I'm having a similar problem, some of the ads are opening new tabs on my computer.
Positioning of the ads on top isn't sexy, either.
Positioning tends to be why people like hacking Curse. Before you can react, you accidentally click on an ad/banner and bam, you have the virus starting. Happens more often than you know, and a lot of companies - Curse inclued - have been looking for ways around programs like AdBlocker for increased revenue. =/
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"The above post is the opinion of the poster and is not indicative of any stance taken by the President of the United States, Congress, the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, the Department of the Navy, or the United States Marine Corps."
Positioning tends to be why people like hacking Curse. Before you can react, you accidentally click on an ad/banner and bam, you have the virus starting. Happens more often than you know, and a lot of companies - Curse inclued - have been looking for ways around programs like AdBlocker for increased revenue. =/
This type of capitalist behavior is EXACTLY why I voiced my disgust over a machine acquiring MTGS. I imagine that if Curse doesn't tiptoe lightly in this affair, that we will have offshoot sites and a fragmented community.
Can we please stay focused on more tangible problems (like broken code, ad issues, etc) and leave the big picture geopolitical slant at the door? Regardless of how you view corporations just ranting about it doesn't really help anything. Currently the site is run by a team of admins who are pretty much the antithesis of Corporate America in their goals for life - I have yet to hear a single word from them or any of the Curse people about "numbers, figures, or dollars." The closest thing to that was something like "we don't want to get sued." Oddly enough I have said the same thing
So, again, please knock it off with the nebulous and monstrously huge issue of corporate ethics and influence and help me help you... blinky pop up ads with videos and ****ty formatting? THAT I can work with.
Already told people involved it's unlikely to happen. There's an insane amount of privacy issues that go against the idea of just dumping data and giving them to a 3rd party.
Positioning tends to be why people like hacking Curse. Before you can react, you accidentally click on an ad/banner and bam, you have the virus starting. Happens more often than you know, and a lot of companies - Curse inclued - have been looking for ways around programs like AdBlocker for increased revenue. =/
There's no way to counter adblocker, there isn't even a reliable way to track who uses it. The best you can do is try to call for a JS function that would be activated if the ads were loaded and report which % of your users don't have it but it's not that accurate and useless, but yeah, if Adblocker was avoidable, it wouldn't be that popular. ****, in France we even have an ISP blocking ads directly on their router. ^^
As for the ads, we do video ads but they shouldn't be autoplaying sound or anything like that. Same for "pop out" (would have to define it) but if there's something weird happening it's easier to report it, I'll have admins create a thread for that today to see if we can identify anything bad.
As for the whole Curse thing, yep, Curse is a for-profit company and is here to make money. And that's a pretty damn good reason to try to not **** up. MTGSalvation is big enough to be in the top 10 sites of the network, probably top 5, there is no logical reason for us to not try to grow it and improve it.
The beginning always sucks, we're taking over a site that we don't know, a community that we don't know, we have to deal with random errors, etc... But it should definitely get better in a few weeks/months after we get the new version of the site out. We're currently discussing what can be improved and I'm convinced we can do something pretty nice for you guys.
I'm still traveling a lot but I'll try to monitor this thread for the next few hours, I'm stuck in Dallas after a delayed flight anyway. ^^
Already told people involved it's unlikely to happen. There's an insane amount of privacy issues that go against the idea of just dumping data and giving them to a 3rd party.
I find it really interesting that you feel that all of these privacy issues exist but before you came along, the admins were ready to just hand them over without a second thought. Is there truly something our admins didn't think of? Or is this just a wall you are hiding behind because you don't want to give up the dumps? (Also, certain people involved have explained why there are no privacy issues, but that is a discussion for another website)
I find it really interesting that you feel that all of these privacy issues exist but before you came along, the admins were ready to just hand them over without a second thought. Is there truly something our admins didn't think of? Or is this just a wall you are hiding behind because you don't want to give up the dumps? (Also, certain people involved have explained why there are no privacy issues, but that is a discussion for another website)
This.
All those posts are in a "public board" that just happened to have a "special access mask". It was still a public board and anyone expecting posts in there to be considered private information, well...
