New site, new forums, new… everything?

[Bill Gould]

Learning new tricks isn’t easy for an old dog like me, Stephen, but with your expert guidance I seem to be getting the hang of it. Thanks, more than I can say.

1981 Lafer TI
1600 cc Type 1 engine

[Stephen Houser]

@texag71 Always willing to make sure we keep one more person logging in!

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Stephen Houser]

I just installed a new plugin to try and cut down the SPAM accounts. It requires an administrator to approve new registrations rather than letting the registrant do it alone by email.

Please let me know if it causes problems.

I’m looking for a better solution.

UPDATE: I found a plugin that tracks “spammers” and “sploggers” across lots of other WordPress sites. It automatically deletes “reported” fake accounts, and forces approval for suspected ones. I did a few tests and it let me register with legitimate accounts while at the same time I saw it block one that I suspected as a spammer. So, it looks like it’s working as designed. Still do let me know if you see problems or side-effects that I’ve missed.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Stephen Houser.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Vicenç Feliú]

I’ve been deleting suspected spammers as I saw them but this should make it easier.  Thanks, Stephen!

 

Vicenç - (bee sense)
Pembroke Pines, FL
1986 Aston - BCW Model 52 - "Montse II"

(1983 FiberFab MiGi II - "Montse")

[Paul Mossberg]

I’ve seen some .ru addresses register today. But overall, the volume seems to be down! Thanks Stephen!

Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica Roadster

If you own a TDr and are not in the Registry, please go to https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/mg-td-replica-registry/ and register (you need to copy and paste the link)

[Stephen Houser]

I added ‘.ru’ this morning to the list of blocked domains. If I understand it correctly, we should not see these again.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Stephen Houser]

 

Last night I finished off a script that will run through all the posts and…

• Update links to threads that appear in threads so they point to the new threads. These are mostly Pauls’s posts where he directed people to another thread for their answer. Here’s a sample that should get fixed:
  • https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/forever-sharp-steering-wheel/
• Update links to the old photos to point to where they are now. These got broken in the migration and I didn’t notice. They were the lost ones we had back for a short time. Also fix some lingering username/userid link problems. Look at the first post in this thread
• Update links to some of the smliey faces that got missed in the migration. (I lost the example thread)
• Add an ‘image not found’ image so that missing images will be apparent. Look at the first post in this thread.

I’m planning to run it this evening on the live site, sometime after 6pm and wanted to give you a heads-up. Just in case. Please let me know (a) if it causes trouble and (b) if you find missing images and or broken links I should fix.

Stephen

UPDATE: Done.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Stephen Houser.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Stephen Houser.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Stephen Houser.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Paul Mossberg]

Thanks again Stephen! You’re really doing a great job.

Question – How about photo links that go to the old site? Use the Car registry thread as a working case. Wherever a member had a picture of their car in the old gallery, I included a link to the photo. The pictures are not embedded. They are just links.

I just checked. None of those links work.

Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica Roadster

If you own a TDr and are not in the Registry, please go to https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/mg-td-replica-registry/ and register (you need to copy and paste the link)

[Stephen Houser]

@pmossberg Darn it. I saw that thread but forgot about it in my testing. I’ll take a look this evening and see if I can get them fixed. It looks like a simple fix to my code.

 

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Stephen Houser.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Paul Mossberg]

Awesome Stephen. They all appear to be working now!

Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica Roadster

If you own a TDr and are not in the Registry, please go to https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/mg-td-replica-registry/ and register (you need to copy and paste the link)

[Stephen Houser]

Yes, it was quick and dirty and I had it done before breakfast.

I also added some fields to the registration form to deter spammers. Based on the short period of time it’s been there it seems to be doing the trick. You can take a look, but you need to be logged out otherwise you don’t see the actual form.

Here’s a screenshot of the important parts:

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Stephen Houser.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Stephen Houser]

The ‘Libray’ menu item now has a dropdown for the sections of the Library page (Manuals, References, and Technical Articles). I’ve also copied over the first two Technical Articles and am working out how to import the remainder and build a system where we can easily add more.

As usual, I’ll update with progress as it goes.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Stephen Houser]

Good news, at least from the administrative side of the site, it looks like the new registration form is really cutting down on spammers! This will free up more of my available time to work on other site changes.

Thanks also to @rosebud-and-bill for reporting one spammer we missed that got in before the new form was in place. Anyone can report a user as a spammer, just click on their profile photo and there should be a ‘report user’ button. When you do that, @pmossberg, @sabreur76, and myself will get an email to check them out where we have the option to delete them (or keep them :-).

Stephen

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Stephen Houser]

Oh, almost forgot, there are some additional ‘profile fields’ presented when registering that you can fill in at anytime in your profile. They are on the screenshot above.

Location –> City, State, etc.

TD Replica –> they type(s) of replicas you have

Donor –> What’s it built on.

I was thinking of adding latitude and longitude with a disclaimer that we would use these on the map. I need to add the map link to the list of things to do. Perhaps that should be a member-only link. @ray10, what are your thoughts? How could we make map-maintenance easier for you?

How about adding the details from the car registry page with an option to ‘include me in the registry’?

 

Any other fields that we should have as part of the profile?

UPDATE: The member map is now on the top menu under ‘members’ and embedded into the site design. As they say, “that was easy”.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by Stephen Houser.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Donnie]

This is much better than the old site. I have been running wordpress sites for many years so if you ever need a hand let me knoe.

[Paul Mossberg]

Donnie wrote:

This is much better than the old site. I have been running wordpress sites for many years so if you ever need a hand let me knoe.

Thanks! We’re very glad you like it!

Thank you also for the offer to help. Although someday, you may regret that! 😆

Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica Roadster

If you own a TDr and are not in the Registry, please go to https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/mg-td-replica-registry/ and register (you need to copy and paste the link)

[Donnie]

HAHAHA. No worries lol

[KentT]

It may be my tablet, or a caching issue, but I replied to Jack’s topic about Emma’s new carb – my reply, after 45 minutes still shows up in the Activity stream but does not show up in the forum topic. Similar thing yesterday led me to post a second (duplicate) reply yesterday. Not sure if that’s on my end, or on the server…

Early FF TDr on 69 VW pan
Slowly coming back from the ashes...

[Stephen Houser]

@kentt Sorry for the delay, I’ll take a look and see if I can find out what’s causing the post-delay problem for you.

Buxton, Maine
1982 London Roadster - "Kit Kat"

[Author]

Posts