DA-DM
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Post by DA-DM on Mar 31, 2008 0:43:48 GMT
i am sorry to start a new thread but i don't have the option of replying to Q in the etiquette section.
i apologise for being addicted to quizzes - i'm better at those than bar billiards (sometimes), i have all the quizzes in my profile bookmark so i can keep track. although i am interested in other goings on, it does not directly involve me but i do look anyway. i am always online late at night and tend to post a lot on the quizzes as i am not able to during the day.
mr Q asked for "thoughts anyone" but i couldn't reply. i for one would not object to a 'quiz account'.
again, apologies for new thread.
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BFG
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Post by BFG on Mar 31, 2008 7:46:56 GMT
I cannot reply either!
Quizzes look like great fun, but I dont think it is right that when I look at the last 20 posts 18 of them right now are quiz related.
I certainly would not criticise that they exsist I just would prefer not to see them.
Right now I think that I might have missed out on the thread re BB ltd, as several others have, as I only spotted it on last 20 posts.
If it could be opt in or out that would be ideal!
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Post by Chris_Sav on Mar 31, 2008 8:13:07 GMT
We are very fortunate to have our quiz contributors, especially the endless hours of work Tommo puts in.
The problem is Proboards is very limiting in what we can do. It is advertising based, run and controlled by Proboards as a profit making system. They host and completely control our board. Many other free forums offer much more control, sophistication and add-ons, but you host them yourself.
When the Chubbster handed the forum over to me I seriously looked at moving to our own private forum that I would have hosted. The additional problem is that Probaords prevent it by not allowing access to all our history. We would thus have lost all our posts.
I'll have a trawl through the admin settings and see if there is anything I can do to offer a solution.
Sav
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2008 8:49:09 GMT
I have to hold my hand up and say, sorry that it has got a bit out of control recently.
I agree entirely that when you look in for "last 20 posts" you don't want 18 of them to be about quizzes. I certainly don't either, for me bar billiards discussion comes first, and quizzes second.
I had a mechanism for getting round this, which was having one special thread which, when 'bumped' by a moderator, put the others down in precedence, thus hiding them from view.
But some people recently started adding to this thread, which ruined its effectivity.
I have now hopefully rectified the situation with a new 'special thread, which I have asked people not to add to. I have 'bumped' it this morning, and it has had the desired effect, ie. most of recent discussion on BB Ltd and the future of our game is now at the forefront with the quizzes hidden.
So apologies once again, and I will promise to be more vigilant.
Quiz activity will not be reduced, by the way, it will be continuing at the current level as it seems to be popular with a lot of people: It's just that it will go back to being 'behind the scenes' for most of the day.
tommo
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BFG
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Post by BFG on Mar 31, 2008 17:25:04 GMT
Thanks Tommo it really does seem to have worked!
Quiz on quizsters!! :D
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DA-DM
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Post by DA-DM on Mar 31, 2008 20:44:51 GMT
no quiz action today BFG (well - nearly none), main/ only topic has been bar billiards ltd all day. night owls will come out to play soon.........be afraid ? ;)
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Post by Q on Mar 31, 2008 20:48:54 GMT
Thanks Clive
Please dont take my post as a critisism, just a reflection on how I see our board.
I participate in the quizzes, not as much as I used to (that is partly because there are so many of them and partly because I dont have the time). If your 'special thread' works (I'm intrigued by how it works?) then..... game on.
However I still like the idea of a 2nd 'quiz' account because then, if you just wanted to check the quizzes your last 20 posts would give you all the information you need.
The other objective of my first post is that I've noticed that quite a few of the 'old' regular posters seem to have disappeared, HVP for one, and I am concerned that the pre-occupation of quizzes may be having a detrimental effect on the board.
BTW I had no idea that only mods could post on the etiquette board
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DA-DM
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Posts: 837
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Post by DA-DM on Mar 31, 2008 21:04:58 GMT
hi,no offense taken, i just wanted to apologise as i'm sure i'm one of the worst offenders.
i have kept away from the quizzes partly through not knowing answers/waiting for marking, but also i felt that the massive problems caused by BBL is very important and should take centre place.
sorry Q
i will try & limit myself ! :-* p.s. i have no life ! ;)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2008 21:26:17 GMT
Time moves on, Q, and people with it. Some of the most prolific quiz entrants a year ago included Petem and Barbelman who have just returned to the scene. Ros seems to have been in exile but has a good reason as she explained tonight - she has bought a second table ! (sorry, did not mean to make you jealous). Stormin' has been very busy with his auctions and is just surfacing again. We have some good new people who are real 'players' in the form of Duncan Disorderly, DA and Martin L, and not forgetting the return of the Forum Master !