We already have the html dumps, but it's a pain in the ass to translate those to SQL in order to upload them to our board. You mentioned something about IP addresses, but those we already have, and you can easily remove those from SQL query or the resulting table, anyway.
I find it really interesting that you feel that all of these privacy issues exist but before you came along, the admins were ready to just hand them over without a second thought. Is there truly something our admins didn't think of? Or is this just a wall you are hiding behind because you don't want to give up the dumps? (Also, certain people involved have explained why there are no privacy issues, but that is a discussion for another website)
That's probably because the previous admins are volunteers and have not been doing this enough to understand the legal ramifications of giving up private property and information. Drop the conspiracy theory bull****; It's beyond tiresome.
That's probably because the previous admins are volunteers and have not been doing this enough to understand the legal ramifications of giving up private property and information. Drop the conspiracy theory bull****; It's beyond tiresome.
No conspiracy, I was asking a legitimate question. Was it a mishap on the part of the admins? Or is there some other reason?
It wasn't even "previous" admins. I was pretty clear from the start that I would help preserve the Gutter in any capacity I could - and was told transferring the SQL Dumps was the best way to do that by people in the Gutter. Hannes had it set up so that no one but him could move them over and I tried to get him to do it. Then Curse enters the picture and now it's up to them.
I am just a little tired of you trying to spin this like I promised you something and didn't deliver, lied to you, or anything like that. Tiresome is definitely the word.
I personally appreciate your efforts Gals, thank you.
I'm just pointing out that I don't see what the big deal is about making [unspecified banned member]'s life easier by giving him a file containing information he already has but in a friendlier fashion.
If Boubs and company still think that it is something they can't/won't do, there is no way of forcing them to do it, is there? I'd still like a definite and definitive answer so we can get over some expectations that were created at some point in time.
I personally appreciate your efforts Gals, thank you.
I'm just pointing out that I don't see what the big deal is about making [unspecified banned member]'s life easier by giving him a file containing information he already has but in a friendlier fashion.
If Boubs and company still think that it is something they can't/won't do, there is no way of forcing them to do it, is there? I'd still like a definite and definitive answer so we can get over some expectations that were created at some point in time.
So, peace.
I mean: why don't you just write a spider to crawl through the old Gutter and get the info that way? It wouldn't be very hard, and it would be easy enough to do with or without outside help.
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Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
@Senori: it would require time and effort from people with jobs not related to magical card websites, as opposed to a line of SQL and saving some files for a guy/gal who has access and is doing tech stuff anyway. And god forbid more accusations about malicious stuff.
I think anytime you have the possibility of a lawsuit injected into the picture, you're going to have people with their jobs on the line become a lot more nervous, Gaea.
It sucks for the gutter that things are going to be that way, but if there's a non-zero chance that it could conceivably come back to bite Boubs, I can certainly understand why he wouldn't want to take that risk.
@Senori: it would require time and effort from people with jobs not related to magical card websites, as opposed to a line of SQL and saving some files for a guy/gal who has access and is doing tech stuff anyway. And god forbid more accusations about malicious stuff.
It's not really accusations about malicious stuff, it's just respect for the majority of users who posted on the gutter at some point and aren't involved and are probably not okay with just getting their stuff dumped and handed away. I'd rather try to fix the whole Gutter situation than just wash it off and screw a bunch of users in the process.
It wouldn't be that hard or take time, our devs are used to vBulletin. The fact that it's a MTG forum is completely irrelevant, it's a community just like any other community in the company and is at the same level as everything else. Technically, it's at a higher level lately since we have the devteam working on a revamp of the website to make things shinier for you guys. (And no, it won't go live one day with no notice, you'll see a preview for feedback purposes before it happens)
I think anytime you have the possibility of a lawsuit injected into the picture, you're going to have people with their jobs on the line become a lot more nervous, Gaea.
It sucks for the gutter that things are going to be that way, but if there's a non-zero chance that it could conceivably come back to bite Boubs, I can certainly understand why he wouldn't want to take that risk.
It's not really accusations about malicious stuff, it's just respect for the majority of users who posted on the gutter at some point and aren't involved and are probably not okay with just getting their stuff dumped and handed away. I'd rather try to fix the whole Gutter situation than just wash it off and screw a bunch of users in the process.
