PPRuNe "Invisible Mode"

[BLUE SKY THINKER]

I'm either going completely mad, or somebody else is. With all due respect to PPRuNe Admin, who after an exchange of e-mails I think is of the opinion the former, I could do with a second opinion.

There used to be (and am assured still is) the option to be in invisible mode whilst logged 'in' on the forums. I've been around all the obvious routes to this endlessly, to no avail. P'Admin claim Quick Links > User CP > Edit Options > Invisible Mode; and that this is the first option. All I have is reference to vCard downloads.

Is it me (probably)? If so, a click by click guide would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[onetrack]

This BB doesn't appear to have "invisible mode" option enabled by the administrators.

The vBulletin site, where the manual for this BB is posted, shows the invisible mode option under "adding or editing a user" .. but I certainly can't see it enabled under "edit options" on this BB ..

Perhaps the BB is set up, so the ''invisible mode" option, only appears when you're doing a new registration ..

vBulletin manual .. http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/

The vBulletin website community forums offer a nearly limitless amount of assistance .. http://www.vbulletin.com/

[BLUE SKY THINKER]

Thanks onetrack; sanity at last.

The fourth e-mail from P'Admin telling me it was there finished slightly exasperatingly (and bizarrely):

".....I think you are suffering from a wood from the trees interface problem.

Regards
PPRuNe Admin"

[Saab Dastard]

BST,

It may well only be there and available for Mods.

It is there for me.

I'll ask the exalted ones in the Pantheon. ;)

SD

[Golden Rivet]

Invisible mode should be an option within Edit Options/Login & Privacy.

It appears not to be enable on this bulletin board.

[Whirlygig]

Invisible mode has not been enabled since the upgrade at the start of the year. Neither has the list of members or who's online.

Cheers

Whirls

[amanoffewwords]

You can make yourself invisible...by loggin' out.

:ouch:

[frostbite]

Neither has the list of members or who's online.



I must be privileged then - I can see who's online!

[onetrack]

Members list has been disabled .. who's online, is enabled.

One of the things that amazes me about this BB, is the sheer number of users online, at any one time - I haven't come across too many other BB's, with such an enormous following ..

[amanoffewwords]

at any one time

It doesn't necessarily mean they're all online at this very precise moment - it depends on the threshold that has been set in the board admin - the list might mean "in the last 24 hrs", or "in the last 1 minute". My board is currently showing 21 members on line and my threshold is 2 hrs - I know from the stats that if I changed that value to 24hrs the online figure would show anything up to 66 (max I ever had in one day).

[Whirlygig]

Well I can't see the Who's Online option. I know there is a list on the main page but there used to be an option (have a look in forum jump) which would list who's online in alphabetical order and you could see which threads everyone was looking at. This has been disabled. If some found that instrusive, they used to have the facility to "go invisible". Both now gone.

Cheers

Whirls

[BLUE SKY THINKER]

You can make yourself invisible...by loggin' out.
:ouch:

Quite. However, jokes apart . . . . .

It doesn't necessarily mean they're all online at this very precise moment - it depends on the threshold that has been set in the board admin - the list might mean "in the last 24 hrs", or "in the last 1 minute". My board is currently showing 21 members on line and my threshold is 2 hrs - I know from the stats that if I changed that value to 24hrs the online figure would show anything up to 66 (max I ever had in one day).

. . . . . this second bit is quite interesting. I'm not particularly fussed about being 'invisible'; it's just that on awaiting someone to come back on a previous thread, I was puzzled that their green 'online' light was 'on' but that they did not appear in the 'active' list at the bottom of this forum. As we are all supposed to be interested in "Computer/Internet Issues" here, it led me to enquiring about the invisible mode out of curiosity, via P'Admin.

It used to be there and my first thought was that it probably disappeared - intentionally or otherwise - with one of the recent BB software updates. No response on that from P'Admin other than to keep telling me (four times) it's me; it's there.

[onetrack]

BST - "Users online" indicated, must be affected by something to do with a BB lag .. your green light is currently on .. showing that you're online .. but you're not showing in the "users online" list, even with a page refresh ..


Ahhhh .. NOW you've appeared .. after about 5 minutes .. there must be a default period in the BB which only shows you online, after say, 5 mins .. to avoid showing those who just pop in and out, in curiosity, for a minute or two ..


Another annoyance here, is postings that are edited .. and don't show they've been edited .. unless you put in a reason ..
On another similar forum, the BB shows editing having been done, even if you don't put up a reason ..

[BLUE SKY THINKER]

onetrack . . . . .

".....Another annoyance here, is postings that are edited .. and don't show they've been edited .. unless you put in a reason ..
On another similar forum, the BB shows editing having been done, even if you don't put up a reason ..

Coincidentally, at the time of your comment, I was just half way through apologising for our previous getting transposed, by unintentionally somehow managing to delete the whole thing before quick reinstate/start again, as you have presumably done to demonstrate the point (and to get the posts back in sync.).

Is this not how this arises sometimes; delete/start again (for whatever reason) rather than edit? That said, you are right, it is possible to edit - without deletion - for quite sometime afterwards, with no reason, or more to the point without showing that it has been editted. I don't know what the cut off point is; maybe when you go off website/return (albeit still cookie 'remembered').

[spekesoftly]

From usage, there seems to be a period of about ten minutes after posting, during which editing can be done without any note to that effect.

(Added at 17:41 - Handy for correcting any obvious errors without trace!)

[BLUE SKY THINKER]

Straying a bit from the original thread, but in view of previous, I've always assumed every post and edit must be recorded somewhere at PPRuNe in case anyone sues (?). Probably one for Saab Dastard to answer?

Not likely to be a problem on "Computer/Internet Issues" (hopefully!) but I can recall a choice item on "Rumours and News" sometime back that was pulled rapidly. Still time though for said quoted person to 'Save' and ring the lawyer.

[Saab Dastard]

I've always assumed every post and edit must be recorded somewhere at PPRuNe

Every post is recorded. Edits are recorded insofar as it is possible to record them.

SD

[PPRuNe Towers]

My apologies to BST,

I had no idea he was right and I was totally wrong until I fired up another browser without the remember me box ticked.:uhoh:

Lot's of eye candy and processor intensive stuff is turned off as our CPU utilisation is at 100% for 10 hours a day now. If he is passing through our ace servermeister, drauk, might post the chilling graphic display of this.

We've outgrown out set up yet again and have to take a deep breath, move to multiple servers and switch over to load balancing so the forum software can avoid queueing so many requests for so many hours of the day.

We have had to make many decisions regarding what facilities are essential or worthwhile and I missed one of the ones that got the chop, one I would have fought to keep. Problems for hardworking office based ppruners with a known username come to mind:E :E Still productivity must go up unless folks log off!

Regards
Rob

[Saab Dastard]

Rob,

Thanks for your input here!

SD

[IO540]

No way would I be able to out-expert drauk on any of this, but doing a View Source (of this entire thread so far), saving it as a file and looking at the size of the file, yields 115,000 bytes.

I do think that is way way excessive, for the information content!!

OK, this is the problem with all web-based discussion boards, but I am certain one could reduce this by several times. Think of the benefits reaped on both server CPU activity and bandwidth used.