I too echo the sentiment that we have been missing some real characters like Herr van Puebik recently - in fact all of the Northants. Like your message says, bring back Kipling - we miss is terribly. As for Johnny George, I know he hates quizzes, but I think you will find that he became disenchanted last September when he was all set to play for his County for the first time and they pulled out of the County Champs at the last minute. An understandable dampener. His posts used to be quite entertaining at times and I hope we'll see him back here one day.
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DA-DM
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Post by DA-DM on Mar 31, 2008 22:09:11 GMT
EXCUSE ME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i, as a female SHOULD object to being called a "player", however - i'm not like that ! ;D
so can i please be an attempting player instead ?! ie. i ATTEMPT to play bar billiards - some times reasonable mostly rubbish! :-/
i only do the quizzes because my brain activity & contents is such that it has to be exercised & kept happy ! ;D ;D :-*
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Post by Q on Apr 19, 2008 22:29:38 GMT
Would it be possible to restrict access to the quiz room, rather like the staff forum whereby only people registered to do quizzes see that material in their 'last 10 posts' ? I would happily then create a 2nd account just for quizzes so that when I want to look at the quizzes they will be there but at all other times I will just receive the news, gossip etc about bar billiards.. Obviously its not working anymore, I will ask again if we could create a seperate quiz account for quiz users only to use (I know it can be done) access to the quiz room would then be restricted to holders of a quiz account, quizzes would no longer show up on everyone elses 'last 30' I used to enjoy the quizzes... until this forum became 'quizboard' it has totally taken over, and unless there is an answer forthcoming I will no longer be using this forum.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2008 23:07:25 GMT
I agree with Q, that we now have a problem.
With the advent of the new version software, bumping doesn't make the slightest bit of difference any more and I am left without a mechanism for 'hiding' the quizzes.
I will now run just a half-dozen more General Knowledge ones leading up to Guernsey, and then will leave it at that for a while.
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Post by Chris_Sav on Apr 20, 2008 9:02:39 GMT
I am sorry to say that there is no obvious way to keep quizzezzz a part of this forum but separate.
I have had a post on the support boards for the last three weeks to ask for insert coding to restrict the quiz posts from appearing in the recent posts. I have bumped the thread but have still have not had a support reply. I will try a more caustic reply in the thread.
The sutuation is not being helped by off-topic posts in the quiz threads, keeping to quiz answers would help. Please keep to topic as much as is possible. I do not wish to kill the banter, but IMHO it is out of hand at present.
Version five has more facilities, but there is no release date. The only other possibilities are.
1) Do nothing and lose serious members. It is, after all, a bar billiards forum.
2) Cut down the number of quizzes and keep to topic. Moderators enforce keeping to topic if posters cannot adhere to the request above.
3) Start a quiz forum, completely separate from this forum. No quiz history could not be taken with it. I think the forum would lose some of it's liveliness.
4) Move the complete forum, lock stock and barrel, to a more flexible platform. This would involve a lot of work and we may have to pay for the hosting. We would lose our complete history. Proboards forums cannot be converted.
Opinions please. A bit of common sense and hopefully we should not have a problem.
Sav
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2008 17:32:56 GMT
The only answer then seems to be to cut down on the number of quizzes. This would be a shame, as if you look at the table, a total of 55 forum members have had a go at them this year so far. And in the last two years, 555 quizzes have been laid to rest and now inhabit "Dead Quiz Heaven".
I'm not sure that I would enjoy the Forum so much if this great opportunity for a bit of banter was denied to us. You would be left with nothing much more than a Bar Billiards Results service.
Fine if that's all people want, and I will still put my results in faithfully.
We held a Poll before on whether the quizzes should stay so maybe now's the time to have another one.
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Post by Lord Cheeky on Apr 20, 2008 20:24:23 GMT
My opinion.... if it matters!! I am sure some people like me use the forum in different ways to other members, for one i never even look at the '30 most recent posts' as i generally know what i want to look at and go to that section, which i hope is the same for other members. So IMHO the quizzes do not interfere with anything on the forum if anything they bring more people into the forum. And Tommo keep up the good work, the Bar Billiard seasons are coming to close and we will have nothing to post or talk about so the quizzes will be keeping people interested in the close season.
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DA-DM
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Posts: 837
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Post by DA-DM on Apr 20, 2008 21:10:11 GMT
i agree with all of the above. my 30 recent posts doesn't work, it gave me the same post 5 times timed 1 minute apart.
maybe in season we could just have a quiz night or a quiz weekend ?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2008 22:18:29 GMT
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DA-DM
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Posts: 837
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Post by DA-DM on Apr 20, 2008 23:45:08 GMT
;D ;D looks like my kinda thing.
i'd need a team to join though......... ???