If you need someone to say that formally, I will step forward and do so.
Explicitly, I formally would request that these posts not be handed over with my information intact.
Harkius
Don't worry, your posts are safely stored in a server in some nice-weathered country in Europe. I'm sure the admins are deleting the ones in Curse's servers anyway, as per your wishes.
It's OK really. There are more important issues we would like sorted out. This was just some expectation that was created. No biggie.
If you think something is trolling and you respond to it.... seriously? Just let it go please. All of you have made your concerns known and we are working through a huge list of things to deal with - your problems may be important to you, but they are not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of new ownership trying to figure things out. We will get to all of it in due time, but Boubouille just moved across the globe and is jumping around the US right now.
I was on the phone with the hospital being told that my aunts constipation was terminal ovarian cancer and she has anywhere from 1-3 months to live. Then I had to get my kids to school. Sorry it took more than an hour, but that happens and unfortunately I am not really in the mood to see adults bicker about next to nothing.
The entitlement you show is borderline abusive sometimes and I am asking you to go easy. Give us a little time to look at things. I got the report and then saw you already posted. And now that I am looking it at, yeah, maybe. But this is a game you guys set in motion a long time ago. So, instead of carding you both I just asked you to stop. That seems fair, but apparently you don't agree. If you have anything else to say about this please post it on my Helpdesk. Thank you.
If you want people to report posts, then at least let them know that they're not being ignored, Galspanic. And if you want to work with the userbase, try not to be so condescending. If users see you go to the thread, and apparently ignore it, they might just respond.
Also, there's a difference between responding to someone that you think is trolling you in a way that encourages them and a way that is informative.
Harkius
I think that condescension is the perfect tone for the administration to take. It's certainly better than the We Are Your Very Serious Mommies tone.
But it should definitely get better in a few weeks/months after we get the new version of the site out.
New version? Please don't tell me the look and feel of the forums will change. This is one of the best looking, most easily readable forum sites out there. Please don't change how it looks!
New version? Please don't tell me the look and feel of the forums will change. This is one of the best looking, most easily readable forum sites out there. Please don't change how it looks!
If it's anything like the MMO-Champion update, the forums probably won't change much, but we might actually get a decent looking home page and other goodies.
New version? Please don't tell me the look and feel of the forums will change. This is one of the best looking, most easily readable forum sites out there. Please don't change how it looks!
Indeed. I have never used the site in such a way that I have tried to accomplish X, and then thought "Dang, I don't know why the site can't do that."
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Epic banner by Erasmus of æтђєг.
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
Indeed. I have never used the site in such a way that I have tried to accomplish X, and then thought "Dang, I don't know why the site can't do that."
I agree, nothing forum related is broken.
Some suggestions for other improvements:
Spoiler Section -
First and foremost, I'm very thankful to the person who puts in the time entering in new cards. This section would benefit greatly from an aesthetic upgrade. It also gets a lot of hits during spoiler season.
Articles -
A more integrated and involved article/writing system. I feel I have to seek them out, as I generally jump straight into the forums. I realize you can create a custom UI to solve this, but I feel it should require no effort from the end user.
Identity -
Salvation doesn't really have a solidified identity. I can feel an identity within the community that isn't expressed in the site aesthetic. Our logo could use significant improvement or a rework.
New version? Please don't tell me the look and feel of the forums will change. This is one of the best looking, most easily readable forum sites out there. Please don't change how it looks!
We're still finalizing details, currently MTGSalvation just runs on the default vBulletin skin so yeah, that might change but I'm usually pretty annoying when it comes to forum skins so we should be fine. I'll probably post previews on the forums before it goes live anyway to get community feedback.
There will be a couple of features improvements, the goal is mostly to move platforms first (from vBulletin to our own platform) and then improve gradually depending on user feedback. Some parts of the site could use better tools and hopefully we'll have time to improve the site to make it slightly awesome over the year.
We're still finalizing details, currently MTGSalvation just runs on the default vBulletin skin so yeah, that might change but I'm usually pretty annoying when it comes to forum skins so we should be fine. I'll probably post previews on the forums before it goes live anyway to get community feedback.
