Logging in comments

[MR]

G'day Lee
I've been locked out of the MB for the past 24 hours because the login boxes at top left of the MB which are usually full of asterisks (which I presume to be my username and password) suddenly appeared empty! I was offered the chance of getting a new password but the promised link to my email address never eventuated. However, when I tried to login again, the asterisks suddenly reappeared. So I'm wondering if it might be useful to let everyone know that if they encounter forgotten password problems when logging in, just keep trying and you'll eventually succeed. What do you think?

[MR]

I see the warning in red at the top (interesting in itself - never seen it before), but I'm not so much replying to previous posts on this topic as reinstating it on page 1 - for no other reason than to see if/how it works, ie I'm taking advantage of the "experimental" phase we're currently going through!

[MR]

Yes sir, permission granted!  I've mentioned in another thread that I just tried the birthdate update again and it's still not working, so the door's firmly closed on that one (at least from my perspective)!
But I also wanted to put on record something I recently discovered and which might be helpful for someone else: I opened a thread to post a reply and realised it was upside down, ie latest post at the bottom instead of the top. I closed it to "fix" my profile (I thought) to always show latest posts at the top (as I thought I'd done already, but now possibly mistaken) - but then I realised that the reason was not because my profile hadn't changed properly, it was because I'd opened the thread without logging in!  As soon as I clicked "log in" and then went back and re-opened the thread, the latest post was on top and all was well with the world again!

[LeeB6430]

re Birthdate issue - Q4 on posts below. There is an SMF Mod which apparently adds birthdate field(s) to the Registration Form. The minimal documentation currently available does not specify whether or not the date is transferred to the user profile, and, whether or not the date is visible to other users.
For my money, if anyone really wants to know, how old I am or when to send me a birthday card, then they can ask me.
With your permission, end of research.

[Terry W]

 :)no problems here

[MR]

1. Gotcha!

2. Sounds reasonable - so Poul's generosity has a side benefit of putting Denmark on the map (when I thought the Aussie princess had already done that for them!) 

3. Fair enough.

4. Sounds like far too much trouble - and maybe in the long run it's safer to not disclose any more personal info than necessary to communicate sensibly as I've seen some real true-life horror stories about how easy it is for the bad guys to build up a profile of someone good enough to gain access to their bank accounts just through phone numbers, dates of birth, address, etc etc.

[LeeB6430]

I've just finished the update of the Reg Instructions. There are now 6 images and the facility to download the Agreement/Privacy document in PDF and Word formats.Also just done a backup manually. Note to self, Really must find out how to do it through the host organisation - in other words have the backup on Poul's server rather than my confuser.....

Now,
1. Those member quantities are pre-anti SPAM measures (requiring Admin approval) when we were swamped with bot generated users (now all in the bit bucket!!!). I you check the Member list you will notice member sequence numbers > 90.

2. Time zone was setup Danish time, UTC +1, for no other reason than that is where the server is most likely to be.

3. I suspect not, the assumption being that you are going to talk to something reasonably near the Thread title. There will be lessons learnt here I think. Precise topics (Ford cars before 1950) might be a very short thread, whereas (ford cars) could go on forever. Further, I you think you are likely to 'Off topic' preface you remarks appropriately. AS your previous post touched on - don't be afraid of starting a new topic - Also don't be too disappointed if nobody runs with it.

4. The date of birth issue is a 'known problem' at SMF. the official line is 'we do not issue bug fix releases for a single issue unless there are security aspects in the issue'. On the plus side there may be a Mod out there to address the problem, (Mods are non-sanctioned, non-SMF, changes to the software, which may or may not be free) there are hundreds of them out there. I will do a bit of research to see what might be available. By way of example, you might recall we once discussed a Mod called Cleantalk (anti SPAM), which we put on the back burner till we assessed the extent, if any, of any potential SPAM problem.

[MR]

Some questions for Lee.
1. How did we register 25 users online at the same time on 22 September, 2021, 12:39:39 AM???
2. What time zone is used by this MB? (seems to be 6 hours earlier than VN time, which makes it somewhere around but not quite GMT, I think?)
3. Is there some way we can remain in the "same topic" thread but without replying to the last post in that topic? (eg, like this post - it's in "Logging in comments" because the questions are loosely related to logging in, but to stay in this thread I had to click "reply" even though it's not really a reply to the previous post).

[MR]

Dunno if this is the quickest way to do it but I go Home > General discussion > New topic (highlighted in top RH corner above all the posts).

[PamMcD]

I could not find how to start a topic, help?

[MR]

G'day Lee - I logged in earlier and opened this "Logging in comments" thread but the very first post came up, instead of the most recent.  I couldn't remember how to change "last to first" and vice versa so logged out and emailed you.
UPDATE: Thanks for your email response, Lee - and for the benefit of anyone else in the same situation, here's how to change the order of posts up/down > down/up and vice versa:
Login
Mouse-over 'Profile', Click 'Forum Profile'
Mouse-over 'Modify Profile'
Click 'Look & Layout'
2/3 down list 'Set' (tick) or 'Reset' (Not) as required
Click 'Change Profile' (bottom left)
...

[MR]

Thanks.  The main bit that caught my attention was "https" at the beginning, whereas we've always used "http". I just opened my link in 'favourites' to check and sure enough, it now says "https" despite my never touching it! So the warning in Pam's Welcome letter was probably unnecessary, although I suppose it never hurts to be super-careful when internet security is concerned!
Can't remember where I saw it but probably up in my browser while I was reading the MB because there's a longer one there now: https://www.marsden.me.uk/SMF/index.php?action=post;topic=11.0;last_msg=122
 

[LeeB6430]

Negative.

SMF (on the end of your URL) is the folder where all the MB files live.
Now for the geeky bit.
The SMF Message Board is written in php, which requires a server side compiler to run. Our (Pouls) host has such a compiler. The rest of our site runs html. The php compiler takes care of the communication between the host server and everybody's html system (everybody's browser).

That's about as simple as I can make it. Enjoy

BTW where did you notice it? I know where it should be, but have you found another?

[MR]

Lee, I just noticed this updated URL - https://www.marsden.me.uk/SMF/ - is it the one we should all use from now on?

[PamMcD]

Thanks, I thought that sticky topic could be something a little risqué!