Just a heads up. Not yet, but possibly soon.

I know that a lot of subscribers like to read the digest with their "morning coffee". But over the past few years, it seems like I'm getting more and more pissed off people whose phones beep, vibrate or light up at 5-6AM upon receipt of our digest e-mail. And for those on the West Coast it's 2-3AM.

Some people have their phones set to never notify them. Some set it to always notify them. But in the end, too many get those notifications that wake them up. And they get pissed at me for sending e-mail too early in the morning.

I guess things have changed to the point where e-mail gets read in almost real time, as soon as it's received. So I must adapt.

It used to be that I would send out the digest and it would sit and wait in subscriber's inbox until convenient time to read it. So 5AM delivery was a good option to start off the day. But with the way the technology is evolving, this doesn't seem acceptable anymore.

It's strange how we all changed over the course of just several years.

In any case, I'm currently looking into a way to send out two digests per day. So that people who prefer to continue receiving it at 5AM could choose so in their settings. But that adds a host of other technical issues. So most likely, the digest will be switched to 1PM delivery in the near future.

Forum software needs a week or so to adjust. Just try using the forum for some time as you normally do, and then try uploading avatar.

I'm shutting down this section, since the new change of overall forum rules makes it redundant.

Insults and cussing won't be tolerated in Main, so there is no point in keeping a separate section anymore.

All topics from here were moved to Main.

The datacenter where we host or servers had an outage due to a fiber cut somewhere in the Dallas area. (At least that's the preliminary info.)

That resulted in connectivity loss and so the servers were inaccessible for several hours.

Sorry for any inconvenience and for the worn out refresh button. Hopefully, they have fixed it for good.

Please PM me a screenshot of what you see. I'll investigate.

Well, you've submitted exactly zero reports. So if you aren't helping keep this place clean, what right do you have to complain about not enough being done?

Is the problem still happening on or after Oct 21?

Is the problem still happening on or after Oct 21?

I'm looking into it.

Please don't. Using all caps actually makes it harder to read for people who read your posts. If all caps were easier, then all newspapers and books would have been all caps. But of course that's not the case. A lot of studies have been done, and the way we normally print is the most comfortable way for reading.


Instead, please use the zoom feature of your browser. Ctrl + mouse wheel to make the font size larger.
My eyesight isn't too great either. And so I always increase the font size so that reading doesn't turn into struggle.

Typing is easier too because when you use browser's zoom the font of the text boxes increases too. So you see larger letters when typing posts not just when reading.

Modern browsers even remember the zoom settings for each site you visit. So you usually only need to set it once for OPP and the browser will keep it that way.



The only exception on caps that I ever gave on any of my forums was for a guy who has one arm. It was physically impossible for him to push shift and some letter at the same time.


But eyesight is not an excuse for caps because it makes it more difficult for other people to scan your text. Especially for those whose eyesight also isn't perfect. So using all caps isn't really a solution. It actually makes it worse for everyone.


Please try the zoom feature of your browser. It really works and makes it a lot easier to read.

Please PM me a screenshot of what you see and I'll investigate.

Well, this was a nice experiment, but it failed.

I thought that I would set up a political forum and allow as much freedom on it as possible. I thought that free exchange of ideas with minimal restrictions would result in exciting conversations.

Even though the forum rules have always stated that insults aren't allowed, I never really enforced those rules except for some extreme cases.

But it all turned into a giant pile of crap with some people seemingly competing on who can insult others the most.

Now, it's like a never-ending Jerry Springer show. Which gets boring after a while, not to mention repulsive. And I don't want a website like that.

I see way too many threads ruined by mudslinging and insults with little substance.

So I'm going to clean up OPP.

I realize that some people will leave. And that's OK.

If you don't agree with this, that's fine. Stay out of the way or leave. Either way is fine with me.

If you do agree and want to see OPP cleaned up, so that you can actually have intelligent debate on this forum, then help me out and use Report Issue button when you come across anyone who isn't willing to communicate in a civilized manner. I'll try to pay more attention to what's being posted, but I can't see everything.


I imagine it would take some time to establish the "new normal" of what's considered acceptable on this forum and until the general atmosphere of discussion here adjusts. During that time, I'll be deleting posts, suspending accounts, and permanently banning those who just refuse to stop insulting others. The reason I created this announcement is to have a place where I can refer people when I take administrative action.


As to what would be acceptable, well, it's hard to define, but here it is: if a reasonable person would be OK saying this in public, in the presence of their friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and strangers, then it would probably be OK to post it here.

This is the new rule on OPP effective immediately.

And no more personal attacks. It seems like even tiny personal attacks eventually escalate to never-ending insults and name-calling while ruining any chance for a proper debate. Enough of dirt, ugliness, and disrespect.

Those who want to discuss politics are still welcome on this forum. Those who just want to insult others might as well leave.

OK, let's try it.

The whole thing works like Invite-Only section, but in the scope of a topic.

I would need to create a topic and give two people access to post in it. And nobody else would be able to post there.

So find a sparring partner, decide on the title for the topic and PM me the opening statements from both people. Those statements should outline your basic positions regarding the topic of the debate and your respective conclusions.

I'll create the topic and quote those opening statements in the first post. After that, only two people would be able to post in that topic.

So you can then argue and debate over how you got to those conclusions that you submitted in the opening post and look for flaws in the opponent's thinking.

You would also need to agree on the terms, such as "if one person doesn't reply for three days" then the debate ends. The specifics are up to you, but you need to agree on something solid ahead of time.

And I'll sticky that topic in the digest for the duration of the debate.

This was on my to-do list since the time I upgraded the forum software, but I never got around to it. So I guess now might be as good time as any to try it.

If this works out, then I'll create a separate section for it and assign a moderator to create such topics when needed.

I thought about it a while back, and I actually implemented this into the forum software. But it would take at least two people with opposing views who both can clearly define and agree on a topic of discussion and agree to stay within the topic and be able to eloquently defend their positions without resorting to one-liner insults. Otherwise, nobody is going to follow such topic for more than a few minutes.

I'm working on what seems like an issue affecting users with iPhones and other iOS devices.

If you see such pop-up that obviously looks like some sort of scam, then please PM me the date and time it happened and how frequently it happens.

The pop-up could be claiming to be from Amazon or Walmart or some other known vendor.

If you were seeing it, but aren't seeing it now, then also please PM me and let me know.
I'm trying to reconstruct the timeline to see if any of the applied fixes worked.

If you are seeing this from the digest, then you can also e-mail me by replying to the digest e-mail message. Either PM or e-mail is fine.

You can PM me directly here.



The pop-up looks like this (taken from a screenshot sent by one user):