agsteele Posted June 14, 2005 Share Posted June 14, 2005 I'm in two minds about where to post this. I thought about the New Features forum but that seems to be really about New Features for SpamCop reporting. So let's go here... It seems to me that many new posters come to the forums to seek help, complain, rant or otherwise find out why their outgoing mail has suddenly been bounced back from their recipients ISP. Most have no understanding of the way blocklists function and also seem incapable to reading the FAQs. It struck me, though, that each one happily registers in order to post their request/rant/complaint. So, what about adjusting the registration process to take them first to a simplified FAQ. It could even be something akin to a multiple choice question along the lines of... Welcome to the SpamCop forums. Are you registering to: 1. Find out why your Email has bounced? 2. Find out what information you need to supply to get help? 3. To find out how to contact SpamCop? 4. To join the SpamCop forums as a SpamCop user? 5. Other This form could be constructed in such a way as to take the person first to the text of the relevant part of the FAQ before taking them on to complete the registration process. Perhaps an approach like this would help genuine enquirers find the answer they're looking for, prevent the need to keep repeating the 'please read the FAQ' message and give regulars the opportunity to support better articulated issues. A thought... Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jank1887 Posted June 14, 2005 Share Posted June 14, 2005 Strongly agree. If half of Wazoo's time is spent answering rants with 'here's the answer in the faq', that might indicate that we should rethink some of the basis for which the greater spamcop.net sites have their information organized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jank1887 Posted June 14, 2005 Share Posted June 14, 2005 Reading one of the more recent posts where wazoo informs someone that there are quite enough links to the faq, I looked around and realized that calling the links "Forum FAQ" may be a little misleading. If I came to a site that I had never seen before, and I saw that link, I'd think it was a link to an FAQ on how to use the forum, (I.e., an IPB manual of sorts) and not necessarily the place to look for answers to spamcop questions. Now, lacking options for finding them, I'd probably click on that anyway to see what's there. I realize you're trying to distinguish it from the static Faq's on the actual spamcop.net site, but maybe we can somehow make it more clear. Continuing on this idea, (as mentioned in http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=29244 ) maybe we need to do a little rethinking on how people come to this site and how we can better get them right to the info they want, rather than waiting for them to register and post a 'darn you all to heck' message in the forum. I liked Andrew's suggestion in his aforementioned post. Basically, we're customer service for spamcop. Who here hasn't gotten pissed off going through an automated phone system when all you want to do is speak to a live person. Unless, of course, the info you need is quickly presented to you without much effort. We must assume everyone's lazy and impatient, and they shouldn't have to become an expert, or even highly-knowledgeable, to find out how to address a problem. The idea is that the people needing the most immediate help either 1) had mail bounced, or 2) are an ISP/admin/etc who just got a 'you are blocked/you were reported' notice. Assume if they need help, they usually aren't at all familiar with spamcop, the forum, the faq, etc. Now, I've never gotten an email, but for bounces, I don't think it mentions more than just spamcop.net. So, pretend you're a spamcop virgin. Go to spamcop.net and logout. Now, you're pissed, and this is the first page you see. I'd be looking for some way to contact someone to find out what's up. I would not be looking for pages and pages of info to read through to figure out what's up. Three links stand out on the page: HELP (at the top), Reported for Spamming (Learn More), and Help Home. Problem: none of these have any info that make it obvious where I should go. Best bet: reported for spamming, as it mentions email delivery problems. Now I see a link: has your email been blocked?... Now a 3rd page... enter IP address. now newbies start to get confused. What IP? my IP? I enter the number, and it shows nothing. now what. still no contact information. ahh.. a link that says Help. damn, back here again... I think for a few minutes we need to put on our customer service hats, a 'the customer is always right' attitude, and most of all the best customer service motto "get the customer what they want ASAP so that they go the heck away." While a different set of choices above might get you to a quicker answer, the process shouldn't feel like going through a maze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted June 15, 2005 Share Posted June 15, 2005 The trouble is that the helpful people are in the forum and they can't change the page that leads into the forum or to other 'help' links. You are absolutely correct. The spamcop.net page should be more clear about the options and where to get help and then when people get here, they aren't already frustrated. However, most admins who are blocked do find their way to answers or post in the correct forum. And spamcop apparently does not have much interest in catering to those who don't understand about computers and email. Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 15, 2005 Share Posted June 15, 2005 Moved & merged these last posts into a single Topic. A lot of the described issue does go back to the distinct separation of the tools and systems that fall under the SpamCop description, the time available and even the philosophies of some of the folks involved, and of course the easy to make point of the various backgrounds and knowledge levels of the mix of programmers/staff and users (not to mention some of the language issues involved there) ... Historically, the old "once upon a time" saga thing begins with Julian knocking out some code to make it easy to send out complaints on his own spam. There came a day when things looked good enough that he thought he'd make the tool available to others, in the belief that with more complaints being made, the spam issue would 'go away' .... back in those days, there was instant dialog between the few (even up to a few handfuls of) users and Julian. However, as more and more folks found out about the tool-set, he was being bombarded with way too much e-mail. This begat a 'support' Forum for the exchange of data ... the old "AnyBoard" days. This ran for quite a while, but as time went on, the user base increased also. The AnyBoard really wasn't geared up for the traffic that was being generated. So the SpamCop newsgroups were created for both support and data exchange. Somewhere in there, the Faq-o-matuc application was put to use to generate a FAQ for the SpamCop application. At that time, any user could click on a link and input the text to a new/needed FAQ entry/item. For whatever reason, this function wasn't used much, most folks simply choosing to complain that the FAQ didn't have much data. Understandably, some folks that might have offered to post stuff were put off by the fact that things changed quickly (and in the background) such that time spent typing merrily away to provide that great FAQ entry would turn out to be wasted effort (and leaving that poster looking a bit stupid) as the information provided in that FAQ entry may have turned out to be obsolete (and wrong) minutes after being posted. So most folks sat back and waited for someone that "knew" what was going on to fill in the blanks. The problem was that the only person that "knew" these facts was Julian and he was too busy hacking more code together. And not to pound on the obvious too much, but it was the 'tool' that was the focus, not the user interface. It was 'expected' that a properly formatted/constructed spam e-mail would be submitted to the tool, and things would work just fine. Time went on, user base continued to grow, bandwidth charges started going way up. Then came a novel idea of tracking some of the data involved, using it for filtering, so the concept of a filtered e-mail account arrived, and was implemented. Which of course, drove up the bandwidth charges even more, but also adding disk space, system enhancements, more maintenenace on things like back-ups, etc .... Thus began the chase to keep system performance levels on par with the ever-increasing user base growth. There was a call for volunteers to wear the "Deputy" badge and try to handle some of the stuff that was simply taking too much of Julian's time. A number of folks volunteered (even I offered), a few were selected, a number of them are still around <g> Somewhere after this phase, the first paid SpamCop employee appeared, primarily to handle the administrative things. Somewhere in here, the link for anyone to add to the Faq-o-matic got dropped, RW basically volunteering his time and efforts at updating that thing. What was supposed to happen was that someone would see a need, offer up some suggested content in the newsgroup, the content would be beat up a bit, then eventually, when consensus was found, content would be added to the FAQ. In reality, things didn't change much, people still found it easier to simply complain that the FAQ sucked .... JT appeared, volunteered some resources ... newsgroups were moved to his servers. Later, the SpamCop e-mail account stuff moved to JT's servers. Yes, there were some financial arrangements made, but the specifics are none of 'our' business. Just pointing out that Julian owned his side of the SpamCop system and JT was hosting some SpamCop 'parts' on his hardware. Two distinct people, two distinct business entities, different hardware located on different coasts .... for a small example, came some DDoS attacks, Julian tossing money at this issue by going for some of the Akamai distributed gateway/hosting/mirroring services (let's just call it expensive) .. this Akamai protection only addressed the