Ask the Mods questions about the Forums!

[RealKerbal3x]

@Vanamonde Apologies if this is the wrong place for this question, but is your username a reference to the character from the book The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke?

Edit: Oh hey, I made a new page.

Edited April 6, 2019 by RealKerbal3x

[Vanamonde]

9 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

@Vanamonde Apologies if this is the wrong place for this question, but is your username a reference to the character from the book The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke?

Edit: Oh hey, I made a new page.

Yes it is.

[roboslacker]

How do you change the size of an image when posting it on the forum?

[Chemp]

19 minutes ago, roboslacker said:

How do you change the size of an image when posting it on the forum?

Double-click on it in the editor. You can change the size in the editor that pops up.

[YNM]

I see that the "reactions / likes" button was messed up with for a brief period somewhen earlier of the month this post was created. Now it's back, but modified.

Is there any chance to revert it back to it's old state, pre-messed ? It looks a bit odd, esp. from mobile, and is definitely less... reactive.

[Dman979]

15 hours ago, YNM said:

Is there any chance to revert it back to it's old state, pre-messed ? It looks a bit odd, esp. from mobile, and is definitely less... reactive. 

I don't there are any plans to return the reaction button to its pre-April-Fools state. Apparently, it got messed up when the forums migrated from vBulletin, and the prank ended up fixing it.

 

[YNM]

1 hour ago, Dman979 said:

Apparently, it got messed up when the forums migrated from vBulletin, and the prank ended up fixing it.

I don't think it's the exact case...

I remembered it when it was first implemented, including when other types of reactions was available. The resulting amount of like would be stored in a small box next to it. Right now, it's not like what it was... though if the devs feels happy with it, who am I to force such an insignificant change.

[Gargamel]

3 hours ago, YNM said:

Right now, it's not like what it was.

I think we're closer to what we intended originally, might not be perfect, but it's better than it was last month.  I don't see it changing soon unless something horrible is found. 

[roboslacker]

What's the consensus on double posting on this forum?

[Dman979]

2 hours ago, roboslacker said:

What's the consensus on double posting on this forum?

If the posts are made close enough in time to each other, they're automagically merged by the forum.

Other than that, there's no restrictions, so long as they follow all the forum rules.

[YNM]

On 4/9/2019 at 7:02 AM, Gargamel said:

I think we're closer to what we intended originally, might not be perfect, but it's better than it was last month.  I don't see it changing soon unless something horrible is found. 

I see now. It works good from computer web browser, but it doesn't do very well on mobile browsers...

The splash and resulting blue often bugs out on mobile. I'm usually on Google Chrome v73, in Android 8.1.0 on SM-G610F.

Edited April 10, 2019 by YNM

[Snark]

On 4/9/2019 at 5:03 AM, roboslacker said:

What's the consensus on double posting on this forum?

What Dman said.  Though bear in mind the rule against "bumping"-- for example, if you post a question, and it just sits there for a long time and you're getting impatient for an answer, it's not okay to post a second time just to try to bump the thread.

[Fraston]

14 hours ago, Snark said:

it's not okay to post a second time just to try to bump the thread.

*Dies a little inside*

[Snark]

6 minutes ago, Fraston said:

*Dies a little inside*

As opposed to if we allowed it, in which case every time someone pollutes the forum with another "bump", then everyone on the whole darn forum dies a little inside?

'Fraid we gotta pull a Vulcan-philosophy on this one, friend. 

(It's one of those things that wouldn't be a problem, if just one person did it, and not too often.  But if we allowed it, many people would do it all the time, and the forum would just devolve into an endless content-free spew of "bump" bilge, and the signal would get drowned out by all the noise.)

 

[Fraston]

Nevermind. It is more acceptable to “necropost” on forum games than it is anywhere else, as long as it is few and far between times, in my opinion. I revived “KSP vending machine” and I wasn’t scolded...

Edited April 11, 2019 by Fraston

[Snark]

59 minutes ago, Fraston said:

Nevermind. It is more acceptable to “necropost” on forum games than it is anywhere else, as long as it is few and far between times, in my opinion. I revived “KSP vending machine” and I wasn’t scolded...

There's no rule forbidding necroposting.  Please be clear, "bumping" is not the same thing as necroposting.  Bumping is never okay.  Necroposting often is.

What we mean by "bumping" is if you post in a thread, and then you post in that same thread again specifically for purposes of "trying to keep your thread on top".  Here's a classic example of what bumping looks like:

1. There's some mod thread somewhere, perhaps a low-traffic one that doesn't get posts very often.
2. User has problem.  Posts a question.  "Help me, I've got <problem>, can someone help?"
3. A day goes by and nobody else posts anything.
4. That same user gets impatient and then posts again something like "bump" or "Anyone?" or the like.

