JADE STARS - Frequently Asked Questions
Categories:
Email and Private Messages (PM's)
User Status and Privacy/Cookies
Posting, Archives and General HowTo
Email and Private Messages (PM's)
Q: Emails keep coming, and I can't turn them off!
A: Go to your profile and uncheck the email notification boxes.
Q:How can we get emails of the posts?
A: Go to your profile and click on:
- E-mail Notification
There you will be able to have whichever forums you wish to see emailed to you. You can even chose specific subfolders or threads if you don't want all the mails of a forum.
Q: How often are the emails sent to us? Once a day or whenever someone posts?
A: The emails are sent out on a regular basis, but not immediately. Whenever someone posts, that post is transferred into the mail format by the software and put into a queue and gets sent automatically in short intervalls.
The idea behind it is, that users who read and post per email, don't go online all the time, and hardly notice if there is a delay of 15 minutes or not. The feature is very convenient when you are travelling and only have slow internet access. You can read and write offline, and send off all your posts in one short session.
Q: I get all the posts on the board by email, and it works a treat. All you have to do is edit your profile to receive posts on any forum. I have all of them checked.
A: You can get them in html so it looks just like a post on the board, or you can get them as text only emails.
Q: When the emails come in I can read them quickly one after the other, no matter which forum they come from, and decide whether to follow up a particular post, and delete those I don't need.
There is a link in each email to allow me to get to the thread in which the particular post I want to respond to is situated. I usually have no idea what forum or thread I am in (yes Thal, I know it is in the header if I cared to look!).
This worked fine until I decided to get the emails in html form. Suddenly the link didn't work. I have had the same problem with my email version of New Scientist.
However by *replying* or pretending to reply to the email, suddenly the link worked! And what's more, highlighting the text of the New Scientist email version allows all those links to work as well, if I pretend to be replying. What's going on here?
A: Sounds like a "feature" (read bug) with the earlier versions of Mail on the Macintosh. I am using 'Mail' on 'Panther' (OS X.3) and my links all work.
Q: Is it possible regarding the computer programme you are using to delay the emails for 30 minutes (i.e. the time during which you are able to edit your posts)? IMO that wouldn't make a big difference for the receiver of the emails and this way he/she would always get the actual version of the posts.
A: No, sorry, that's not possible. At least not now, maybe in some of the later versions of the board software. We could delay the sending, but that wouldn't change the original email.
That's why we usually encourage quoting... that way you know what was replied to, even if it has been edited out in the post.
Q: Just checked the updated PM function... question: suppose somebody replies to a PM with the Outlook's (or whatever other email handling program's) reply button instead of clicking on the provided link, where does that email go? (who gets board@auelfans.ca?) Is it lost, or can it be recovered and sent on to the intended recipient? This will likely happen sometimes.
A: No one gets that pm. It is lost in the vaults of the mail queue and will be deleted automatically over time. That account sends out the automatic mails from the posts. But since there is no proper recipient, it goes nowhere.
Q: I've had trouble getting my PM's past my "anti spam" settings. I had to turn off the spam protection, accept a PM from myself, and then email the confirm to my "friends list". If they are bounced as spam, does anyone here know they are?
A: No, it just seems like you are being ignored. You'll have to work with your own spam settings, we can't help you there.
Q: How do I search for topics or authors?
A: You can check the last posts of a user with the Search function in the menu. Check the "Search by Keyword" section, enter the user's name, choose "Names of Authors" in the "Look in:" line. If you want to further refine the search, you can also check and choose date parameters, and/or specify forums.
Q: Can I see the new messages since I last visited the board?
A: There is the "Check new messages" option, just under your login name at the top left of the page - that will show you all the messages posted since your last check. If you use it regularly, it's the most helpful and precise way to find new posts that I've seen on any board.
Another great feature about it is that it opens up a new window for each post you click on there, so to get back to the list you only have to close the window. Go to 'edit your profile', check 'open searches in a new window' and close the browser. Do it beforeyou click on 'check new messages, otherwise they are gone.
