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#551 2020-12-20 20:34:50

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

I took care of the unbanning of id's through to 792 and needed to change a different one for the id781 as it had a duplicate attached to the same email....

Saw a means to the lubricant end and will put it in the other topic of the My Hycienda.

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#552 2020-12-21 09:26:15

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re Post #551 and ID Recovery project ...

Thank you for fixing ID 781 ... It is a mystery to me how these glitches are happening, so I appreciate your taking care of them.  I have a procedure in place to exercise each modified ID after it has been saved, but I'm not seeing the problems you've found. 

This post is reserved for ID's 793-814

I am looking forward to finding contributors from years ago.  Those discoveries add zing to the clerical task at hand.

Edit#1:

This member joined in 2004, and posted only one message, but it was a doozy!
I don't necessarily take time to read posts from early in the forum's history.
There are too many of them, but this one I read carefully.
It was a full article on the tenure of Sean O'Keefe, who was Administrator of NASA when the Space Shuttle broke apart while returning from space.

Aleph-Null - Essentials
User activity
Registered: 2004-12-12 (0.0.0.0)
Last post: 2004-12-12 13:38:16
Last visit: 1969-12-31 20:00:00
Posts: 1 - Show all topics - Show all posts - Show all subscriptions

On balance, I felt that the article came out leaning in favor of O'Keefe's career in government.

He was handed a cleanup assignment, and got the world's largest hot potato.

Edit#2: This ID is worth your review: IP is Russia and name and email do not match: Aletoqaoec - Essentials

Edit#3: Alex - Essentials This gent read a book of poems in 2004 and became briefly interested in possible life on Mars.

Edit#4: This ID managed go get himself banned in 2002 Alexander K. Naylor - Essentials I don't see anything worth saving. New ID is 799

Edit#5:

Alexander Sheppard - Essentials
User activity
Registered: 2001-09-23 (0.0.0.0)
Last post: 2005-05-13 13:56:20
Last visit: 1969-12-31 20:00:00

This member was active from 2001 through 2005.

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=77#p77 First post:

I think that there are two big reasons for any single entity to go into space as of now.
1. To achieve social independence
2. To gain economically

This member appears (to my eye) to have been primarily interested in social topics.

Edit#5: This id is still a member but the IP is Moldova and the email and ID don't match: zzusalme3mbmcdm - Essentials

Edit#6: Same as above: zzusafmeytfdzvs - Essentials

Edit#7: Wrap up for today's batch: 793-814

TestID00795, 796, 799 and 800 ... These need count reset ... 795 and 799 need clear messages as well

***
We are going to reach 1000 saved/recovered ID's in Earth year 2020 if all goes well.  I'd like to see at least on new member admitted by then.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-12-21 12:54:57)

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#553 2020-12-21 20:31:02

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

First to reset a counter to zero there will need to be no posts made anything else requires the individual posts deleted -and or the account for the user deleted...

Accounts that show Last visit: 1969-12-31 20:00:00 also are prior to the great crash and are locked since these need to be for out reach and or the above process to remove them...

The accounts for the both users also contained the shifting from previous conversions which we are trying to fix...

Did a replacing of 795 and 799 to accommodate the changes.

Did the admin delete user function to remove all posts for the ids 795 and 799 you created to keep the data base in alignment....

Fixing the shifting topics in meta found a topic that was empty due to the problems of alignment...
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=3569

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#554 2020-12-21 22:22:40

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut .... thanks for your comments about posts with 1969 and other issues you've been handling as we go through this process.

The empty topic you found is interesting.  Perhaps someday someone will think of some post to put in there.

***
side note ... best wishes for success with the gasket installation, when you are able to fit that into your schedule.

***
Here's a real stretch for the "housekeeping" topic ...

The city where I live has (apparently) implemented cost savings due to lost income due to Covid19.

One noticeable consequence is the frequency of trash pickups has dropped from weekly to every other week.

I am probably the only person on the block who's noticed.  I try to keep the alley picked up, because a deserted looking alley is attractive to various kinds of nuisance activity.   It's going to be more difficult if trash pickups are cut in half, and the citizens produce waste at the normal rate.

(th)

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#555 2020-12-22 08:22:37

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re ID's recovery project ...

This post is reserved for ID's 815-836

Thanks for Post#556!  The link to unanswered topics was much longer than I expected ... The first is from 2001, and it announces a new email address.

