Any site / server problems -- post here.

[Kip McDowell]

I can not Private Message. Someone recently sent me a PM, and I could not see it. I checked my Control Panel, and there is nothing there for PM'ing. I clicked on a link about PM'ing, and the message said that I was not allowed to PM. Can someone turn PM'ing on for me?

[Chris Hurd]

Hi Kip, I received your email about this as well. There's nothing wrong with your account. DV Info Net doesn't use a PM (Private Messaging) system. Whoever said they "sent you a PM" most likely sent you an email. If you've set your profile to receive emails from other members (Controls > Edit Options), that will allow DVi members to contact you via the email address you used when you registered here. Hope this helps,

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Chris Soucy

When you click on the "Support Your etc etc" it takes you straight to the "Sub Forums" list, under which the main (generalised) forum sits.

Actually I'm trying to empty out that so-called "main" category so we can get rid of it. There's enough (well almost enough) sub-fora within that section to handle just about any support-related topic. Once those posts are moved (it's not exactly high priority) then that area will no longer house any posts at all... it'll just hold the respective camera support sub-sections where any given post should go in the first place. Hope this helps,

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Kip McDowell

I can find no place to answer a NoSpam! question.

See attached screen grab (click to make it full size)

[Kip McDowell]

OK thanks. I see now that the NoSpam question is only available in the Advanced Search page. When you click the SEARCH button at upper right, you get a screen that looks like this (attached). There isn't a "NoSpam" question in that dropdown. I'm using FireFox, so maybe that is the difference.

[Brian Standing]

Serious hiccup, after a long delay in refreshing. Tim Dashwood's last post in this thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/jvc-pro-h...ml#post1010955 just got repeated multiple times.

Poor Tim...

[Kip McDowell]

Originally Posted by Kip McDowell

There isn't a "NoSpam" question in that dropdown.

Thanks, it works correctly now.

[Mike Demmers]

I have been reading here for years and just recently registered. Now I am wondering if that was wise.

I have been away for a couple weeks and just now tried to read posts here.

All I could see was this message on a gray background:

"Sorry, you must have javascript enabled to view this site."

This appears to be caused by some code to add a banner ad at the top of the page.


I suspect this was some idiotic marketing excess just added by the advertising company.

I note that in the comments in the page code it says this:



* If you do not want to deal with the intricities of the noscript

* section, delete the tag (from <noscript>... to </noscript>). On

* average, the noscript tag is called from less than 1% of internet

* users.

So if you do not wish to force all your users to use an inherently insecure method of viewing you site (somethng I personally will not do), it looks like the offending code can simply be deleted.

Please consider this ;-)

-Mike

[Chris Hurd]

Mike -- what browser and operating system are you using? Thanks in advance,

[Mark Job]

Hi Chris:
What's with the website lately ? I am using IE 6 web browser and it just gets really slow, then grinds to a hault and stops dead. Why ? I switched over to latest FireFox, but there is no difference. Same problems.

[Mike Demmers]

Thanks for responding. This has always been a first class, well run site, thanks to your efforts.

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Mike -- what browser and operating system are you using? Thanks in advance,

Most all the major ones...

At the moment:

Opera - Version information

Version 9.52

Build 4916

Platform Mac OS X

System 10.4.11

The code tries to do browser sniffing, but it only looks for IE and Mozilla (not very sharp). But I don't think the individual browser is the problem.

The slowness mentioned by some users could also be caused by this code, which appears to be loading ad banners from a third party site. It is fairly common for such sites to get overloaded during peak times, and since the ad banner is first on the page this will often keep the entire rest of the page from loading as well.

You may have the fastest servers in the known universe, only to have them defeated, held hostage by these third party ads...

Which is something of a problem on an active discussion site.

Solutions:

Removing the noscript portion of the Javascript as the comments in the code suggests should fix the site unusable without Javascript problem.You could put a static ad from a sponsor between the noscript tags instead, which would display when the user had javascript off.

To fix the slow loading problem:

1. Rewrite the page code so banners do not cause the rest of the page to wait until they load.

2. Consider using only static ad banners with fixed sizes.

3. Consider the fact that this is a specialized site with a high percentage of moderately or highly technical users, many of whom are pretty happy to support your sponsors and may just be annoyed by random banner ads. (I can't see them, so do not know how random they are, but that is the usual reason for such code).

I can and do support your sponsors, and need no banner ads to do that.

On the other hand, advertisers who slam animated flash ads in my face, bounce them over pages, pop them under browser windows, and engage in other such useless excesses (see: banner blindness) go on a blacklist and will never see a dime from me.

-Mike

[Pete Bauer]

advertisers who slam animated flash ads in my face, bounce them over pages, pop them under browser windows, and engage in other such useless excesses (see: banner blindness) go on a blacklist and will never see a dime from me.

-Mike

Mike, Chris will probably have additional words in due course. We did have a slow down a couple of days ago that web guru Jeff Kramer fixed (not sure what was wrong) but for myself, and apparently for most folks it has been resolved, since the flurry of complaints and double-posts from timeout errors stopped after the fix.

