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I really, really miss the old forum.... Locked

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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, September 7, 2006 11:22 AM

What is there to miss about the "old" forum?

The same whiners are still here.

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Posted by IRONROOSTER on Thursday, September 7, 2006 11:57 AM
I find the new forum to be visually better.  Functionally, I can still do everything I did before.  But a number of functions have to be done differently, some with more keystrokes.  Overall I'd say it was a little less friendly and more cumbersome, but not enough to keep me away.

I miss:
The polls
The rants and raves against them.  Big Smile [:D]
Having a good laugh  over people getting their knickers in a twist over the polls and stars. Laugh [(-D]

Enjoy
Paul
If you're having fun, you're doing it the right way.
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Posted by grayfox1119 on Thursday, September 7, 2006 1:01 PM
RC 1 is shipping next week to some of us who are Beta testing IE 7.0 I am still having problems with Beta 2 version, I cannot get the drop down boxes when I reply to messages on this forum. It seems they really tightened up security, so much so that we have all sorts of problems with some web sites. I hope RC1 clears this up.
Joe, I wanted to send you a sad face icon, but I cannot get the drop down boxes, so please know that you have my sympathy on the water problem at your home.
Dick If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got!! Learn from the mistakes of others, trust me........you can't live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself, I tried !! Picture album at :http://www.railimages.com/gallery/dickjubinville Picture album at:http://community.webshots.com/user/dickj19 local weather www.weatherlink.com/user/grayfox1119
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Posted by howmus on Thursday, September 7, 2006 1:01 PM
I miss what this forum used to be.  But that has nothing to do with the new software.  Yeh, it took a little bit to figure out some of the new "improvements" but I quickly went over to the Apple Users forums and did some research among Apple people (like myself) and got the browser problems worked out.  I don't think there is anything you can do with a PC that I can't do here with my MAC..... 

What I do miss is the helpful, friendly, cheerful responses that used to be the norm here a couple years ago when I joined.  The threads that get all the answers are the topics where someone is complaining about everything.  Look at this thread.......  SpaceMouse has all but stopped posting because every time he started a topic some &*%%$#@#@ jumps all over him and calls him names. 

What I really miss is the useful help that used to be here (still here, usually found on page 3) as well as the fun and good humour.  While I still pop in from time to time, I find that another forum nearby doesn't have the childish attitude that this forum has developed recently......  So I spend most of my online time over there.

Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO

We'll get there sooner or later! 

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Posted by NS2591 on Thursday, September 7, 2006 1:29 PM
This new format sucks. I espescially don't like the Subscriber only content
Jay Norfolk Southern Forever!!
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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, September 7, 2006 1:44 PM
and Ray, you're not complaining? Spacemouse is a big boy, he should be able to speak for himself, and there was more childish BS on the old forum, open your eyes.........mike
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Posted by SpaceMouse on Thursday, September 7, 2006 2:02 PM
 tigerstripe wrote:

I also miss my daily Spacemouse fix.

Me too.

Lately I have been starting a holistic health practice and studying for my naturpoathic degree, so I have very little time for the boards. To add to that, my home computer went south this weekend. I figure it's just the power supply, but I have had little time to devote to it. My model time has suffered as well, I have not really done anything since mid-July. I hope to get at least that part of it turned around soon. I have some interesting projects--interesting to me anyway--in mind. Today I had a break and jumped in. Mostly, like Phillip said, if I have a second, I jump in on a discussion on layout design.

 

 

 

Chip

Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.

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Posted by pcarrell on Thursday, September 7, 2006 2:26 PM
 MisterBeasley wrote:

 pcarrell wrote:
Also, does anyone know how to look up a specific members profile without having one of their posts to click on?  Like lets say I want to look up Spacemouse, and I don't have any of his posts to just click on.  How would I find his profile?

Go to the top or bottom of this page and click on "Model Railroader Forums."  That's one step up from the General Discussion or Layouts Page.  Find the line that says something like:

There are 34 of 28,821 member(s) online

And click on the big number (28,821 in this case.)  That takes you to the member directory.  I think I'll bookmark that page, because getting there is really obscure and I'm not sure I could do it after a couple of beers.

That'll work!

