[culturehandy]

Hey starshine I cross posted this in the for the newbies thread. Little loser is posting everywhere. I guess we have nothing better to do then see how many palm tree leaves someone can fit inside themselves.

[culturehandy]

No one cares. this thread for problems with the website.

[ambercherry]

hello all,

i can't remember if i've ever posted about this problem before - if i have, sorry for repeating it again. but every now and then, when i'm opening up a new thread (like looking at a different thread), or a different page of a thread, everything just shuts down. i'm a bit illiterate with this stuff, so bear with me, my computer doesn't shut down, just the internet - as if i've 'x''d it - or closed it myself. it drives me nuts. it only happens with bust - i've never had it happen to any other website. and it almost always happens when i try to look at a previous page on a thread.

i don't think it's my computer - to my knowledge, no virus or anything.

does this happen to anyone else?

[kickitkickitkick...]

Thanks rose.

*Sighs*

It seems as if our gripes about the old lounge still exist and weren't really improved in the change-over (despite our suggestions). We are not newbie friendly, as a forum, and, goodness, we're not newbie friendly as BUSTies when they make a mistake! I'll hold my hands up to getting irate, most of us do, we don't have patience for the cluelessness of newbies at times, but it should be the powers that be that we're annoyed with.

I was attacked for 4 days straight for making a post, being given the rules, and then blowing up and acting like a jack a.. well you get the picture. I was wrong and I deserved some verbal slappings, but 4 days worth?

I think bust should list all the rules on the initial registration and also keep it here on the board for all to refer to as needed. I agree with this community not being newbie friendly because from my impression you all seem to know each other very well and I often come across threads where the same people are going back and forth or making little jokes here and there. Many veteran members have already made the decision to ignore me before even getting to know me and thats fine. I'm not here to fight or cause any more problems than what I've already caused. I'm here to support bust, to support women, and to support the ideologies of feminism. We don't have to be friends, but there should be a level of respect. If there isn't, and you don't care add me to ignore. Thats all I have to say.

[pollystyrene]

Make sure it's a .jpg file. Another thing that helped me was Wombat's advice to open and save the file in Photoshop ImageReady. For some reason, that does the trick for me.

[go_kayte]

I just encountered a problem having to do with avatars-- I wanted to change my avatar pic but it won't work... It's around 50x70 pixels, jpg, I don't get why it won't upload. Does anyone know?

[turbojenn]

Yeah, rosie, all that user guidelines and validation gobbledy-goo that you received is absolutely the default statements that this board software kicks out, with BUST inserted where necessary -- I know, because I use this board software for the org I work for's fledgling forum, and I use the same default settings. Here, though, its a little lazy...its ridiculously easy to change both the user agreement as well as the auto emails that go out.

I'm all for increading the number of posts before newbies can create their own...the measures taken so far have greatly cut down on the nasty bits around here, but a little tightening would really help newbies figure this all out and get comfy in the lounge.

[bunnyb]

Thanks rose.

*Sighs*

It seems as if our gripes about the old lounge still exist and weren't really improved in the change-over (despite our suggestions). We are not newbie friendly, as a forum, and, goodness, we're not newbie friendly as BUSTies when they make a mistake! I'll hold my hands up to getting irate, most of us do, we don't have patience for the cluelessness of newbies at times, but it should be the powers that be that we're annoyed with.

[pollystyrene]

I'm actually surprised that so many manage to find their way to the Newbies thread all on their own.

I'm picturing Newbies, as blindfolded sheep, wandering aimlessly in a field, maybe happening to stumble into the right place.

Great research, rose. Very annoying findings though.

[roseviolet]

Bunny, that is a good idea. But the higher-ups around here are not so good about following through with our suggestions. Remember the helpful little message that used to be at the top of the main page for the Lounge? We were told shortly after the change-over last summer that they would replace it. And here it is in late January and that message still isn't there.