That's not allowed, because it serves no useful purpose and is highly annoying to other forum members-- it's like someone who rings a doorbell, and when they don't get an answer, just keeps ringing and ringing the doorbell trying to get someone to answer the door.  Dude, you ring a doorbell once.  More than that is just annoying harassment.  In the above example, #2 may have been a "necro" if the thread were long dormant... but it may be a reasonable one, and it's not "bumping".  #4, however, is bumping, and is not okay.

That's in stark contrast to mere necroposting, which sometimes may be silly and pointless (e.g. reviving a thread which really needs to stay dead, such as a Gameplay Questions thread from a KSP version five years ago that's no longer relevant because KSP has changed since then).  But there's also such a thing as a "righteous necro", where the old thread may still be perfectly relevant, so there's nothing wrong with reviving it.

For example, maybe there's a mod thread that hasn't had a post in a long time-- maybe it's just that not a lot's happening so nobody has had any reason to post recently.  It's not dead, it's resting.    So asking a question there could be perfectly legitimate.

Or, take the example of the KSP's Vending Machine thread that you mention, in Forum Games:  It sat around gathering dust for a couple of years, and then you posted in it.

That's not a bump.  So you didn't do anything even slightly "wrong", and you're fine.

Sure, I guess you could call that a necro... but in this case, I think it's a perfectly fair one.  That thread was gathering dust for a while, sure, but it's still just as "valid" as it ever was, and nothing even slightly wrong with reviving it.  As evidenced by the fact that people are having fun with it and continuing to post after you.  So, ya done good. 

Examples like this are why there's no actual rule against necroposting.  It often is somewhat inappropriate, but not always-- it depends on context.  In this case, you're perfectly fine.

(What would have been "bumping" would have been, suppose you posted in that game thread and then nobody posted after you for a while so you got impatient and posted again to try to "ring the doorbell".  But you didn't do that, so you're good.)

 

[Lapis]

@Gargamel how was the transition from normal forum user to mod?

[Snark]

36 minutes ago, lapis said:

@Gargamel how was the transition from normal forum user to mod?

He's recovering nicely and the implant scar is healing well.

[Gargamel]

4 hours ago, lapis said:

@Gargamel how was the transition from normal forum user to mod?

Quite abrupt and jarring to be honest.   Once I sent the I accept Email, I figured it would take some time, hours to days before I was allowed in.  Took like 3 minutes.   I refreshed to forums to look around, and all this new shiny stuff appeared.    So I started pushing buttons.    I apologize for that minor outage in January. 

[Fraston]

Do you guys have a record of a user that acquired 29 followers within their first year of  KSP foruming?

Well, besides me?

Spoiler

_{Help me I'm drowning in followers and I love it} 

 

Edited April 12, 2019 by Fraston

[cubinator]

10 hours ago, Fraston said:

Nevermind. It is more acceptable to “necropost” on forum games than it is anywhere else, as long as it is few and far between times, in my opinion. I revived “KSP vending machine” and I wasn’t scolded...

In my opinion, it's quite alright to bring back an old forum game, and it actually kind of annoys me when someone makes a new, identical forum game just because the original hadn't been posted in in a long time.

[Gargamel]

13 minutes ago, cubinator said:

In my opinion, it's quite alright to bring back an old forum game, and it actually kind of annoys me when someone makes a new, identical forum game just because the original hadn't been posted in in a long time.

In that case, the best thing to do is report the new thread, and in the comments for the report, add a link to the old thread.   That way we can review if, in fact, they are similar threads, and we can merge them.  

A thread being old doesn't mean it's dead.  There are a lot of old threads that have lots of good info in them, and pertinent on topic 'bumps' are completely acceptable.  That orange box warning a thread is old doesn't say "Don't post here", it just says to consider whether it is appropriate to post there. 

Case in point, @Lisias did bump a 2 year old thread today, and it is exactly the type of necro/bump that we like to see.  

 

[JERONIMO]

What's you'r average reply speed in time?

[Gargamel]

27 minutes ago, JERONIMO said:

What's you'r average reply speed in time?

To what?

In this case.... 27 minutes apparently. 

[Vanamonde]

2 hours ago, Fraston said:

Do you guys have a record of a user that acquired 29 followers within their first year of  KSP foruming?

Can't tell if you're joking or not, but we don't keep records on that sort of thing.