Editing posts?

[brods]

Anybody else having trouble trying to edit an existing post? Is there a time limit for going back and editing posts? Do I just suck at the interwebs?

I do have a tracker blocker that blocks 6 things when it is turned on. I turned it off to see if it was the problem, still no edit post option.

It is worth noting that it saw 27 trackers when paused . I do have objections to being tracked while logged in as a paying member, but that is a different issue for another time....

 

[TDRAdmin4]

Posts can be edited for 24 hours after being made.

 

[brods]

Ok, thanks. I guess when you guys finish turning this forum into facebook we won't be able to edit or delete any of our posts when we leave. Oh well.

Trophies and points?? Seriously? Is this a forum about trucks or a popularity contest for teenage girls?

 

[TDRAdmin4]

The old forum software had points (reputation points) and the equivalent of trophies ("ranks") for the past 10 years.

The software the site was running on is no longer supported by the vendor and it's a ticking time bomb next time some hacker figures out how to exploit it and no security patches are available. We had to move to a different software package, or run the growing risk of end of life software.

 

[brods]

That may be true but it wasn't in your face like with the new software. First time I logged in I have messages about who got trophies, wtf? Got that turned off pronto. I haven't found how to turn off the silly microphone avatars. If we can opt out of all the childish junk or at least not have it display while logged in, that would be great!
I'm assuming that won't be possible since the XenForo website seems awful proud of all that garbage in their software.

 

[SnoKing]

Is there a way for me to increase the font size?

 

[TDRAdmin4]

That may be true but it wasn't in your face like with the new software. First time I logged in I have messages about who got trophies, wtf? Got that turned off pronto. I haven't found how to turn off the silly microphone avatars. If we can opt out of all the childish junk or at least not have it display while logged in, that would be great!
I'm assuming that won't be possible since the XenForo website seems awful proud of all that garbage in their software.

It's a work in progress over the next few days. That's why when the new software was launched I put up a notice saying "The forum software upgrade is only partially complete. We are working on access to TDR magazine digital issues, articles, the old gallery, darkening fonts, smileys, etc. Expect changes over the next few days."

I'm doing my best to get everything in order as quickly as possible. I do appreciate your patience, thank you and have a great day!

 

[brods]

I appreciate all your hard work. I get cranky with the digital age's constant change just because it is so easy to do. I have to wonder how much productivity is harmed worldwide every time a programmer has a better idea for something that worked fine in the first place.

That said, I tried to edit a post within 24 hours and couldn't. I was going to delete it since there were no replies and I no longer need the information I was requesting. I'll bite my tongue while you work through all the gobble gook. Let us know when you are ready for the wish lists of tweaks to make the site great again

 

[TDRAdmin4]

We all get cranky, and that's not a problem. Feedback helps keep TDR on our toes, adapt and address problems. Changing software can be a frustrating experience for both users and the site. I wish VBulletin had kept up over the years with their software so we weren't forced to do this.

Unfortunately, while they do have a 5.x upgrade to the 4.x version we were using, it has a history of major bugs, security problems, being extremely slow and difficult to use. It would have been worse to upgrade VBulletin 4.x (no longer maintained by them) to VB 5.x, so we went with Xenforo (which is made by former VBulletin employees).

Some of the different permissions didn't carry over when the old software was imported. Sizes on uploads, signature sizes, editing time, and a few other minor things. I've got a task list of these and other items I've been checking off, based on priority. Getting the magazines back online for TDR magazine subscribers was a huge priority, and finished yesterday. So now I'm going to be able to concentrate more on user interface issues.

I hope to have my task list done by the end of Friday. If you have any problems after that please don't hesitate to let me know.

 

[TDRAdmin4]

Oh, almost forgot...

About the trackers. Tracking blockers are a little misleading because they want to show how good a job they do, so they fudge the numbers a bit.

Here's what TDR uses:

- Google Analytics - this basically shows us traffic trends. It does not personally identify users to us.

- Google Adsense - this displays banner ads on the site. They track to prevent click fraud, prevent the same ad from showing too many times to the same user, etc. If Google Adsense hands off the ad to another ad network, that network might set a cookie as well.

- Sovrn - when Google doesn't have an ad to serve, Sovrn sends a backup ad. They track for the same reasons as Google Adsense

- Viglink - creates affiliate links. They also track for the same reasons as Google Adsense.

- DoubleClick for Publishers - TDR's direct sponsors like Pacbrake, we use this software to display their ads. DoubleClick tracks to know which ad you've seen, so it can serve the next ad in the rotation. It has the ability to track by location to serve different ads to different parts of the world, but we don't use this feature. We don't see any personal data in DoubleClick.

All of these may set multiple cookies (basically an id number) on your browser. Anti-tracking software counts each of these cookies as a separate tracker, even though they aren't. So for instance, if Google Analytics sets 4 cookies it gets shown as 4 trackers when it's really one.

TDR also maintains IP logs of user browsing activity (pretty much all web servers do), and these are rotated out every 3 months. We keep these logs in the 3-month rotation in case we have an illegal activity to deal with, determined spammer IP addresses we need to block, etc. It's extremely rare to have to use these logs (I can't tell you the last time I looked at them!).