SCOUTER-Terry

Yes, there is logic to prevent people from artificially inflating the ranks. Most notably, you can click on "rank this post" again and see a list of users that have voted. Over time, we'll refine the system to eliminate any artificial inflation that creeps in. "Voting off the island" Well, the island is preparing to grow pretty significantly... you'll soon see some additional improvements to the SCOUTER Forums that include the ability to syndicate them out to many other Scouting sites. As the "island" grows, these rankings and filtering will help moderate the quality of the resources p

You now have the ability to rank individual posts made by Forum contributors, to either give them a thumbs up or thumbs down on the individual merit of that post. Posts that receive a large number of positive votes will eventually be featured posts that rotate throughout the SCOUTER Network. Remember, you are voting on the individual merit of that specific post, not the overall merit of all of a contributors posts. TERRY HOWERTON

Yep, and it works in a similar manner on any web site, not just SCOUTER. Nice little product. Enjoy. TERRY HOWERTON

This thread was spun from another thread.This is an example of a spin off. TERRY HOWERTON

Beneath each post is now a link to "spin-off new thread", which will make it convenient to create a new topic based on content within that user's post, while preserving the core subject of the original thread. TERRY HOWERTON

I believe the "glitch" is fixed now. More improvements on the way. TERRY HOWERTON

I believe the "glitch" is fixed now. More improvements on the way. TERRY HOWERTON

Yes, looks like there's a bug. Noticed it this evening, and we're working on fixing it now. Probably be resolved sometime Thursday, 1/29. TERRY HOWERTON

If you still see posts from people you have squelched, then can you please verify that you are in fact "logged in" to the site? If you are, then there will be a "Welcome Back XXXXXX!" message above the Active User Count. If you are not logged in on return visits, perhaps you have Cookies disabled (this feature requires you have enabled Cookies on our site, in order to remember you on return visits). TERRY HOWERTON

BTW, you'll know you are successfully logged in to the site if there is a "Welcome back XXXX!" just above the Active User Count. TERRY HOWERTON

Now you can squelch out any user on the board so that you can ignore their posts. If someone is predominantly just an agitator to you personally, you can simply set the system to never display posts made by that person. Their posts will just not appear in any threads you read. To squelch out one or more people (you can always "squelch" a person, and your squelch list is private only to you), you should login (use the "Site Members Login" link in the right column). Once you log in, you'll see a "Ignore this User" link in next to each person's posts. You can manage your squelched

Thanks Mark, and others. We've been doing this site since 1994, and I only wish I had more time to contribute to making it even more valuable to grassroots Scouting. It's certainly a labor of love, not just for me, but for dozens of people that have been involved over the years. Good news though, we have been working on several improvements to the entire site during some rare down time over the past month, and we'll be rolling those out as they are completed. Your suggestions are always welcome, and nearly always appreciated! :-) (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Terry, This isn't compatible with Netscape is it? We didn't test it... Netscape is the browser used by less than 5% of the visitors to our Forums. Of course, the old fashion way of creating a post still would work fine. TERRY HOWERTON

New Formatting Tools Have Been Added Well... after several requests, we have updated the SCOUTER Forums to include a easy to use format tool that allows you to change colors and sizes and quote text from other posts, etc. We have also now added a SPELL CHECKER to the system... it's a third-part tool called ieSpell, that you download to your computer and that integrates spell checking into your IE web browser. To use the format tool or spell checker just click on the "FORMAT THIS POST" link to the left of the Message window when creating new posts. TERRY HOWERTON

That problem has been resolved. It looks like we were having a login problem with about 1/3rd of the accounts, which were all hosted on a server that was failing. Fixed now. Enjoy. TERRY HOWERTON

Changed how? TERRY HOWERTON

Folks --- the topics have lately strayed pretty far from Scouting. I'm not ending them, but let me insert a gentle reminder that at the end of the day, we want to be able to still like each other on this board. We're all Scouters, and we can disagree strongly about a lot of things. It's perfectly fine to debate disagreement, especially when it has relevance to Scouting, but when the conversation degenerates into passionate squabbles, please make sure you can still maintain some respect for each other (and yourself). Otherwise, take the discussion somewhere away from our campfire. TERRY

OK, that's enough. Break it up. Everyone back to camp. There's nothing to see here. Move along. Normally the rules of debate are pretty liberal in this area of the Forums, but at this point, the discussion can hardly be productive. The points are well made already. Reference this enlightened observation sent to me privately by another member:Can't help but think that you're observing the antics being displayed in the Politics Forum. And given the basis upon which this site and the organization were founded, I'm certain you would agree that the issues being, I'll use the term 'debated', b

SCOUTER.com Forums operate with an expectation of decorum and respect, and members are governed by the rule to "act Scoutlike". Members who can not adhere to those rules are asked to leave. If a poster becomes nothing more than a nuisance (and we've had that happen a few times in the past), we'll block them from participation. Sometimes really lame people come back under new names and waste everyone's time, including their own, which must not be very valuable. I haven't needed to explain "Scoutlike" very many times... and the only two "rules" I have given to define it a bit have gotten u

This thread has been moved to the Issues and Politics category for further discussion. TERRY HOWERTON

Zahnada -- what part of the country are you located in? It's interesting that you would suggest this. Over the past several months, I have been mulling around the idea of recruiting a research assistant to help me complete a biography on William Hillcourt. As many readers of this forum may know, when I was 19 I spent three years living and traveling with Green Bar Bill... and collaborated with him on tapes and writings for an autobiography. That experience was cut all too short by his untimely death at 92 years old (I'll never cease to be amazed at just how magnificent it is to "unexpec

Yaworksi and Zorn Packte (German for "Anger Packed") are one in the same. The source of each post by this person is an identical set of IP addresses (use of multiple screen names is one of the few expressed prohibitions of this forum). I'd rather not enter into a childish and time consuming game of blocking IP addresses from participating in the forums, so I'll leave it up to the forum members to understand the source of the message when reading. TERRY HOWERTON

Test 2 TERRY HOWERTON

Test TERRY HOWERTON

Just a bump up of this message as a reminder to some new members of our forum. You are free to debate any topic, but decorum is mandatory. Decorum requires that we all act as adults, refrain from name calling or treating each other with disrespect. TERRY HOWERTON