Philip
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Posted by Bergie on Thursday, September 7, 2006 2:57 PM
 Paul3 wrote:

You know what I miss?  I miss:

1) Typing in plain text.  Yep, I figure that in this reply window, we're actually typing html, not plain text.  Because of that, things like copying and pasting from other websites is a mess.  For example, try copying and pasting from Wikipedia.  All their text highlights are there and you can't get rid of them.  I find myself having to manually type things into this reply window to get rid of unwanted text highlights.  That's annoying.

2) A single line return key.  For example, see the extra space above this line?  That's because I hit the return key once, yet it double spaced it.  Why?  I have learned that if you hold down the shift key while hitting the return key, it makes it a single space.  But why this extra step?  It's annoying.

3) A reliable delete button.  I tend to go over my posts and edit them before posting.  Yet for whatever reason, my delete key sometimes doesn't work.  To erase anything, now I use the backspace key and make sure I put the cursor to the right of any corrections.  That's annoying.

4) Not seeing the whole thread page when replying.  It means that if I want to reply to multiple posts, I either have to make individual replies to each post in question, or I have to open another browser window in order to see all the posts I want to reply to.  That's annoying.

Paul A. Cutler III
*************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************

In regards to problem #1, copy the text from another Web site, paste it into NotePad (which turns it into true text), and then paste it into our forum.

Bergie

Erik Bergstrom
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Posted by Bergie on Thursday, September 7, 2006 2:58 PM

 modelalaska wrote:
I don't like this forum software either.  One really annoying "feature" is that some posts don't have a scroll bar available and I can not read the entire message unless I cut and paste it into some other program.  Anyone else have this problem and a solution?
Peter

If you don't have a scroll bar on the right side of your browser window, that's a local problem, not a problem with our new forum software. Does that always happen?

Bergie

Erik Bergstrom
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Posted by jfugate on Thursday, September 7, 2006 4:17 PM
 Bergie wrote:

 modelalaska wrote:
I don't like this forum software either.  One really annoying "feature" is that some posts don't have a scroll bar available and I can not read the entire message unless I cut and paste it into some other program.  Anyone else have this problem and a solution?
Peter

If you don't have a scroll bar on the right side of your browser window, that's a local problem, not a problem with our new forum software. Does that always happen?

Bergie



I think there is one version of this problem that is here in the forum software ... it appears when someone posts a really long block of text (like a link) with no spaces and you can't scroll the message to the right to see what's missing. It's a rare problem, but a real one and would probably affect everyone.

Let me try to duplicate it ...

http://nowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirpartynowisthetimeforallmentocometotheaidoftheirparty.com

Hmmm ... I get a scroll bar and can scroll to the right in Firefox 1.5. It could be a browser-specific problem too. How about a really large photo ... ?

" border="0" />

Nope, still get the scroll bar, but the photo is just a placeholder and not the actual image. Not sure how to duplicate the problem ... but it does make this post look really wierd. Can everyone read this post okay?

Joe Fugate Modeling the 1980s SP Siskiyou Line in southern Oregon

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Posted by Dave-the-Train on Thursday, September 7, 2006 4:20 PM
 cripp12 wrote:
 Dave-the-Train wrote:

I've only just figured out how the "My Forums" and "Persoanl messages" work... and I'm not entirely thick... mostly just not used to the jargon.

Coould you explain how they work?

NO! Laugh [(-D]

All I've found is that the "My Forums" shows all the threads I've taken part in in order (as it's set at present) of most recently contributed to on top / first going down to oldest contributed to.  For me this works quite well.

Haven't a clue how the Personal Message works but anytime anyone E mails me through the forum it pops up there... and keeps a record of it all for me.  This is pretty useful.

What I would like to know is how to access threads in the old forum???

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Posted by Vail and Southwestern RR on Thursday, September 7, 2006 4:49 PM

Joe- Looks fine with IE 6.  I don't like the embedded scrollbar thing, but then again, it is better than one screwy post messing up the whole page.

 

Jeff But it's a dry heat!

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Posted by Vail and Southwestern RR on Thursday, September 7, 2006 4:55 PM
 Dave-the-Train wrote:

What I would like to know is how to access threads in the old forum???

The threads from before the switch are in the same place as all of the others.  As far as I can see nothing was thrown out.

