To clarify things - it wasn't markbach (no real need to time your self out), it was a few of those that tried to mess with the board later on trying to do what he did. They tried to experiment but they didn't have the exact talent and others tried to take it even farther. It reminds me of those that have been seriously injured trying to replicate the stunts they saw in 'Jackass - The Movie'.

To clarify things - it wasn't markbach (no real need to time your self out), it was a few of those that tried to mess with the board later on trying to do what he did. They tried to experiment but they didn't have the exact talent and others tried to take it even farther. It reminds me of those that have been seriously injured trying to replicate the stunts they saw in 'Jackass - The Movie'.

Randy,
Many thanks for your detailed explanation and your time.


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Yes, thanks Randy and apologies for those "wanna-be experts" who caused the problem, the down time, and expense and loss of time to you and staff.

FT has been down for me (and clearly others) for most of the past 12 hours or so, so the problem seems still to exist?

I have no knowledge whatever of UBB intricacies, but always wonder whether posting 1000s of replies to already corrupt threads in OMNI (which orginally had a corrupted thread heading IIRC something like "9.17am", but someone has changed it to the current "normal" looking title) simply so folks can boost their post count does not de-stabilise the UBB platform?

If the (once legitimate) thread is corrupted anyway, keeping it active daily for many months (7 months in this example) I imagine cannot be helpful to the stability of the rest of the Bulletin Board?

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~ Glen ~

Come and visit the most ** FRIENDLY FORUM ** on FlyerTalk. No flame wars, no personal abuse, no substance abuse. Not much of anything really!



[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 03-04-2003).]

Tell me about it.

There are soooooooo many other ways to pad a post count.

Aren't there?

I do not post unless I either:

• Have valuable information which I can impart to other members of the FlyerTalk community;
• Have a question;
• Want to add some levity, as I attempted (and hopefully succeeded) to do in this thread.

That said, I have a seemingly stupid question:

Why would anyone want to pad their post count?

Thanks markbach for coming forward to take responsibility, even if you weren't responsible. You are an incredibly smart kid (read young gentleman) and we are lucky to have you aboard. I am sure that you will contribute all of the technical expertise you can muster up (and I am certain that that will become even more awesome as the years go by) to help FT along its growth path.

Randy, I am sure I have read something, somewhere about a voluntary one-time donation to upgrade the software. I would be more than happy to contribute as, I am sure, would many other Flyer Talkers. Can we think about putting together some sort of program to raise funds for this? FT has become an important ingredient in many of our lives and I know that many would be happy to give back something, according to their means.

Punki, Randy has commented on this issue in the past. While he appreciates the sentiment expressed, the version of UBB that is currently implemented at Flyertalk is the most appropriate version for a bullentin board with such high volumes.

This version of UBB is the last that supports static web-pages. The dynamically-created web-pages in the newer versions of UBB would add considerably to server-load and would most likely cause FT to fall over on a regular basis.

I'm not aware of the full details of the attempted hacking attempt on FT, but I do support prosecution (in the legal sense, not the 'time-out' sense, of the word) for the alleged hackers. Others may have different views.

There are some here on FT who live and die by their post count.

Maybe it is the "Mine is bigger than yours" syndrome.

Maybe they think it add credibility to their posts.

Maybe they are fascinated by large numbers.

Since my own post count does not impress me in the least, nor does anyone else's, I don't honestly know the answer.

Not me. Once I hit 10, I run out of fingers. Once I hit 20, I run out of toes.

I am thankful that you decided to stop at 20 and not go on to 21...

When my son was 3 years old, he was very proud of his learing to count "Daddy, I canm count to 10 ... but I can't count to 11 yet". Priceless

amen

And once I hit 999, I changed my handle.