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Post by Q on Apr 20, 2008 23:48:57 GMT
i agree with all of the above. my 30 recent posts doesn't work, it gave me the same post 5 times timed 1 minute apart. Its working fine... if you check those posts you will see that they are actually the same post - but posted on different boards, hence they show up 5 times. ;D There IS a way round this problem: 1. Create a new category - Quizzes 2. Move all the current quiz content to there 3. Create a new member group - quizzers 4. Limit access to the Quizzes category to quizzers usergroup. Only members who wish to use the quizroom get admitted to the quizzers usergroup, everyone else wont see any posts on that category. Members could then register a 2nd account if they wish to be used as quizzers only. It WOULD work
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Post by fazza on Apr 21, 2008 3:43:33 GMT
My opinion.... if it matters!! I am sure some people like me use the forum in different ways to other members, for one i never even look at the '30 most recent posts' as i generally know what i want to look at and go to that section, which i hope is the same for other members. So IMHO the quizzes do not interfere with anything on the forum if anything they bring more people into the forum. And Tommo keep up the good work, the Bar Billiard seasons are coming to close and we will have nothing to post or talk about so the quizzes will be keeping people interested in the close season. Agreed, especially the last part. Two or three years ago, all that appeared on the forum in the summer was people arranging how they could get together to have a kick-about. Mind-numbing! It is not difficult to look up the section you want. For instance, I flip down quickly when I see the Sussex threads. Nothing against Sussex (of course) but why would I want to read them. If I used the Last 30 idea, I would not always know which league any particular nugget of riveting information applied to. Apart from all that, who else would I talk to at this time of the morning, apart from the Samaritans of course.
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Post by bigtj on Apr 21, 2008 6:28:31 GMT
Agree with all the above, and think banter is a part of the forum as we do not want to turn it into an information service only. I used to do the quizzes as and when I found time, but do think Q is right in that this is foremostly a bar billiards forum.
Like Pete I tend to scroll down and pick out the bits I want to look at, but not like him I am interested in what goes on in other leagues. Some areas are great for their banter and cheer up the days that one feels a bit down.
Think Q is right about a seperate thread and if his idea would work, then two accounts is the way forward.
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Post by Chris_Sav on May 19, 2008 10:49:27 GMT
Despite Proboards staff saying it could not be done, I believe I have found a compromise.
I can now exclude the contents of any board from the 'Most recent posts' but not the result number, even by censoring it!
Comments please
Sav
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Post by NigelS on May 19, 2008 11:13:27 GMT
Yep that seems to work well Sav, I now have no quiz post in my most recent.
Is it (or are you able) to make there more than 30 most recent posts as it still counts the quiz posts as a result in that search, so you are stil only getting about 10-15 most recent posts.
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Post by Chris_Sav on May 19, 2008 11:20:53 GMT
Hi Nige,
Cheers
Can set the most recent posts to any number in admin.
I'll up it quite a bit.
I can't exclude the 'Result 1 of ' bit as the only way to do it is to override the actual display, not exclude it completely.
Proboards have now admitted it's a necessary enhancement, but no timescale has been given as to when it will be included in version 5
Sav
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2008 12:00:59 GMT
Well done, Sav, much better for everyone.
I can now keep the scoring more up-to-date now without the necessity to hold back sometimes to avoid filling the 'last 30' up completely. ;D
And we might now see the return of Q........ 8-)
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Post by Chris_Sav on May 19, 2008 13:16:37 GMT
Added 'Dead Quiz Heaven' to the list as it's not intelligent enough to include sub boards.
The head honcho support guy has posted that this override code is not recommended, but not why. I have asked the question.
Sav
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2008 18:36:16 GMT
Well done, Sav, much better for everyone. I can now keep the scoring more up-to-date now without the necessity to hold back sometimes to avoid filling the 'last 30' up completely. ;D And we might now see the return of Q........ 8-) Agree here, lot better now that I can see Bar Billiard topics and not quizzes in recent posts, I also have nothing against them!
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BFG
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Post by BFG on May 20, 2008 7:35:38 GMT
Thanks Sav, appreciate your efforts!
Will be interesting to find out why the code is not recommended!
Kind of gives you the feeling of imminent doom!!
Bit like a mechanic tutting as he kicks the tyres!!
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Post by Chris_Sav on May 20, 2008 7:58:24 GMT
Thanks,
The quizzes are an essential part of keeping people coming to the site, so must find ways of living with them!
I don't see a problem with the coding. I am also trying an experiment for a couple of days in suppressing the 24 hour display. The code from that is very similar to that suppressing quizzes in searches, only it came from the official database!! speaks volumes ;D.
Sav.
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