The new Forums format

[Bill Glasheen]

I have rescued another very important thread by cleaning out the distraction of a Forums format change in mid-stream. I saved the relevant posts for here.

Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

Really terrible format.

And what happened to the avatars, and personal messages? Bert Sent me one and I can't get it....

Here's what I get:

> Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@forums.uechi-ryu.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache Server at forums.uechi-ryu.com Port 80 <

[Bill Glasheen]

Did we lose the theme/format of the forums? Is this just a matter of resetting something? Or did this forum make the jump to a different forum board program? Maybe caused by an update?

Too many questions...

I'm really, really familiar with phpbb and other forums. Must be NICE only having to deal with only two or three user groups and access levels.

btw... the bb tags are working great now.

[Bill Glasheen]

Ted has been working on the forums. This is the very latest forum version and will require some fine-tuning to get a suitable layout.

The old format could not be saved and was rapidly being overrun by computer "Bots" (over 13000 and growing).

Please understand all the work that goes on quietly and behind the scenes to keep these forums running and be patient as these necessary updates take place.

The same company created this update as the old format. . . and no change will make everyone happy. But Ted and I are doing our best to create the safest and trouble free forums possible. . . without me having to spend an hour a day deleting BOT registrations that show up in my email. (over 200 a day at last count)

This format includes many moderater features that will make my life easier and I believe with familiarity and time, will be easier on our forum moderators and participants.

George

[gmattson]

I get up early every morning. . . Bill found that out a couple days ago! Anyway. . . I discovered, along with everyone else that The forums were finally updated by Ted. He and I have been trying everything to get rid of the computer BOTS that were automatically registering and clogging up the server. (Over 13,000 last count) We have about 2900 legitimate registered users and the only way to get rid of them on the old version of the forums would be to wipe out all registered users or to go through them one at a time deleting them.
The old version took about a minute to look up the name and delete it. I finally gave up and told Ted to do something or delete all users and start over with the registration. Ted was busy and didn't get around to addressing the problem until yesterday and although he did tell me he would do it asap, he surprised me with the very latest PHP Board.

Although it is a little different, after a day of looking around I've found it to be really neat and although we will be fine-tuning it in the coming weeks, I believe most regulars who have been living with the old format will come around to like it.

I wish to thank Ted for all his hard work in keeping the uechi-ryu.com and Eastern Arts forums running trouble free. Now with this new version, things like our search engine will work much better and without all the BOTs, hopefully the forums will run even faster than before.

[Jason Rees]

It looks generic now, but that's nothing a good theme or even just a graphic to replace the phpbb banner and a return to the old color scheme couldn't fix.

It certainly is running better these days. All the bb tags are functioning. Pics and links are working too.

[Kevin Mackie]

George, I administer my own forum and work on another with over 90,000 members.

If you make registrations admin approved, then the bots can't get in.

They just hang out there as inactive until you go in a delete them from the list.

It's work, but it will give the moderators something to do for the big bucks you're paying them.

[gmattson]

Kevin:
The forums have always been "administrator approved" and until a couple months ago, that is the way it worked. but the BOTS bypassed this process and immediately became registered members.