wrote: Gmburns2000 wrote: dingus wrote: Gmburns2000 wrote: dingus wrote: One doesn't need permission or approval to upload photos to facebook or photobucket. DMT Yeah, but that's your personal site. You're not uploading to your personal site here on the knob...and I'm glad we have editors to help ensure this stays somewhat of a climbing site, even if their recent record is spotty at best. I'm not uploading any photos to this site. It has a lousy track record for respecting user copyrights and have you LOOKED at the quality of the photo presentation on this site? HELLO???? Lol. DMT I know, me neither. I'm just saying I'm glad there are editors as opposed to FB or other sites. As one of the photo editors here, I'm quite interested in hearing any constructive feedback. I don't have the power to change the software that we use to load pics, but perhaps there are other issues? You mentioned that our track record recently is "spotty at best". Could you clarify what it is you'd like to see done differently? Thanks! GO Gabe, maybe you can better explain how the front page photo system works. The front page photos have been total crap for several months (some good ones in there, but the overall rotation is really weak). My understanding is that the pics in rotation on the FP are determined as follows: - They must be recent - They must have a high star rating - They must have enough ratings The exact levels each of those is set to - I don't know. But basically it's a popularity contest. It's not part of our job as photo editors to arbitrate which photos are better or worse. We do have the power to withdraw pics from FP consideration, which I've done when requested by the owner of the pic. In reply to: Do you guys have much influence over which photos can be on the front page (can you add a photo? can you remove a photo? do your votes count more than a non-editor? etc.) Beyond what I said above, no on all counts. In reply to: it surprises me with the supply of good pics that the front page has been boring at best for a long time (as in - when is that stupid troll of a profile pic going to get removed from the front page? someone can't change that?). That's my suggestion. Not sure what else you guys could do otherwise. The real problem is that next to zero really great climbing pics are being uploaded on a regular basis. That is probably mostly a factor of rc.com being a shell of its former self. GO I think it would be nice if you guys could get together and agree to remove anything from the FP that's clearly not a climbing pic. Not to say the profile pic wasn't a good profile pic, but it never belonged up there on the FP. I guess it's that kind of initiative that would help. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but it has happened, very occasionally, that completely non-climbing related pics have been removed from the FP rotation. Typically this happens when a terrible pic gets five-starred as a joke. In reply to: Sucks you can't do anything other than that. Maybe lobby Jeff for more influence to include not-so-recent pics if the recent ones are getting boring? I'm not convinced that including older pics is the solution. This would improve the quality, but decrease the variety. I think for a real long-term solution, we need two things: 1 - To make rc.com a more popular place to hang out. By increasing the number of users, you have more photos uploaded, a greater likelihood that some will be good, and a greater variety. By increasing the number of users, you also increase the pool of users who also happen to be decent photographers. And by making rc.com feel like a community, you increase the desire to share the cool stuff you've been doing with other folks here - part of which is posting photos. 2 - Streamline the process of uploading and approving pics. GO
I don't think anyone will disagree with the community thing, but considering the lack of one at the present moment it'd be nice to have some manipulation available for those who do hang around.
It's a little sad to know that the crappy non-climbing pics were eventually voted off considering how long they remained on the FP (weeks or perhaps months). Again, a little bit of initiative would have helped to prevent those from staying there for more than a reasonable couple of days (or however long it would have taken someone to actually notice and make the change).
For me, it wouldn't take much to see a non-climbing pic and know to remove it (or to discuss removing it in the mod forums). I'd be in favor of giving photo mods the power to do that somehow.
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happiegrrrl
Dec 26, 2013, 7:31 PM
Post #382 of 430
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It's easy to see how any mods lost initiative over the last few years, and to think anyone should "step to it" upon arrival of a new owner seems unrealistic to me.
I am sure some of the mods HAVE been in communication with Jeff, and ARE willing to work hard with the site, but as Jeff has said, he is still in R&D stages. Mods would be, I'd think, sort of in a holding pattern for the time being.
