Lunatics Membership

[Purple Rabbit]

Deleting the account after 180 day of silence strikes me as a bit harsh. I was active last Spring as apps that interested me were being developed. I became less active as the apps were perfected. The current development effort is great, but I'm not ready to try them yet. I may choose to do so later (if I'm allowed). I log in almost every day to see what has happened.

Is someone who posted more than 180 days ago now dirt? Are the membership levels such that they need to be limited? I understand the spam problem, but I'm a bit confused how this rule solves that problem. I might suggest that the earlier idea of log ins may be more appropriate.

I assume my 180 day clock starts now (OK, you said Sept 1, but I'm taking poetic license here!) so please answer in the next 6 months before I become a pumpkin

Rick

[Jason G]

Hi Rick,
  While I didn't come up with the changed rules myself, I can certainly comment on some of the motivations & how the new strategies are already proving effective.

One of the big problems has been that Bots have become so sophisticated, they can create & activate new accounts even with captcha and email verification in place.  These tend not to post at all on the forums, or be picked out fairly quickly if they do.  That blows out the registered users list making it unmanageable, and sometimes legit users will get caught in the crossfire despite best efforts. Minimising that potential has great benefits to forming a solid community.

In addition, gradually, after successive developments, there have been surges in legitimate interest from users.  This primarily, though, is a coding & development forum.  In some cases it became evident that some users were demanding elevated access just so they could 'get stuff not available to the public yet' without providing feedback or understanding testing protocol.  Indeed there were even security violations of the web server from time to time.

There are also issues relating to server space, considering our gracious hosts rescued the site from potential oblivion, we are extremely grateful & don't want to push our good fortune  for the sake of free for all unrestrained growth.

In those contexts, moving to a participation based model has shown to give us what I believe to be the best group of Beta & Alpha testers so far, and that the stable environment & focused crew I hope might draw back some of the development talent that moved on before my time here (for various reasons), and draw new talent in also, which is happening as we speak.

I hope you'll find the time & interest to 'have a crack' at the builds under development when you can, and consider what the usefulness of that participation model can be to you.  For example, new opportunities continue to develop for myself, just by gaining experience hanging around with intellectuals around here 

Cheers, Jason

[Purple Rabbit]

Thanks Jason. I think I understand the problem better now. I'm still a bit at odds with the solution however 

Obviously this isn't what I wanted to hear, but c'est la vie...sigh. I think I heard you say that you want the hard core testers and coders here. That's not me. I'm just your normal run-of-the-mill retired engineer who likes to play with stuff. I've been happy to provide comments where I could on apps that I used. I don't speak unless I have something to say.

Hopefully the powers-that-be (whoever they might be) might look at this issue again.

Pumpkin

[Jason G]

I'm just your normal run-of-the-mill retired engineer who likes to play with stuff. I've been happy to provide comments where I could on apps that I used.

That's fits my definition of a Beta Tester.  We need those (otherwise I don't think I'd be here).  Absolutely we need coders & the 'hard core' technical type testers, But I think you might be ascribing some kindof elitism where the intent is to build a community not infested with spam & knobs. 

Can I ask how being, as you call it, 'run of the mill' and a retired engineer that will provide comments when needed doesn't perfectly fit the profile to test, e.g. unified installers & utilities ? To my mind it fits that perfectly, along with application development.

It isn't always easy to get testers either hard core, as you describe, or my looser definitions to comment on an 'open forum' to contribute actively (even in small ways)  and it's that 'art' you seem to be taking issue with.  In the long run I know your comments, occasional & brief though they may be, can be far more valuable than some spam bots.  Give us a tiny amount of feedback or encouragement and that'll go a lot further than dragging up old threads to build a post count.  After all, some of us are scientists & engineers too, so do like to get a sense we're building & contributing to something bigger than ourselves, rather than creating a big mess on somebody's server  .

Cheers, Jason

[arkayn]

I am not a coder, but I do have hardware that can test some of the current apps that are in beta and alpha. Being cross-platform also helps.