Anyway, I conducted an experiment. I decided to create a new name just to see what it's like to be a newbie. Here's the blow-by-blow.

First of all, when you click on the register link, you are directed to a page that says the following:

Registration Terms & Rules
In order to proceed, you must agree to the following:

The BUST Lounge Terms, Rules & Other Fun Stuff

Please take a moment to review these rules detailed below. If you agree with them and wish to proceed with the registration, simply click the "Register" button below. To cancel this registration, simply hit the 'back' button on your browser.

The BUST Lounge is a self-moderated discussion board, and members are free to express any and all opinions here. Please remember that we are not responsible for any messages posted.

The messages express the views of the author of the message, and not necessarily the views of BUST Magazine or bust.com. We pride ourselves on being tolerant of any and all opinions, no matter how stupid and/or offensive. That said, any poster who purposefully tries to disrupt the basic functionality of this board will be banned, and their posts will be subject to deletion.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this bulletin board to post any material which is threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law, and you agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this bulletin board.

[] I have read, understood and agree to these rules and conditions

After filling out the basic registration form, I got this message.

Thank you XXXX. Your registration has been submitted.

The board administrator has chosen to require validation for all email addresses. Within the next 10 minutes (usually instantly) you'll receive an email with instructions on the next step. Don't worry, it won't take long before you can post!

The email has been sent to xxxx@xxxx.com

So I checked my e-mail & here is the message I got.

The BUST Lounge <loungelady@bust.com> to me
show details 5:09 pm (2 minutes ago)


XXXX,
This email has been sent from http://www.bust.com/lounge/index.php.

You have received this email because this email address
was used during registration for our forums.
If you did not register at our forums, please disregard this
email. You do not need to unsubscribe or take any further action.

------------------------------------------------
Activation Instructions
------------------------------------------------

Thank you for registering.
We require that you "validate" your registration to ensure that
the email address you entered was correct. This protects against
unwanted spam and malicious abuse.

To activate your account, simply click on the following link:

http://www.bust.com/lounge/index.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(AOL Email users may need to cut and paste the link into your web
browser).

------------------------------------------------
Not working?
------------------------------------------------

If you could not validate your registration by clicking on the link, please
visit this page:

http://www.bust.com/lounge/index.php?act=Reg&CODE=05

It will ask you for a user id number, and your validation key. These are shown
below:

User ID: XXXXXX

Validation Key: XXXXXX

Please cut and paste, or type those numbers into the corresponding fields in the form.

If you still cannot validate your account, it's possible that the account has been removed.
If this is the case, please contact an administrator to rectify the problem.

Thank you for registering and enjoy your stay!

Regards,


The The BUST Lounge team.
http://www.bust.com/lounge/index.php

I chose to click the link and it took me directly to the Bust Lounge main page. So that means that our newbies are getting no instructions/suggestions whatsoever. They are not told about The Community Forum or the Newbies thread. There is no message about basic Lounge etiquette. Nothing. No wonder the new members are often confused! I'm actually surprised that so many manage to find their way to the Newbies thread all on their own.

[bunnyb]

x-posted from the thread in Q: "personally, I think the post limit should be extended; to be fair, how often are new threads started and, when they are, they are usually with the back up of other BUSTies so one of us could start it, on the newbies' behalf? I'm thinking 50 posts, even 100, as it would prevent this crap."

It wouldn't be that limiting, frustrating perhaps but it would help prevent trainwrecks from occurring and newbies throwing hissy fits and leaving a great community.

[roseviolet]

It would be interesting to know what new members receive when they join Bust. Could anyone enlighten us? Or would someone like to start a new, fake account & report back? I suspect, though, that there is no fool-proof way to prevent the occasional newbie from making a faux pas in Bust etiquette. And we can try our best to inform them of the unique qualities of the Lounge through e-mail when they sign up, but I think a certain amount of patience and understanding on our part will help a lot, too.