Edit#1: TestID00817 - Essentials This ID needs count reset

Edit#2: TestID00819 - Essentials Count reset

Edit#3: Suggestion .... it might be possible to save members who have posts you want to keep.  The problem I am seeing is that currently the only options available are to set them to member or banned.  There ** is ** an alternative, which I picked up on from an Admin note I found ... the note said that the account had been locked due to inactivity.

The password can be changed, so the account can no longer be used.  That way the account can be set back to member, and I won't keep going back to it.  i keep going back to accounts marked 'banned" because that is the keyword I am looking for when I finish an account and go on to the next.

Any account with posts that is marked banned could be given a new password and reset to "member", if possible?

An example is; Alex - Essentials ... this is the reader of poetry who was inspired to find NewMars by a poem.

Another example is: akwx128 - Essentials  This ID could be given a new password and reset to "member"

Edit#4: It appears changing the password is not sufficient ... it is also necessary to change the email address!

Request password
Enter the email address with which you registered
Email

A new password together with a link to activate the new password will be sent to that address.
Go back

Taken together, changing the password and changing the email address to something like "invalid@invalid.com" would be sufficient.

That way, the ID could be set back to "member" and it would be secure from use by the originator or anyone else, and the original posts would be accessible to the forum readership.  This presumes the posts are worth keeping, which is (obviously) your call.

Finish: ID's 815-836 are ready for unbanning

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-12-22 11:34:37)

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#556 2020-12-22 08:31:46

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

Not all that surprising service being curtailed as a result of funds coming in from taxation and other revenue streams.

My own town did a way with a Recreational department that served the community young to senior with after school programs to bingo for the elderly...We are headed in the same direction with schools going back to pay to play sport and many elective cuts from the educational mix of a well rounded students knowledge base.

As for the empty topic we can not have a topic started that does not contain the hosting first post as one was to remove a post the topic is to go away so do not post to it.....
It is a database alignment issue that will require the webmaster to resolve and possibly older save backups to find that lost posts.

Hear is the link for the unanswered topics which contain the initial posts that opens it
http://newmars.com/forums/search.php?ac … unanswered

Here is an another example of the database being corrupted in a double topic name

Space Bus - Space Bus by Ian  Human missions 0 2002-02-11 20:18:05 by Ian
Space Bus - Space Bus by Ian  Human missions 0 2002-02-11 19:50:21 by Ian

message if you try to enter the topic

An error was encountered

Error: The post table and topic table seem to be out of sync!.

Did clean up 8 or 9 topics in the meta folder yesterday and it looks like I should make that a focus to continue to do....

Found this topic http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=3535 that talks about the membership posting rank structure and of putting your money where your mouth is for getting rights to join the forum via Mars Society.

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#557 2020-12-22 14:15:24

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

Response to post 555
I had started to do the not account locked but the second part of that note does not show as its on the next page of banning. That note was for the user to see upon trying to login and it was that they could contact to get there account opened and that we had a 30 day clock as we want people to use the account which was not what we had seen with the spammers.
Changing passed words means one needs to create a password list which is a bad idea as thats what hackers go after to hijack an account.
We can still add the note of account locked but banning makes it impossible to log in.
One can only look so far as to see if an account is a real person or a bot spammer to put labels on them.

Found duplicate 820 and 828 to remove and recreate from an account that did not use a simular email to create with....

Have taken care of the unban of accounts 815 - 836 with 817 and 819 counter being reset to zero

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#558 2020-12-22 14:32:43

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re #557

Thanks for taking care of the newly recovered ID's.

Thanks too, for considering the question about trying to prevent accounts from logging in if you want to preserve their messages without banning them.

It appears there is no way to change the user's password anyway, or at least nothing that is available to a moderator.

I'll just have to pay close attention when I find an account that is marked banned, to try to figure out if it's one you want to save.

***
Regarding the link to the article about a fabric designed to help with radiation shielding .... the article is not about using materials in a space craft to assist with shielding ... the article is about a fabric that takes the place of lead sheets formerly worn by medical technicians when performing X-Rays.

The new material (taking into account that the post goes back several years) is apparently able to stop charged radiation the way lead does, by providing a greater number of electrons to intercept positively charged particles than are available in ordinary clothing.

(th)

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#559 2020-12-22 19:08:57

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut ...

new item for your review ...

You are not logged in.Topics: Active | Unanswered
Announcement: We've recently made changes to our user database and have removed inactive and spam users. If you can not login, please re-register.

