I do not see any posts to any newswire items for last Friday and today. I can't believe that nobody has any comments to make.
Keep in mind that the Newswire has its own comments section, and many readers choose to post 'over there' rather than here.
In some cases we also originate threads on content that later appears in a Newswire item, and comments may appropriately come in those threads.
OvermodKeep in mind that the Newswire has its own comments section, and many readers choose to post 'over there' rather than here. In some cases we also originate threads on content that later appears in a Newswire item, and comments may appropriately come in those threads.
Additionally, not all News Wire items are made available to the forum to comment upon.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
While trying to post a NEWSWIRE comments, I got the message "UNABLE TO CONNECT TO COMMENTING SERVICE" Friday and today. So today I phoned it in to Trains' customer service. The lady who answered suggested that I clear my browser. She did say she would send a message. I await their action.
BaltACD I understand the difference between Newswire and the Forum. My comment was that no one posted commented on Newswire. I see someone else has posted that they had tried to post on Newswire and was not able to. Overmod Keep in mind that the Newswire has its own comments section, and many readers choose to post 'over there' rather than here. In some cases we also originate threads on content that later appears in a Newswire item, and comments may appropriately come in those threads. Additionally, not all News Wire items are made available to the forum to comment upon.
I understand the difference between Newswire and the Forum. My comment was that no one posted commented on Newswire. I see someone else has posted that they had tried to post on Newswire and was not able to.
Overmod Keep in mind that the Newswire has its own comments section, and many readers choose to post 'over there' rather than here. In some cases we also originate threads on content that later appears in a Newswire item, and comments may appropriately come in those threads.
1019x I do not see any posts to any newswire items for last Friday and today. I can't believe that nobody has any comments to make.
Sometimes the Newswire items shared here by Trains staff merely serve as an update to a topic we've already thoroughly discussed. All too often, the best comment would be "we told you so..."
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68 1019x I do not see any posts to any newswire items for last Friday and today. I can't believe that nobody has any comments to make. Sometimes the Newswire items shared here by Trains staff merely serve as an update to a topic we've already thoroughly discussed. All too often, the best comment would be "we told you so..."
Might it also be that maybe, they ( The TRAINS Contractors] might be still suffering from the flooding; down there in the Piney Woods. around Tyler, Tx?
Just a random thought....
I can't post anything too on newswire section.
I tried to post in the article about the Milwaukee Road E9 the day it got posted, and got an error message.
I wonder why even though I have the direction to "Keep Me Posted In" lit up as though it really means that I am logged in I have to, from time to time, log in again.
Johnny
This should be fixed now. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
Brian Schmidt This should be fixed now. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
DeggestyI wonder why even though I have the direction to "Keep Me Posted In" lit up as though it really means that I am logged in I have to, from time to time, log in again.
It's almost certainly how different parts of the Kalmbach 'family of sites' handle cookies.
You may have noted the plethora of cookies from the company when you have been searching several parts of the site and engaging in multiple forums. I have not attempted to unpack or reverse-engineer these to see how they do what they're intended to do -- but one of those things is to store an encoded version of your login session or information.
Now, we can deduce that at some time a part of Kalmbach prioritized keeping 'registered subscribers' in a separate online-access category from 'registered nonsubscribers'. Doing so would permit targeted advertising (including 'sweetheart' deals on subscriptions for the nonsubscribers) as well as different levels of access to resources and features. However, what I suspect to be a form of 'code drift' has left some of the sites unable or defectively able to read information in 'other sites' cookies') -- you see this, for example, on the MR forums where the 'default' in your supposedly global profile settings to have posts show in reverse order, newest first, does not work even though there's a simple control at the top of the thread display to do this.
I have noticed that several parts of the site require me to "log in" even though I'm already logged into the forums, and continue to access them even if I ignore or cancel this new "log in". That is because a different cookie, which wasn't set in the forum login procedure, is being queried, or the data in the cookie that was set isn't correctly readable by the new site, perhaps lacking in one or more key fields containing user metadata or whatever. The Newswire 'comments' for example require that you be a member of "TrainsMag.com" whatever that is, and the login for that is set differently from the Trains, Classic Trains, and Model Railroader forums...