Reporting side of SpamCop (Julian's machines) Then came a day that IronPort showed up. According to various press releases, there was a substantial amount of money involved. Again, the specifics are none of our business, just pointing out that there was a new player involved. So as it stands now, Julian still in Washington State, doing the programming of the Parsing and Reporting side of the house. The core Parsing and Reporting hardware is located and maintained by IronPort down in California. The newsgroups, SpamCop e-mail accounts, and this Forum are on JT's hardware in Georgia. There was a time when an IronPort staffer was assigned an additional task to "clean up" the www.spamcop.net FAQ .... A number of deletions, some additions, a lot of changes to a "corporate speak" format ... bottom line now is that any additions / major changes have to be staffed, to include legal review ... so needless to say, don't hold your breath for anything major to happen. One day, JT decided that support for the e-mail side of the house would be better handled via this Forum app ... some logic was that as the e-mail app was already web-based, the support vehicle would be just a link / click away. In announcing this, he also suggested that with this change to support, some of the newsgroups (spamcop.mail for instance) would then disappear. Thus began some major word warfare. Even folks that didn't have SpamCop e-mail accounts were sptting venom ...???? JT asked for volunteers to Moderate/run things here. JeffG was the only one to step forward. (I'll admit to not responding as I didn't think I'd spend much time here myself, not being impressed with web-based Forum apps as a support vehicle .. having dealt with them on a number of ISP hosting sites specifically.) Noted that JeffG was being beat upon pretty hard, trying to handle everything .. most old-time users having decided that they wouldn't visit this Forum, just on principle alone ... so started spending more and more time here to try to help out. Somewhere down the road, JT asked me if I'd want to help out with the Moderating. Agreed to volunteer for that. Time marched on, some things changed, most did not. The "SpamCop FAQ sucks" thing continued, the layout, structure, and contents of this Forum continued to be complained about .... in response to a "call for a revolt" post in here, I spent a Saturday morning (well, OK, it tuened out to be most of the day) hammering out the single-page access point to the existing www.spamcop.net FAQ .... then started adding to it. Had a lot of help in the following days, weeks, months in adding things to it. The important thing to note that it was never meant to be the final solution to anything, repeating that it started as just a quick hack .... It was later on, trying to work out some issues with this application that JT moved me into 'his' position as Admin. This actually didn't solve the problem, but ..... Fairly recently, JT gave me an SSH access point to the Forum server, so I have been manipulating some code. So here we go with the current status quo .... I am not a paid SpamCop employee. The IronPort arrangements appear to not have directly included JT's side of the SpamCop thing under their control (again this is my conjecturement) ... It took a lot of work to get the www.spamcop.net 'Help' page, FAQ, and other links & web-pages to where they are at today .. as (somewhere) above, it'd take a lot more work to make major changes to that data today. To make it clear, I only have access to the server that this Forum is running on. The www.spamcop.net stuff is not available but to a couple of folks, and even their ability to make changes was talked about in the above .... The links I've added to the Forum pages I did document a bit in the "How to Use ...." Forum .... a Forum section I created, re-ordered to place it near the top of the displayed page ... issues with a 'name' may also be documented there (but thinking that maybe those comments might be in hidden Moderator-only Forum sections ..???) .. Let's just say that I spent more than a few minutes on adding those links ... Based on these two recent/new (now merged into one) Topics, I started looking at mucking about with a portal page .... basically a page with all kinds of content that would include a link to this Forum. Hadn't really wanted to do this before, as to me, it was why put that page up rather than simply getting to the Forum itself. (Nevermind the headaches od doing up all the code to include whatever was going to be presented on that page ..) That came to a halt pretty quickly .. needed files not present, permissions problems, etc .... e-mail to JT not responded to yet (just to note, I have no super powers there either .. he'll get to my e-mail when he gets to it .. and in all honesty, my e-mails usually weigh a ton in my attempt to explain everything, and those e-mails don't usually fit into his work style, so some of them seem to end up on the back-burner permanently <g>) On the other hand, many folks have suggested a Wiki type thing for a FAQ/support vehicle. (What I find odd is that the same folks