The Announcement we see before we log in is a bit out of date.  What do you recommend instead of "please re-register"

We could suggest the person register as a member of the Mars Society, but (at present) that would not provide a way to recover the use of the ID that isn't working.

(th)

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#560 2020-12-22 19:47:48

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

The change of the header message falls under the webmaster to alter at this time until James no long wants to manage its current viewing of the forum. I did contact the internet task force to join in the members area but thus far no reply.

I would like to put forth the concept of the Newmars task force having a place within the Mars Society pages and in the they could list the team members of which you are as strong part of. In that blurb we could put in the registration path way to get Mars society funding and grant membership accounts.

An auto generated email would come to the NewMars Task force team for implementing from the forms being entered on the Mars society membership registration.

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#561 2020-12-22 21:14:42

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re #560 ...

Thanks for the explanation about the header message, and for previews of coming (possible) developments!

****
Here's something for you to consider ....

We currently have no way for potential members to apply for admission, if they do not already know a current member.

I've been a member of Dr. Lewis Dartnell's Knowledge forum for some time.  That forum has also discontinued registrations, but Dr. Dartnell did it in a different way than the one used here.  I think the difference is in the bulletin board software.

The Knowledge forum still allows registration applications, but Dr. Dartnell never accepts them.  However, as a member, I can see the registrations.  A feature of the registrations in that particular forum is that the applicant can update the signature line, and the signature line is visible in the registration application.  This interesting situation provides an opportunity which I am inviting you to consider.

While we wait for an official solution from the Mars Society (which may never come) we could invite candidates to let me know they are interested in joining ** this ** forum, by opening a registration application at Dr. Dartnell's forum.  I can communicate with them via the signature line.  It is quite similar to a tweet.  The signature line can hold a line of text, which is enough for this purpose.

(th)

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#562 2020-12-22 22:00:21

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

In some forums a guest login or what is known as a no password required account was tried and it allowed spammer content only in the meta area and no where else in the earlier forum software but I am not sure if it still can be done with this one.

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#563 2020-12-23 07:51:47

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re #562

Thanks for considering the idea, and for reporting the alternative of a special account for guest login.

We can actually DO that without any outside assistance!

We can set up an account that would be available for a candidate to log in and communicate an interest in joining the forum.

The way we could do this would NOT require re-opening registrations!

The way this would work (if you are interested) would be that we would set up an account for the purpose, similar to the Guest Speaker account we already set up.  In fact, we could actually USE that account, but we could create one with an appropriate name, such as RFA (Request For Admission).

We would publish the window of time the account would be open (ie, 24 hours) and the password for the account.

Robots wouldn't know anything about the account.

In any case, we could close the account at any time.

The means of changing the password is by using the existing mechanism provided by FluxBB.

We control the email address of the account, so we can set the email address to a value of our choosing.

We can then use the existing password recovery mechanism to ask for a trial password.

We can THEN change the password to a value we will make available to the candidate for 24 hours.

This is a bit of work, but if a bit of work is all it takes to bring a high-value member into the group, then it is worth it.

****
This post will be used as the anchor for reports on processing of accounts 837-858

TestID00839 - Essentials ... (note does not need unbanning ... from Russia with no posts ... count of 150 posts was automatically reset)

Additional note about 839 ... I have not seen this before so would like to point it out ... The account was showing as a member with 150 posts. When I went to look at it, I found it had no posts, and since the email was from Russia, I figured someone had deleted the posts. What is surprising is that after the reset of the account to TestID00839, FluxBB decided to fix the count of posts all by itself.   Good work FluxBB !!!!  (or more accurately, Good programming by the authors and maintainers!)
***
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 44#p156144

AlienHunter - Essentials
User activity
Registered: 2019-03-31 (67.253.18.91)
Last post: 2019-04-25 21:13:13
Last visit: 2019-04-25 21:13:14

This member seems to be interested in some of the My Hacienda concepts.
***
TestID00842 - Essentials ... Count needs reset
***
TestID00844 - Essentials ... Count needs reset
****
This member from 2003 last visited in 2012 ...

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 591#p12591

Almir - Essentials
User activity
Registered: 2003-02-17 (0.0.0.0)
Last post: 2006-09-21 14:57:54
Last visit: 2012-08-20 08:30:19

***
This member appears to have made contributions worth salvaging ...

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 328#p19328

It's hard to be sure, of course, but some of the posts that are still readable appear reasonable.

