Forum Changes

[EHM-1703 Philip]

Dear Pilots,

You may have noticed over the last few days that some of the Management Forum ID's have changed. This is due to some testing which has been taking place behind the scenes in readiness for some updates to the forums. These updates will include a new set of Forum Rules which should help clarify how the EHM forum works and will improve the quality of our communication as a community. As you may have gathered, one of these changes will be to the members Forum ID. It will be planned that members will now use their EHM ID and their first name as their Forum ID. These changes are expected to be automatic so we will keep you posted regarding our progress on this subject over the next few days.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at:

philip@fly-euroharmony.com

[EHM-1703 Philip]

As promised above, more news on the upcoming changes to our Forums.

There have been conversations and postings about our Forum rules recently and this was something that we have been working on for some time now.

There is now a full set of Forum Rules available on the Suggested Downloads page.

We fully understand that some of the rules contained within this document will not meet everyone’s approval. Unfortunately it has become obvious that some form of standardisation was necessary so we have tried to compromise between artistic flare and "community relations" where possible.

Please take the time to read these rules over the weekend as we plan to begin their implementation on Monday 23/10/2006.

This will mean that some people will have to adjust some of their Forum Signatures and Avatars. We kindly request that in light of the new rules, please start planning any action you may need to take as we do not want to have to force people to make these changes.

As you will notice from the rules, there will be changes to our User ID's. We are planning on making this an automatic transition where possible and this will hopefully take place on Monday evening if all Murray’s script tests are completed. If you find you cannot log in to the forum for any reason, please try logging in with your EHM Pilot ID and your first name. (E.g. EHM-1703 Philip) Don't forget the Hyphen between EHM and your Pilot ID, then a space and your registered first name. (The first name you registered on the forum) If for any reason, you have trouble logging in, please do not hesitate to contact myself (philip@fly-euroharmony.com) or Murray (murray@fly-euroharmony.com) and we will endeavour to correct your problems as soon as possible.  

We hope you understand that these changes are necessary to ensure the smooth running of our Forums and endeavour to improve the sense of community that we are trying to promote there.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to discuss them HERE

Again, we hope that these changes do not inconvenience anyone too much and we also hope that you all see this as a step forward for our Airline.

Many thanks

EHM Management Team

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Everyone (long post, so I apologise in advance),

I feel I must step in here and slightly modify Phil's discussion of the new, standardised forum user names a little; I (with the kind support of the MT) have completed all my testing on the update script. It appears to work perfectly, updating every occurrence of user name where soever it appears in the (believe me, many) database tables, and I find myself in a position to begin the arduous task of updating everyone else.

I'll be using the information from your main website pilot registrations, since there has been no requirement for you to record your name, other than user name, within the forum software. The pilot registration does ask you for your first and surnames. Given the extreme intensiveness (both manual and server) of the upgrade process, even with the script I wrote to automate the changeover, I'll be tackling the remaining changes in sections. I figure on blocks of 20-30 users at a time, divided alphabetically. As long as everything goes well, I may well increase the numbers (or decrease them if otherwise).

Where it's not obvious who people are, I'll be sending out emails asking for confirmation (so thank you to everyone that's put their pilot ID as part of their forum user name). If emails go unanswered for any great period of time, and I'm thinking a month is probably long enough, I will be asking for your accounts to be restricted! Please, if you find yourself in this (hopefully small) group of users, get back to me at your earliest convenience with your pilot ID/first name.

You will all receive an email after the changeover informing you of your new forum user name.

As was the case during testing, I will carry out the changeover at approximately 21:00Z at night. I can't expect you all to avoid the forum at 21:00Z until the process is completed, so I'm not going to ask it. I will make a start on the process on Monday 23rd October, and writing the translation/mail merge data source is going to take time. As Phil says, if you find yourself "kicked out" when you next visit, try changing your username in the login box. Failing that, contact Phil or myself directly (email, or MSN/IM is perfectly acceptable) and we'll deal with the issue.

If you've made it this far, thank you for your kind attention, and see you in the friendly skies/forums.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Originally posted by EHM-0654 Murray
...I figure on blocks of 20-30 users at a time, divided alphabetically...

Quick update on progress - well over half way through the process now, as I am sure many of you have noticed.

I try to do blocks of around 40 users per day, and not in alphabetic order as I first suggested. Unfortunately, a problem was noticed mid week last week and so everything got put on hold so I could (a) diagnose and repair the damage to the forum tables (which took a work day...), and (b) fix the script to prevent this or similar happening (which I did over the weekend, as well as a few legs of my CapEU tour...).

This morning I ran the first "after repair" update and once again everything seems to have worked correctly, but I said that last time and look what happened .

If everyone keeps vigilant for anything unusual in the forum, and reports any problems to me ASAP (email is quickest between 0830Z and 1800Z), I can get a hold of any problems before they reach the sort of levels this last one did.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Almost finished. The initial round of changes is complete. There are just (just!... 130 outstanding) the new joiners since I began the rename process, a few of you that have "strange" usernames, some spammer accounts that crept in since the last clearout, and some unknowns from the first round.

I'll hopefully do the last of you that I can (those with working email addresses...) tomorrow, and then the final update sometime soon thereafter (for those whom I've not been able to fix against a pilot account to far).

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Well, that's everything pretty much done folks. I've renamed everyone that I can using information provided, there are a few dozen accounts to be merged in to already renamed primary accounts, there are a few dozen accounts that I will email the user and ask who they are.

The user registration process has been "tweaked" to include one of those CAPTCHA images (here's a picture of some random text, what's the text?), thanks to Maarten for the code, which should further prevent spammers robo-building accounts...