Jeff But it's a dry heat!

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Posted by Fergmiester on Thursday, September 7, 2006 5:04 PM
 howmus wrote:
I miss what this forum used to be...

What I do miss is the helpful, friendly, cheerful responses that used to be the norm here a couple years ago when I joined.  The threads that get all the answers are the topics where someone is complaining about everything.  Look at this thread.......  SpaceMouse has all but stopped posting because every time he started a topic some &*%%$#@#@ jumps all over him and calls him names. 

What I really miss is the useful help that used to be here (still here, usually found on page 3) as well as the fun and good humour.  While I still pop in from time to time, I find that another forum nearby doesn't have the childish attitude that this forum has developed recently......  So I spend most of my online time over there.


Thank You Ray!

Maybe I should have been more specific in my first response, however you've said it quite well and and to the point.

Next time I'm in I'm buying and I'll fling in a crueller or twoBig Smile [:D]

Fergie

http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=5959

If one could roll back the hands of time... They would be waiting for the next train into the future. A. H. Francey 1921-2007  

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Posted by Casey Feedwater on Thursday, September 7, 2006 5:08 PM
Joe, I get the scroll bar in both Safari v.2.0.4 and Firefox 1.5.0.6 and can scroll back/forth to see the entire link on one line. However, in Safari, no placeholder for the "photo" exists; all I see is the following: " border="0" />. In Firefox, I see the placeholder as a very large open space the equivalent of several empty lines.


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Posted by Vail and Southwestern RR on Thursday, September 7, 2006 5:19 PM
I wouldn't give up on this forum (content wise) yet.  The summer does two things, a lot of regular posters do summer type things (hence less posting), and lots of "recreational" posters seem to show up for a couple of months.  I'd wait a few weeks before passing judgement....

Jeff But it's a dry heat!

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Posted by river_eagle on Thursday, September 7, 2006 5:19 PM
<BLOCKQUOTE><table class="quoteOuterTable"><tr><td class="txt4"><img src="/trccs/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif">&nbsp;<strong>grayfox1119 wrote:</strong></td></tr><tr><td class="quoteTable"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="100%" valign="top" class="txt4">RC 1 is shipping next week to some of us who are Beta testing IE 7.0 I am still having problems with Beta 2 version, I cannot get the drop down boxes when I reply to messages on this forum. It seems they really tightened up security, so much so that we have all sorts of problems with some web sites. I hope RC1 clears this up.
Joe, I wanted to send you a sad face icon, but I cannot get the drop down boxes, so please know that you have my sympathy on the water problem at your home.</td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
I already have RC1 installed, and I'm betting this test does no better.
The business version of vista ships in november, and the home version in january, as of yesterday.
When in doubt, rule #1 applies  Central Missouri Railroad Association cmrraclub.com
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Posted by river_eagle on Thursday, September 7, 2006 5:23 PM

 river_eagle wrote:
 grayfox1119 wrote:
RC 1 is shipping next week to some of us who are Beta testing IE 7.0 I am still having problems with Beta 2 version, I cannot get the drop down boxes when I reply to messages on this forum. It seems they really tightened up security, so much so that we have all sorts of problems with some web sites. I hope RC1 clears this up. Joe, I wanted to send you a sad face icon, but I cannot get the drop down boxes, so please know that you have my sympathy on the water problem at your home.
I already have RC1 installed, and I'm betting this test does no better. The business version of vista ships in november, and the home version in january, as of yesterday.

nope, nogo with RC1,had to use IE6 to get hyperlinks repaired

When in doubt, rule #1 applies  Central Missouri Railroad Association cmrraclub.com
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Posted by grayfox1119 on Thursday, September 7, 2006 5:42 PM
River_Eagle: Well, I guess I will have to work with MS when I get my copy of RC1 if I have the same trouble with IE 7.0. Beta 2 version sure doesn't work.
Dick If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got!! Learn from the mistakes of others, trust me........you can't live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself, I tried !! Picture album at :http://www.railimages.com/gallery/dickjubinville Picture album at:http://community.webshots.com/user/dickj19 local weather www.weatherlink.com/user/grayfox1119
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Posted by brothaslide on Thursday, September 7, 2006 6:04 PM
Look at it this way - 10 years ago, we didn't have no stinkin' forums! There were features I liked about the old fourm more than the new but the new works for me.
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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, September 7, 2006 7:32 PM

The real forums was the Clubhouse, trainshows and prototype events involving live steam or older technology on exhibit. That was until about 10 years ago.