bitching about the web-based Forum concept on principle seem to have no issue in wading though a web-based Wiki ...????) I addressed that somewhere in here pointing to a "Why Wiki won't work" page, pointing out that as not all visitors to the SpamCop site(s) are necessarily freindly, the upkeep of a Wiki would be a daunting task. There was a time JT offered to buy some additional software that would allow the construction of a (web-based) knowledgebase. There were a few comments of approval 'here' .... the newsgroup side of the house has provided little to no input .. though only fair to state that the query was posted by myself, and I have been wailed on a lot for trying to "destroy the newsgroups" by pointing folks to the existing answers to their questions in the Forum FAQ ..... but I repeat, some of these same folks have stated that a Wiki would be "just the thing" ...???? This has gone on for a while, not even sure of what I was trying to present actually <g> .... a bit of history to show how 'we' got to where 'we' are right now, explaining that things are disjointed and dysfunctional, the fact that I am still running as a bit of a loose cannon, I am looking at tryng something else out, your requests for something new have not been ignored .... and lest 'we' forget, all this has been composed by an ignorant and arrogant jerk that doesn't read before posting <g> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 16, 2005 Share Posted June 16, 2005 Reading one of the more recent posts where wazoo informs someone that there are quite enough links to the faq, I looked around and realized that calling the links "Forum FAQ" may be a little misleading. If I came to a site that I had never seen before, and I saw that link, I'd think it was a link to an FAQ on how to use the forum, (I.e., an IPB manual of sorts) and not necessarily the place to look for answers to spamcop questions. 29259[/snapback] So, in light of all this, what might be your suggestion for the title of something I've been working up .... http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4351 .. and if 'this' becomes the "Forum FAQ" .. then what should the existing Forum FAQ then be called? (especially when "the Forum FAQ" has been used for so long and in so many other places <g> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff G. Posted June 16, 2005 Share Posted June 16, 2005 and if 'this' becomes the "Forum FAQ" .. then what should the existing Forum FAQ then be called? (especially when "the Forum FAQ" has been used for so long and in so many other places <g>29349[/snapback] I'd suggest calling http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2238 "The FAQ" and making it the only one on the new bars in the Forum, calling http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/1.html "The SpamCop FAQ (FAQ-O-Matic)" and giving it top billing in "The FAQ", and calling http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4351 "The Forum FAQ" and giving it second billing in "The FAQ". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agsteele Posted June 16, 2005 Author Share Posted June 16, 2005 So, in light of all this, what might be your suggestion for the title of something I've been working up .... http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4351 .. and if 'this' becomes the "Forum FAQ" .. then what should the existing Forum FAQ then be called? (especially when "the Forum FAQ" has been used for so long and in so many other places <g> 29349[/snapback] Hi Wazoo! I'm all for clarifying names of various areas if that will make your life easier by highlighting where the answers to common questions really lie. If I can find inspiration then I'll post an alternative label. However, my initial suggestion was to have the pre-registration process put the answers to the most common problems within the pre-registration process so that those who generally arrive ranting about their problem get taken through the answers first. I recognise that this is hassle now to create that process (and perhaps it cannot be achieved, technically, within the current forums) but I'd hope it would make life less hassle once the troubled visitors get an early answer to their questions. Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted June 16, 2005 Share Posted June 16, 2005 How about 'User-to-User FAQ' Answers to FAQ by spamcop users Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 16, 2005 Share Posted June 16, 2005 I'm all for clarifying names of various areas if that will make your life easier by highlighting where the answers to common questions really lie. If I can find inspiration then I'll post an alternative label. Hmmm, the easy/obvious to that would be more color coding, but .... that doesn't fly on monochrome screens, and the color selections that involve contrast issues get a bit hairy <g> ... have to tinker a bit to see how far I can stretch things that way ... However, my initial suggestion was to have the pre-registration process put the answers to the most common problems within the pre-registration process so that those who generally arrive ranting about their problem get taken through the answers first. I recognise that this is hassle now to create that process (and perhaps it cannot be achieved, technically, within the current forums) but I'd hope it would make life less hassle once the troubled visitors get an early answer to their questions. 