Forum Maintenance & Technical Issues

[Tyler]

It kept me logged in today.

[ECtransplant]

Auto login has been working for me the past couple times I visited the site

[Shawn]

FYI for all new users, in order to avoid spam and other obnoxious posters we have implemented a policy of 1 approved post before you can post freely. You can submit as many as you want right off the bat and as soon as one is approve they will all be posted. We generally check a few times a day so it shouldn't be too long until you can post live. Thank you in advance for your understanding!

ALSO - even if you don't post, simply registering and viewing the site when you're logged in will get rid of all advertisements. We need to try to recoup the costs of keeping a bandwidth-sucking site like this online, but don't want to bother registered users that make the site possible so anyone not logged in will see the ads (unless they view the mobile site).

[MNdible]

As a registered user, I don't mind seeing ads as long as it keeps the site viable going forward.

[Cyclotron]

Co-sign above.

[ECtransplant]

So long as it's limited to text-based ads, I don't mind ads either.

[Le Sueur]

Having problems with editing posts in interchange topic: http://urbanmsp.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=58&start=90
Also: when I entered my last post I was told 900px width was the limit?

Other topics seem to work fine.

[Shawn]

Having problems with editing posts in interchange topic: http://urbanmsp.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=58&start=90
Also: when I entered my last post I was told 900px width was the limit?

Other topics seem to work fine.

I think that pictures with widths greater than 900 generally stretch the site too much our easy fix was to limit the width. It's annoying but it prevents things from getting stretched out too much.

Is it simply not letting you edit it or is it giving you errors? When I get home from work I'll check the permissions of the transportation forum versus all the others and see what's going on.
Shawn

[Le Sueur]

Having problems with editing posts in interchange topic: http://urbanmsp.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=58&start=90
Also: when I entered my last post I was told 900px width was the limit?

Other topics seem to work fine.

I think that pictures with widths greater than 900 generally stretch the site too much our easy fix was to limit the width. It's annoying but it prevents things from getting stretched out too much.

Is it simply not letting you edit it or is it giving you errors? When I get home from work I'll check the permissions of the transportation forum versus all the others and see what's going on.
Shawn

The edit button just doesn't appear. I looked a little more tonight, maybe it's just a first post permission thing?
Are permissions set up so that you can never edit your first post in any given topic? (This is how mine appear.)
Especially when creating a new topic it would be beneficial to be able to edit.

Also 900px limit is fine, more or less just wanted to confirm I wasn't missing a setting I had changed or something.

Thank you.

[Le Sueur]

As a registered user, I don't mind seeing ads as long as it keeps the site viable going forward.

Ditto. We all know bandwidth isn't free

[FISHMANPET]

I'd like to see what kind of ads get targetted to us urban nerds anyway.

[Shawn]

I'd like to see what kind of ads get targetted to us urban nerds anyway.

I check in occasionally and recently it has been Olympics, ThriveMSP, anything with the word "Urban" in it, Urban planning schools in Florida, GIS software, and more. We're working on doing something along these lines though...you guys may see something minimally intrusive soon.

Any way in-text ads would be acceptable? If it was limited to 1 or 2 per page? Or what is the least-annoying types of Ads?

[ECtransplant]

Just absolutely nothing with sound, video, flash, moving pieces/pictures, etc. Just plain text based ads are totally acceptable, IMO.

[Shawn]

Just absolutely nothing with sound, video, flash, moving pieces/pictures, etc. Just plain text based ads are totally acceptable, IMO.

I'd rather shut the site down then put the automatic playing video/audio ads on here...don't worry those things drive me crazy. We'll throw in either a banner ad with text only, a thing strip of text ads or inline text ads that highlight only a few words.

[mattaudio]

Apparently Google AdSense thinks I need to get rid of ants and bed bugs...

[Shawn]

Apparently Google AdSense thinks I need to get rid of ants and bed bugs...

When I created the ad it said that it will take a while to while to tailor it to the site & users. Apparently I'm single, lonely, and live in an "Urban Jungle" . At least it picked up the word urban.

[Tyler]

Apparently Google AdSense thinks I need to get rid of ants and bed bugs...

And pigeons. Such are the problems faced by the urban dweller.

[Tyler]

I'd say, if possible, throw the ads above the breadcrumbs. Right now they get in the way of navigation a bit.

[Lancestar2]

Here is my two cents,

I know most of us are very grateful at the service you have provided the community and while mostly making little to recoup your losses. I personally think you should add a picture banner ad at the top and google text adds on the bottom and maybe on top too! (ads in between posts are just so annoying so I wouldn't recommend that!) Also Id personally know I would click on the ads at least once a day and play around on the site for a min just to try my little part to help for the great service you are providing by hosting and managing the site.

Also one thing I have noticed is this site really isn't as active and doesn't have as many people responding as did the old site. Of course moving the entire community one is to expect some people no longer have interest and decide against moving to the new site. I think it would be great if you were to funnel a percentage say 10% or 25% of the profits into marketing or other ideas you have for the site! Also another idea in addition or perhaps instead of banner ads maybe creating a paypal or some type of online donation banner at top to allow people to contribute a bit.

I know you guys had tried Facebook ads before for this site I wonder how successful that was in gaining more valuable posters to the community. Based on that results I guess maybe that would give you more information on deciding if it's a good idea or not.

Also in reality the community here is much slimmer than the old site much less activity and I personally hope you are successful in building the community even greater! For example perhaps a UrbanMSP youtube site where if anybody really wanted to say interview people about topics on this forum or post video and pictures of construction and plans ect ect. and could work to become a partner channel and would be a great promotion for this site too! Maybe it would qualify as a unpaid internship and help a collage student get a credit (though I don't know if that would even work)

Finally I will say to anyone complaining about ads we really were spoiled with DC and Minnescraper it's rare to have a ad free site mos of us surf the web and get banner ads on about every site! We should be used to them by now, and if Minnescraper had some banner ads then maybe we wouldn't have lost that site. All I know is when I set up CDAT Forums during the confusion when Minnescraper when offline the reality of the time and cost need to maintain a forum sunk in really fast! So I would recommend banner ads if they pay more per click and I'll make sure to "CLICK away!"

[Nick]

Uh well I would put an emphasis on quality over quantity when it comes to post count...

There are a couple people still missing who were active on the old site, namely talindsay. He usually had insightful things to say.