When you restart the browser, the settings will work correctly.
You can reply to a message there and close it when finished, and after that resume going down the list of new messages where you left off in the old window (otherwise every time you check new messages it only shows what is new since you checked last time - not what is new since you last logged on).
The features 'last 1,3,7 days' in the menu work similar, and are very helpful if you can't read all your new posts in one online session.
Q: The Questions Problems and Test forum is showing a new post, but when I open the forum, there is no new post. Would that be because whatever was new, has been moved?
A: It could have been moved, or it could have been deleted by the user because s/he made a mistake or got second thoughts about the post. There is a 'grace period' of 10 minutes for deleting your posts. Deleted or moved posts are counted by the board software and the 'new' tag is triggered, even if the posts are gone.
User Status and Privacy/Cookies
Q: What's with the user status, how many posts do I need to advance to the next level?
A: This feature is not meant to promote speed posting, only to make the board a bit more personal than 'registered user' and 'unregistered guest'. Here are the current numbers, but beware, they are subject to change.
visitor - unregistered guest
bear cub - 0 to 55 posts
gatherer - 56 to 222 posts
hunter - 223 to 555 posts
flint knapper - 556 to 2222 posts
cave painter - 2222 to 3333 posts
healer - highest level so far.
storyteller - for creative writers, gives them the opportunity to edit their stories without time restrictions. This is independent from board count.
Q: Why can the profiles be found on google?
A: All the pages generated are static pages and get indexed. This is a public board and the profiles posted are public. If you want to keep your privacy, better not reveal too many private details.
Q: Every time I post, I am required to select a user name. I only use one, so that's not difficult, but it does require I go and click "OK". But now that I have started a couple of new threads, it lists each subject line as a "user name". This seems odd, and now I have to select my username from a list each time.I assume I'm doing something wrong in response to a question from the computer, but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
How do I delete all those subject-line "user names"? When asked to select one, "cancel" is not the intuitive choice, but it seems to work. Is there a way I can eliminate the request to "select a user-name" entirely? Is it something in my profile preferences?
A: In the Preferences section of your profile there are two lines dealing with saving cookies:
"Remember my username and password in a cookie"
and
"Clear the cookie when I exit my browser"
If you check the first and uncheck the second, you should not be asked for your details every time.
If you are still asked, then the problem is likely with your browser. In Netscape, go to Edit - Preferences - Privacy&Security. If 'remember password' is checked here, this is likely the cause for the list of usernames that shows up, because you likely are registered on more than one site and with different usernames. If that is the case, uncheck the box and open 'manage stored passwords'. Remove them all, and the problem should be solved.
The internet explorer has a similar feature, found under internet options - contents. Go to auto-fill-in and uncheck 'save username and passwords for forms' - then remove the stored passwords.
Q: I have a username problem, toowhy does the username sometimes show up with a captial letter and sometimes it doesn't. Why can't we have both?
A: We do have the option in the board software to chose if usernames should have lowercase letters or uppercase letters. We did turn on upper case letters. Sadly, the board software can't manage both.
However, I think initially only lowercase letters worked, and the uppercase was introduced in one of the newer versions. That may explain some of the inconsistencies ...
Q: The profile has the options 'remember my username and password in a cookie' and 'clear the cookie when I exit my browser'. In my profile both have that little "v" in the box. Is that correct?
A: You can chose those settings in your profile. Some of the options are set by default, to give you more security when you don't want to or don't know how to change them.
To delete the username and cookie from the computer's memory after closing the browser makes sense when you use a computer that other people use as well. Then, if someone else comes to our site, they won't be automatically logged with your username. If you're the only user and have a reasonably safe computer, the other option makes sense, since you don't need to log in all the time.
Posting, Archives and General HowTo
Q: Why are older posts of ongoing moved to the archive? Does this happen automatically or by hand?