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Gmburns2000
Dec 26, 2013, 8:00 PM
Post #383 of 430
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happiegrrrl wrote: It's easy to see how any mods lost initiative over the last few years, and to think anyone should "step to it" upon arrival of a new owner seems unrealistic to me. I am sure some of the mods HAVE been in communication with Jeff, and ARE willing to work hard with the site, but as Jeff has said, he is still in R&D stages. Mods would be, I'd think, sort of in a holding pattern for the time being.
OK, fine. Not sure how that affects things prior to the new ownership, though. It's not as if the mods couldn't have taken hold of the reins in some manner or another.
In the end, what I said above holds true, that essentially people just stopped caring...even those who had an ability to do more than others.
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happiegrrrl
Dec 26, 2013, 8:35 PM
Post #384 of 430
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I don't know that any of the mods still active on this forum would really say they stopped caring. They may have cared quite a bit, and felt let down by the previous owners.
For someone to have"taken up the reins" - they would have had no support from the owners had they done so, and probably would have been attacked by some had they done more. I think, given the level of support the mods have had on this site, some of them went above and beyond the call of duty, since the captain had effectively abandoned ship.
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Gmburns2000
Dec 26, 2013, 9:35 PM
Post #385 of 430
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happiegrrrl wrote: I don't know that any of the mods still active on this forum would really say they stopped caring. They may have cared quite a bit, and felt let down by the previous owners. For someone to have"taken up the reins" - they would have had no support from the owners had they done so, and probably would have been attacked by some had they done more. I think, given the level of support the mods have had on this site, some of them went above and beyond the call of duty, since the captain had effectively abandoned ship.
bad analogy. when the captain abandons the ship, a new one must take his or her place, regardless of the formalities and level of support of the crew.
sorry, just fit into my home run swing. 
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blazesod
Jan 1, 2014, 1:19 AM
Post #386 of 430
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Registered: Apr 27, 2002
Posts: 249
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Welcome,
Happy New Years.
-Climb-on
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other
Jan 2, 2014, 9:31 AM
Post #387 of 430
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Posts: 80
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please institute a FOE feature that will block posts of people we dont like/want to read. Its a common internet message board feature.
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other
Jan 2, 2014, 9:33 AM
Post #388 of 430
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Posts: 80
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Everyone with more then 2000 posts should have a little troll icon next to their name.
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sungam
Jan 2, 2014, 3:31 PM
Post #389 of 430
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other wrote: Everyone with more then 2000 posts should have a little troll icon next to their name.
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roninthorne
Jan 2, 2014, 3:44 PM
Post #390 of 430
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I think at the 10,000 post level, it becomes a tiny bottle of single-malt... or a bong...
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sungam
Jan 2, 2014, 3:50 PM
Post #391 of 430
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sungam wrote: other wrote: Everyone with more then 2000 posts should have a little troll icon next to their name. Do I get nine of them?
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mojomonkey
Jan 2, 2014, 6:37 PM
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sungam wrote: sungam wrote: other wrote: Everyone with more then 2000 posts should have a little troll icon next to their name. Do I get nine of them? Uh, when did I break 20k posts, what the fuck?
Looks like this was probably your 20,000th post, with the 20,001 post coming right after.
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rightarmbad
Jan 2, 2014, 9:47 PM
Post #394 of 430
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I haven't read all of this topic so abuse me if this has been said before.
I don't often come here anymore.
Why?
Because the post increaser thread is the only new.
Just kill the bloody thing.
Like mentioned above, get rid of the stupid nested quote junk.
What I miss are the show reports with new gear snippets and reviews on gear in general.
I really enjoyed the gear testing and stuff that Adatesmen bought into being, sadly missed now.
Other than that, forums are generally declining everywhere.
People like to facebook stuff because everybody up there is there friend whereas here, everybody is your enemy.
