Greetings, Cranky Users! As usual when there has been a new release as diaried by elfling, here's a followup Cranky Diary to discuss the changes, ask you if you've tried them and if you've found them to work, and talk about what's still not working for you.
Let's hornpipe past the squiggle and see what we've got.
Of the small handful of changes in this release, the one that has, perhaps oddly, been greeted with the most excitement is the new skull and crossbones graphic, shown here, that appears in place of mojo bars for banned users. There's some discussion in the thread of elfling's diary about presumably banned users who don't seem to have the skull, and it does nothing to tell us who is suspended/warned. Nonetheless, assuming the skull is assigned going forward to banned users, even if some old ones have been missed, it will furnish the information many of us seek.
(The gift subscription workaround can still be employed. Form a url like this, except with the missing http part, and with the username you're interested in swapped in for the italicized username: www.dailykos.com/user/username/giftsub
Here's an example: http://www.dailykos.com/user/lovethph/giftsub
If you don't like to type this kind of stuff, navigate to the user's page, click on the subscription tab, and then in the resulting url, substitute "giftsub" for "subscription".)
Fun entirely unrelated skull fact: When Skull and Bones is mentioned, members of Skull and Bones are supposedly obligated to leave the room. So if you find yourself in a room with George W. Bush and fear you'll lose your cool and be arrested for punching his lights out, just start blabbing about Skull and Bones, and he will be forced to excuse himself! |
Elfling's second item is,
Searches for diaries or comments using more than one word should work more like you expect.
I've been falling down on the search job, I suppose -- can anyone comment on this fix, and whether you've been helped by it? I'm assuming that it does nothing to make Search work for IE users. Is that correct, Cranky IE Users?
Third, to address the unwelcome advent of spam in DK private messages, we now have a "Mark this thread as spam" button in them. It's down at the bottom, under the new message box, as seen here. If you mark a thread as spam, there is no need to report it separately -- the button takes care of that. Note that you must check the box and then click the button, to make it harder to do it by accident. Quoting elfling again,
Think of it as a donut-equivalent but made with saccharine and electrodes.
Finally, from the comment thread, there's good news for those of us who have as a wish-list item the ability to tell how diaries got into our streams. In response to greycat's request, elfling tells us
Yes, we even have a design. It's not top of the list, but sooner rather than later.
That's exciting news! But I still hope the IE users get some love before the resources go to cute features like that (even though I am well aware that sometimes a developer just
needs to drop an intractable problem and go make something that will for God's sake work).
That's plenty for today, my Cranky friends! As always, please use the comment thread to discuss your issues with the site, ask questions, and offer your accumulated wisdom to help others.
WHERE TO TURN: LINKS
☀ For more stuff sort of like this, the Cranky Users group.
☀ For lots of official detail about the site and its workings, the DK4 FAQ (frequently-asked questions). The main Daily Kos FAQ is still here.
☀ To report something not working to the dev team, the bug report form. A bug report will not be directly responded to, but will be kept on file by the development team until the issue is resolved or otherwise closed.
☀ To get immediate response for technical help or urgent site problems, the contact form (be sure to select the tech support radio button). A tech support request will get prompt response, but does not get added to the bug report database. If you use it to report a known bug, you'll be told it's a known bug, and that's it.
☀ For immediate catharsis, complain in a Cranky Users thread. These threads are regularly scanned by kos and developers, but it's not a guaranteed way to bring an issue to the attention of these folks. But sometimes you just need some sympathy from other cranky people! (And sometimes, other cranky people have advice that can help you.)
Our thanks to kos, the development team, and the Dkosopedia contributors for their vigorous efforts to deliver a site that works well and to help us know how to work it!
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