SCOUTER-Terry
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Posts posted by SCOUTER-Terry
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Thank you for the reminder, Laurie. Unfortunately a few folks ignored you (and maybe one or two simply could not grasp the concept). Others still, who genuinely contribute in thoughtful ways feel "sucked in" to the discussions just as a counter weight to diatribe (and then get frustrated or distracted from making meaningful contributions in other areas of the Forums. It's interesting how the tone of the campfire changes just by one or two loud talkers, particularly on those occassions when they have little worth actually saying.For the record, a healthy, intelligent debate where everyone tries to earn and treat others with respect can be a very good thing. Refer to the afore mentioned Rules of Decorum.The last time we closed threads in this Forum, I suggested that each person who was so passionately contributing to the debates take pause, and step over to another area of the Forums to create a new topic that might benefit a new leader or a young Scout reading here. I encouraged everyone to "cleanse" their screen name some by contributing in this way.Disappointingly, only a few followed that advice the last time. Let's see if things change any now, and if the Forums can take a few Good Turns.
TERRY HOWERTON
(This message has been edited by a staff member.)
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Over the weekend the server SCOUTER.com is hosted on experienced trouble and posting was disabled. The problem should now be resolved.
TERRY HOWERTON
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OK, now it works.
TERRY HOWERTON
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FOG - I haven't noticed any of the problems you've reported, but it is possible that some of the new firewall features we installed in front of the server are causing such problems. We've made some tweaks to it... please continue to give any feed back of issues you encounter.
TERRY HOWERTON
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Folks I just noticed this thread. Yes, on Friday we deployed a new firewall in front of SCOUTER, and I suspect it's causing the problems you have reported. We'll check into it right away.
TERRY HOWERTON
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The free web hosting provide by www.SCOUTER.com/hosting does not allow for FTP access. You must use the upload interface provided by the system after you log in.
TERRY HOWERTON
(This message has been edited by a staff member.)
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This is area is for Order of the Arrow discussions.
Any private OA discussions (materials that are "safeguarded" for members only) can be posted in the "Safeguarded OA Discussions" private sub-forum above, which requires a password to access. The password is the Admonition of the Order, and if you do not know it you may ask a fellow Arrowman.
TERRY HOWERTON
(This message has been edited by a staff member.)
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This new section of the SCOUTER Forums has been established to encourage some of the thousands of "lurkers" who read the Forums each month without posting to take a moment and introduce yourself.
Or if you really are discovering the SCOUTER Forums for the first time, join up and let us know a little about you.
To jumpstart this section, existing Forum members are also encouraged to "start anew" and give us some insight into you and your Scouting life.
TERRY HOWERTON
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I've closed all of the discussions in the Issues and Politics Forum. If anyone feels any subject is worth reopening, you're welcome to do so by creating a new post again.
Instead, how about a 48 hour break? Why doesn't everyone take the next 48 hours and spend some time posting something really helpful for Scouting in one of the other areas of the Forum?
If you've been sucked into the debate of the Issues and Politics Forum recently (and it's certainly been intoxicating, if not suffocating), why not "cleanse" your ScreenName by picking one single Scouting subject that you are really passionate about, and create a new thread in Open Discussion, or Working with Kids or Camping and High Adventure?
Got a really cool Scoutmaster's Minute? Share it! How about a great idea of a Camporee program? Tell us the best you've ever seen! Who's the most inspirational person you have ever met in Scouting, and what made that person so special? Let us all know.
Most everyone's welcome back to the Issues & Politics Forum after a brief break.
TERRY HOWERTON
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OK, the Stars took a vacation.
When (if) they come back, the Slow Page Load times won't accompany them. The formula might also be tweaked some.
Let me tell you all the details of the formula that was being used, then I would love to hear comments on whether the formula should be changed, or even whether or not the Stars is worth bringing back to the Forums (perhaps even with a slightly different purpose/approach).
Give the user 1 point if they have ever made any posts.
Give the user 2 points if they have posted 2 or more new topics in the past 60 days.
Give the user 2 points if they have posted 10 or more Replies in the past 60 days.
Give the user 6 points if 90% of the votes they have received are positive.
Give the user 5 points if 80% of the votes they have received are positive.
Give the user 4 points if 70% of the votes they have received are positive.
Give the user 2 points if 60% of the votes they have received are positive.
Give the user 1 point if 50% of the votes they have received are positive.
Subtract 2 points from the user only 40% of their posts are positive.
Subtract 5 points from a user is less than 20% of their posts are positive.
On calculating the percentage of votes versus total posts, do not count posts for which there are NO VOTES either way).
Do not count posts that only have one vote either way
If more than 25% of any user's votes are attributed to any one person, ignore all of their votes (positive or negative) toward that person in calculating the User Rating
Th goal of the User Ranking was to encourage people to make quality posts to the Forums. Eventually, those people with low rankings would find all of their posts "squelched" to the general public reading the Forum.