Because the member is from India, it might be worth while to attempt a ping.  India has achieved much in recent times
***
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 105#p81105

Alt - Essentials
User activity
Registered: 2005-09-24 (0.0.0.0)
Last post: 2005-11-06 18:49:52
Last visit: 2005-11-06 18:56:38

This member came back after an earlier membership.  This time (?she) reported on experience in a working commune.

The commune style of living has been tried at various points in human history, in various cultures.

It would not surprise me at all to find it showing up on Mars, at some point.
***
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 289#p22289

Alt2War - Essentials
User activity
Registered: 2003-10-19 (0.0.0.0)
Last post: 2004-07-02 13:45:38
Last visit: 1969-12-31 20:00:00

This was the flamewars period, apparently.
***
ID's 837-858 are ready for unbanning ... several have counts that need reset .... I understand that may happen automatically when unbanning is done.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-12-23 12:17:49)

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#564 2020-12-23 10:25:47

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

What you are seeing by auto repair is the realigning of the numbers much like the one with a topic with no content....it will take time to do all the repairing but it can get done. At that point hopefully I can gain access to what was lost to get those posts and topics back...

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#565 2020-12-23 10:36:04

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re #564

Thanks for picking up on the autorepair that I "discovered" today!

I'm marking members with posts with the comment "Reviewed" as I go along, in the cases where the posts don't seem strong enough to feature in today's activity report.  I've run across several "just saying hello" posts.  The members might be worth a ping somewhere along the line, to see how they've progressed over the years.  In some cases their careers or interests may have developed in ways the forum readers would find interesting.

(th)

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#566 2020-12-23 11:28:19

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

This is a special request item for kbd512 ...

Here is a search string that I notice is generated when I ask FluxBB to show me completed ID's coming out of the recovery process

http://newmars.com/forums/userlist.php? … rch=Submit

I'd ** really ** like to have a search string I could invoke to show me banned ID's, now that the low hanging fruit has been picked.

If you have time, and if it is possible (which I recognize is not guaranteed), could you / would you take a look to see if a special purpose search string could be generated to show banned ID's in ascending (or descending) order?

Thanks for considering the request ... I understand that without access to the database schema it may not be possible.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-12-23 11:28:42)

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#567 2020-12-23 17:57:45

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

Unban performed on id's 837 -857

Next is the link for admin ban to see if you can see the list

http://newmars.com/forums/admin_bans.ph … mit+search

This all that have been banned but its not a zero post check

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#568 2020-12-23 18:18:27

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut ... thanks for the final touchup for 837-857!

And! Thanks for the SQL command to find banned ID's ...

The result set was 50 pages, which would equate to 136 days work without all the delays caused by having to try to find banned ID's in the pages starting from the front or the back.

Bravo!

(th)

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#569 2020-12-23 19:12:35

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

Glad it worked as I was not sure if the moderator level would have access to the admin tools totally.

Something else to note Is I sent an email to James on the ICE aka Internal combustion Engine discusion topic with the fyi that its a fit for insitu and mars university..

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#570 2020-12-23 19:46:22

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re #569

I'm looking forward to giving the new search command a try tomorrow!

Thanks for the good news of your initiative with Mr. Burk about the IC engine discussion.  I am greatly encouraged by the contributions of kbd512, GW Johnson and Calliban.  There is a concept that an idea can take off if it's time has come.  Electric motors are sweeping the Earth for a variety of very good reasons, and they will surely have an important place on Mars and other locations away from Earth, but Mars may turn out to be a reliable and welcoming Second Home for IC engines designed on Earth but fabricated and used on Mars.

There is a show on Cable TV that i find playing from time to time, as I cycle through the channels.  There are actually two (come to think of it) ... the first is about renovation of automobiles (primarily) by a team of characters who may appeal to the American garage mechanic audience.  The second is less about actually working on vehicles and more about racing them.  In both cases, since the shows continue to run, and new episodes are created, I have to believe there is an audience in America (and perhaps elsewhere as well) for programming that is focused upon the many appeals of automobiles as they have evolved over the past century or so.

There may very well be an audience for an initiative to design IC engines and all sorts of machines to use them on Mars.

The 3D Printing manufacturing imperative for Mars could be another motivation for interest in a well designed initiative along these lines.

The global manufacturing enterprise we humans have devised is NOT going to be available on Mars any time soon, and quite possibly ever.

Calliban inpired me (with his mention of embodied energy) to think about "embodied knowledge" in products we take for granted in advanced societies on Earth.

