The Dink Network

I just wondered if anyone else has received two "Welcome to the forum" (or whatever exactly it says) messages. I joined an hour or so ago, and I got two of them for some reason.

As far as I can tell, there are two possible reasons for this:

A) There is a glitch in the automatic mail system resulting in at least some people getting sent the welcome message twice

B)If you lose your password (yes, I was stupid enough at the time to forget my password that quickly , in my defense it is a reasonably strong password) you get sent another welcome message, if this is true I assume this is another glitch

Does anyone know which of these (maybe both?) might be true?

PS..if you go back and try to put a smily in your post, it puts it at the end of the post it seems... I dont recall this error on other forums...

I know that the 'Lost Password' e-mail is just the welcome e-mail again. I'm not really sure why that is. I've been (slooooowly) working on upgrading The Dink Network, and that should be fixed in time.

As for smileys added to the end of the post upon edit, I can't think of any possible reason for that to occur.

Ahh, well it didnt bother me of course, it was just a little odd that is all .

Just a guess but, maybe when we modify a post, the mod flag is append rather than replace?
mm

I thought of a nice way to handle the modify function...

I've always found the concept of modifying posts a bit problematic, as it allows the original poster to revise history. While only one person has been known to abuse it (iceman/jamie/imacrazyguy/emotion/kiki/etc), it's always troubled me. But it is quite useful.

In the next version of this site, I hope to store all previous revisions of a post. Once a post is modified, there would be a link or icon showing that it was modified, and clicking it would show all previous versions of that post.

To prevent abuse, there would be a finite number of revisions a user could make over a period of time, and this amount would be gradually replenished.

This would also allow me to enable forum administrators to modify posts, because there would be a history of what the user originally said. And if someone posted something grossly inappropriate, forum administrators would be able to flag the original post as unreadable (by general users), submit a filtered appropriate post if necessary, and prevent the user from modifying the post again. If the forum administrator was acting inappropriately, there would the post history so another administrator could verify that their actions were appropriate.

Hmm... I'm not so sure about that, I often have to modify my posts several times after I post to fix errors and actually fully get down what I mean to say.

Well, maybe a two-tiered method? Until the post is replied to, only the last revision of edit history is kept, but thereafter, all edits are available?

I don't know about that either, though I can't think of a better way to do it... I'm actually for removing the modify button completely, I often modify my posts for various reasons (mostly when not making sense), but people would put more effort into their posts in the first place if they couldn't edit them later. It'd result in more double-posting as well, but a short tolerance to that would help.

That would still be ok... but you wouldn't be able to, say, post The Lord of the Rings as a series of modifications.

Hmm... does that rule apply to the Hobbit as well? What about the Silmarillion?

Personally, I just like it when they show they've been edited after they've been replied to, even if you don't have the original method. I usually quote someone on other boards if I'm afraid they'll edit their post after I've responded.

I do approve of a message notifying everyone that the post was modified.

I don't yet approve of everyone being able to view previous versions of a post... let's suppose I called Merlin (insert harsh and tear-inducing insult here), and then decided a few minutes later I'd better take it back before all heck breaks loose. It may not be very convenient if he looks at post history, finds that I called him whatever, and then he calls my mother a fat walrus and breaks my heart or whatever.

And what of those few souls that read that post? What if they messaged Merlin, and then they check back to see that it's gone? It just causes... inconsistencies.

Well, I suppose they could snitch on me if they wished, but by modifying it I'd sorta hope they'd acknowledge my wishes to withdraw it without it being totally secret (with the modified message there and all).

Sound pretty cool to me. Better than the only being able to modify posts that a forum I go to uses.

Maybe in a few rare cases some people would put more effort into their posts, but these would be the same people who make a single modification to correct an error or over-sight.

Imho, rude people would either not care enough to do it right the first time, or/and would make many modification visits to cover their
(tails/tales).

I have modified a few posts, in my short time here. Most have been for spelling errors or something I learned that was totally wrong.

AFAICS, Redink1 does a wonderful job and the staff are a wonderful compliment to a great site.

MM.

I'm not so in favor of this system.

Just imagine sombody (like me) who likes to abbriviate assignment with ass. If I use that enough (in my memo book for example) I might also use this on the forum (just by accident). So I could end up with a sentence like: I won't do your ass for you. Then I would read it and replace it by: I won't do your assignement for you. But when somebody would look into the posts history there could be an argument over something that the poster never meant.

But storing every version of a post and grant forum administrators the right to make another version viewable would be great.

Meta: I was leaning towards letting users opt to hide their old revisions... but I was afraid it would be a bit confusing if you're just trying to modify a post.

I like your idea the best thus far.

What, allowing forum admins to be the ones who make old revisions viewable? That's basically what I had in mind to begin with; I just didn't like the idea of old posts always being viewable, all the time.

Usually when I modify a post it is when I've just posted something, but (often in case of scripting advise/help/tricks) I suddenly come up with some other useful information that could be added with it, or I note a spelling/grammar error.

I'm usually not the guy who would insult someone, except when it's obviously a joke.

EDIT: I had something to say here, but I'm so out of it right now, it doesn't seem to fit the conversation.