We as a community need to accept that this board is conducted in a very different way than many of the other chat boards out there. I am currently a member of at least 3 other communities and at ALL of them it is perfectly normal for a member to create a new thread that is totally devoted to one specific, highly-personal topic. Also, all of those communities have numerous moderators who check in on the boards daily & perform any necessary clean-ups. We obviously don't have that here, but people who are used to other boards probably take moderators for granted & just assume that all on-line communities have them - especially a community as large as Bust.

I'm sure that most of our new members assume that we conduct ourselves the same way as the other boards out there. On top of that, a lot of people who join communities are so excited about joining the group that they often choose to jump in with both feet before reading the FAQs & guidelines. It's very common. In fact you, dear Bustie, may have been guilty of doing just that when you joined Bust! So I suggest that we all just take a deeeeeeep breath, remember that the Lounge is a strange & quirky place, and offer a little patience to our new members.

[mouse]

is there any way we can sort of add a little message regarding how the lounge works embedded in say, the confirmation email you get after you sign up? the "leave already" thread started by kickit in the "friends and family" forum is really just a stellar example of how we lose new busties because they don't understand the rules and then get pissed off when people explain them to them, and additionally how we old busties get pissed off at every newbie who doesn't bother to read the terms. our system is fine--it's the only way we CAN work without mods and it gives us freedom and independence which is great--but the lack of info about it creates such animosity. i wish there was a better way of doing this.

any suggestions? maybe we can send an automatic pm as soon as someone signs up? i know that the non-thread forums here go ignored quite often, it's not suprising that newbies don't read them. is there some other way of getting information to them so we don't lose/discourage new busties nor piss off/frustrate old ones?

[kickitkickitkick...]

I'm on a mac, and the website is flowing fabulously! Mac os x.

[quantumspice]

Last May was the last time they did a big cleaning on the boards, so that's why you can't go back any farther. It was before we got the new software in July, and I'm not sure if they'll need to do big cleanings like that with the new software. Hasn't happened yet.

Invision can be set up to automatically prune topics, but I don't know if they have.

Is there something wonky with the "insert a link" function? I cannot seem to get mine to work today but I can't figure out if I am doing something wrong.

This is a known bug for IP.Board 2.1. It was fixed with IP.Board 2.2, which they haven't yet upgraded to. In the interim, there are two things you can do:

* Manually enter it in.

Yahoo!

CODE

[url=http://www.yahoo.com]Yahoo![/url]

* Type the words that you want to be turned into a link. Then, highlight them and click on the link button, and paste (or type in) the link you want to add.

[kittenb]

Is there something wonky with the "insert a link" function? I cannot seem to get mine to work today but I can't figure out if I am doing something wrong.

ETA: I just realized that when you scroll down this page there are like 6 straigh cat pics. We do love our kitties, don't we?

[veghead]

ok, i think i've got it all sorted now. i may have just been being a bit dense. thanks!

[pollystyrene]

Last May was the last time they did a big cleaning on the boards, so that's why you can't go back any farther. It was before we got the new software in July, and I'm not sure if they'll need to do big cleanings like that with the new software. Hasn't happened yet.

Not sure about the rest of your issue though.

[veghead]

i'm having a bit of a problem viewing threads. from the outside of a thread, i can see that there are recent posts. however, when using normal view, when i click on the actual thread, i can't locate the most recent posts.. sometimes only until may of this year. if i use the outline mode, i can see the posts, but i can only seem to read one at a time. i thought that maybe it was my browser, so i switched, but it's still doing it. any suggestions? or am i just doing something wrong?
thanks for your help!

[quantumspice]

For the ASCII problem, you can use this page to convert the "gobbedly gook" until HTML (if you're sending it as HTML), and then save that as an html file on your computer.

Basically, what's going on is the email program isn't converting the attachment correctly - it's sent in base64, and it needs to be in ascii to be legible.


The -1 new messages thing means someone sent you a PM, tracked it, and then deleted it before you read it.