Thoughts?
TERRY HOWERTON
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Hmmm... are you using Internet Explorer on both? Is it the same version of IE on both?
TERRY HOWERTON
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The slow page loading times are still related to one of the database servers that we need to upgrade... we will be doing so next week (behind schedule).
The voting problems you mention (where Member Login Page) is coming up is because you are not logged in (or because you have disabled cookies in your browser). To login, click on Site Member Login in the upper right column. If you are logged in successfully, the top of the right column will say "Logged In".
TERRY HOWERTON
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As a general reminder, this area of the Forums is not regulated as much as other areas. In basic terms, any topic is fair game here.
But when topics have absolutely NO RELEVANCY to Scouting, are non-sensical or appear to only be an annoyance to most of the Forum members then that post is really not welcome here.
The last thing I have time to do is chase off or block those who post as above... it's like herding cats.
TERRY HOWERTON
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The incredible shrinking stars.
TERRY HOWERTON
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Comments about the User Rating system are not falling on deaf ears. Before deciding that it's a system to be scrapped, though, I'm of the belief that it's just still imperfect, and overtime will evolve. Give it some time... we are making some changes to the formula to limit personal vendettas. Someone also suggested to me that the Ratings and Post Voting be deactivated in the Issues and Forums section.
I'm open to all suggestions.
TERRY HOWERTON
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Many of you have reported noticing that the SCOUTER.com pages are loading slow for the past several days. This actually doesn't have much to do with the new features of the forums, it is a result of deactivating one of our database servers for upgrades. We'll be reactivating the database server again within 72 hours... so be please be patient.
TERRY HOWERTON
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Per suggestions made, we have improved the Today's Active Topics page to make it easier for you to review posts:
Ability to sort active topics by clicking on a column heading
Page links are added to access each page for a specific thread
"Last post by" column is added
"New" icon is shown if the thread is started in the past 48 hours
TERRY HOWERTON
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The votes are also squelched if all the voters have voted a certain way.
TERRY HOWERTON
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Bug in Forums that prevented posts during the past 24 hours has been resolved.
TERRY HOWERTON
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We're still tweaking the process... we'll be adding some logic to prevent personal vendettas from factoring into the User Ratings, and we're going to be making it easier for everyone to vote on posts.
We'll continue to keep how you vote (Thumbs Up or Down) secret, only that you have voted.
These User Ratings are VERY dynamic... they are very heavily weighted to the quality of posts made recently by a user. The wild swings up and down will balance out a bit within a few weeks, but there will still always be an ability for a User Rating to go up or down based on just a few recent posts.
TERRY HOWERTON
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That's correct... you need to log in... which you can do by clicking the Site Members Login in the box at the top of the right column of the site. If you are still having trouble logging in there, then check to make sure your computer is set to accept cookies... if you aren't accepting cookies, we can't log you in. (By default, it would be set to accept cookies, you would have had to deactivate that feature intentionally.)
TERRY HOWERTON
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Don't get too discouraged (or too much ego) over these User Ratings.
It's a system we'll keep tweaking, as we learn. And as I said, your User Ratings will fluctuate significantly until a good history is built up.User Ratings are in fact an overall rating. So the reason you saw different ratings for yourself this morning was based on the system "learning" from votes and other criteria (and us tweaking the weighting of criteria a bit, which we'll continue to do until we find the right settings).
I will tell you this much about the ratings: the most valuable criteria is the number of quality new topics a user has started recently.
TERRY HOWERTON
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Who defines "quality"? Every other registered user of the Forums who votes either thumbs up or thumbs down on a post. And yes, you can see who has voted up or down on a post by following the instructions above. We'll continue to improve the ease of use of that system, too. One thing I should state very clearly: there is not more prejudice built into the system than has already been explained. In other words, I don't have any more control over a user rating than any other user of the Forums. The formula is weighted (the wieghting we'll keep to ourselves) to favor some of the criteria over others, and we'll tweak it some as it grows.
In the beginning, user ratings will fluctuate significantly as people start voting on posts.... after the system has a chance to gather a good amount of data, it will be more and more difficult for a single Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down vote to have a significant effect on your User Ratings.
TERRY HOWERTON
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We've now added User Ratings... represented by the "stars" under a user name. These Ratings are based on a weighted formula which only involves:
the number of posts a user has made overall, and the number of recent posts they have made
the number of new topics they have started
the quality of the posts a user has made, based on the "rank this post" thumbs up and thumbs down system
User Ratings are designed to encourage participation and the genesis of quality topics and discussion.
TERRY HOWERTON
(This message has been edited by a staff member.)
Reminder: Only One Screen Name Allowed
in Forum Support & Announcements
Posted
It is a violation of one of the few specific rules of SCOUTER Forums to register and participate in discussions under multiple screen names. It's dishonest to the discussion.
TERRY HOWERTON