Ask the Staff v8

[foralltheliving]

I've done a few searches but can't find a thread on this, and I've looked up and down the edit options but see nothing about deleting an account.

Anyone know where I can delete it?

[Alastor]

I'm sorry but you can't. You are free to forget your password and never come back if you want.

[speedy3702]

Where can I add an avatar? I only find "Edit Signature" on my options.

[SusanBones]

Originally Posted by speedy3702

Where can I add an avatar? I only find "Edit Signature" on my options.

Only members of Hogsmeade are able to add avatars. For more information on Hogsmeade:

Hogsmeade Review Guidelines

[asdfasdf17]

When I use the Advanced search, there is an option that allows you to pick the forums you'd like to search in. Is there anyway to exclude a forum you don't want to turn up in your results? For example, I like searching all the open forums but I don't want results coming from Flourish and Bolts. Is there a way I could exclude the forum?

[gertiekeddle]

Alas not. The search feature comes with the software, which we can't adapt very much. The only thing you could do is to mark all forums in a row with your shift key - but I'm afraid you'd still not get every forums expect F&B.

[MrsPimlico]

Hello
I was wondering... when is the calendar going to be set up? The one in which people can post entries (Pitchsiders did one last year and we'd like to do it again, but I can't remember in which part of the forum that was... was it the Wand? )... Anyway, even if you still don't know the exact date for sure, just the part of CoS where we can find the thread will do, I'll just keep an eye on it.

Thanks

[Hes]

Originally Posted by MrsPimlico

Hello
I was wondering... when is the calendar going to be set up? The one in which people can post entries (Pitchsiders did one last year and we'd like to do it again, but I can't remember in which part of the forum that was... was it the Wand? )... Anyway, even if you still don't know the exact date for sure, just the part of CoS where we can find the thread will do, I'll just keep an eye on it.

Thanks

It will be in the Cloak. As for the date, I can't give it yet. Either at the end of this week or early next week. I'll make a forum wide announcement when sign up starts. Would be great if you guys did something again

[MrsPimlico]

Originally Posted by Hes

It will be in the Cloak. As for the date, I can't give it yet. Either at the end of this week or early next week. I'll make a forum wide announcement when sign up starts. Would be great if you guys did something again

Oh great thank you! Well we already have the idea lol, so yes there should be something from us this year too
I'll keep my eyes open then thanks a lot!

[asdfasdf17]

Originally Posted by gertiekeddle

Alas not. The search feature comes with the software, which we can't adapt very much. The only thing you could do is to mark all forums in a row with your shift key - but I'm afraid you'd still not get every forums expect F&B.

Thanks for sharing the shift key trick, I didn't know about that!

[LyannaS]

How do you modify the title of a thread that you've started? For example, I'd like to add an "s" to my "The most depressing book[s] you've read". I tried to edit the opening post, but couldn't change the title.

[Tenshi]

Originally Posted by LyannaS

How do you modify the title of a thread that you've started? For example, I'd like to add an "s" to my "The most depressing book[s] you've read". I tried to edit the opening post, but couldn't change the title.

When you are in the (sub)forum where all threads are listed. Double click next to the thread title or better directly after "1 2 3 ... last page"

Or Opening Post - Edit - Go Advanced.

[LyannaS]

Originally Posted by Tenshi

Or Opening Post - Edit - Go Advanced.

It worked! Thanks, Tenshi!

[mirrormere]

What's going on with the new student weirdness?

A new student will appear with a rather odd name (I mean odder than most) and a short time later they show up as banned. Is there some kind of service attack going on?

[Hes]

Yep. Mostly commercial spammers with an Uggs obsession and similar interests.

[ccollinsmith]

Originally Posted by Hes

Yep. Mostly commercial spammers with an Uggs obsession and similar interests.

Yeah, the frequency of seeing the banned users made it look to me like they would be spammers. Weird though. I knew that CoS gets hit by fandom spammers, but I didn't know we get hit by commercial spammers. Has commercial spamming happened a lot here in the past?

[Hes]

Originally Posted by ccollinsmith

Yeah, the frequency of seeing the banned users made it look to me like they would be spammers. Weird though. I knew that CoS gets hit by fandom spammers, but I didn't know we get hit by commercial spammers. Has commercial spamming happened a lot here in the past?

This is pretty extreme, but they are always around. I guess with our membership we are very attractive.

[ccollinsmith]

Originally Posted by Hes

This is pretty extreme, but they are always around. I guess with our membership we are very attractive.

Well, I have to say you staff folks are doing a good job then of keeping them at bay. I have only been spammed once or twice on this site - and never by a commercial spammer.

[gertiekeddle]

We always had commercial spammers, but currently it's one of the more busy phases. Usually this goes over after one or two weeks.

In the past we also had more genuine new members every day than we have nowadays, though. So these mentioned busy phases haven't been visible as much for everyone expect administrators.

[FlamingStar]

I noticed that too. All the sites I'm a member of report an intensive attack of spammers in the past few months. I'd have thought, though, that having the screening system (answer a HP-related question) would keep them out of CoS. I guess even spammers can be HP fans, LOL.

This seems like some kind of record. Last night there were 20 people on-line, 12 of them banned. Another site I know is reporting 100+ spammers a day. It's a much smaller site than CoS, but they don't have a screening system. Looks like everyone is being slammed. Since they're banned right away and can't post, I wonder why they persist in such high numbers? What a waste of everybody's time!