[Purple Rabbit]

I guess my point is that the new rule will delete accounts of occasional, but possibly useful people. I'm a beta tester and I understand the pitfalls of doing it. I just don't do it continuously. As the development goes toward Astropulse, then I get silent because I don't currently do that. If it goes back to MB then I'll test again

If spam prevention trumps the occasional useful comment, then I guess I'll live with that.  I suspect it might limit the occasional beta tester who has to get 5 posts  (Oh wait, I have to be a member to post!--Catch 22 if I waited too long to post while I was legal  ) to gain access to the beta test area.

I'm not shooting arrows at anyone. I just thought that I'd mention that you may miss a bunch of people who occasionally test, but aren't continuously active. All this is intended to be constructive criticism.

Squash (a smaller pumpkin   )

[Gecko_R7]

I guess my point is that the new rule will delete accounts of occasional, but possibly useful people.

Thanks Rick.
Your concerns are noted and its acknowledged that current membership policy may affect intermittent testers.
First and foremost, Lunatics does appreciate the interest and willingness of anyone volunteering their time to support efforts here. 
That said, changes were necessary to address:  1) Improved site security 2) Identify and foster a more active testing/developmental support group. 3) Reduce resource footprint to our gracious host and the time spent on site maintenance.

There are a record number of development efforts currently underway supporting a wide assortment of hardware and OS testing needs.
The opportunities to participate, via testing, and in other ways to support devs and/or other members are quite numerous.
While admittingly not an *ideal* solution, hopefully finding incentive to post once every 6 months isn't too unreasonable within an active development and support forum. 

Thanks for your understanding, feedback and most importantly, your continued support!!! 

[perryjay]

I try to post when I can but I'm really computer illiterate on most things.   If I see something I do understand and think I might be of some help I'll chime in. You guys have pretty much solved all the problems I've come up with and are moving on to things I probably won't be any help on. If you get back to something my single little 9500GT can help with I'll be here at least trying to give something back to you.

[Jason G]

I try to post when I can but I'm really computer illiterate on most things.   If I see something I do understand and think I might be of some help I'll chime in. You guys have pretty much solved all the problems I've come up with and are moving on to things I probably won't be any help on. If you get back to something my single little 9500GT can help with I'll be here at least trying to give something back to you.

  Are you running x32f preview build on that one ?

[perryjay]

Not yet. I haven't really had the problems you are trying to solve and didn't know if it would be much help. Didn't want to get in over my head if it wasn't really needed. Would probably need talking through how to install it.

[Jason G]

Not yet. I haven't really had the problems you are trying to solve and didn't know if it would be much help. Didn't want to get in over my head if it wasn't really needed. Would probably need talking through how to install it.

Deal.  The isolation of the multicard issue is over, and won't be corrected until Cuda 3.2.  That leaves consolidation & making sure the thing runs well on the widest range of cards as possuble, so any help is greatly appreciated,  When you have the time, meet me over in the Ongoing x32f testing thread.

If you happened to have used the unfied installer to get going... it's going to be really easy to install.  I'll provide you with a replacement aistub file and instructions over there.

[BANZAI56]

The widest range of cards eh?

I didn't know, but then again I didn't ask.   


I have a host (2261623) with a PCI 9500GT if you would happen to need another for that test.

[Jason G]

The widest range of cards eh?

I didn't know, but then again I didn't ask.   

I have a host (2261623) with a PCI 9500GT if you would happen to need another for that test.

End of week we will  perryjay broke my test build...LoL (which is a good thing for a tester to do with something that was deemed fairly reliable before)  

Cheers, Jason

[perryjay]

I'm good at breaking things, I just have trouble explaining what I did. 

[mr.mac52]

Yikes, I wondered why I didn't see much testing going on; I dropped back to Knave status.

My system has been upgraded to Windows 7 ultimate, GPU is now a GTX 285.

I finally figured out how to build up a good cash of S@H work to survive the expanded outages.

I still use Marius's reschedule 1.9 but have been looking to see how to move to Fred's new one.

I was down this past week after my memory died a slow death and getting newer parts took time.

So, if this knave wants to get back into actove testing, how does this happen in this brave new world?

John