23. CFC Discussion Boards Upgrade - Update

[Lyle Craver]

Please post your update here

[Christopher Mallon]

As of around midnight this morning, the CFC discussion board has been fully upgraded to vBulletin 3.8.6.

This version adds a lot of new features, which I'm not sure we really need and will probably disable - at least some of them (like social groups for instance).

The number one thing it does from my perspective is it fights the automated spam bots. We peaked at 700 spam-bot registrations on January 3rd, and average over 600 a day for the past three months. That is a lot of accounts for me to manage, but in the 8ish hours since the upgrade we haven't had a single one manage to get through the registration process.

The final cost was $50 USD. I can't see it on my VISA bill yet but our dollar is above par so even with the surcharge it should be around that amount.

The other main advantage of this version is we can use plugins to add certain features we may want, for example in the last meeting we discussed one that would allow people to change their votes on polls, which may be useful as part of the online voting.

I continue to act as the Forum Administrator despite it being years since I was officially named to do so. I'm happy to continue in this role so long as the Exec wants me to. I know the office has suggested that they take it over, but I believe there are some issues there with Governor confidentiality that need to be addressed first.

[Bob Gillanders]

Hold cow, 600 spam bot per day!

Is that why I no longer see a long list of stupid names listed as current users? We will have to begin calling you the Spam Botinator!

Keep up the good work as administrator. If you can't get to every board administration request quickly, we will just assume you are on diaper duty!

[Christopher Mallon]

Yes, that's why you don't see those names anymore.

I'm going to give it a couple days, but if it keeps up I can actually make it so that I don't have to moderate every new user manually, they'll be able to post as soon as they verify their email.

Then I just have to convince Larry to upgrade Chesstalk the same way and I'll be happy

Notice though that we only have a few hundred users, but the more recent user numbers are up around 90,000 or more... so that shows you just how many I've deleted over time!

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

Does a new board allow to see ALL agenda items on ONE page? and maybe sorted by an item number? thnx.

[Christopher Mallon]

Yes. I adjusted it to show more threads per page, and you can choose at the bottom how to do that.

At the bottom of the thread listing, you'll see this box. Change all three to these settings. I'll have to edit the low-number threads and add a 0 in front of them.

[Lyle Craver]

I didn't know you could insert jpgs with your messages - thanks for sharing that Chris!

[Christopher Mallon]

You always could, but now you can also have them display with your message rather than just being attached to it.

[Lyle Craver]

One thing I've spotted with the sequence option is that your last preference is not listed which means you go back to the default of 'last responded to' every time...

[Christopher Mallon]

You mean the preference is not saved?