29359[/snapback] There are a number of ways to approach that .. one is to blow out some of the "language" files .. basically the content of the various screens that pop up while moving about ... (one for instance that I keep neglecting to actually get done .. during registration, you'll get the screen about the validation e-mail 'will' be sent ... I keep meaning to expand that to point out the possibility of that validation e-mail hitting the Junk/Bulk folders at some of the free web-mail hosts) Another one, as you suggest, is to write up a whole new step/sequence to insert this level somewhere .... have to admit, though I've spent a lot of time analyzing the code to look/solve other issues, I'm not at the point of developing yet. The third that I was going to actually try and tinker with .. I can't at present ... JT changed ownership on one folder (don't think it was intentional, I think it happened while we were working through applying the last security patches/upgrade, and that folder was heavily touched while he was running as 'root' on this particulat system) but .... though I can modify the heck out of the files within that folder (??) I can't add the needed new files there .... I've got a couple of e-mails asking for a bit of his touch there, but .... end result on this path would be a portal/front page to this thing, with this Forum actually being a link found on that page .... Someone else has done up a Mod to insert/generate a 'custom' HTML page .. which sounded a bit interesting, perhaps a way to better manipulate the Forum FAQ ... but ran into that I can't upload the needed support files at present ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 16, 2005 Share Posted June 16, 2005 How about 'User-to-User FAQ' Answers to FAQ by spamcop users 29360[/snapback] Space, line-length issues .... have to look up something I did up (apparently in a Moderator-only forum) ... I recall having issues in doing up the 'direct' links to the Forum FAQ in the Pinned items .... Title display lines are limited to ?? characters for instance .... later, have to hit the road for a bit right now ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted June 17, 2005 Share Posted June 17, 2005 Space, line-length issues .... have to look up something I did up (apparently in a Moderator-only forum) ... I recall having issues in doing up the 'direct' links to the Forum FAQ in the Pinned items .... Title display lines are limited to ?? characters for instance .... later, have to hit the road for a bit right now ... 29370[/snapback] I thought line length might be a problem. 'User FAQ' would work though. I don't have time at the moment to look into exactly what we are talking about here so don't know about the rest of the description - I was basing it on the descriptions of the different forums where there is space for a fairly lengthy sub description, ISTM. Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jank1887 Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 even just " Spamcop FAQ (old) ", and " Spamcop FAQ (new) " it's an FAQ, so it has to say that. It's an FAQ on how to use the spamcop system, and issues that come up when using the Spamcop system, so, should be called spamcop faq. now best way to differentiate between new and old ? dunno. (just looking at clarity of the semantics) Again, the main reason I posted that message was that IMHO the people that need to be directed to help the most are the people who've been blocked or inconvenienced in some way. Secondary to that are users. It seems we are all in violent agreement that the current setup is bad for getting people to the info they want. Are there any ways of getting people to at least a first level of "So you've been blocked/bounced/etc." any faster? Changing the link that appears in notifications? Adding any info to those emails? Could we come up with a single link to badger/lobby ironport to get on the front page to get them somewhere useful faster? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 OK, Forum page changes made to point to "the SpamCop FAQ" .... which is the item once known as "the Forum FAQ" ..... That item has had some additional commentary added on it's top-most portion ..... From this side of the screen .. still waiting for some support steps from JT. If that comes through, then I'll do some tinkering .. plans are to build some web pages, to include a new portal/front page for this location. However, ..... This doesn't address the points made about the www.spamcop.net web page(s) .... I've got no 'powers' there, most points have been complained about for years, and referenced elsewhere, that changes there apparently now need to be 'staffed' and 'approved' .. not sure how/when any of those changes might be actually handled. Technically, "we" all had a shot when there was