Ask the Mods questions about the Forums!

[Lewie]

@GeonovastI have no idea why your response to Don’t click this made me laugh so much, but thanks for the laugh!

[AlamoVampire]

Ok I have a question. Its about a very specific thread down in the forum games subforum. Why do you guys keep locking then unlocking: Don’t Click This? It has me curious. 
 

073211082020

[Entropian]

2 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Ok I have a question. Its about a very specific thread down in the forum games subforum. Why do you guys keep locking then unlocking: Don’t Click This? It has me curious. 

It's been locked since @Ted locked it in 2013.  I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Vanamonde]

8 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Ok I have a question. Its about a very specific thread down in the forum games subforum. Why do you guys keep locking then unlocking: Don’t Click This? It has me curious. 
 

073211082020

It's a convoluted story and I don't remember the details. It actually was locked a long time ago but then a forum software update removed the lock, or something like that, and someone posted in it.  A moderator posted to reclose it but then it was later discovered not to be locked after all, someone else posted in it, hilarity ensued, and it turned into a running joke. 

[Dman979]

6 hours ago, Entropian said:

It's been locked since @Ted locked it in 2013.  I have no idea what you're talking about.

This is right. ^

26 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

It's a convoluted story and I don't remember the details. It actually was locked a long time ago but then a forum software update removed the lock, or something like that, and someone posted in it.  A moderator posted to reclose it but then it was later discovered not to be locked after all, someone else posted in it, hilarity ensued, and it turned into a running joke. 

This is wrong. ^

[adsii1970]

9 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Ok I have a question. Its about a very specific thread down in the forum games subforum. Why do you guys keep locking then unlocking: Don’t Click This? It has me curious. 
 

073211082020

I lock and unlock it because:

1. I like irritating fellow moderators by unlocking the thread. 

2. I like irritating certain forum members by locking the thread.

3. I'm twisted... And I enjoy twisted fun. 

[AlamoVampire]

@adsii1970 thats brilliant! Love the chaos!

235411082020

[adsii1970]

9 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

@adsii1970 thats brilliant! Love the chaos!

235411082020

You know, that's like sayin' sick' em to a bulldog, right?

[Mikenike]

How many questions have been posted on this thread. And why do you have a record attendance of over 6k but on average I see only like maybe 170 on at one time.

@adsii1970

[adsii1970]

27 minutes ago, Mikenike said:

How many questions have been posted on this thread. And why do you have a record attendance of over 6k but on average I see only like maybe 170 on at one time.

@adsii1970

I don't know how many legitimate questions there are on this thread. That would mean going back and counting every question and determining if it is an actual forum question or some other unrelated question.

Forum usage spiked when 0.9 and 1.0 rolled out. That forum use record probably happen during that time. I suspect we will see another spike when KSP2 is released. 

[Mikenike]

54 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Forum usage spiked when 0.9 and 1.0 rolled out. That forum use record probably happen during that time. I suspect we will see another spike when KSP2 is released.

Coulda sworn its been that high for a while now.

[AlamoVampire]

13 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

You know, that's like sayin' sick' em to a bulldog, right?

Im ok with that! It entertains you guys and us so win-win!

my next question: is there a max storage capacity to the forums? Like is it possible for us to fill it up 100%?
 

225611092020

[Vanamonde]

There's a capacity to somebody's servers, I'm sure, but I imagine they'd take measures before they actually got full. 

[Mikenike]

What's the highest rank (post rank) that one can achieve in the forums. I've seen up to rank 5, I am a rank 4 so whats the highest. And who has the highest post count, out of sheer curosity?

[Mikenike]

Posts in the Lounge and Forum Games don't give post counts either??

[Vanamonde]

Highest is 5, yes, and no Lounge/Games posts don't count because so many of them are just joke pics and stuff. Too easy to pad one's count. 

[AlamoVampire]

Ive debated asking this since the most recent update but ive decided to ask. I noticed that one or two of my followers vanished post update. Now I can accept people follow and unfollow all the time, but what got my attention was the fact one of my missing followers was last seen logged in on January 1, 2018. anyone else notice this? Did the update nuke inactive followers?

192911102020

193011102020

Edited November 11, 2020 by AlamoVampire

[Mikenike]

@AlamoVampire, can't say they nuked them, but all my followers are active in the community so, I don't know. The mods need to bring in @ManeTI with this too, cuz there have been a significant amount of UI questions as of recent. 

[adsii1970]

14 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Ive debated asking this since the most recent update but ive decided to ask. I noticed that one or two of my followers vanished post update. Now I can accept people follow and unfollow all the time, but what got my attention was the fact one of my missing followers was last seen logged in on January 1, 2018. anyone else notice this? Did the update nuke inactive followers?

192911102020

193011102020

Okay, after investigating your question, I have an observation to make. I had a few people who were following me who had later become banned from the forum. In full disclosure, three of them were banned before I became a moderator. I've noticed that since the forum update, those people are no longer appearing in the "following" part of my profile page. Also, there were a few people who have been inactive for over two years - and they are also no longer appearing in that section of the forum profile.