Personal attacks are the biggest site killer in existence.
Mod them or the site will die.
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sungam
Jan 3, 2014, 2:27 AM
Post #395 of 430
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mojomonkey wrote: sungam wrote: sungam wrote: other wrote: Everyone with more then 2000 posts should have a little troll icon next to their name. Do I get nine of them? Uh, when did I break 20k posts, what the fuck? Looks like this was probably your 20,000th post, with the 20,001 post coming right after.
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Jeff
Owner
Jan 5, 2014, 2:14 AM
Post #396 of 430
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Quick update:
Yesterday Kristen and I drove up to Canada and spent four and a half hours meeting with the guy who built the software that this site runs on and walking through (at a high level) how the different parts of the code are structured and interconnected.
Very helpful to fill in a lot of things we didn't understand about how the site fits together.
For example, now I understand better how the front page photos script works--we'll probably be changing that at some point, as I'm definitely not a fan of some of the photos currently in the front page rotation. Before worrying too much about content though, I've got some infrastructure tasks that need completion, like setting up automated backup and version control of the code (so that if we accidentally break things while changing code, we can quickly revert it).
(This post was edited by Jeff on Jan 5, 2014, 2:15 AM)
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dindolino32
Jan 10, 2014, 9:37 PM
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This response is why nobody gets on RC.com anymore. Everybody is a harpie! And better than everyone else.
http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2640991;page=unread#unread
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climbingtrash
Jan 11, 2014, 11:00 PM
Post #398 of 430
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clicky! Nothing but a bunch of dindolinos on this site!
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ncrockclimber
Feb 12, 2014, 2:35 AM
Post #399 of 430
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So, it has been almost 4 months since the new owners took over. Jeff's last post was over a month ago. Other than the spam problem being addressed, and the worst photos being deleted from front page rotation, this site looks the same. The forums are still a ghost town, the same news articles from a year ago are still on the front page and I see no evidence that anything is being done to make this a site that I want to visit.
I had hoped that the new owners would actually provide some much needed direction for this site. I am not trying to be harsh or rude, but I see no evidence that this (or much of anything) is taking place here. I am curious about what the plan is for RC.com. I would be interested in the owners thoughts on why I should continue to visit this site when it seems that there are no real changes taking place.
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Jeff
Owner
Feb 12, 2014, 4:06 AM
Post #400 of 430
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Good questions.
I posted Sunday and yesterday, you probably just missed them, but I am still very much around and working on the site.
That said, most of the changes for the next twelve-eighteen months probably won't be visible to end users. I wish it were sooner, but that's more realistic. Probably a year from now, we'll be starting to make front end changes, but it'll be a slow process.
For what it's worth, I thought things weren't moving along fast enough so I contracted a guy to help us setup code versioning, automated backups, automated deploy, and a staging server so we can experiment with code changes without worrying about breaking the site. Right now it's incredibly brittle and we don't dare make any major code changes for fear of taking the site down. He and I spent most of last Saturday working on stuff. Like me, he has a normal day job, so we'll probably finish the tools project mid to late March.
BTW, that spam issue is actually a royal pain as I have to manually go in and validate each new user in the database. It's stopped most of the spam, so it's worth it. After we finish the server project the toolset for making code changes, then my first task will be to make it so this can be more automated.
On the philosophy/moderation policy/vision of the site. I don't have a good answer right now. I've mostly ignored that for now as I've focused on the tech stuff. I've had a number of conversations with owners of other large forums to chat about how they structure their moderation teams and different options for moderation policies.
I still haven't talked to most of the users I'd like to talk with, or even the mod staff--it's on my todo list, I've just prioritized tech right now with my limited time.
So is stuff happening? Definitely.
Will it be visible to end users? Probably not for at least 6 months, more likely not for 12-18 months.
Hope that helps. Sorry it's probably not what you wanted to hear, but I want to set realistic expectations.
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