an IronPort staffer assigned the 'additional' task of touching up the www.spamcop.net FAQ ... there were some changes made that included references to other links/resources ... one in specific was the change from linking directly into forum sub-sections, now pointers for the most part come in at the top of the Forum structure, such that all sections are seen ... but I can also say that there were requests made that weren't acted upon ... anyway, that person has since gone back to whatever her real job was .... so just stating that I do what I can, and as I'm only volunteering time and effort, I have no 'real' say on anything .... well, other than the limited control of this thing anyway .... but noting that this is still under JT's full control, still some access not quite yet granted to me yet <g> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenUnderwood Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 OK, Forum page changes made to point to "the SpamCop FAQ" .... which is the item once known as "the Forum FAQ" ..... That item has had some additional commentary added on it's top-most portion ..... 29479[/snapback] Just to let you know, this was noticed and works for me, but I am usually pretty flexible AND I already understand the system. I need to start a company with computer illeterates (aka dweeb squad) to check out things like this (problems experienced, things not understood, etc.) Then compile a report to give to the company being investigated. Sort of like a security audit but focused on usability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 I need to start a company with computer illeterates (aka dweeb squad) to check out things like this (problems experienced, things not understood, etc.) Then compile a report to give to the company being investigated. Sort of like a security audit but focused on usability. It's hard to keep that staff at the "dweeb" level .... recall reading the problem one user had ... once he put the mouse on the screen to "grab the cursor" .. he then couldn't 'see' the cursor ... once corrected, you no longer have a 'newbie' on staff <g> Then there's the credibility of that kind of staff ... recollection of a system given an early field-test by some Marines. Equipment given to them worked for a while, but had a tendency to 'melt down' after a bit. Every item sent through the maintenance cycle was guaranteed to melt down at first use. The initial action reports of course centered on the intelligence levels of the soldiers involved. It took quite a bit of research to actually get to the bottom of the issue ... some of the pictures in the Tech Manual had been reversed during printing. Result being that some mechanical parts were installed per the manual, but that also meant that they were 180 degrees out of phase. Of course, I don't recall anyone ever getting around to retracting all those initial "jar-head" remarks, never mind that the civilian engineer responsible for reviewing the Tech Manual contents didn't get his behind royally kicked ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Betsy Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 It's hard to keep that staff at the "dweeb" level .... recall reading the problem one user had ... once he put the mouse on the screen to "grab the cursor" .. he then couldn't 'see' the cursor ... once corrected, you no longer have a 'newbie' on staff <g> I once was the 'tester' for a MSDos program written by a football student that my husband was tutoring. I had not a clue about the sports questions posed in the little program - until the last one which asked "Who is the football coach?" I got all excited and thought I had a right answer at last - only I named the basketball coach! It is absolutely amazing the construction that different people put on directions! IMHO, there are going to always be a few that somehow slip through without being able to find the easy answer. There do seem to be fewer of them lately. And a lot of readers of the Why Am I blocked FAQ. And there are some people who just like to complain. Miss Betsy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jank1887 Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 good change with the name. understand that we have no power over spamcop.net, wasn't implying otherwise. However, my understanding (i could be wrong) is that previous changes/fixes via ironport didn't get done because there was one person who had to try to do a lot of work on the side of his/her "real job". Updating correcting the FAQ, responding to an array of frontpage complaints/change requests, etc. Understandable. However, I remember being in a position once to attempt to funnel criticism, requests, complaints, etc., up to a person in control, and my first misguided attempt was to minimally filter and then dump everything on that person. Nothing got done, it was overwhelming. Later, I figured that if my limited contact with the person involved voicing one specific issue, clarified and simplified with a specific requested course of action (i.e., being a useful filter), it got done, or at least a respectable effort was