Forum Suggestions & User Assistance - On topic: deathhare's posts

i have no idea how this relates to anyone else's issues, but during SSFG's little civil disobedience exercise, i was randomly getting logged out (and i stay logged in until i reset safari), and was not able to reply or post (the options ad vanished, or i was getting logged out). it seems like things are being sorted out, but i just wanted to add my name to the list of rabble-rousers who were experiencing issues.

i do think it's kind of odd that there were some database issues around the time of "the troubles." but i don't have my jump to conclusions mat out yet.

I hate to bum everyone out, but I have often had to hit 'refresh' several times in a day in order to bring up BF.

I have just figured out what's been causing it, and it's not* because anyone has it in for me.

East Hill

i have no idea how this relates to anyone else's issues, but during SSFG's little civil disobedience exercise, i was randomly getting logged out (and i stay logged in until i reset safari), and was not able to reply or post (the options ad vanished, or i was getting logged out). it seems like things are being sorted out, but i just wanted to add my name to the list of rabble-rousers who were experiencing issues.

i do think it's kind of odd that there were some database issues around the time of "the troubles." but i don't have my jump to conclusions mat out yet.

When re logging in, did you click on "remember me?" One time I had logged out and when I logged back in I didn't click that option. If I left the computer for any amount of time it logged me out.

Would you like a foil hat? If anyone else is having issues, it will need to wait until I finish my dinner.


I had issues too. Only on SSFG. I thought maybe the forum was locked, but no locks were visible, and threads were still active.


Everything is back to normal, except all that User Control stuff inspired me to update my profile. Boris the Space-Monkey needed a break.


There is no conspiracy.


-J

That's a beautiful bridge, 'Dipper. Where is it?

Can we have some apologies to the general administration of Bikeforums? There were a lot of accusatory words flying.

Thomas Eni told me to thank everyone. Good work Lotek and Brian.

That's a beautiful bridge, 'Dipper. Where is it?


France.


I would also like to add that though I love this place, I would not accept a blue star even if offered to me. The red star was a gift from a friend (not an affiliate of BikeForums), and I don't find Brian particulary handsome or charming. The fact that I think his wife is cute probably won't endear him to me either, but you can't win them all.





I am my own man.


-J

Well, I would offer shortbread all around as a peace offering, but I promised Sixty Fiver, Little Darwin, and Path the next batch. Oh, and ilikebikes for a box o' parts :D .

And then jsharr is at the top of the list for the batch after that.

Anyone else want to sign up?

East Hill

I've got to tell y'all that as an admin we don't have a magic
send em blank screens setting. We don't have an automagic return to
logon screen, no auto logout feature, and we don't have fake server errors.
We have global ignore or ban, (and various infractions) and thats it.
we either ignore you, or ban you. why would we need anything else?

Marty

BS...it aint that hard to set up user groups and move someone into a user group with no authority.
I think this has been done to a few others as well.

BS...it aint that hard to set up user groups and move someone into a user group with no authority.
I think this has been done to a few others as well.

That would not log users out.

That would not log users out.

No, but it would cause the issues that are being described to me by a user via e-mail.

No, but it would cause the issues that are being described to me by a user via e-mail.

User Access Masks only allow us to let users into forums or deny access. It's what keeps you from seeing Women's or the Mod queue. We don't have an option that logs you out.

(Thanks doofo..i hope you dont mind. :))


Hey guys, this is deathhare.
In case you did or didnt notice deathhare (me) posting since the Tommasini incident concluded yesterday this is a FYI to let you know what's up with this place.
My account is on some sort of lockdown by BF, apprarently. They havent contacted me to tell me why or anything whatsoever. Its pretty petty **** going on but not the first bit of petty-ness from a certain mod. Im not banned, i just cant access my account really and get almost all blank screens or fake server errors. Of course, using anyone else's account on the same machine everything works flawlessly. After this post it may magically clear up, or ill be banned perm.
I guess that's what you get for speaking out on BFs or trying to expose dirty modding.

