The Dink Network

There's a lot of focus on banning a certain member at the moment. Instead of that, let's try and make a list of things that would be nice to have fixed/changed/etc ready, should Redink1 decide to come back for a while
Not a "G10" or anything, just so that everything here works as it should and is update-able if (when) Redink disappears again.

Suggestions:
- If there are more screenshots than text for a file, they extend below off the bottom of the page.
- Fix the thing with other PMs
- Partners list update
- Additions to the admin section for nobles (Striker/Sabre) so they can do more stuff, eg, banning people, partners list...
- There are more vulnerabilities around, I think Sumi knows about them.
- Adding the formatting buttons to new News posts as well

Pretty sure there's more that I've forgotten right now. Any other ideas?

*The problem with Mobile devices, that should be fixed.
*More staff.
*Custom Avatar's.
*An option to 'Block' certain people.

- There are more vulnerabilities around, I think Sumi knows about them.

Mailed redink about them, but didn't recieve any response :|

I like the forum layout as it is - would like some holes closed as mentioned previously, and the staff need more powers rather than landing it all on one persons shoulders in case of absences and lost passwords.

Maybe staff pm'ing all staff with current how to and passwords would be good in case one disappears again the others can still do the job, as and if new staff are added the pm can be redone to add the new members in. That way all they need to remember is their own log in.

I hope ghost posting is still going to be allowed but think there needs to be some tightening under the hood rather than many changes. Ability for staff to make good threats, to change and keep things up to date, stuff like that

Ghost posts should be reviewed by staff before being visible.

Oh I like that idea mister ghost, except that on a forum there is a certain sequence of posting that needs to be respected or the eventually approved ghost post will seem out of context

Yes, ''sequences''. But, if the person were to stay inthe community and participate in threads regularly, then why not make an account? Ghost posting should be limited a few questions, and should be used by people who have no intent of joining the Network.

Some suggestions and remarks from me as well:

- Allow (some) staff to log in as anyone without knowing the password. That makes many things possible: fix a lost password, delete the account, check for abuse through PMs, etc. It would also make my account functional.
- If there are known vulnerabilities which allow access to the database, I would like someone who knows them to exploit them and change my e-mail from wijnen@debian.org (which doesn't receive mail from TDN) to shevek@fmf.nl (which does). Thank you.
- Allow members to create threads as "for members only". Those threads should be invisible for anonymous users. Not sure if they exist already, as I wouldn't be able to see them, but I don't think they do. With these, there is no need to forbid anonymous posting.
- Similarly, if it doesn't exist yet, it might be useful to allow staff to create threads as "for staff only".
- PM to staff should be possible without an account. The page says that if you have trouble creating an account, please send a message to the staff. When I tried to create my account I didn't know who was the staff, and I was unable to message them. This notice should be a link to a working method of sending a message to the staff. If this is undesirable, the notice should be changed into "please post your problem on the forum".

Positive suggestion: Contribute more. If I may explain the most troublesome problem of this site. We have many people trying to create something big. New editors, epic D-Mods plus weird and basically irrelevant stuff. These people have always been there, creating epics and around half of them have even seen the light of day, which is a great thing. We of course need these kinda people. However, the problem is the little amount of small contributions. These are the most relevant in keeping TDN positive and alive. We used to have a *LOT* of small contributors, and we basically got Romps, Quests and other small things *at least* once a week. True, some of them were bad, but they were still very much things that kept this site going. Right now, there are no more these small contributors. And even the forum contributors who brought color to this site have been replaced by people who try to make this place a soap opera (I admit, I used to be one of those people in the past). The truth is, we used to have big contributors, who would bring a joyful occasion every few year by releasing an Epic. Now we have only these kinda people, completely leaving out the small contributors, which is a bad thing. And it doesn't help that half of these big contributions will never see the light of day.

Wow that was long. About Predator by the way, didn't the staff, without Redink's help, silence Skorn a few years back? How about using that on Predator.

I know I went far away from the actual subject but I needed to let that out at some point or another. So there you go.

You forgot to make it a temporary sticky with the subject:

REDINK, TAL, LOOK OVER HERE PLZZZ!!11

Other than that...

- Additions to the admin section for nobles (Striker/Sabre) so they can do more stuff, eg, banning people, partners list...
- Partners list update

^ those.

I was more thinking of fixes/updates to existing stuff Duckhater, rather than new features. Custom avatars is a bad idea anyway IMO

"The page says that if you have trouble creating an account, please send a message to the staff. When I tried to create my account I didn't know who was the staff, and I was unable to message them."

Good point... failing an option to message staff directly, perhaps an updated and easily accessible staff page would be helpful. Useless anyway if no one can fix anything

Moar quotes.

"About Predator by the way, didn't the staff, without Redink's help, silence Skorn a few years back?"

I think Redink did that.

More contests to get us in that dinky mood.

- If there are known vulnerabilities which allow access to the database, I would like someone who knows them to exploit them and change my e-mail from wijnen@debian.org (which doesn't receive mail from TDN) to shevek@fmf.nl (which does). Thank you.

I don't know of any server-sided vulnerabilities (yet); only xss stuff, which is bad, but not as bad as someone executing custom queries in your database. I don't know if I feel like more poking around in form fields. Data checking seems to be an alien concept to DN, but so far it looks like it isn't that bad that I can simply append a sql-query

-Fix PM Problem. (Right, MsDink? )
-More nobles. I recommend MsDink
-Silencing Predator, so he can only contribute and not spam.
-Fix the patch system.

But he has nothing to contribute. I call for a permaban.

Sparrowhawk for Prime Minister!

Also, moar power for me. Always moar power for me!

throws a bucket of water on sabre there there wee fishy u are drying out - starting to hallucinate it be ok soon...

A suggestion: somehow getting Tal or Redink here to deal with the problem (Or at least give the staff members the ability to ban people who blatantly disregard the rules.)

I've contacted Tal via XBL, but if he's pestered from multiple sources maybe he'll take action (faster). Suggestions: Don't just say "We r b haz a sp@mmer", tell him we've had spam problems for a while and that it would be awesome if he could allow one of the staff access to his account to get things under control, and name a new King. Or something.

I actually did contact him via Facebook asking for his help, detailing the problem, as well as e-mail.