I expect that much of the embodied knowledge of the IC engine will be transferred to Mars in the form of programs for 3D Printers and perhaps for programmable machines which carve metal when 3D Printing can't do the job.  In order for that embodied knowledge to persist on Mars (or anywhere away from Earth) there will need to be an adequate supply of young people coming along who can understand the programs and diagrams in the context of an adequate grounding in physics and engineering (both of which depend upon mastery of mathematics).

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-12-23 19:48:11)

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#571 2020-12-23 20:55:35

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

Speaking of the methods of funding for Mars society this is on there home page
I am sure that they have others that give donations from specific purchases under the name as well....

December 7th, 2020
Donate to the Mars Society by Shopping on Amazon
With COVID-19, more and more people are obviously shopping online. Support the Mars Society while doing your holiday shopping on Amazon.com. Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of Amazon Smile purchases to your favorite non-profit organization, the Mars Society. Help the Mars Society to maintain and expand its programs, including its two Mars analog stations in Utah and Canada, by doing your shopping via Amazon. To learn more, please visit: https://smile.amazon.com (and remember to select the Mars Society as…READ MORE >

Something else I located is on the internet task force itf-web300.png

The project list for 2020 has NewMars as number 11

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#572 2020-12-23 21:31:29

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re #571

Thanks for the link to the Mars Society Internet Project list ....

That ** is ** an impressive list, and it is good to see NewMars ON the list at all, even if it is priority Number 11.

However, I have a question .... what is it that NewMars (itself) needs?   I'm not aware of anything that is needed in the way of software?  Are you?

The actual needs of NewMars have to do with how to accomplish various things with members ....

1) We have one member (RobertDyck) who is offering a first rate project for the group to develop

Are we doing what ** we ** can to assist RobertDyck so that he is successful in developing his concept into fundable plans?

There's nothing the Internet group could do (as far as I can see) that would make a bit of difference.

2) We have My Hacienda .... an ambitious opportunity for several thousand persons to work out specializations for a Mars community

The early structure of what this could become is visible, but it awaits members who understand what it is and how it is supposed to work

3) Calliban has introduced several ideas that could become projects ... I can't remember all but Asteroids and Fission reactors are two

4) There are many other potential projects which could demonstrate technology or procedures to be used on Mars

5) Now you've added the concept of an IC engine infrastructure for Mars, and you've received some significant support

The only issues that seem to need addressing are social ... not technical at all ...

We need a way to admit new members and at present we have nominations by members.  There is no way (at present) for someone in the global potential readership to contact you to let you know they'd like to help with one or more of the projects.

I've offered a couple of suggestions, and it may turn out that there is already something available inside the Mars Society member feature that we just don't know about.

In either case, these are social issues, not technical ones.

The bottom line is ... if we want new members, and ** especially ** if we want new High-Value members, we're going to have to reach out to the 7 billion people of Earth.  This post is (potentially) visible to a billion or so people, but chances are slim that more than the 40 or so regular readers I see counted on the main page will ever see the post.

It seems to me that letters to the Editor of various online and offline publications are needed.

A book by members of the forum might have a small readership, but my observation is that reading a book does not necessarily lead to action.  Sometimes it does, but the impact of a book is difficult to predict. 

Still, I'll close with where I began .... it is good to see the NewMars forum is on the list at all!

(th)

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#573 2020-12-23 21:51:31

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

The forum needs are backups and server maintenance...

I have been feeding those topics all back up the food chain for Zubrin's steering committee that James is a a member of....

Hopefully in the new year we can get so that we can have more of a presence on the Mars Society pages and of its active membership so as to get the word out that we want there help in the forum. We also as you noted want the projects to be taken on by Mars society and yes we want them to get money from commercialization of those that can be so they can get a better funding stream as Musk has done with Tesla, The internet satellites ect.... as thats what its going to take to pay for projects...

Me I would want a commercial grade safe Sabatier reactor and other energy creating means as I have Mars Water just not with the salts and with that not only could I get fresh drinkable water but fuels for heating, and more....

The website is definitely being crawled for content and we are on the google lists with key word searching....

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#574 2020-12-24 09:07:34

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,752

Re: Housekeeping

For SpaceNut re #573 and ID recovery project ...

Thanks again for the "find it" tool you provided yesterday!  I am looking forward to tackling the 3000 or so ID's already designated as recoverable.

This post is reserved for ID's 859-880.

Edit#1: Report of minor glitch ...

