General site updates

[zozeppelin]

Hey Kyle, what’s with the bots? Randomly resurrecting old threads with seemingly chatCPT generated content. The mystery to me is ‘what is the end game’ with no link to sell you something or phish your information.

[FuzzySideDown]

Ha! Yea. That is today’s $64,000 question. The answer to which, I may never know. This new one does seem odd with, like you say, seemingly no end game. Here’s a few guesses, but honestly I have no idea.

It’s out running wild without any supervision just to test it or see what it can do.

It’s actually a person. ??

It’s laying ground work for something bigger later?

Yea. I wish I knew. I’m guessing it’s not a real person who’s really trying to engage with others, which is a real shame.

It’s probably something I’ll need to spend time looking into I’m thinking. If you or anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears, for sure!

Thanks!
Cheers!
Kyle.

[FuzzySideDown]

As a follow-up, i think I’ll look at one of googles reCaptcha options to see if that might help, for registration. The current option doesn’t seem to be working. Heh.

Cheers!
Kyle.

[zozeppelin]

I’m not seeing the ‘like’ button in the non-park related topics forum.

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey Karl.

That’s odd. It looks to be showing for me in the non park related topics I think. You are taking about the “Thanks” button, right? Just making sure. It won’t show on your own post, just in case you happen to be on one of your own perhaps.

I’ll do a little more looking in the morning. At the moment, I’m not sure why it wouldn’t be showing for you. If you could send a screenshot, that may help as well.

One way or another, we’ll get it figured out.

Thanks Zo.
Cheers!

Kyle.

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey Karl.... I think I see what you mean now... I believe I was able to recreate the scenario on the missing Like button in the Non-Park Related Topics forum... That is odd... I didn't think that had forum specific settings... Thanks for pointing that out... I'll do some looking into that...

Thanks!
Kyle...

[FuzzySideDown]

Well I'll be darned..... Turns out there's a forum specific group permission setting for registered users just for the Thanks, which I guess is cool? Not real sure why it was turned off for that one forum (Non Park Related Topics). It should be on now. Give me a shout if you see any other oddities....

Thanks!
Kyle...

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey gang.....

I did some updates to some Groups/Roles/Permissions on forums tonight... I think everything is ok, but if you have any issues, by all means, please let me know.

So here's what I hopefully did...

Hopefully I applied the permissions from the General Glacier Discussion forum to all forums on the board for Registered Users. This includes the requirement to pass the ReCAPTCHA in order to post, which now applies to all forums.

I also created a new user group that's a copy of Registered Users with the exception of no longer being able to Post. I moved 3 users into that group tonight. This was done so if a real user happens to present with Bot tendencies, they are given an opportunity to have the issue resolved before being banned. I really don't like having to ban anyone, but at the same time, I really don't like bots either, so there's that...

So yea, if any of my fellow humans have any troubles as a results of tonight's changes, please give me a shout. It was not intended to impact a real users forum experience.

Thanks gang!
Cheers!

Kyle...

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey gang….. in an effort to organize some things, regarding other national parks, I created a new top level category at the bottom called Other National Parks and moved the original Other National Parks topic into it. The idea being, to create new sub-forums for any other specific National Parks in there if needed. I started with Grand Canyon National Park as word on the street is there’s an expedition being planned to the bottom next year.

If you would like a new sub-forum added in there for any other National Park, just let me know.

Thanks gang!

Cheers!
Kyle.

[zozeppelin]

Hey gang..... Just a quick update.... The Backcountry Site Detail information section is getting setup. It can be found in the "Extras" section or the big menu across the top.. There's currently only data entered in for 4 sites, but more will follow.... It's currently integrated into the Backcountry Site Availability page and will be integrated into the Route Planner eventually as well.

For the moment, I’m using MattB’s site detail info to preload some of the sites, but if you have any pictures or information pertaining to specific backcountry sites, to help fill out all of the sites details, please let me know!

