The Dink Network

Recondite Eighteen: Future Events

Recondite is my article, and is supposed to be weekly (though it is never released on a schedule) and is usually a whole lot of crazy rants, stories, poll comments, and links.

This week, I give my opinion on the 'spamming problem', duplicate accounts, and Miasma 2. Oh, and of course some whacky links.

View the comments to read it.

Poll Comments

Poll 120: Favorite Dink term?

5) I'm a dinker, who is dinking in the dinkiverse. I hate Dink-tatious/y, oh btw, Tal's is Dinky!

4) dinkadunk is better! :-D

3) That's what you get Tal! I dunno why but you do!

2) Nothing's better than telling my friends I'm gonna go off and dink

1) Tal's may be Dinky, but at least he has one, eh WC?

Poll 121: Where have all the new D-Mods gone?

5) SabreTrout started new ones...again

4) they've been uploaded to the donk network

3) Tal is a kinda funny thing though, isn't he?

2) WTF how could you somoke d-mods i gotta try that (rolls a cd into a joint)

1) I'm sure Dukie learned his lesson when he tried to smoke "A Town Over Intro"

Poll 122: Preferred Winter Holiday?

5) Banana Day, now celebrating it's 50th use in a joke.

4) well, hey, any explanation needed? The grand 'get a hangover for tomorrow when shcool starts day'!

3) Killing Day... ah... my favorite by far.

2) Wolfmas! I just love Wolfieclaus. He's so big, round, and hairy!

1) Well, as I suppose the poll will still be here then, Easter Break.

Poll 123: How old are you?

5) Older enough for you, redink

4) I'm three

3) Power to the students...aaahahahahaha

2) I'm old enough.

1) and being a teen is quite dinky.

Message Board, Episode 5: The Spammers Strike Back

Two days ago, an esteemed colleague wrote a certain article that touched on the 'spam' problem that plagues nearly any forum on the internet. While 'spam' generally refers to e-mail or posts that are commercial in nature, here I will be using it as an easy way to reference 'junk messages'. Anyway, my colleague named three individuals who were the greatest contributors to the spam problem, in his eyes. I would like to add three more individuals to that list.

Not quite the people you expected, eh? Ok, so here's the thing: us staff (besides Dukie and Kyle, who relatively rarely post) and our friends are freely spamming the boards without consequence. I can make a post called "Holy Jumping Coconuts" with no text and suffer no repercussions. And like wise, Tal and WC can go on and on and on in some weird fantasy thread. Again, without anyone yelling at them, or any repercussions.

It is with this perception that I simply ignore most spam on the boards. Here, the staff of the website (who are the quasi-'role models' of the community, for lack of a better designation) are essentially spamming the board with absolute junk. Completely off topic. Absolutely no worth. So how can I expect normal visitors to not do the same?

So... it really irritates me when WC either writes up an article about the spammers, or tells me that I don't do enough to stop the spam, and he wants to take away an account because they made one attempt at an ASCII-art smiley face.

There really isn't any point, or great and wonderful conclusion that will make all of the birds sing, and the sun never set... I just wanted to vent a bit and provide a counter-article to WC's.

The IceMan Cometh (Or Not)

Well, after begging me for a new account (and after saying no quite a few times), IceMan (formerly imacrazyguy) created a new account called D4RK. Apparently, he wanted to leave his history as IceMan behind him, and start a new life.

Except... like 4 people new right away that it was him. He hadn't changed as much as he thought he did. So WC disabled his account, because there is a no-multiple account rule...

But that got me to thinking... what's so bad about creating a new account, if the old one is disabled? Nothing at all, me thinks. The purpose of no multiple accounts is to make it so you can't engage in conversations with yourself, vote twice in the Awards stuff, and so on. With the old account disabled... none of those would be possible.

Anyway, WC said something about getting the D4RK account back up... or something.

Miasma v2.0 Update

Miasma v2.0 is actually coming along quite nicely... thanks in part to WC, who helped program the Blog and Message scripts. Thanks!

Anyway, the new Message Board is quite spiffy. It is basically a cross between the current forums and Ikonboard, which the RTSoft BBS uses. There are 5 seperate sub-forums: General Dink Discussion, Development, File Discussion (each file has its own mini-forum, perfect for placing reviews that don't get validated, or just getting help), Off Topic, and News Comments (the comments system will be part of the board). Or you can just decide to view all of the forums together; similar to the way it is now.

There are three ways to view the index (list of posts). Two are available in the current board (Flat and Threaded, though there are some tweaks) and the new one is Column Threaded. It's basically a mix between Flat and Threaded, and I have grown to like it quite a bit.

There are also three ways to view individual messages. Single just display a single message at a time, with the current thread listed below it. Flat just lists all of the messages, and is sorted by date. The brand-new one is Nested... it displays all of the messages, but it indents them so you can 'see' the thread. I like it.

Basically, all I have to do is start and complete the new Administration interface (for the staff, to post news and such) and then polish the rest. The goal is to get it done by this Thursday, in time for the Final DOTM voting... but that might be a bit unrealisitic, so it might have to be delayed until the Thursday after that.

Whacky Links

Computer worm grounds flights, blocks ATMs - Yikes... I think I'll be having nightmares where the internet just dies one day...

Activist: Ban gay-shooting game - Jeez... Christiaan, its just a game, stop protesting

TALK TO ME ON THE PHONE L@@K MY PIC! - *shakes head in... bewilderment*

Jennifer Government: NationStates - Its a rather... odd 'game'. You spend like 2 minutes a day 'playing'. Anyway, my country, Dinkers is cool

Orisinal.com: Three Little Pigs - Basically a pig-stacking game... kinda fun.

Space Pirates!