We have the ability to know what genre prefs you like when assigning you to a game. If you don't tell us what you like, we can't help you very well, especially if you ask for help via email. Before, the script that listed the genre prefs just listed what you wanted which didn't include the parent genre information. For example, Star Trek is the parent, and Starfleet is a child. If you checked Starfleet but not Star Trek, then only Starfleet would list. This caused confusion because the way it echoed out, Starfleet could be listed under Firefly:

OLD:


I changed it to look more clean:

NEW:


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It is inevitable. Create a service and people will sign up but stop using it. The blogs became VERY popular in the first year of usage, but many people have dropped off their usage. I wrote a quick script that reminds people at 2, 4 and finally 6 months of their blog inactivity. This might help bring people back.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 2.9 / 68 )

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FSF Tommy wrote a script for us to list all OOC and IC awards/medals for easy listing. It's in the guides section.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |  related link  |   ( 3.1 / 76 )

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This was a 75 minute project. FSF Hawke wanted the AMS to do some work for him when players resign from sims or he removes them. He wants the AMS to automatically remove them from our mailing lists.

This was an interesting change. So I set up a function, to be shared between the roster management and the character management. When a player has more than one character on a sim, nothing happens with their mailing list subscriptions when they resign. However, if it's their last character on the game, when they resign, it removes them (any of their email addresses) from that game's lists. It also tells them this so if they want to get back on the lists, they can via the subscriptions page.

Also (pictured above), when a host goes to remove a player, they now have the option to check/uncheck "Remove player from the mailing lists." It is checked by default. This will allow them to save a step and just remove them completely.

Nifty.

[ 2 comments ] ( 17 views )   |  permalink  |   ( 3 / 61 )

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It's amazing how many times people click SAVE LOGIN when they've not set up their AIM/AOL account to login yet! And if they do, it errors to oblivion. I think I'll change it so the AMS checks first to see if that AOL/AIM is on record, but for now, this prompt makes them think twice.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3.2 / 55 )

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FSF Sarge wanted a way to have people that are sporadic guests on his game be more manageable in attendance. He didn't like having to mark these people as 'Unknown' or 'LOA' when they weren't. He also wanted new statuses built in, but I decided against it.

Instead, I took several of his ideas and modified them into a solution I think will work for everyone. If hosts have players' characters that are sporadic on their game, then mark them as Inactive in the roster listing. When you go to make an attendance entry, the system will now allow you to delete their entry so it won't count for/against them. So perhaps they're on your roster, but now they don't have to be on the attendance.

Also, it puts them in as 'Inactive' attended status, which is not normally a choice. This lets you have people in a status that may not be on the game but can still be marked somehow in attendance if you want. Normal players should never be 'Inactive' since they should be marked 'Attended' or 'Unexcused Absence" and whatnot. But sporadic players, if you keep them on the roster, can be 'Inactive.' In addition, people on a LOA will automatically now be marked as LOA to save you time.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3.1 / 58 )

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FSF Hawg wrote a quick script for the Awards Director to take over management of the forum user ranks easily. When the awards director gives out anniversary awards, then can quickly change their user rank on the forums. We give out stars for each year as a host. Thanks Hawg!

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He's on a roll! FSF Titan decided to revamp the keyword script to allow suggestions if the person types in a keyword wrong. When you type bob, then anything remotely looking like "bob" will show up. Kinda helpful? Yep. And he's working to expand the keyword program.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 2.9 / 60 )

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This was pretty entertaining. During SWOC, we wanted to invite some people to some chats we were hosting. But with over 1,200 AIM names in the AMS, it was unrealistic to import them into AIM and invite those that were online.

So I wrote a script that goes through all 1,200 AIM names in the AMS and only displays those that are CURRENTLY online. Then it gives you a list of AIM names in a text box for you to invite in the "Room invite" popup in AIM.

Or you can click on their name and paste an invite, which we did during SWOC.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 2.8 / 53 )

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I had an idea the other day about re-engineering some workflows. Right now we have the Boards Director posting any awards/medals/promotions he gets to the forums. Well, why not have the AMS do it for him and save him time? So we did! It was coordinated. FSF Hawg created the format (which is cooler and nicer looking) and I made the changes to the AMS coding. Tested and poof!

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 2.9 / 53 )

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Made a quick modification to the "Who is browsing" script that lets us see who has been on recently. I added numbers to show us HOW MANY people have been browsing in recent time periods. This was kinda amazing and neat to see. Numbers are true as of today!

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3.1 / 71 )

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FSF Tommy had the great idea of letting users attach a screen capture to their bug reports. So many times we would get a screen capture in email referring to a bug submitting. It required a bit of modifications to the file library system (so we could delete/manage these images) and modifications to the preview image routine to allow usage of PNG files as well. It turned out well! But caused another bug for 6 days. Anyone NOT uploading a screen capture got an "error" message but might assume their bug went through. Whoops! But it's fixed now.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 2.9 / 63 )

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Whoops! You'd think I'd get this right after like 4 times fixing it. But the subscriptions weren't letting you unsubscribe! Why! Well, it worked most of the time, but not all the time. Since we're coordinating between 2 databases, sometimes case is important. In the forums, emails can be upper and lower case. In the AMS, all emails are lowercase. So when it went to unsubscribe "BobBilly7@hotmail.COM" it was looking for "bobbilly7@hotmail.com" which didn't exist. But I forced everything lowercase and it works again. Thanks FSF Ariela!

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 2.9 / 67 )

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FSF Titan took it upon himself to redesign the manage hosts scripts for Fleet COs and the Admin. This manages who is assigned to what fleets, manages new requests and gives information to people making decisions. It was a major overhaul and took about 3 weeks to test and debug.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3.2 / 68 )

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Due to several recent sim applications giving vague information, we've added a couple more questions to the sim apply form. Easy enough.