Upon occasion we have had the equivalent of 'flag days', where some bright tech person modifies part of the cookie access control system and large numbers of unwitting users then get kicked off for an extended time, usually with no error handling to inform them why. That is an increasing tendency in this post-Yahoo-debacle world of happy aleatory programming following the "Internet model" that you don't solve problems in beta testing, you go live and solve the emergent problems as they, ah, emerge. Even a moment's reflection will show the problems with this "methodology" for complex code administered and edited by multiple people. Meanwhile, moderators have repeately told us that small-scale editing of code on the forum sites will not be performed unless there is a perceived monetary advantage, which frankly is a decision I'm not going to criticize them for having made.
Now, there is another thing operating if what you're describing is a periodic loss of logged-in status, sometimes during actual posting to threads. The simplest potential reason for this -- and it is, in my opinion, a good one -- is that 'keep me logged in' shouldn't be perpetual: there should be required logout every xxx hours or xx days for a number of security reasons. So it makes sense to set a small login timer, and periodically log users out (they will assuredly log right back in if 'doing something' on the site, and they will experience no problems whatsoever in doing so quickly and then having their new login being persistent).
Now, it would be nice if they'd actually show a warning when about to do that, or at least a notification that I've been logged off for xxx reason. On a couple of occasions this has happened so silently that I have tried to post something a couple of times and watched the delays mount and mount, until I notice that the little "Hello, Overmod!" name has quietly reverted to the 'log in or register' default. TL;DR - consider this normal.
As I can't find where else to send this, I'll put it here...
The news wire is out of order too. (edit: sorry, out-of-order meaning: sort order) For example, today's (6/4) last three posts (metra, transit challenge, CN outlines) FOLLOW the first set of morning posts. Which is confusing if the number of posts in a day is long, as it pushes the new ones off the first page.
(Basically) it seems you should be sorting the news posts in date-order AND time-order (descending).
Not a big deal, but annoying...
The "Shop" feature was out as well a few hours ago, I was trying to find some "Classic Trains" back-issues. It did come back eventually.
There is nothing like Kalmbach IT.
BaltACD There is nothing like Kalmbach IT.
rdamon BaltACD There is nothing like Kalmbach IT. unfortunately there is
Who else is as bad or worse on a long term and continuing basis?
IT is like sports officials (umpires & referees) if you don't notice them, they are doing a good job. If their actions make them a focal point of attention, they are doing a bad job. Kalmbach IT has been a recurring focal point of attention, year after year after year.
BaltACDWho else is as bad or worse on a long term and continuing basis?
Kalmbach problems are small-time (and mostly understood as coming for expedient reasons or as the result of expedient management decisions) compared to truly bad outfits. The whole support effort for YahooGroups "neo" ranks orders of magnitude worse than anything Kalmbach IT could even imagine as an April Fool's Day prank.
Overmod BaltACD Who else is as bad or worse on a long term and continuing basis? Kalmbach problems are small-time (and mostly understood as coming for expedient reasons or as the result of expedient management decisions) compared to truly bad outfits. The whole support effort for YahooGroups "neo" ranks orders of magnitude worse than anything Kalmbach IT could even imagine as an April Fool's Day prank.
BaltACD Who else is as bad or worse on a long term and continuing basis?
I don't participate in any YahooGroups. Kalmbach is the worst by far of all the groups I do participate in.
BaltACDKalmbach is the worst by far of all the groups I do participate in.
Firehouse is worse - virtually no moderating. Participation is down to less folks than we have here, which is interesting, considering the potential audience.
It took them almost two weeks to clear out a bunch of spam posts...
BaltACDI don't participate in any YahooGroups. Kalmbach is the worst by far of all the groups I do participate in.
Yahoo groups still exist?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
tree68 BaltACD Kalmbach is the worst by far of all the groups I do participate in. Firehouse is worse - virtually no moderating. Participation is down to less folks than we have here, which is interesting, considering the potential audience. It took them almost two weeks to clear out a bunch of spam posts...
BaltACD Kalmbach is the worst by far of all the groups I do participate in.
I am not criticizing the moderation and keeping spam out of the forum.
I am criticizing the clunky and frequently broken mechanics that this place has compliments of Kalmbach IT and their we don't want to use proven commercial software to do the job.
This is somewhat analogus to the Ransomeware attack on the City of Baltimore - alledgedly the ransom that was asked was $80K in Bitcoin. This attack has been ongoing for five weeks at present with reports of $18M in disruption - and no end in sight.
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