As always, this is an early iteration, so if you see anything that doesn't seem right or something you'd like added or changed, just let me know.

Thanks!!
Cheers!!


Kyle....

Hi Kyle,
I'm starting to get the itch again, so I was looking to add some details and pictures for some of the backcountry sites. Best I can tell, it is done by posting in the forum and then manually (yourself?) updating the database/table? For instance, I started with Atlantic Creek (alphabetical order...) and saw details in there with pictures, but not posts in the forum - so I'm hoping there is a way to directly input information (as to not waste your time), but if it is more of a time suck trying to implement direct entry now than transcribing, that is all good as well. Thanks!

Karl

[FuzzySideDown]

Right on! Check for a PM.... Thanks Karl....

Cheers!
Kyle....

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey gang..... Just a quick site update...

1) Backups.... I'm uncertain what the backup plan was previously. There should be weekly automated backups setup now to cover the site files and database data for each of the 3 main areas (The forum, the extras stuff like the backcountry site details and day hikes, etc, and the online store) Fingers crossed it automates properly, but so far so good.

2) Emails.... I haven't updated them yet, but I've always kinda thought the emails that do get sent out regarding post notifications and PM's and such are a little blah looking so I've been working on an updated email extension to send out mult-part emails, meaning if you prefer text only emails based on how you have your email client set up, nothing will change for you. They will stay text only. If you are good with more visually pleasing HTML style emails, they will eventually start to look a bit better, but either way, you wont need to do anything... It's a bit of a work in progress...

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well and getting ready for the hiking season!! It'll be here before we know it!

Thanks gang!
Cheers!!

Kyle....

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey gang....

The forum was just updated to the latest version from v3.3.10 to v3.3.11. Basically just a minor maintenance release but I kinda hate to fall behind on them. Hopefully no one notices any big changes from that. If you do happen to notice anything odd, feel free to reach out and let me know.

I also bumped up the maximum number of Private Messages you can store from 50 to 150, in case anyone was needing any more space there...

Thanks gang!
Cheers!

Kyle...

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey gang.....

The email system has been updated to send multipart emails now. (Both Text Only and HTML together) HTML is the default. If you prefer text only and your email client gives you that option you can still choose to view them as text only.

They will roughly go from something like this....

Screen Shot 2024-02-19 at 5.16.33 PM.png (224.45 KiB) Viewed 3859 times

To some thing roughly like this....

Screen Shot 2024-02-19 at 5.15.53 PM.png (285 KiB) Viewed 3859 times

There's no major change other than to add a header and footer and give the text an actual font. The template of the wording is the same for both text only and HTML. The templates may get updated over time but for the moment, this is change is mostly just to make sure that it works.... It seems to, but if anyone has any issues, please let me know....

Also, if you use Gmail as your email client, you may start seeing the mountain logo as the icon vs the letter g in the next 24-48 hours..

Screen Shot 2024-02-19 at 2.20.43 PM.png (4.6 KiB) Viewed 3859 times

Hopefully... heh... We'll see if that sticks....

Anyway, yea.... give me a shout if you have any troubles...

Thanks gang!

Cheers!
Kyle...

[FuzzySideDown]

Hey gang.....

Not sure if anyone has had any troubles with Forum notification emails getting dropped into your spam folders or not, but if so, I'm hoping that'll become a thing of the past in the next 24-48 hours as the 3 primary email header validation schemes that I'm aware of (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), should now be properly implemented which should hopefully minimize the chances of email spoofing which should also minimize the chance of having our notification emails getting dropped into your spam folder for no reason.... Unless of course you want them there. ... Though hopefully you don't. This might also be a good time to remind people, that if you are getting too many or not enough notifications, you can modify your notification settings under your "user control panel" / Board Preferences tab / Edit Notifications Options option for more or less Notifications and Emails if you would like.

Cheers!
Kyle...