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FSF Tommy reported a bug on the View Awards page that when a player was not logged in, they would see someone else's awards! How crazy is that. But we fixed it. You must be logged in to view the page.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3.1 / 67 )

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Thank you to FSF Titan for creating a new favorite icon for the FSF. You might have noticed it.


[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3.1 / 68 )

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Hello!

I am pleased to announce that I have modified the AMS to allow users to utilize the OpenID standard when logging on.

What does this mean?

If you don't know what OpenID is, then it's possible this doesn't affect you at all. However, if you do use OpenID (Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, and dozens of other sites), then you can use that system's login to get into the AMS.

This allows you to only have ONE username and password for many many websites. Soon, Google and others will adopt this standard as well. So you can use your AOL or AIM username and password and you will be logged in, into the FSF.

Cool?

Why do I care?

How many usernames and passwords do you have to remember? A dozen? Two dozen? Most people have a notepad or password manager with 30+ passwords. Wouldn't it be nice to have just ONE for all your sites? To have a unique identifier that represented you that you had control over is a powerful new idea that has recently gained a lot of ground on the internet.

So check it out and let us know what you think. You can sign in to the AMS at www.sb254.com with several options now. Additionally, after logged in, you can add new OpenIDs in "Your Account" under "Manage OpenIDs." This includes AOL, AIM, and Yahoo currently.

We will implement the OpenID standard into phpBB as soon as possible.



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FSF Tommy pointed out that editing an attendance entry wasn't loading up the previous date as expected, but today's date. I fixed this. Please note, this was a script Tommy wrote. :)



FSF Tommy also requested that when trying to add a member to an attendance file, the "default email address" of an AMS account (the one you sign up with) was not being returned as an option, only those in the "User Emails" option. I added the default as the first choice.



FSF Esrom requested a way to set the status of a player to Active, Leave of Absence, or Inactive so a new host or a cohost can know what's going on without much trouble.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3.2 / 154 )

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Hello! A just went through and fixed a bunch of bug issues, added some new features and changed some things per requests from people just like you.

FSF Sarge not only requested another 6 ranks into the system, but he also wanted people to choose whether they're Enlisted or Officer on their character creation page. For non-applicable sims, there is a choice for that:


And this is what hosts see to figure it out:


Additionally, FSF Ku wanted his tools to be a little more user friendly when adding guild leaders to guilds. Before, he had to select from a really long list (the old way before we changed some things) and now he can do a search lookup to figure it out:



FSF Hawg reported that he wasn't getting notification when someone wanted to join his guild. I noticed this since I get all the bounces to error[at]sb254.com but I never got to it. But I found out my coding changes earlier this year to allow multiple leaders per guild changed the way the user_id is referenced. I fixed it and now it's working again.



And finally, FSF Titan and several others complained that the front page news wouldn't always display. Since this is a javascript call to our portable script (for those that want FSF news on their own website) sometimes it fails due to blips. But I changed it so the code is actually in the AMS now, so it will always show.



Thanks for all your help, folks! I have 65 bug reports to work through. :)

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I've worked tirelessly (a liar!) over the last 9 days to get this launched. A new video center for those people that love videos and the science fiction we're all here to role play. Currently, it's invite only, but you only have to request via the AMS to get access. Enjoy!

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I added in the ability for fleet command members to utilize the genre stats program to narrow down a list of email addresses from the lurkers/inactives list to specific genres.



All a person needs to do is paste in the mailstring, either from the routine email lists we post to the recruiting group or through AMS generated mailstrings from fleets or sims to figure out exactly who likes what.



Recruiting becomes easier when you know 10 people like Romulan sims and you have to recruit for a Romulan sim. Or if we're launching a new sim in an alternate universe, you can send an ad for that specifically to 200 people instead of sending it to 700 that may not want it.

[ add comment ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3.1 / 211 )

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I made a couple changes that I thought would be useful. First off, I posted before about now tracking unique players between sims. Well, I went a step further and allowed Fleet COs to see how many players are unique to their fleet versus the other fleets/sims. We'll also now be holding Fleet XOs accountable and requiring at least 50 unique players in each fleet.



Additionally, the new server we moved to has a nice web interface to upload files into sim directories. So instead of just a link to the WebFTP login, by clicking on "webftp" the user is auto-logged into the website and ready to upload.



And this is what it looks like just by clicking on that link.



Fun stuff.

[ 1 comment ] ( 49 views )   |  permalink  |   ( 3.1 / 214 )

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FSF Perez reported a bug that he couldn't subscribe to one of his mailing lists.

The error had to do with the "multiple email addresses" per account changes we made a month or so ago. AMS emails are stored in lowercase, and as such, the script assumed all emails were lowercase. However, the new "user emails" option lets you have emails with uppercase letters which confused the subscriptions script.

I forced to lowercase email addresses everywhere inside the script and that fixed the bug.

Thanks Perez!

[ 1 comment ] ( 47 views )   |  permalink  |   ( 3 / 185 )

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Well, we completed the server move last week and the old server has since been deactivated. However, the new server poses its own issues that seem to keep cropping up.

I sent out instructions for people to use the email on the new server but I'm having to help a dozen people hands on because they're unable to do the directions. Plus, the new server's authentication routines slowed to a crawl over the last week and everyone was getting authentication errors. I submitted FOUR help tickets in the last week and everything seems to have smoothed out.

Sigh. I just want everything to work again and not have to deal with every little problem, but we're almost to that point.

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