Watch what you say or you too will find yourself trying to post thru a friend's account.


deathhare

edit: doofo. i hope this doesnt make them attack you. If so, i owe you big time.

It's not the first time...

http://bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=385875

ModoVincere,

yah a group with no access could be created, but I heard about slow response, network error
screens, time outs, database unavailable etc. Someone would have to be awfully ambitious
to create a usergroup which would throw random errors. Hell I was even getting this one last night:


The connection was reset

The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.


* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.

* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
connection.

* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

I'm hoping this little issue will die down. If not let us know and we will
keep working on it.

Marty

Jynx,

Given that servers get reorged and re indexed periodically would support the
fact that all of a sudden things are ok with your connection (since you
reported similar issues as OP in the linked thread).
yes it has happened before, yes sometimes response sucks and sometimes individual
users get squirrelly response. If it gets reported we work on it. Sometimes we get
lucky and it doesn't take days to track down the problem (we're all volunteers here and
have real jobs that do require participation).

Lotek - someone was doing IP searches last night. That kills the DB.

And building usergroups sucks. Last time I needed some (for the Sheldon Brown Igor) I outsourced that to another admin.

That's a beautiful bridge, 'Dipper. Where is it?

I think it's on the PBP route.

Lotek - someone was doing IP searches last night. That kills the DB.
And building usergroups sucks. Last time I needed some (for the Sheldon Brown Igor) I outsourced that to another admin.

That might have been me, depending on the time you noticed the problems. :o I've tried treading carefully on the IP search, but now and then it croaks no matter how narrow the search is.

Can we have some apologies to the general administration of Bikeforums? There were a lot of accusatory words flying.

Thomas Eni told me to thank everyone. Good work Lotek and Brian.

Sorry Blickblocks. Now your turn. You made some unbecoming accusations (and threats!) yourself.

Because we were vocal with our opinions on the tomassinni threads we were put on a list by moderators for "activity monitoring". Being on that list on this network caused us all to get slow unusable access. Plus some of us had our posts deleted and words changed. Maybe not intentionally. But when we brought it to the attention of this thread we were accused of being paranoid, stupid, whiners, etc. (read pages 1-2). So I'll let it go, but I'm not apologizing. Although I was upset, I wrote my posts carefully. I didnt name-call.

Let me understand: metaljim, deathhare, me and i_luv_hooters were "monitored", and that's what caused all these problems?

I was running IP searches both related and unrelated to the Tomassini threads. If these caused any issues, they certainly were not intentional. If you all remember how bad the search feature was until recently with the timeouts and such, well, our IP search still runs on the old search engine. Anything other than very limited IP searches can (and has) crashed the entire site. Beyond that, if there was any other sort of "monitoring", I wasn't doing it.

Let me understand: metaljim, deathhare, me and i_luv_hooters were "monitored", and that's what caused all these problems?

According to I_luv_hooters. Of course, that makes no sense at all, but we're not going to let facts get in the way of a good story. Perhaps someone can explain to the moderators (and me) what, exactly, this "activity monitoring" would entail, and why we would use it.

I was running IP searches both related and unrelated to the Tomassini threads. If these caused any issues, they certainly were not intentional. If you all remember how bad the search feature was until recently with the timeouts and such, well, our IP search still runs on the old search engine. Anything other than very limited IP searches can (and has) crashed the entire site. Beyond that, if there was any other sort of "monitoring", I wasn't doing it.

What does an IP search mean? I'm fuzzy on that concept. Plus, I never thought anyone's IP address would be very relevant - I have even set up a NAT firewall in my own home - who knows if the provider is doing some address translations of their own.

And even if I was permanently associated to an IP address, why would you be keeping tabs on it - even IF, say, you considered me a "dangerous" element? You would achieve more by just following my account. I guess I just don't get it. But would like to.

What does an IP search mean? I'm fuzzy on that concept. Plus, I never thought anyone's IP address would be very relevant - I have even set up a NAT firewall in my own home - who knows if the provider is doing some address translations of their own.

And even if I was permanently associated to an IP address, why would you be keeping tabs on it - even IF, say, you considered me a "dangerous" element? You would achieve more by just following my account. I guess I just don't get it. But would like to.