There will be a couple of features improvements, the goal is mostly to move platforms first (from vBulletin to our own platform) and then improve gradually depending on user feedback. Some parts of the site could use better tools and hopefully we'll have time to improve the site to make it slightly awesome over the year.
If I may ask, what will a change from the current vBulletin software to (whatever platform Curse forums run on) mean from the user end? What sort of changes should we expect from the user interface when the transition is carried out?
Also, will any posts / threads be subject to loss in the transition, or can it all be saved?
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Former Level 2 Judge (Retired / Renounced)
Went to a new shop from a friend's recommendation, DQ'ed for willful violation of CR 100.6b.
Positioning tends to be why people like hacking Curse. Before you can react, you accidentally click on an ad/banner and bam, you have the virus starting. Happens more often than you know, and a lot of companies - Curse inclued - have been looking for ways around programs like AdBlocker for increased revenue. =/
Captain, United States Marines
"Peace through superior firepower."
This type of capitalist behavior is EXACTLY why I voiced my disgust over a machine acquiring MTGS. I imagine that if Curse doesn't tiptoe lightly in this affair, that we will have offshoot sites and a fragmented community.
So, again, please knock it off with the nebulous and monstrously huge issue of corporate ethics and influence and help me help you... blinky pop up ads with videos and ****ty formatting? THAT I can work with.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Already told people involved it's unlikely to happen. There's an insane amount of privacy issues that go against the idea of just dumping data and giving them to a 3rd party.
There's no way to counter adblocker, there isn't even a reliable way to track who uses it. The best you can do is try to call for a JS function that would be activated if the ads were loaded and report which % of your users don't have it but it's not that accurate and useless, but yeah, if Adblocker was avoidable, it wouldn't be that popular. ****, in France we even have an ISP blocking ads directly on their router. ^^
As for the ads, we do video ads but they shouldn't be autoplaying sound or anything like that. Same for "pop out" (would have to define it) but if there's something weird happening it's easier to report it, I'll have admins create a thread for that today to see if we can identify anything bad.
As for the whole Curse thing, yep, Curse is a for-profit company and is here to make money. And that's a pretty damn good reason to try to not **** up. MTGSalvation is big enough to be in the top 10 sites of the network, probably top 5, there is no logical reason for us to not try to grow it and improve it.
The beginning always sucks, we're taking over a site that we don't know, a community that we don't know, we have to deal with random errors, etc... But it should definitely get better in a few weeks/months after we get the new version of the site out. We're currently discussing what can be improved and I'm convinced we can do something pretty nice for you guys.
I'm still traveling a lot but I'll try to monitor this thread for the next few hours, I'm stuck in Dallas after a delayed flight anyway. ^^
I find it really interesting that you feel that all of these privacy issues exist but before you came along, the admins were ready to just hand them over without a second thought. Is there truly something our admins didn't think of? Or is this just a wall you are hiding behind because you don't want to give up the dumps? (Also, certain people involved have explained why there are no privacy issues, but that is a discussion for another website)
My 360 Commons Cube
Your favorite MTG website
This.
All those posts are in a "public board" that just happened to have a "special access mask". It was still a public board and anyone expecting posts in there to be considered private information, well...
We already have the html dumps, but it's a pain in the ass to translate those to SQL in order to upload them to our board. You mentioned something about IP addresses, but those we already have, and you can easily remove those from SQL query or the resulting table, anyway.
Seriously: pretty please give us the dumps.
My YouTube Channel
That's probably because the previous admins are volunteers and have not been doing this enough to understand the legal ramifications of giving up private property and information. Drop the conspiracy theory bull****; It's beyond tiresome.
(Also known as Xenphire)
No conspiracy, I was asking a legitimate question. Was it a mishap on the part of the admins? Or is there some other reason?
My 360 Commons Cube
Your favorite MTG website
I am just a little tired of you trying to spin this like I promised you something and didn't deliver, lied to you, or anything like that. Tiresome is definitely the word.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I'm just pointing out that I don't see what the big deal is about making [unspecified banned member]'s life easier by giving him a file containing information he already has but in a friendlier fashion.