Now with the internet you can find that item or learn about it with a few clicks. But sorting out the wheat from the chaff is left up to the user.

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Posted by skiloff on Thursday, September 7, 2006 11:01 PM
Casey Feedwater wrote:

Joe, I get the scroll bar in both Safari v.2.0.4 and Firefox 1.5.0.6 and can scroll back/forth to see the entire link on one line. In Firefox, I see the placeholder as a very large open space the equivalent of several empty lines.

Ditto with IE7 - but I'd say more like four dozen empty lines.
Kids are great for many reasons. Not the least of which is to buy toys "for them."
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Posted by jfugate on Thursday, September 7, 2006 11:11 PM
I'm very encouraged to see Bergie come back from his hiatus and make several helpful posts today.

Thanks, Bergie! I think your clever "posting a photo" FAQ will help a lot of people get more mileage out of this sometimes temperamental forum software. Smile,Wink, & Grin [swg]

Joe Fugate Modeling the 1980s SP Siskiyou Line in southern Oregon

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Posted by electrolove on Friday, September 8, 2006 3:09 AM
Bergie,

Thanks for comming back to us. Let's try to solve the problems now so we can talk about what we like most, trains.
Rio Grande Zephyr 5771 from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah "Thru the Rockies"
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Posted by electrolove on Friday, September 8, 2006 3:15 AM
I just saw the 'How to post photos' post from Bergie and decided to give it a try. Let's see if this works (with Safari Mac):

I typed this in myself, not pasting anything to be sure it's plain text.

<img src="http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a79/vigour/DSC03637.jpg" border="0" />

As you can see, no...
Rio Grande Zephyr 5771 from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah "Thru the Rockies"
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Posted by Railphotog on Friday, September 8, 2006 5:51 AM

 electrolove wrote:
I just saw the 'How to post photos' post from Bergie and decided to give it a try. Let's see if this works (with Safari Mac): I typed this in myself, not pasting anything to be sure it's plain text. As you can see, no...

I copied the following link from my Photobucket account, and it seems to work:

You link DOES work in the quoted message though!  Go figure!

Bob Boudreau

 

Bob Boudreau

CANADA

Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/

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Posted by Pruitt on Friday, September 8, 2006 5:58 AM
 electrolove wrote:
I just saw the 'How to post photos' post from Bergie and decided to give it a try. Let's see if this works (with Safari Mac): I typed this in myself, not pasting anything to be sure it's plain text. As you can see, no...
That is some stout looking benchwork, Electro! With a sheet of plywood on top, it looks like you could dance on it! No table quakes for the trains that will run there!!
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Posted by cripp12 on Friday, September 8, 2006 7:44 AM
how do you unsubscribe from one thread? Usually from other sites you get one email saying there has been a new post this one replys to every post.
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Posted by Paul3 on Friday, September 8, 2006 9:49 AM

brothaslide,
Actually, there were RR forums 10 years ago.  In 1996, I started lurking on the newsgroup rec.models.railroad.  And r.m.r was preceeded by Compuserve's groups, at least one of which was about model railroading.  And before that, you had BBS's in the 1980's for model railroading.  The internet is older than perhaps you think...

Also at that time, there was the very first Model Railroader "forum" if you will on their very first website design that I can recall.  Andy Sperando would post a new question every month on the old page's Guestbook, and then others could reply to it and to each other.  I know, because I was in college at the time and replying to Andy and others.

BTW, the worst forum software ever was the original MR Forum (before the last one).  If you clicked on a thread topic, you then got a tree of replies...and you then had to click on each one to read it.  Imagine clicking on every reply just to read it?  Ick.  Oh, and the link that you clicked on only had the date and time, no poster's names, no topic header, nothing.  If someone didn't sign their post, you had no way to know who was even replying.  (shudder)  Just a bad forum with a lot of trolls (no registration was used at all...I don't even think they were moderated).

Paul A. Cutler III
*************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************

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