News Item - June 10, 2000 08:34 AM
SEARCH indexes are being rebuilt now. It's going to take about 4 more days to scan through the 600,000+ messages in the archives. Once they are rebuilt, SEARCH will be functional, fast and most importantly, accurate again.
Applications for admin staff roles are still being taken. If you think you can handle it, step right up. Read the next NEWS item for more info.
Written by Dallas DamonZ
News Item - June 07, 2000 07:04 PM
We're back in our most limited format. Sorry about the downtime, I had to get things back up tonight for the DIYer's to get part numbers, procedures, etc. to work this weekend. Catch 22 in action. I haven't had time to get things squared away with the site with work going the way it is right now. No matter what happens in the future of this site, the established TECH & FAQ info will be available here. Interactive is being worked out one way or other right now. If you have questions you want immediate answers to that aren't already in the FAQ here, www.Z32.org is the place to be for interactive. richk & Morgan (of Z31.com fame) have set up a forum in our absence to take care of the community. Many thanks to them to have a solution in short order.
We're looking for new admin staff to handle interactive here. If you have a solid general knowledge of the Z, have spent a bit of time on this forum, and know a thing or two about computers/networking/web/cgi we're interested in you. The latter isn't the most important, as the admin tasks will mostly be the day to day handling of traffic here. The coding will mostly remain with Greg & I, but we're open to more help. We're looking for a 6 month time commitment right now with the option of going longer afterwards. Greg & I are burned out from doing it for 2 years and want to concentrate on other things (some ZR & some NZR). The current moderation staff will remain if they choose to and the new admin (or co-admins) can decide who else to add or not. It's very open right now, so if someone wants to propose a sensible game plan to get the wheels back on, we're all ears. Let us hear from you: resume@TwinTurbo.NET. If you're not currently a member, don't bother applying, we're using prior messages and e-mails to help judge character. I received several, but I haven't had any time to read through them quite yet. Hoping to score a break tomorrow.
Thanks to all of you that have stepped up and mailed us so far.
BTW here's JaimeZX's first postcard to me from Air Force field training. His handwriting is slightly better then mine.
News Item - April 04, 2000 09:59 AM
NEW FEATURE: We've added a new feature that automatically converts any URL to a link in a message when viewing it. To use it, all you have to do is put a URL in your message and post. That's it! The URL's must be in one of the following forms:
http://xxxx.xxxxxxx... OR www.xxxx.....
If the link starts with www you can leave the "http://" part off. If it starts with anything else, i.e. my.home.com then you MUST put the "http://" in front of it or the forum will not pick it up as a link. The end result will be a link to that website shown whenever you view that message. To make it 'different' the forum will automatically bold the link and put brackets around it, so if you type www.twinturbo.net, the end result will be [ www.twinturbo.net]
You can still put HTML tags in the messages and if a link already has all the HTML associated with it then the forum will leave it alone.
In other news, the forum will probably be up and down for a bit. We are moving forward with a memory-based interpreter that should increase speed dramatically. However, it's going to be touch and go for a bit while we tweak code and settings, so please bear with us if the forum magically shuts off while you were in the middle of a big post.
Written by Greg (Dallas)
News Item - March 15, 2000 11:14 AM
Conspiracy! Conspiracy! We've been running super secret governmental behavior studies on the membership. Conspiracy! Conspiracy! Actually we figured we would try some changes for a bit and see if it did indeed help out on the forum. People finally put 2+2 together. So here's the whole scheme right here, right now. We were getting tired of the Vote to Delete'ed post's responses. There's no need to respond to a post you deem VTDable, it turns it into a flame war... So, we made it where if you reply to a post & then VTD that same post, your reply is removed. There's no need for a reply when the VTD has been cast against that same post. In the future, just click the VTD button & go about your business, remove it instead of spending time to reply. It's not worth your time or anyone else's. We've got enough going on here as it is. So, it's still on a trial basis to see how it works out. It might stay, it might go away, but it seems to be a fairly solid solution to the problem.
News Item - March 07, 2000 03:54 PM
No update in awhile, sorry. Couple things going on right now. First off... We had a UK member pass away a couple weekends ago while driving his Z. Mark Taylor. His family is choosing a charity that we can donate to in memory of Mark. As soon as I have details, I'll pass them along to you. In the meantime, I'm flying a black ribbon on my driver's mirror.
TwinTurbo.NET merchandise is finally coming. I know I've been promising this forever now. It's incredible what a pain it can be to put together something so simple.