If Boubs and company still think that it is something they can't/won't do, there is no way of forcing them to do it, is there? I'd still like a definite and definitive answer so we can get over some expectations that were created at some point in time.
So, peace.
My YouTube Channel
I mean: why don't you just write a spider to crawl through the old Gutter and get the info that way? It wouldn't be very hard, and it would be easy enough to do with or without outside help.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
@Gals: Yeah, seems like the better choice.
My YouTube Channel
It sucks for the gutter that things are going to be that way, but if there's a non-zero chance that it could conceivably come back to bite Boubs, I can certainly understand why he wouldn't want to take that risk.
It's not really accusations about malicious stuff, it's just respect for the majority of users who posted on the gutter at some point and aren't involved and are probably not okay with just getting their stuff dumped and handed away. I'd rather try to fix the whole Gutter situation than just wash it off and screw a bunch of users in the process.
It wouldn't be that hard or take time, our devs are used to vBulletin. The fact that it's a MTG forum is completely irrelevant, it's a community just like any other community in the company and is at the same level as everything else. Technically, it's at a higher level lately since we have the devteam working on a revamp of the website to make things shinier for you guys. (And no, it won't go live one day with no notice, you'll see a preview for feedback purposes before it happens)
The "malicious" bit was referring to this:
Don't worry, your posts are safely stored in a server in some nice-weathered country in Europe. I'm sure the admins are deleting the ones in Curse's servers anyway, as per your wishes.
It's OK really. There are more important issues we would like sorted out. This was just some expectation that was created. No biggie.
My YouTube Channel
So, to everyone, please be patient.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
The entitlement you show is borderline abusive sometimes and I am asking you to go easy. Give us a little time to look at things. I got the report and then saw you already posted. And now that I am looking it at, yeah, maybe. But this is a game you guys set in motion a long time ago. So, instead of carding you both I just asked you to stop. That seems fair, but apparently you don't agree. If you have anything else to say about this please post it on my Helpdesk. Thank you.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I think that condescension is the perfect tone for the administration to take. It's certainly better than the We Are Your Very Serious Mommies tone.
New version? Please don't tell me the look and feel of the forums will change. This is one of the best looking, most easily readable forum sites out there. Please don't change how it looks!
If it's anything like the MMO-Champion update, the forums probably won't change much, but we might actually get a decent looking home page and other goodies.
(Also known as Xenphire)
Indeed. I have never used the site in such a way that I have tried to accomplish X, and then thought "Dang, I don't know why the site can't do that."
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
I agree, nothing forum related is broken.
Some suggestions for other improvements:
Spoiler Section -
First and foremost, I'm very thankful to the person who puts in the time entering in new cards. This section would benefit greatly from an aesthetic upgrade. It also gets a lot of hits during spoiler season.
Articles -
A more integrated and involved article/writing system. I feel I have to seek them out, as I generally jump straight into the forums. I realize you can create a custom UI to solve this, but I feel it should require no effort from the end user.
Identity -
Salvation doesn't really have a solidified identity. I can feel an identity within the community that isn't expressed in the site aesthetic. Our logo could use significant improvement or a rework.
We're still finalizing details, currently MTGSalvation just runs on the default vBulletin skin so yeah, that might change but I'm usually pretty annoying when it comes to forum skins so we should be fine. I'll probably post previews on the forums before it goes live anyway to get community feedback.
There will be a couple of features improvements, the goal is mostly to move platforms first (from vBulletin to our own platform) and then improve gradually depending on user feedback. Some parts of the site could use better tools and hopefully we'll have time to improve the site to make it slightly awesome over the year.
If I may ask, what will a change from the current vBulletin software to (whatever platform Curse forums run on) mean from the user end? What sort of changes should we expect from the user interface when the transition is carried out?
Also, will any posts / threads be subject to loss in the transition, or can it all be saved?
Went to a new shop from a friend's recommendation, DQ'ed for willful violation of CR 100.6b.
Have played duals? I have PucaPoints for them!
(Credit to DarkNightCavalier)
$tandard: Too poor.
Modern:
- GW Birthing Pod(?)
Legacy:
- UWR Delver