SpaceNut ... given that the new tool you kindly provided delivers a list of banned ID's what I am about to report is NOT a serious concern.  Never-the-less, it bothers me so I figure I'd better let you know what happened.  To clarify, I have learned NOT to use this tool except for lookups!

When I ran it this morning (Earth time), the first item in the list was a curious ID containing special characters including the percent sign.

I chose Edit, and found the ID automatically highlighted, so I entered TestID00859, which is first in line for today's session.

I changed the email as usual, and entered text into the window for "show to user at login"

I ** also ** entered tomorrow's date into the unban field, thinking that perhaps i could save you having to come back to perform unban.

I clicked Save, and the record disappeared.  It did not save as TestID00859, and I can't find any ID's containing percent characters.

On top of that, the ID no longer shows up in the Find Banned ID's tool.

I've opened a fourth screen at my workstation, and will use the Find It tool for lookups only.

If you find the ID in a lost bucket somewhere, I'd appreciate your letting me know.

For the record, the total number of ID's reported by FluxBB is: 16,494 as of 4:23 PM UTC 2020/12/24 Earth time.

Edit#2: OK ... there is something else going on with this tool .... it seems to be finding records that do not exist in the main (public) database

I'm not sure how useful this took will be ... for example ... The next ID shown in the list is: 1aTestID00531a

However, that ID does not exist in the public database.

I'd appreciate your taking a moment to run the tool (when you have time, which would (of course) not be right away).

What I'm thinking is that (with your approval) I could click on the "Remove" button for an entry in the list, AFTER I've made sure the item is not in the public database.

There must be a table of banned ID's that is separate from the main public database table.

I don't trust the tool and will stop trying to use it for now.

Thanks again for trying to help.  The count of records in the public database remains 16,494.

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Edit #3 ... There appears to be a special index called "Bans" .... it shows up as "Admin Index >> Bans >> Search Results"

The first several entries in this index have no ID's at all, but I can see notes by Josh Cryer and jburk.

Here is a guess .... FluxBB is an open source bulletin board package ... I may have stumbled across (not a bug, but an unfinished "feature").

I am guessing that when an ID is renamed (as we have been doing with the new TestID##### format), the Index of Banned ID's table may not be updated.

That would explain the mismatch between the Banned ID's table and the main Public table.

After you have studied the situation, you ** may ** feel comfortable allowing me to "Remove" the entry in the Banned ID's table, if the record does not exist in the Public table.

This is a bit more work we had not counted upon, but in the absence of a stored procedure to perform the action needed quickly, performing the cleanup manually is all we can do.

A query ** could ** be written to delete entries in the Banned ID's table if the corresponding ID does not exist in the Public table, but at present, that remains an item for the collective ToDo list.

Edit #4: As a follow up to my original report of concern about the new tool, I think that what happened was that the attempt to Save the record caused FluxBB to automatically update the Banned ID's index to NOT show the record, since (I am guessing of course) it (obviously) did not exist in the main table.

Edit#5 .... The saga continues .... my attempt to enter TestID00859 into the Banned Id's table seems to have worked ...

Info
The username you entered is banned in this forum. Please choose another username.
Go back

Sure enough! I found the ID in the banned table.

I'll try renaming the record to MysteryBan and see if that releases TestID00859 ...

Edit #6: Yay! That seemed to work ... The % record is replaced with MysteryBan, but ONLY in the Banned ID's table.

Confirming! The ID MysteryBan is NOT showing up in the Public table.  The count of Public ID's remains 16,494.

Whew!

That was an hour and 18 minutes invested in learning a tiny fraction of FluxBB.

Edit#7:  A benefit of plodding through the public ID's is that members show up.... Here is a contributor from the Netherlands who joined in 2018 and posted for a while.  This gent seems to have concepts of physics that are quite "advanced".  They do lead to entertaining reading.

I like the idea of traveling to Mars in a few days, as this gent describes.  Acceleration at 1 G would provide travel times on this order.  We don't have a means of doing that right now, but this gent seems optimistic it might be possible.

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 23#p149123

***
Edit#8 ... ID's 859-880 are ready for unbanning

In the spirit of the Season, Best Wishes for a very Merry Christmas at the snowy vistas of New Hampshire!

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-12-24 18:06:32)

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#575 2020-12-24 16:14:52

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Housekeeping

Id's 859 - 880 have been unbanned still looking for the others....
The user 1aTestID00531a at .xyz was the first time we came across a duplicate email which cross linked to the same ID.. I think I have gotten rid of it....

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