Avatar / CDN Problem in Philippines
We accumulated everyone's information and forwarded it to the ISPs. Our IT guy mentioned that it might also help to bug your ISP. For some reason, the ISPs in the Philippines are running from a tainted set of DNS information, and as a result, users in that location are unable to find our CDN.
So, one solution that bamboo lady forwarded to me can be found here. Basically, you're changing your domain name server to point to one that is more reliable. (For more general instructions, just go here -- OpenDNS is trustworthy).
The downside of this solution is that you're routing through a domain name server that your ISP doesn't host, so you are potentially taking longer to load sites. There is another possible fix involving the HOSTS file in Windows, but to test it I'm trying to find a user that a) had this problem and b) fixed it by changing DNS servers. So, if you know of one...
Inventory Problems
We started looking at this a week or two ago. We know that large inventories are a problem, especially for some of our longest and most passionate users, so we'd really like to try and address it. You may have noticed that we (and by we, I mean fieryange1) recently fixed a couple of things in inventories already: we fixed the ugly show-the-URLs problem in inventory, and compressed the pose box so that it wasn't so large, and made the pose box moveable. In the next couple of weeks, we'll add pagination. If you have an inventory above a certain size, then you'll be able to page through the items in your collection; it won't be as immediate and fast as if you had a small inventory, but at least you'll be able to see it.
In the next few months we'll roll out an entirely rewritten avatar equip screen. For now the plan is to do it in Flash, but a) allow people to access the old avatar equip if they can't use flash, and b) we'll get community feedback after we roll it out to see if we need to think about offering a new HTML front end, as well.
Problems with Receiving Password Resets
Some users were reporting problems getting their password reset -- they would ask for a new password e-mail, but would never get it. So, we started a sticky to get some information from users to try and track down the issue here.
While some users were receiving e-mail and just weren't looking in the right place, the vast majority of them had been blacklisted. You see, we have to make sure that we don't send e-mail to people that don't exist -- if you send a bunch of e-mail to accounts that don't exist / inactive, then you get penalized by the e-mail providers. So, if we send mail and it bounces, then we put the user on a blacklist.
It turns out that a number of e-mail providers, especially Hotmail and Comcast, were bouncing e-mail occasionally due to server issues. We get the bounce e-mail and then put the user on a blacklist... but that means that the user never receives e-mail from us again, which kind of puts a damper on stuff! (The entire situation is also made more complex by the fact that the e-mail blacklist is stored on a server in the back room that is not connected to the net and guarded by three ferocious two-headed dogs which can neither be evaded nor tricked nor wounded by any mortal weapon. Or something like that, the IT guy was going into elaborate detail, but I had to go get coffee).
For the short term, we're removing people by hand... and for the long term we'll make our blacklist handling more intelligent and/or give people a way to take themselves off.
CAPTCHA Problems
So, the CAPTCHAs have been really effective for us. We're going to be making them probabilistic -- that is, if we think you're a legit user, you get them a lot less frequently -- and we'll be adding them to PMs.
There's been a few isolated reports of problems with the CAPTCHAs. I haven't been able to get much information on this, so if anyone has more information it would be appreciated.
Fanime 2008
So, I spent most of my time at Fanime in the Artist's section, walking up and down (I was trying to find a good artist to commission) and running into random people. I talked to a couple of users, but unfortunately, I missed a bunch of others. I had envisioned working the booth at Fanime, but I did not find out until the last second that we didn't have a booth this year. So, apologies to all the users I was supposed to meet! I was unable to make it to the Gaia panel on Saturday on account of people going off and holding a surprise birthday party for me.
Talking with Gaia users is one of the unalloyed joys of working here, so I'm hoping to tag along with DJ Helsing to a couple of conventions or meetups; more details if I can make that work.
Miscellaneous Bug Fixes
- display character count in the account limit (thank omgwhat for that)
- we'll change the signature limit slightly upward, and won't count URLs -- check back next week for details
- fixed a problem with Prize & Joy
- item norm beta still pending -- more on this next week
Community Member
There wasn't an Ask the Admin this last week, so I've got one quick question. Has there been a drawing for the Christian Siriano contest? I'm trying to win my fiancee a designer wedding dress, and I'm really anxious to find out about it.
Also, there now seems to be a problem with journal comments. If I clicked submit it told me that I successfully canceled. I had to go through the preview and enter about three CAPTCHAs to successfully add my comment.