If a forum user selects the option to log in anonymously, then the last date of their forum activity will show on their profile as the last day they logged in without selecting that option. I do not think this would have any bearing on them being considered as "inactive" since all this option does is hide your current status. The forum's database still logs your activities to include the last time you were active even though it is not visible to the forum members. Every website which has some sort of log-in feature has a database. In WordPress, for example, there is a SQL database that literally is the brains behind the website. I am extremely confident  Invision web software uses a similar database system.

In all honesty, I know there will be some who feel this is a bad thing. I do not, although I hated seeing @sal_vager and a few others disappear out of the list of those following me. However, the forum is not a competition to see who can have the most followers or most likes. It is a place where we can share experiences and fellowship around a couple of common things - our enjoyment of Kerbal Space Program as a game, the enjoyment of the fellowship on this forum, and spaceflight and space exploration.

Is removing inactive followers really a bad thing? No, I do not think so. I am sure with the way the software is designed that if those people ever come back to the forum and return to some sort of activity status, they will reappear. It's not like their profile or any of their content was deleted out of the forum's database.

2 hours ago, Mikenike said:

@AlamoVampire, can't say they nuked them, but all my followers are active in the community so, I don't know. The mods need to bring in @ManeTI with this too, cuz there have been a significant amount of UI questions as of recent. 

@Mikenike We are in frequent contact with the folks who are responsible for the functionality of the forum. We have shared all the information about the recent forum updates as soon as we know the correct information. When we are asked or informed of issues by forum members, we handle them the same way we handle the ones we discover for ourselves - we report them to the community manager and to Mane TI, the person who does a really great job maintaining our forum software. Just because you do not see our communications with those responsible for various forum functions and oversight does not mean we are not doing it.

If you have concerns about how the forums are run, please feel free to reach out to us privately.

[Gargamel]

On 11/9/2020 at 10:14 AM, Mikenike said:

How many questions have been posted on this thread. And why do you have a record attendance of over 6k but on average I see only like maybe 170 on at one time.

@adsii1970

Spiders  

Those attendance stats count any user that is viewing the site.   Web search sites like  google or yahoo use bot programs to crawl the internet to populate their search databases.   These bots are called web crawlers or “spiders”.   They merely open a connection to a web page, and catalog what’s on it.   
 

So when the forum says 6k users online, the vast majority of those were just bot connections scanning the forums.  
 

This has been the Norm for just about any forum I have been on over the past 25 years or so.  

[kerbiloid]

  

On 11/1/2020 at 5:22 PM, RealKerbal3x said:

 For example, if a new member with 1 rep and me with 4k rep both liked the same post, would the poster get more rep from me liking their post?

I take orders!

On 11/3/2020 at 11:12 PM, Mikenike said:

@Vanamonde, who is the truly lead mod, you or @Supernovy?? You have the same title, but there can only be one.

One of them is Pb_nat, another one is ²⁰⁸Pb. 
Who is who, idk.

On 11/4/2020 at 4:15 AM, RoninFrog said:

Underneath the profile picture, there is a little thing saying what someone does on the forums, such as "KSP Team" or "Moderator".  But why is "Members" plural and "Moderator" is singular?  It seems like it would make more sense to say "Member" instead of "Members".

Because user is a bag of body members, while moderator is a chemical compound.

On 11/4/2020 at 5:27 AM, The Minmus Derp said:

I have a question, regarding the rep system. Is it possible to have something analogous to the Love reaction on facebook?

No, because Kerbals get crushed, not loved.

Edited November 12, 2020 by kerbiloid

[Gargamel]

There's something odd about you @kerbiloid, but don't stop.   

 

[Mikenike]

49 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

There's something odd about you @kerbiloid, but don't stop.   

 

Yeah, I have to agree, but yeah, please don't stop.

58 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

No, because Kerbals get crushed, not loved.

Kerbitnam flashbacks intensify.

 

979namD yb !smurof eht tuoba snoitseuq sdoM eht ksA

[Gargamel]

This is not a chat thread.   Some posts have been removed.  Please refrain from posting contentless posts here, we already have a couple useless threads for that type of stuff.   

[Dman979]

  

51 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

This is not a chat thread.   Some posts have been removed.  Please refrain from posting contentless posts here, we already have a couple useless threads for that type of stuff.   

On 5/28/2015 at 1:01 PM, Dman979 said:

THIS IS NOT A CHAT THREAD.

Son of a gun, he stole my line!

 

8 hours ago, Gargamel said:

Spiders  

Those attendance stats count any user that is viewing the site.   Web search sites like  google or yahoo use bot programs to crawl the internet to populate their search databases.   These bots are called web crawlers or “spiders”.   They merely open a connection to a web page, and catalog what’s on it.   
 

So when the forum says 6k users online, the vast majority of those were just bot connections scanning the forums.  
 

This has been the Norm for just about any forum I have been on over the past 25 years or so.  

Hate to call you out, Garg, but that's not accurate. 12/12/2018 was just a few days before the 1.6 update was released. There were a lot of real users online around then, just like how the previous record was when 1.0 was released, and how we almost hit the record for Breaking Ground.

I also happen to have been online on those days, anxiously watching the online users count While I'm sure you're correct about Google and Yahoo using spiders, the majority of online users for those days were real people. I saw the number of logged-in users rise, as well as seeing a spike in registrations, too.