No one said anything about your IP address. There are some people that create multiple accounts to post inappropriate comments, and they'll all show up under one IP address. I_luv_hooters should now have two accounts associated with his IP address. At least, I hope it's only two.

No one said anything about your IP address. There are some people that create multiple accounts to post inappropriate comments, and they'll all show up under one IP address. I_luv_hooters should now have two accounts associated with his IP address. At least, I hope it's only two.

OK, look, I am trying to figure out why some of us had these issues. And it's conspicuous that it was "the troublemakers" as we shall be known. I know others had problems, too, but I'm not talking just slower loading of pages, I'm talking multiple failed attempts, sometimes blank pages, more than 9 out of 10 times not able to access any kind of content on BF. The degree of deterioration brings a new quality to the quantity of "problems".

As for hooters having two accounts associated with "his" IP address, did it occur to you (plural) that IP addresses are usually administered and provided by a DHCP server randomly, or several people may be using the same IP address when shielded by a network address translation firewall. When I was working at Nokia, everyone in our campus had the same IP address visible externally, and at one time Slashdot banned that IP address because of one boneheaded guy what was trying to overwhealm their webservers. So we all were cut off.

OK Brian, this admittedly is only my theory: Why would you monitor us? I have no exact reason. I think you didn't like our opinions or the way we presented them concerning the tommassini debate. You did say we weren't wealthy enough to purchase one so our opinions don't matter. You were at every single tommassini thread making your presence known. Right? You wanted trouble makers to be quiet. Right? Essentially you were looking for violations of the Bike Forums guidelines. Something. Anything. Also, maybe you didnt like the "tiny violins" comment (which you must now admint was funny). I don't know. But mrrabbit hit it on the head as far as I'm concerned. Read below.

I do know a few things can go on with forum apps...
Oftentimes when you apply auditing features, user and log monitoring features, it is going to cause some module(s) built into the forum software to work overtime eating up CPU cycles and RAM and disk swap when an audited/monitored user or IP address generates activity. This means if Brian is "monitoring" us (or has us on an active list of people the forum software will keep tabs on), and we log on or do anything, the whole website is slowed down because the utilty software is not set to the right "threshhold".





And of course since the session cookies, logs and such are in this case being fed into MySQL/Oracle/PSQL it effectively loads the hard drive again...

Your queries at the shell SQL level in text mode simply flushed some cached tables and buffers freeing up some memory and thereby speeding things up a tad...

So chances are, you just need to stop or lower some threshhold of any admin utility interface used to apply infraction points, language filtering, ip and user log and activity monitoring.

And for those who don't like reading the above...

...take a deep breath, exhale slowly...relax the fists and fingers...it is not much different from school teachers and vp's monitoring the playground for a day or so after a little fight between us kids...um...excuse me...us adults...

So relax guys....

...and Brian...just take care of it please....

Thanks!

=8-)

He did. Thats why we all got our normal usage back. Am I wrong here? Anyway, thats my theory. Or, it could be as simple as cuda2K running IP traces on all of us for the same reasons and that alone was enough to cause the problem. I have more reason to believe and feel inclined to believe the first explanation though.

Also, I actually do have enough money to buy one of those frames, but I'd rather not.

I have 2 IDs and Brian said that was ok for the reasons I did it. I only did it to see if what others were saying was true. It was. My original ID was slowed down, not my computer or my cache. I actually don't want the other ID anymore but i don't know how to delete it.

As for hooters having two accounts associated with "his" IP address, did it occur to you (plural) that IP addresses are usually administered and provided by a DHCP server randomly, or several people may be using the same IP address when shielded by a network address translation firewall.

Yes, we are aware that more than one user can be on the same IP address. But that is irrelevant. Figuring out when it's one person with multiple usernames is rarely rocket science.


OK Brian, this admittedly is only my theory: Why would you monitor us? I have no exact reason.

Here we go again. There would be no need to monitor you, or any other user. None of us could be bothered to take the time to keep tabs on any individual user. Inappropriate posts generally get reported to the moderators queue pretty quickly by other members.