We've been making some adjustments to the way the forum functions. We've cleaned up some small bugs, like the Duplicate Post Error should be solved now. We're specifically working on 3 things:
Speed. We've opted to work on using software acceleration. We're tracking down a bug in the software that bogs everything down from time to time when the forum is 'boosting'. So the forum might be up and down a bit while we're hunting for it.
Search. The Search function is slowly disintegrating from it's own weight. We've got over 500,000 messages indexed and the system we are running needs some fine tuning to continue to grow. Unfortunately, the tools provided with SQL are bulky and slow. We had originally hoped this would be the optimum solution. We'll have to spend some time re-indexing with our adjustments. The downside is it's going to take probably 4 days to rebuild the indexes just to see if the tweaks work.
Vote To Delete. There's been a lot of side discussion about the VTD feature. From an Admin standpoint it works exactly as we had intended it to. I haven't seen but a few messages getting VTD'ed that should have stayed from a moderated standpoint. It's the cost of letting you have the VTD power. We've made some minor adjustments in how it functions to hopefully get the line a little straighter between stay & deleted. If it's non Z related, don't complain when it gets deleted by the moderators or VTD'ed. You knew when you posted it that this is a Z forum. Whatever you're posting that's off-topic probably would be better suited on another forum somewhere else. I don't run this site to be a discussion of everything in the members life, just the Z. Complaining about it will fall on deaf ears and get deleted as well.
This leads up to the general attitude of the forum lately. If the message you're about to post isn't going to help or add anything worthwhile to the current discussion. DON'T POST IT. We're here to help each other not just rattle off comments you probably wouldn't have the nerve to say face to face with someone else. If you have a habitual record of just spouting off worthless comments with no real contribution to what we're doing here, I'll just ban you straight out. I've got my eye on about 3 people right now that need to stop posting worthless messages everywhere and start contributing something. If you feel guilty, maybe you are one of them. I'm getting tired of the vets being rude to the newbies when they post the same question day after day after day. Newbies are newbies, they rarely look at the FAQ or Search (yeah, I know about Search, but when was the last time you looked at the FAQ? It's growing quickly.) before posting. So we're ALWAYS going to see the 'my car sounds like a coffee maker' or 'my car squeaks when going slow' questions. Just give them the friendly '<===FAQ' message. Nothing more is needed. Posts that should be in For Sale should just get a '<===post in For Sale please' message. Nothing more needed. Sometimes people's grammar or spelling isn't perfect. So what! Consider the fact this isn't a US only site. It's global. Not everyone uses English as a primary language. Ripping someone for their spelling and grammar without knowledge of where they are coming from is pretty worthless. OK, so I ripped on the fake 'Max Power' guy... he was claiming to be the publisher of either Max Power US or UK. Either way, it's a Queen's English publication. I would expect nothing short of perfection from a professional in the publishing business when it comes to grammar and spelling. I knew where he was coming from and it was proving my point he was trying to BS me. I don't have time to read everything, so 'Just VTD It' and help us out. The community can self govern, we've given you the power to do so. If you don't think it belongs, Click VTD. If enough people agree, then it's gone. That's what VTD is all about. I monitor what gets VTD'ed so I can make adjustments to the VTD function to make sure it's not being 'abused'.
News Item - February 11, 2000 11:34 PM
Poll is closed on the contest, we have a winner!
'Boost Your Knowledge' by a very, very slim margin:
324 votes total
The winner's name and e-mail is at the office, I'm at home right now (amazing!). LOL I *think* the winner is JimmyC(KY). Don't shoot me if I'm wrong. congrats to Jimmy either way. ;-)
OK off on today's tangent of 'What happened to TwinTurbo.NET?'. The attitude around here isn't as friendly as it once was. A lot of it has to do with newbies not taking the time to read the FAQ/search/lurk before posting and when they post the inevitable 'NA to TT conversion?' post, the veterans unload on the unsuspecting newbies. This of course, puts everyone at odds...
