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 Return to top of page · Post #: 1 · Written at 10:52:37 PM on 23 September 2014.
Brad's avatar
 Administrator
 Location: Naremburn, NSW
 Member since 15 November 2005
 Member #: 1
 Postcount: 7290

It is my plan to start a few more new forums soon and I am thinking that to increase activity here a bit that these should be off-topic forums, that is, pertaining to topics other than vintage electronics.

Please feel free to post some suggestions in this thread. I am thinking of one covering camping and the outdoors. Believe it or not, I've taken valve radios on camps in the past, though not in recent times. Other suggestions could be things like 4x4, sport and recreation, world events, coins and stamps, home and renovations, etc.

These forums would be in a category of off-topic forums located below the existing ones and be open for all members to use.


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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

 
 Return to top of page · Post #: 2 · Written at 1:33:34 AM on 24 September 2014.
GTC's avatar
 GTC
 Location: Sydney, NSW
 Member since 28 January 2011
 Member #: 823
 Postcount: 6678

That's not a bad idea, however I would suggest that you first develop a method of easily moving threads from one forum to another, so that inadvertent off topics can be put where they belong.


 
 Return to top of page · Post #: 3 · Written at 7:35:34 AM on 24 September 2014.
Brad's avatar
 Administrator
 Location: Naremburn, NSW
 Member since 15 November 2005
 Member #: 1
 Postcount: 7290

...easily moving threads from one forum to another

I've got something for that just as I write this and have been working on it for a few weeks. It's still got a few things to get ironed out first though has more to do with the way I originally set this place up than anything else and that has been the biggest hurdle for a few things I've wanted to do.

I have some time on my hands at the moment which is why some may think I've sort of burst into life so there's more time to spend on finishing some of these things off.


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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

 
 Return to top of page · Post #: 4 · Written at 8:42:52 AM on 24 September 2014.
Marcc's avatar
 Location: Wangaratta, VIC
 Member since 21 February 2009
 Member #: 438
 Postcount: 5239

Brad, Have you had a look at the US Antique Radio Forum? It is big. My concern with opening up the forum to a more diversified is the risk of it being overrun.

Its a bit like my warning to never give those from Tasmania a family pass, to anything on the mainland, as there will be a mass exodus.

Marc


 
 Return to top of page · Post #: 5 · Written at 9:00:55 AM on 24 September 2014.
Maven's Gravatar
 Location: Canberra, ACT
 Member since 23 August 2012
 Member #: 1208
 Postcount: 584

As a starter, a single "off-topic" forum might be enough to give people the chance to take part in any discussion that interests them or start any new threads.

The more forums you open, the more decisions people have to make when starting a new topic or looking for previous threads. Some of the existing forums aren't visible on the opening screen, so people tend to post everything to the top few forums in the list. Already there is quite a lot of cross-over between General Discussion, Tech Talk, and Introductions. A particular project might be started in any one of these, and therefore not found by readers looking in another forum. I've tried to place things where I think they belong, but sometimes that means that cross-references get lost or have to be linked explicitly.

Ability for the administrator to move threads and posts around is very valuable for keeping order and rescuing topics buried in an obscure location. Hope you can put that high on your to-do list.

Maven


 
 Return to top of page · Post #: 6 · Written at 12:18:50 PM on 24 September 2014.
Brad's avatar
 Administrator
 Location: Naremburn, NSW
 Member since 15 November 2005
 Member #: 1
 Postcount: 7290

Marc,

I did ponder on this and do occasionally. We are pretty lucky here because there's no riff raff here making life hard for us and the occasional spammer that manages to defeat the site's destructo mechanism is quickly despatched to the abyss when caught at it.

In my ponderings for the extra forums I mentioned, I thought best to aim their use at current members and new members who are here primarily for the use of the current lot rather than attracting new members here just to use the proposed forums. One way to achieve this may be to make the extra ones premium content and thus only visible to members who are signed in.

Your concerns are valid. One of the things I like about being the administrator is that when I log in I usually do not have to react to anything disastrous. I think it is safe to say that most forum admins aren't that lucky.


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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

 
 Return to top of page · Post #: 7 · Written at 3:05:54 PM on 24 September 2014.
Marcc's avatar
 Location: Wangaratta, VIC
 Member since 21 February 2009
 Member #: 438
 Postcount: 5239

The American forum does cater for a bit of chit chat. But being so big it has a hierarchy.

At the base line for each forum section there are Moderators of which I am one, and we have a closed forum for administration of the site. That way there are several eyes on the ball and with the time shift, I can often jump on something during their night.

Marc


 
 Return to top of page · Post #: 8 · Written at 3:41:57 PM on 24 September 2014.
Brad's avatar
 Administrator
 Location: Naremburn, NSW
 Member since 15 November 2005
 Member #: 1
 Postcount: 7290

...and we have a closed forum for administration of the site

That's one thing that would happen here if there were moderators appointed. I'm a senior moderator on an Australian SEO forum and this area is well used and because there's no way of viewing that forum by normal members they are pretty much oblivious to its existence.

In a technical sense there are moderators here, about four or five. One is a mate of mine, who actually owns the website I referred to above and he keeps an eye on the place if I am away from the Internet and the others are just test accounts used by me to make sure things at those levels of access are working correctly so if more staff are appointed down the track I will know things are working.

There's also a robot or set of 'big ears' here - I receive an e-mail if a suspect member manages to evade the filtration system for registration which to date has been 100% accurate at labelling such suspects as spammers. The same system tells me if someone says a naughty word or posts a URL that does not operate in the .au namespace. This has a whitelist for trusted sites like Youtube and some of the commonly used image hosting services. This mechanism is always busy because even though it doesn't look like it, this place gets hammered hard with automated sign-up attempts by rogue computers, including those infected with viruses, trojans and the like. Because the front page for visitors contains the link to the password retrieval service it also gets smashed hard, with fraudulent retrieval requests, again mostly automated using dictionaries of commonly used passwords, and also SQL injection attack attempts. All of the latter get filtered out and rejected but the issue with passwords is why we are all asked to use complex passwords on all sites we sign up to. All adverse events are logged and as such, the database is getting quite big, in the order of gigabytes.

Back to site size, yes, both the US and British forums are big and I do think that some of the issues that arise there can be attributed to their size. I've always wanted to advertise this site in the print media but that could also lead to issues.


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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

 
 Return to top of page · Post #: 9 · Written at 8:02:35 PM on 24 September 2014.
Brad's avatar
 Administrator
 Location: Naremburn, NSW
 Member since 15 November 2005
 Member #: 1
 Postcount: 7290

I will draw members' attention to the new link at the top of the Forum Home Page labelled "Mark all forums as read". This link will clear unread status from every thread on each forum in one hit. It saves those who have been away for a long time from having to clear this status in each forum individually. Smile


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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

 
 Return to top of page · Post #: 10 · Written at 11:06:10 PM on 26 September 2014.
Brad's avatar
 Administrator
 Location: Naremburn, NSW
 Member since 15 November 2005
 Member #: 1
 Postcount: 7290

Tonight a new 'start thread' form has been installed. More on that here in Post 5. I'm posting this here as well because the front page forum doesn't highlight when new posts are added (yet) and I would like all members to be aware of the change.

Lots more to come soon. Smile


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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

 
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