A: Older posts are archived because this software doesn't support division into pages (yet), and very long pages would take a considerable time to load when you open them. So we are using the archive function in lieu of pages - it works pretty much the same way. The software is set to archive every 30 posts, and leave the last 5 on the active thread to be continued. When reading a long thread, start from the oldest archive and move upwards. The active thread has a 'add reply' form, there you can reply to the topic.
Q: A few days ago I tried quoting a text that contained another quote (I needed both for my reply, so I couldn’t skip the latter one.), but got an error message. Quoting the post without the second quote worked however. Did I make a mistake or is it not possible to quote a post that contains another quote?
A: You can quote as many nested quotes as you want, but the coding gets more difficult the more 'levels' of nesting you have.. IOW, you just have to nest one "quoteauthor" function inside the other, and make sure you have a closing curly brace for each (that tends to be what gets forgotten), like this.
\quoteauthor{username,\quoteauthor{username, text 1} text 2...}
You have to type in the formatting manually, though, and paste only the text. Check the formatting help guide for more detailed instructions.
Q: Okay, this may be a silly question, but nonetheless: It seems that my signature line contains a blank line. To start with I didn't enter one when I typed the quote. Then I tried to delete that blank line, but it appeared that none was existing. At the moment I'm puzzled about how to get rid of it.
A: I think I see why you thought you had one... The left field, where your name and details are, has a minimal length equivalent to a 5-line post. So if your right field (post + signature) is still shorter than that, you will still have an empty line, or more, under it, to accomodate the left field.
Q: When accessing the board from the "Topics" view, the sub topics don't show up. Can they be accessed from that view? Sub topics show up in both the Tree View and the New Posts view.
A: No, the structure of the first level doesn't allow this. The subtopics are all on the same level, thus can be nested. The highest level, topics and categories, are different and allow no nesting. They aren't managed in the page manager either.
Q: How do we quote? Cut+paste? And doesn't ubb code with the square brackets work here?
A: No, the format is slightly different. Like this:
\quote{copy and paste message here}. Check out the formatting guide for details. You have a multitude of formatting option. The formatting page opens in a new window, so you can keep it open and look the codes up while you write.
Q: Can we set the board times to local times?
A:Local time would be cool, but the software doesn't offer that. In lieu of that GMT seems a good choice. You can check the board time, and compare it to other time zone by clicking on the 'board clock' link in the menu on top.
Q: This might be a silly question, but I have troubles identifying some of the emotions that a few smilies are standing for. Would it be possible to complete the list and add those meanings in the chapter "formatting help"?
A: That's on the agenda. Also, you can find out their names (if you use Windows) but right- clicking the smilie gif and clicking on the Properties link. In the URL line, the last word before "gif" is the name. It will also be included in the formatting help page eventually. However, the list won't always be up-to-date, since we keep adding smilies and other little icons as we see them, and find them free for using, or make them.
The cliparts are divided into three sections, the ones with the yellow face are the basic emoticons. The ones with the blue/violet grin are the larger cliparts, emoticons and actions, like hugs, share a beer, and such.
Section 3, which you get through the horse button are special clipart, they can be used for special purposes, or just for fun. There will be more, over time, and if you find some or make some, we can take them there, too. They need to be free for using, like the ones from the Best Smilies page.
You can see a list of the basic emoticons images from the first section here. This link is also in the help file, but a bit hidden.
Q: Can we post images? What is the imagelink tag?
A: You can upload images, but with common sense, please. Click on the 'upload attachments' button for that. The imagelink button can be used to link to images on your own website. You can also get a free account from providers like ripway (www.ripway.com), who allow imagelinking. Please don't link to sites not your own, this is called bandwidth theft.
Q: What happens if a picture I posted on this board is removed from its original site where I took it from? Is it still displayed properly on JADE STARS or will it be replaced by a red X?
A: Unfortunately, it will be replaced by a red X. The board does not store the linked photos.