Ask the Mods questions about the Forums!

[Snark]

17 hours ago, Staticalliam7 said:

Do you read all of our posts?

In this thread?  Absolutely. 

In the forums generally?  Not even vaguely.  There are only a few of us, and we're part-time volunteers who just use the forums same as anyone else, most of the time.  There's no way we have the bandwidth to read everything goes on.

So, we don't read everything in the forum, any more than you do.    We browse around the forums a fair amount, like anyone else, but as moderators we generally only see stuff that people report, unless we just happen to notice something in passing.

[ColdJ]

2 minutes ago, Snark said:

In this thread?  Absolutely. 

Hello Mr Snark. Thank you for introducing me to part stacking in config files. It has been very useful.

[AtomicTech]

Question, can the moderators/forum admin look up how many times a specific word has been mentioned?

 

[The Aziz]

3 hours ago, AtomicTech said:

Question, can the moderators/forum admin look up how many times a specific word has been mentioned?

 

I mean, if you search for a word, there's a number of instances shown in the search results. For example, "word" should appear now about 16321 times. Though I don't think it counts if it appears multiple times in a post.

Edited November 19, 2021 by The Aziz

[Vanamonde]

3 hours ago, AtomicTech said:

Question, can the moderators/forum admin look up how many times a specific word has been mentioned?

 

No, the forum's content is not indexed in that kind of detail. 

[Deddly]

As Aziz mentions, all users can use the search tool for something like that. If that doesn't work, you can type "site:forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com <YOUR WORD HERE>" in Google. 

[AtomicTech]

What's the biggest necropost on the site?

(Date that the thread started -> date ended -> date revived)

[Vanamonde]

I do not know, but please don't try to set the record. 

[ColdJ]

I had a comment on a thread, that did not cross any lines of any type that this forum has issues with, but it has just disappeared without even a hint as to why. Any ideas why? It was right after the comment I am linking, and the comment after that is the reaction to my comment.

 

[Gargamel]

41 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

I had a comment on a thread, that did not cross any lines of any type that this forum has issues with, but it has just disappeared without even a hint as to why. Any ideas why? It was right after the comment I am linking, and the comment after that is the reaction to my comment.

 

This one?

Question threads can be sorted either by date or votes.   The forum software defaults to votes.   Yes, we've discussed changing this in the past, but it's been decided that since a lot people find KSP related answers via google, it's best to keep the best answers at the top of each thread.  

Votes are not likes.   Please only upvote posts that answer the question. 

Edited December 4, 2021 by Gargamel

[ColdJ]

@Gargamel

Thank you. It finally occurred to me that that might have happened, while I was away. I feel very slow sometimes. Thank you for confirming it.

[Scarecrow71]

2 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Question threads can be sorted either by date or votes.   The forum software defaults to votes.

Is it possible to set our own individual preferences to sort by date?  Or is it an "all or nothing" kind of thing with the code?

[Gargamel]

4 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Is it possible to set our own individual preferences to sort by date?  Or is it an "all or nothing" kind of thing with the code?

It's something we've inquired about, but until Invision makes the change in the base engine, we're stuck with a forum default.  

[AtomicTech]

Moderators, are the forums looking odd to you?

For me, no images are loading.

[Geonovast]

23 minutes ago, AtomicTech said:

Moderators, are the forums looking odd to you?

For me, no images are loading.

I'm seeing some issues with user avatars.   Pictures you see in posts are not stored by the forums, so if they're not displaying, it's something to do with where they're hosted.

That said AFAIK the forum uses AWS for storing the user avatars.  AWS had an outage yesterday and there's likely some lingering effects.  Since AWS contains a large portion of the internet, it's likely other sites, like image hosting sites, are also still having some issues.

[AtomicTech]

It looks like it's working again!

[adsii1970]

5 minutes ago, AtomicTech said:

It looks like it's working again!

Yes, because we have a great team of IT guys, such as @ManeTI who keeps us running!

[BekfastDerp13]

What do you do outside of the forum?

[AtomicTech]

5 minutes ago, BekfastDerp13 said:

What do you do outside of the forum?

Minor note:

3.5 Moderator privacy

Unwanted invasion of a moderator's personal time or privacy is not allowed. Please do not contact them outside the KSP community to discuss their work here unless they specifically ask you to do so. 

You might be slightly skimming around the edges this rule a little bit.

 I'm just giving you a heads up, just in case 

Edited December 10, 2021 by AtomicTech

[adsii1970]

6 minutes ago, BekfastDerp13 said:

What do you do outside of the forum?

I teach at a local community college and online for a local university. Outside of work, I do things in the "about me" section of my profile.

2 minutes ago, AtomicTech said:

Minor note:

3.5 Moderator privacy

Unwanted invasion of a moderator's personal time or privacy is not allowed. Please do not contact them outside the KSP community to discuss their work here unless they specifically ask you to do so. 

You might be slightly skimming around the edges this rule a little bit.

 I'm just giving you a heads up, just in case 

That's backseat moderating. And we frown on that.

 

[AtomicTech]

1 minute ago, adsii1970 said:

That's backseat moderating. And we frown on that.

Well, I didn't want them to get in trouble...

[BekfastDerp13]

Oops, I must have forgotten this rule.

Edited December 10, 2021 by BekfastDerp13
grammar

[Deddly]

18 hours ago, AtomicTech said:

Minor note:

3.5 Moderator privacy

Unwanted invasion of a moderator's personal time or privacy is not allowed. Please do not contact them outside the KSP community to discuss their work here unless they specifically ask you to do so. 

