Report Discussion Problems Here 3.0

Hi Bolder-dash,First I want to thank you for finally using the proper venue for bringing discussion issues to the attention of moderators.Before seeing this post I posted some hopefully helpful information over at the Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution thread, see Message 723. The main point is that I'm not moderating that thread. That's why I sent you PMs instead of posting to the thread, at least until I realized you hadn't seen the PMs.My advice has not changed. Focus on the topic and follow the Forum Guidelines and everything will go fine for you. Do not respond in kind, as you've proudly boasted you're so good at. As I've said before, once a thread has become prickly and argumentative and off-topic and personal then it's just too difficult to tell who, if anyone, started it. Usually it's a gradual escalation with no clear line of demarcation. Moderators have neither infinite time to untie the Gordian knot, nor the wisdom of Solomon.Here's a simple analogy that might help you see how things look to moderators. Say you're driving on the highway and a driver forces you out of your lane, so you respond and force him out of his lane. A policeman sees all this and pulls you both over. You'll both get tickets. In other words, being transgressed upon is not a free ticket for committing your own transgressions. Plus you may have been in the other driver's blind spot, and while he most certainly should have been more careful, his offense was likely inadvertent, while yours was premeditated and purposeful.This kind of tit-for-tat escalation is common at discussion boards. It seems to be an inherent property of the format.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I've been sending him PM's, most of which he's ignored.Bolder-dash is a multiple repeat offender. He's been suspended for long periods twice before. His pattern is to debate very productively for a while, then abandon that approach in favor of random drive-by's across multiple threads while participating very little in actual discussion. I've been trying to encourage him to resume the kind of constructive discussion we've seen he's capable of, but to no avail.His suspension ends March 28th.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Polls are on the todo list. Unfortunately the programming department is understaffed.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Adminnemooseus probably recalls the details because I think he's the one that dealt with the issue, but some years ago the Coffee House forum was broken for a few days, so a temporary substitute was created. There's only a few threads in there, we should probably move/delete them as appropriate.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I moved the Coffee House (temp) threads to Coffee House, then I deactivated Coffee House (temp).

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Can you describe what happens when you click on the link?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

If your computer or your Internet connection is very slow then you might possibly experience problems in that the text won't update. It waits for a response from the server for about 8 seconds, then it gives up, but rest assured the update has taken place. The next time you click and nothing happens after 8 seconds, try clicking on Refresh. After the page has been refreshed I bet you'll find the acknowledgment text in the right state.You might consider upgrading to a Chrome or Firefox.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

How long would you say it normally takes after you click a link for your browser to display a webpage? However long that is, that's how long you have to wait, on average, for the acknowledgement text to update.The reason for this is that the acknowledgement text is a link that sends a request to this website just like any other link. The only difference is that in this case only the text is being updated, instead of the entire webpage. Updating just part of a webpage takes advantage of a set of technologies collectively known as Ajax.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Does it still occur if you click on refresh/reload?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I'm unable to reproduce the problem on IE8. I don't have access to IE7, but they're not that different, so let's nail this down a bit tighter.A "reload/refresh" is accomplished by clicking on the "Reload" button at the very top of the page, or by right clciking and selection "Reload." Did you take one of those actions?If so, then lets nail down some other things.Let's check if anything works successfully for you.Can you load the Rules page (click on Rules on the top menu)?Can you load your profile page (click on Profile on the top menu)?Can you list All Topics (click on All Topics on the top menu)?If any of these things do not work then please let me know the error message you get for each one.But I get the impression the problem is only exhibiting itself when you try to post messages. Is that true? If so then it could be due to a difference in button behavior between IE7 and other versions of IE. Let me know if it's only replies that aren't working and I'll dig deeper.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Why, no one's reported you yet. Seriously, dude, chill out.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi all!This thread is for bringing discussion problems to the attention of moderators, and that's been done. If anyone would like to continue the discussion they could start a Coffee House thread - no proposal is needed for that forum.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

The stealth admin strikes again! We really do need an administrative log.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

This past Friday I announced in Message 375 that I would begin moderating the Definition of Species thread, and so this morning, about 10 minutes ago actually, I posted my announcement of "Moderator On Duty" in Message 408.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Seriously? Do you see anyone else besides Dawn posting like this, least of all Coyote: The member coming closest to posting like Dawn is...you!I would have intervened in the thread but I'm already a participant.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director