We moderators (some PC, some Mac, all browsers represented) collectively haven't had any problems since then, except some behind the scene functions that are always a little laggy.

As many of us do, you've obviously got strong feelings about certain types of advertising but, sorry, the tirade about pop-overs etc is out of line. When is the last time you saw something like that come from DVinfo? NEVER.

Chris can certainly speak for himself and probably will add to this, but I can tell you unequivocally that he is VERY sensitive about achieving balance with the advertising presence on his web site. He meets everyone face to face before he accepts their sponsorship, and turns a lot down. Whether one likes advertising or not, whether one would do business anyway with a particular sponsor or not, ads keep the lights on here. No ads means no DVinfo, in all its FREE glory.

I'm sure Chris and Jeff will take your comments to heart and make tweaks if in fact there are tweaks to be made, but I felt I had to say my piece because the type of intrusive advertising you're writing about (bouncing ads, pop-unders) is not associated with DVinfo and nobody should be confused about that.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Mike Demmers

The code tries to do browser sniffing, but it only looks for IE and Mozilla (not very sharp).

The reality is that FireFox, IE, and Safari are the top three browsers used by 95% of our visitors (these three account for 40.75%, 33.65% and 20.38% of our traffic, respectively. Chrome is a distant fourth at 2.5%. Opera is pretty much altogether off our radar at less than 2%, so its incompatibility is pretty much a non-issue at this point as far as I'm concerned.

The slowness mentioned by some users could also be caused by this code

Nope, the slowness reported the other day (Feb. 12th) was an unusual server glitch caused by something else completely unrelated to the banner ads.

2. Consider using only static ad banners with fixed sizes.

We already do that.

We have a single ad position (top right) that cycles some flash or animateds, and right now you can count those on less than one hand. Compared to other sites in this particular market, we're one of the most if not the single most conservative in that regard.

3. Consider the fact that this is a specialized site with a high percentage of moderately or highly technical users, many of whom may just be annoyed by random banner ads.

No, there's solid evidence that proves otherwise. One competing site in particular bills itself as a pro-oriented video / digital media production & post-production community, and it's literally dripping with heavily saturated flash advertising across the top, the bottom, down both sides, and through the middle, and yet their overall traffic and community loyalty is actually higher than ours (much to my chagrin; but only for the time being).

I can and do support your sponsors, and need no banner ads to do that.

There's not a single site in this market at DV Info Net's level that doesn't have them. They're a fact of life, and like it or not, they're vital for the advertisers and the publishers. The difference between us and some other sites in this market is that we show substantially less banner advertising, so I'm perfectly comfortable with how we're doing it.

On the other hand, advertisers who slam animated flash ads in my face, bounce them over pages, pop them under browser windows, and engage in other such useless excesses (see: banner blindness) go on a blacklist and will never see a dime from me.

Yeah. You've never seen any of that here and you never will, so your statement isn't relevant.

DV Info Net is tested for FireFox, MSIE, Safari and Chrome. When more people are using Opera or one of the other 50-odd other browsers out there, then we'll test for it too.

[Mike Demmers]

Sorry if I got a bit into rant mode there. You did not deserve that - this just happened to be te last in a series of similar frustrations. And I don't have a dog... ;-)

My only real concern is that suddenly a great site that I have been using for years just fine without javascript is not allowing me to fully access it anymore. And this appears to be just from some code in the ad loading portion.

I guess I was not very clear - this is not a browser problem. I see the same result whether I use Opera, Firefox, or Safari. On Mac and on Windows both.

It is purely due to the Javascript.

I have no problem with normal banner ads such as you always had in the past, I even suggested a place to substitute one. I was (over) reacting to what I thought might be a change in your policy that regard.

When I said I needed no banner ads to support your sponsors, I did not intend to imply that I thought you should remove them. I do understand certain realities.

Because of some very nasty stuff I have seen pushed out from some advertisers (on other sites ) in the past, I thought it might be the case that you did not KNOW what was in some of what was going up. So most of the remainder was me just guessing about some things and looking for a possible solution.

I am very happy to hear your previous sensible advertsing policy is unchanged.

Now I would just like to access the site as I used to, if that is possible.

I'm pretty sure a small change in the noscript portion of your page code will fix this.

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Mike Demmers

... I thought it might be the case that you did not KNOW what was in some of what was going up.

It's not easy to do, but I try to keep an eye on what's going on elsewhere.

...for years just fine without javascript is not allowing me to fully access it anymore. And this appears to be just from some code in the ad loading portion.

It might not be though; because I made another change at the same time involving javascript which isn't related to the banner ads or the ad server.

I'm pretty sure a small change in the noscript portion of your page code will fix this.

I thought I had made that change per your suggestion, but I'd like you to look at the site while I test a couple of other settings. Please contact me via email (chris at dvinfo dot net). Much appreciated,