You might be slightly skimming around the edges this rule a little bit.

 I'm just giving you a heads up, just in case 

Thanks for your consideration, but since nobody is forced to give out personal information, all is good

[adsii1970]

17 hours ago, BekfastDerp13 said:

Oops, I must have forgotten this rule.

Ignore @AtomicTech. In his zeal to be helpful, he tripped over his own feet and splatted onto the wet grass. 

Usually, I would not do this but I think it could be a valuable learning experience for everyone. Your original post:

20 hours ago, BekfastDerp13 said:

What do you do outside of the forum?

And let's hold it against the original forum guideline:

Forum Guideline 3.5: Moderator privacy: Unwanted invasion of a moderator's personal time or privacy is not allowed. Please do not contact them outside the KSP community to discuss their work here unless they specifically ask you to do so. 

Now, please forgive me, I am not an attorney, but I have worked with a bunch of them in my earlier days as a senior trial counsel assistant while in the U.S. Army. And I also have a Ph.D., too. So, I'm no dumb onion here. Let's view your post in light of the forum guideline. I am giving you folks a rare look into how my mind works when it comes to how I moderate. I sure hope the rest of the moderation team, specifically @Vanamonde doesn't get too upset with this...

The forum guideline specifies that violations of the guideline must:

• Must be an unwanted violation of my personal time.
• Or must be an unwanted violation of my privacy.
• Forum members cannot contact me outside of the forum/KSP community to discuss moderation work unless an invitation by that moderator is offered.

The post by @BekfastDerp13 asked what moderators do outside the forum?

• The nature of the thread allows moderators to ignore the question since it did not ping any moderator specifically. There's no intended moderator asked.
• The nature of the question asked is not a violation of a moderator's personal time. When we are here, we are volunteers, but we are performing a service on behalf of Private Division and Take Two Entertainment. So, technically, it's not personal time when we are here, or at least in my eyes.
• The nature of the question allows me the flexibility to ignore it. There' not invasion of privacy. There's no threats, no demands. It's a question of curiosity, similarly to what I am asked by my college students when they ask me, "Doc, what do you do for fun?" Humans are naturally curious by nature - similar to a cat. It's one of the reasons we like to explore - some of us more than others.
• The question was asked in a thread called "Ask the mods questions about the forums" and we've had a lot of questions, both about ourselves, the forums, and life in general. The question was not sent in a PM (private message) which could have been seen as a violation of the forum guideline. Or, it was not sent to us in a discord message, or other social media platforms. Therefore, the last part of the guideline also does not apply to the post.

With all that taken in consideration, this is why I never considered the question a violation of the forum guidelines. It's a question asked out of innocent curiosity and in a thread where similar questions have been asked - and answered before. It's all good, @BekfastDerp13 and @AtomicTech.

[AtomicTech]

1 hour ago, adsii1970 said:

Ignore @AtomicTech. In his zeal to be helpful, he tripped over his own feet and splatted onto the wet grass. 

Usually, I would not do this but I think it could be a valuable learning experience for everyone. Your original post:

And let's hold it against the original forum guideline:

Forum Guideline 3.5: Moderator privacy: Unwanted invasion of a moderator's personal time or privacy is not allowed. Please do not contact them outside the KSP community to discuss their work here unless they specifically ask you to do so. 

Now, please forgive me, I am not an attorney, but I have worked with a bunch of them in my earlier days as a senior trial counsel assistant while in the U.S. Army. And I also have a Ph.D., too. So, I'm no dumb onion here. Let's view your post in light of the forum guideline. I am giving you folks a rare look into how my mind works when it comes to how I moderate. I sure hope the rest of the moderation team, specifically @Vanamonde doesn't get too upset with this...

The forum guideline specifies that violations of the guideline must:

• Must be an unwanted violation of my personal time.
• Or must be an unwanted violation of my privacy.
• Forum members cannot contact me outside of the forum/KSP community to discuss moderation work unless an invitation by that moderator is offered.

The post by @BekfastDerp13 asked what moderators do outside the forum?

• The nature of the thread allows moderators to ignore the question since it did not ping any moderator specifically. There's no intended moderator asked.
• The nature of the question asked is not a violation of a moderator's personal time. When we are here, we are volunteers, but we are performing a service on behalf of Private Division and Take Two Entertainment. So, technically, it's not personal time when we are here, or at least in my eyes.
• The nature of the question allows me the flexibility to ignore it. There' not invasion of privacy. There's no threats, no demands. It's a question of curiosity, similarly to what I am asked by my college students when they ask me, "Doc, what do you do for fun?" Humans are naturally curious by nature - similar to a cat. It's one of the reasons we like to explore - some of us more than others.
• The question was asked in a thread called "Ask the mods questions about the forums" and we've had a lot of questions, both about ourselves, the forums, and life in general. The question was not sent in a PM (private message) which could have been seen as a violation of the forum guideline. Or, it was not sent to us in a discord message, or other social media platforms. Therefore, the last part of the guideline also does not apply to the post.

With all that taken in consideration, this is why I never considered the question a violation of the forum guidelines. It's a question asked out of innocent curiosity and in a thread where similar questions have been asked - and answered before. It's all good, @BekfastDerp13 and @AtomicTech.

Thanks Adsii!