made. With that in mind, if we could come up with an idea for a single appropriate link on the frontpage to properly direct those described above who need help quickly so we don't have to deal with their rants here later, and then push that to the appropriate person, with help, something could happen. I wouldn't expect any quick turn-around or change. I would expect to have to make several attempts. But, if it's a simplified request already fleshed out (link with full text and location), and requires very little work other than a quick edit, it may have a shot of getting done. My reason for beating the dead horse is that no matter what pages you build as a front for the forum, it still appears that it will take too long for people with issues to get there. (god we've become impatient, haven't we?). Giving up on any help for the main frontpage seems to be abandoning the only approach that could have any effect. And yes, beating my head against a brick wall is my idea of a good time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 http://news.spamcop.net/pipermail/spamcop-...read.html#65021 [sC-Help] I know you're tired of hearing this, but ... re FAQs Much too huge to copy over here ... but conversation certainly fits into this Topic. Not my intent to badmouth anyone, but here's where I set on trying to get this stuff started .. sent JT one of my normal 10-ton e-mails, assume it went to the back-burner (however noting that I did get a one-line response a few days later - asking what a portal page was) in that reply, I asked that he change some permission settings .. though noting that this could add some security risks A later e-mail asked that he move some files I did upload into the correct folders, noted that some other files I'd have to edit later to pull them into play ... That last e-mail was sent on the 19th ... I can't go any further with the placing and building a portal page for the first step ... building in some custom pages for the follow-on work ... so just letting you know that things aren't forgotten, just on-hold for a bit .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jank1887 Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 efforts noted and appreciated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenUnderwood Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 ... so just letting you know that things aren't forgotten, just on-hold for a bit .... 29566[/snapback] It seems to have been quiet here the last few days (before today, that is)...thought you had taken a well deserved rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted June 24, 2005 Share Posted June 24, 2005 It seems to have been quiet here the last few days (before today, that is)...thought you had taken a well deserved rest. 29585[/snapback] Agree on the quiet bit .. that had me wondering also (the FAQ finally at the point that all questions were answered? <g>) Break? heh ... have been going round and round with my ISP ... basically, all wiring from the modem to the pole has been replaced, naturally, a section at a time, on different days. That involved moving stuff in the living room to gain access to the incoming cable ..and moving that stuff has ended up filling up the other rooms .. still not recovered from that ... 3 motorcycles, 6 lawnmowers, 2 chainsaws queued up in the garage for repair work .. 90 degrees outside, over 100 in the house, garage is 'hot' .... girl wants pages added for swords/knives she's decided to sell, still trying to figure out how to do the "over 18" thing .... I think "the break" is more "lack of motivation" at present <g> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jank1887 Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 A girl with swords and knives. You are a far braver man than I. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dra007 Posted June 25, 2005 Share Posted June 25, 2005 oh well, just picture him juggling swords and knives on a hot summer day.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wazoo Posted July 2, 2005 Share Posted July 2, 2005 OK, a few steps forward, many more backwards, JT gave me a bit of a power boost, and as usual, I overstepped a bit. For those that noticed, a couple of days back, I managed to change the comforting blue backgound of this forum to a nice white "you screwed something up SQL error" display. Backed out all the edits I'd done before finding out that I didn't have permissions to add/extend the SQL database ... Worked for a while to get another file to "work" but it turns out that the only legit way would be to make it live ... didn't want to subject more folks to problems while I ttried to sort things out. Spent the last couple of days beating things up, tinkering with things there, playing with bits elsewhere ... finally figured out a way to stuck my data into the stream of other mystical scri_pt files ... Fresh start, looking for input .. noting that I'm still chasing code ... http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?act=home Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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