Welcome to the TwistyPuzzles.com Forum!

The following rather large message contains answers to some frequently asked questions about aspects of this board which aren't covered in either the Rules (which everyone is assumed to have read) and the FAQ (the first place to check for answers to questions about the forum software).


REGISTRATION PROCESS

** SPECIAL NOTICE: We are a partially closed forum. We do take applications which are hand checked. If you would like to apply for an account ensure you read all rules and the form instructions carefully. **



TWISTYMEGASITE.COM

Currently, most of the content of this forum is made up of messages from the TwistyMegasite.com forum, which is now closed. Thanks one final time to Wayne for trusting me with this content. Being a popular and knowledgable figure in our community, I am very glad Wayne has elected to share the Moderator responsibilities here on the new forum.


POST COUNTS

I am attempting to "attribute" old TwistyMegasite forum messages to new TwistyPuzzles.com forum users by matching user names, e-mail address and even IP addresses. If you were a TwistyMegasite forum user, you may have noticed a jump in your post count after your registration here. If you didn't, it's because I haven't been able to match up your name/address/ip with the ones in the TwistyMegasite database... or because I haven't taken the time to check for new users recently!

To see which messages make up your current post count, click "Memberlist" in the Forum Menu at the top of the page, click your name in the list, then click the link called "Find all posts by ".

There are still ~3500 messages written by ~450 unique usernames which haven't been converted to the new ranking system yet because I haven't been able to match them up with any of the registered TwistyPuzzles members. This may sound like a lot, but I suspect there will always be somewhere around 2500 that never get matched up because the authors are no longer around. It's much more fun to look at it the other way: over 10,000 messages HAVE been converted!


RANKING SYSTEM

This forum software includes a built in feature called "ranks", which assigns the members a rank title and image based on the number of posts they have made. I figured it might be fun to implement the system with a twisty puzzle theme, so those little cubes are what I came up with.

[img]"/forum/images/ranks/rank-1x1x1.gif">
1x1x1: 0-49 posts

[img]"/forum/images/ranks/rank-2x2x2.gif">
2x2x2: 50-99 posts

[img]"/forum/images/ranks/rank-3x3x3.gif">
3x3x3: 100-249 posts

[img]"/forum/images/ranks/rank-4x4x4.gif">
4x4x4: 250-499 posts

[img]"/forum/images/ranks/rank-5x5x5.gif">
5x5x5: 500-999 posts

[img]"/forum/images/ranks/rank-6x6x6.gif">
6x6x6: 1000+ posts

[img]"/forum/images/ranks/rank-moderator.gif">
Moderator: ignores post count


EMAIL PRIVACY

On your personal Profile page there is an option called "Always Show My E-Mail Address" which has the following effects:

- If you CHECK this box, your address will appear on your profile page and at the bottom of every message you have posted on the forum. This can be seen by anyone and anything that reads the page. Bots will be able to farm your e-mail address from the forum if you check this box.

- If you CLEAR this box, your address will still be shown in all the same locations, but only to those people whom have registered and activated an account with the forum. For this reason, I suggest everyone clears that box to help protect your privacy. While it is still possible for someone to register and activate just to farm e-mail addresses, it is at least a little less likely.

If this level of privacy is still making you uneasy, I suggest you consider including a SPAMBLOCK keyword (or whatever) in your e-mail address. You will not be able to do this without my help since any change made to vital information like your user name, password or e-mail address will result in your account being temporarily disabled while a confirmation e-mail is sent to your stated e-mail address. Obviously if your e-mail address is incorrect (because of the SPAMBLOCK), you will not receive the e-mail, and thus, your account will remain inactive with no way for you to reactivate it. Please PM or e-mail me personally if you would like to add a SPAMBLOCK keyword to your account.

(Thanks to rubikfreak for the tip about the confirmation e-mail. I really have to start testing things more thoroughly!)

Sandy

I updated the "EMAIL PRIVACY" section with some new information for those wanting to add a SPAMBLOCK keyword to their e-mail addresses.

Sandy

I updated the "POST COUNTS" section, modifying the statistics and some of the text. Nothing important.

Sandy

I updated the "EMAIL PRIVACY" section again, pretty much undoing the update I made previously. It turns out that changing your e-mail address WILL result in a confirmation e-mail. Those wanting to add a SPAMBLOCK will have to do it with my help. Read the edited section for complete details.

Thanks for the tip, rubikfreak!

Sandy

Edited the "TWISTYMEGASITE MESSAGE CONVERSION" section. Removed the following bullet point:

- Some smilie images from the original Network54 forum are still still hosted on Network54.com.

I finally fixed this problem. Turns out there were 994 of the buggers hiding in 812 different messages. Now that the core "search and replace" script has been written, I expect the other bullet points mentioned above will follow very soon.

As if you cared, here's an old thread that had a bunch of Network54.com smilies in it which now has a bunch of TwistyPuzzles.com smilies in it:

viewtopic.php?p=218

Making old messages compatiable with the new format like this doesn't seem to have many redeeming qualities on the face of it, but when it comes time to port the forum data into whatever its next format will be, it will be very handy to only have to worry about converting one global system.

Sandy

Edited the "TWISTYMEGASITE MESSAGE CONVERSION" section again (should have waited until I was done before posting the previous update!). Removed the following bullet point:

- Images uploaded to TwistyMegasite and embedded in messages are still hosted on TwistyMegasite.com.

An old TwistyPuzzles IP address was used about a dozen times. Here's an updated post: viewtopic.php?p=8164

My Prevalence.com server had about 100 images on it. Here's an updated post: viewtopic.php?p=2232

TwistyMegasite.com had about 500 images on it. Here's an updated post: viewtopic.php?p=11678

Sandy

Removed the "TWISTYMEGASITE MESSAGE CONVERSION" section which only had the following bullet point remaining:

- URLs posted in messages from TwistyMegasite weren't always clickable links. Obviously, it would be nice if they were.

After taking a close look at the older messages, I concluded that almost all URLs contained within were already automatically converted to clickable links during conversion. However, there were 386 messages dating from December 2002 to February 2004 that had this problem. Turns out this was the date range that Wayne's custom built forum was in use (Network54.com before December 2002 and TwistyPuzzles.com after February 2004). The way I wrote the script that converted Wayne's forum messages to this new format caused a problem with only those messages. It is fixed now.

Sandy