Let review some quick rules on what is appropriate to post here: discussion 1 discussion 2 I've been a little lenient lately, mostly because I don't get to spend a lot of time on the forum. I'm going to get the moderators to step up the deletes, if it really adds nothing to the discussion, then why bother posting? Please make a conscious effort to post meaningful accurate information. I've noticed a lot of people just throwing out answers that sound like they were passed down from generation to generation. If you don't have first hand knowledge, then keep reading, someone else will take the time to answer the question correctly. We all like to be the 'answer' person, but I hate it when someone throws out half baked information as the final answer without including 'I've read' or 'I think' or 'I'm not 100% sure'. Misinformation is worse then no information. Please be careful here, especially when newbies are involved. A lot of them are in a panic about something with there Z, and the last thing they need to be told is 'It's definitely the starter', when in fact it's the more commonly failed starter inhibitor relay. So they buy a $125 starter that doesn't make a bit of difference, when a $36 relay solves it. Face it, the joy of this place is being able to pool our collective knowledge to solve Z problems and save everyone involved some cash. It does make it worthwhile when I see that (very timely) "thanks another happy customer later all (n/m) - fastauto 23:38:06 02/11/00". THAT my friends is the comment we should all be shooting to get from another member. You rarely see that anymore. It was extremely common in the 'olden' days.
Everyone use your freaking noggin. It's attached for a reason. Vets, be nice to the newbies, newbies, read the FAQs/search/lurk before posting (fat chance, but hey, I can dream!). We've got to get back on track here. I'm going to just start banning people for a month at a time if the dumb comment, rude, misinformed, antagonistic, etc. posts keep appearing. It's obvious my patience has been worn through. Consider this your written notice.
News Item - February 07, 2000 07:04 PM
We narrowed all the slogan entries down to 4. Now it's your turn to choose which you want to be the winner! The poll will be open for the entire week and I'll post stats at the end. The winner gets a round of tt.NET gear. ;-)
News Item - January 30, 2000 11:49 PM
OK, getting some excellent entries in the license plate by-line contest. After seeing the artwork for the T-shirts, I'm thinking I want to add the by-line into the shirts as well... just turn it into a slogan for the site. ;-) Read the news item below for more details on the contest! Thanks to all that have submitted, really clever stuff so far.. going to be hard to decide.
News Item - January 22, 2000 12:29 AM
Well, things went pretty much as expected when we went live. We trimmed back on some features to speed up the rest of the operation, like no chat server for now & 'Views' are defaulted to the original style. We're working with some software acceleration now. If you've been here during the afternoons over the last week, you've probably gotten a taste of it. Just a few more kinks to work out & I'd say it'll be just as fast as it was before the switch to V2K.
Everyone wants T-shirts, stickers & license plate frames. As soon as I get my final artwork from one of my designers, we'll be getting it all made. I do have one request from the membership. On the license plate frame, I need a by-line to go with the logo. Something like 'Enough info to choke on' as someone once put it. :-) E-mail suggestions to suggestions@twinturbo.net. Best phrase will score a free round of tt.NET gear, not to mention being put on the plate frames. And don't bother sending me 'Enjoy the Ride' that's been done already. Just something else short & catchy. :-)
News Item - January 01, 2000 09:04 PM
We're live! Hopefully the server overhead will be sufficient to handle our traffic levels. It just keeps growing... I never imagined it would be this way after a year and a half. Over 2 million hits, and an average of 830 individuals checking in daily. The largest Z Club in the States is around 600 members. We might have more territory, but our active membership is still larger, the overall size of the TwinTurbo.NET community is well over 5,000 members.
OK, OK, enough with the feel good, here's the pay-off as it were. Greg & I could have been content with the forum the way it was, but with a couple additional tweaks to make life easier on us. We decided to raise the bar for the membership, offering an even better site for the Z32 community. We've had features sitting in the background of the old forum waiting for the chance to be set 'live'. Once the pile got large and we felt the old tricked-out freeware had exceeded it's usefullness in our hands, to go further and add these features, we needed a fresh approach. The V2K software is still pretty raw, there's a lot of performance tweaking to be done. The platform and theories behind it's creation will allow Greg & I to really propel TwinTurbo.NET to the next level. Things might be bumpy at first, like it was when we first started 400,000 messages ago. Be patient with us, we refuse to issue a substandard forum. This might mean scrapping everything we've got built here now. I'm ready to make that sacrifice if need be, but I'm sure it won't come to that. Greg & I have worked too long and argued way too much over this thing for it to fail.
We could only program so far. Our Beta Test Team beat it around quite a bit and offered many opinions on the functionality and overall feel of the new site. I want to thank them for taking time to help us with the new forum, they will benefit the most. I also want to thank Greg for putting up with me when I would insist on things working the way I wanted them, even when it went against everything he was programming. More often then not, I would ask for a change and he'd already have it done, or be working on it. A better programming partner and teacher I couldn't ask for. Thanks G for making all this possible! I'd still be fumbling around with the For Sale forum trying to make it work on the old forum, now I can actually understand the old software. I won't comment on the new stuff, it's on a totally other level. :-)
Wish us luck!