I think you didn't like our opinions or the way we presented them concerning the tommassini debate. You did say we weren't wealthy enough to purchase one so our opinions don't matter.

There was no Tommasini "debate". I think "razzing" would be a better word, don't you? Regardless of how ridiculous the original allegations may have seemed, Tina should not have been subjected to as much abuse as she was. I've gone over that already. And here is my quote, copied right from that post:

"Reviewing this thread, I suspect that many of the negative comments came from posters that would never dream of purchasing a Tommasini, or would not have the means to do so."

That comment was based on the fact that several members in the SS/Fixie contingent were pretty vocal about the fact that they would never buy a Tommasini road frame, but would consider a Gorilla track frame.


You were at every single tommassini thread making your presence known. Right? You wanted trouble makers to be quiet. Right? Essentially you were looking for violations of the Bike Forums guidelines. Something. Anything. Also, maybe you didnt like the "tiny violins" comment (which you must now admint was funny). I don't know. But mrrabbit hit it on the head as far as I'm concerned.

Out of at least seven Tommasini threads, I'm pretty sure I only posted in 3 or maybe four, at the most. Is there something surprising about the admin posting? Why do you think anyone would go looking for violations of the guidelines? On the one hand, they're not usually too hard to find. On the other hand, that's kind of the point of moderating a forum, isn't it? Or are we doing this all wrong?


This means if Brian is "monitoring" us (or has us on an active list of people the forum software will keep tabs on), and we log on or do anything, the whole website is slowed down because the utilty software is not set to the right "threshhold".

Except that no such utility exists, making that theory moot.

[edit] Fark! I typed all that out, and got an error message when I hit the Preview button. Luckily, I always copy my long posts before submitting, in case there is a server issue. :p

I just want to know who crashed the entire site for near if not over an hour last night. I know it wasn't me... this time! :crash:

I just want to know who crashed the entire site for near if not over an hour last night. I know it wasn't me... this time! :crash:

I was writing the foil hat thesis you see above. And I had to wait until this morning to post it. Must be a conspiracy.

You were at every single tommassini thread making your presence known.


This is not true. Brian made no posting to the Tommasini thread in C & V.

Just sayin'.

East Hill

This is not true. Brian made no posting to the Tommasini thread in C & V.

Just sayin'.

East Hill

That thread was apparently quite civil.

That thread was apparently quite civil.

We do tend to be a bit quieter there.

East Hill

I wasn't logged in last night, but I do have a foil hat.
and as an aside, weaving the foil in one's hair works just as well.
I saw a whole family in Alexandria, Va. who presented to the ER that
way, being that close to pentagon and CIA, well we learned a lot.

marty

I wasn't logged in last night, but I do have a foil hat.
and as an aside, weaving the foil in one's hair works just as well.
I saw a whole family in Alexandria, Va. who presented to the ER that
way, being that close to pentagon and CIA, well we learned a lot.

marty

Dang, I learned something new. Here I always thought that hair foil wraps were just for colouring hair. I never thought about the side benefits of foil weaving.

Thanks lotek!

East Hill

reflects Gamma rays too.

I was writing the foil hat thesis you see above. And I had to wait until this morning to post it. Must be a conspiracy.

No. It happened just as I was trying to post my mustache pic in the "Show us your mustaches" thread in foo.

BF simply couldn't handle how rad my 'stache is.

No. It happened just as I was trying to post my mustache pic in the "Show us your mustaches" thread in foo.

BF simply couldn't handle how rad my 'stache is.

All three variations--way cool :p !

East Hill

No. It happened just as I was trying to post my mustache pic in the "Show us your mustaches" thread in foo.

BF simply couldn't handle how rad my 'stache is.

I just posted mine in there, and the server didn't crash. I can only conclude that mine is either way better than yours, or nowhere near as rad as yours.

Oh you guy's don't EVEN want to see my moustache.

yeah we do ^

yeah we do ^

See, now that's what I was going to say. But in a good way :) .

East Hill