[LENGTHY POST AHEAD!]Re: Mobile App: Photo Uploading Issue & Website Upgrades
Lol I have no neighbors. And cable internet is nonexistent in my neck of the woods. Hughes net is only option it's expensive and has severe data limits. I use wireless data. It's my ONLY option
OH, okay. I apologize. I don't live in an inner-city situation (I'd be hanging from one of the ornamental protrusions of the many tall buildings in short order, methinks
), but there are about 26,000, maybe even 28,000 people within my little city's borders. I - well, my neighborhood - has access to broadband.
In addition to the data limits and PRICE, the satellite-beamed Internet access has latency issues. Definitely not a "best solution" if there's anything else better than dial-up.
Depends on who you are; you absolutely not. The other 420 million people who use Facebook and consume/grow legally without fear, yes.
Oh, to be one of them! Today, what?, one in five citizens in our country can do so on the state level, if the statistics I've read are at all accurate. At this point, I'd be happy (for want of a better word) if my state government would get off their duff and straighten out the medicinal-use stuff in time to maybe be of benefit for Mom before her decline is too great instead of procrastinating, arguing, putting off and pushing back... what we've
already voted for.
But in this particular case, it wasn't my parano-- okay, wait, yes it was, lol. But I was thinking about the security aspect of people's
accounts, not the bare fact that our subject matter isn't approved by every states' government or our federal one (to say nothing of those who live in countries where the term "draconian" wouldn't be inappropriate when talking about their leaders). I've read, and even seen on the local national news a couple times, about account hacking. While I suppose much of the purported insecurity with a thing like that (Facebook) is probably due to things like relatively simple passwords, people using the same password for multiple online accounts (don't do that, folks, lol), and the like... Facebook
has had its issues in this regard. And, while I'm proud to be a member of this community and consider it to be a large one, Facebook
must be a bigger target to those who either delight in data/identity theft or are being paid to do such things.
<SHRUGS> I can certainly see the appeal of... sheltering under a larger umbrella in the rain, as it were. No question. But some umbrellas might not be especially waterproof. (NOTE: I really, truly, hope that I am wrong, here. You know both my level of paranoia AND my enjoyment (need?) of being a member here. Sometimes they conflict each other, which can be... stressful.)
One thought that hadn't even occurred to me until now: Here I can call myself ~TS~ (or that other nickname, that I was thinking of pulling out of storage and dusting off...) - but don't people have to use their actual names with the Facebook website? Would that mean I'd have to sign in as Billy Joe Bobby Rae Rebeck, III (or whatever my name happens to be) to access this forum. Or, alternatively, that it would be easy to tell that ~TS~ was that person?
Seems like, even where cannabis is legal for medicinal use (only) people still sometimes get harassed by their employers,
prospective employers, members of their homeowner's association (just because I don't like a thing doesn't mean I don't realize that many people live in one :rolleyes3 ), et cetera? That last one... Do they ever get bent out of shape upon discovering that one of their members has a lovely cannabis grow (journal), for example?
I like the concept. I started this whole Internet journey a number of years before even this forum was created, back when Internet access wasn't a given, wasn't even
dial-up but, instead, meant you knew someone with a computer account on the local college's VAX/VMS mainframe. And, at the time, I didn't even
think about trying to be anonymous online. I just didn't see the need. I believed in free speech, but understood that we should be responsible for our speech.
Then, over time, I began understanding that this can cause harm to a person even in this country. And, in other countries, that harm could be quick, brutal, and permanent.
Out of curiosity, I typed "are there countries where Facebook is not allowed" into a web-search engine. I immediately saw an article titled "10 countries where Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube has been banned." That's from 2016, so maybe things have changed in those countries (I don't know). Might be an issue, might not. Then again, some of those countries' governments probably don't consider the number one cannabis resource on the Internet to be on the "approved" list, either, so... IDK.
To be sure, I don't know how closely your forum will be associated with Facebook. I am not aware of the mechanics of the thing, whether it will ONLY allow one to sign in with their Facebook identity or if this will become (one giant) "Facebook page." I really do stay away from Fb, so my knowledge level is low. Every time I even
consider becoming active on Facebook (admittedly, such times are few and far between, lol), I read something like "One good thing about having a lot of Facebook friends is that you simply act as a honey pot when your friends click on malicious things." (That was the first sentence in an article I read on Kaspersky Labs' SecureList malware awareness/defense website last Summer.) There might be a degree of FUD in articles of that nature, maybe...
...but I still routinely see auto-generated emails from people I know (offline) who use Facebook, containing links to malicious websites. Such as "You won't believe the picture I just saw of you online! Click this link to see it." Most people surely don't fall for such things, of course, but even the
possibility...
BtW, boss, you've been too good to me for me to ever want to throw rocks at your house. And I've been
trying to be more positive, not just here, but in general. Seems this project (ME, lol) still needs work <SIGH>. But I do have high, high hopes in regards to your upcoming change.
If/when I suggest someone join a cannabis forum, it is always
this one.
It could also have to do with the old forum & gallery software, so let's see what happens first and then take it from there.
I hadn't thought of it at the time, but it could be that the forum ads have something to do with it, I suppose. I'm not knocking the concept. But things like that have been known to give mobile devices (and their web browsers) grief. Some browsers use HTML and not Flash, some use Flash but don't have any obvious method of protection, et cetera. Or the person's carrier might not be quickly forthcoming with security updates - which lowers the security of the whole device - and that can mean that people's devices get slower and slower in general as more and more things get their hooks into said device. It's like half the computers were still running Windows XP, lol, and half of the ones that have been upgraded to a newer OS only get security updates long after they should... kind of thing. So some people have "speed" issues because their devices are full of things that they didn't choose to install, some people have tried to be proactive by installing anti-malware apps (which add their own overhead)... and some people wonder why everyone else is complaining of slowdowns, lol. But for those affected, trying to access a website via their device's browser - or even, perhaps, a third-party one? - might not be as enjoyable as it could be.
Most of our Admins and Mods are professional adults on payroll
I commend you for that, sir! I do not automatically equate "volunteer" with "kids running a hobby forum," because I have seen real dedication from volunteers. But, with that being said, I have also seen volunteers... fade a bit over time, as life happened. I remember another forum, another area of interest, where there was a true emergency that was serious enough in nature to effect pretty much that entire forum's staff (and, potentially, their freedom) and maybe a large percentage of the
membership - and no one could be found to deal with it(!). In a
business, when there's a problem at the shop, you almost always have the ability to get someone - and usually several someones - out of bed, recall them from vacation, whatever, and send them down to meet the firemen. Because it's understood that it's their JOB.
Additionally, with your staff being actual employees, they can presumably not worry about the time away from the forum spent working to support them and their families - because they're
employed by you, and
working here at the forum. This is one reason I have stopped automatically taking steps to remove ads from my experience here, lol - I
want to support those who pay your bills. I even try very hard to remember to
highlight a sponsor when I mention it, so as to give the business a little extra impact in my posts. I might not be able to spend much money at those businesses, but maybe I can encourage those who can to do so.
Seems like a dream job, lol, getting paid to spend 40 hours per week (if not more) at their favorite home on the Internet. On the other hand... Us members are free to spend 100% of that time enjoying ourselves, reading and posting what WE want to. Whereas your staff spends the time going through post after post after post... looking for violations, cooling others' tempers, et cetera. I've been on Sue's journal getting my daily cannabis picture fix, help with learning how to be more positive, a shoulder to cry on vis-Ã -vis my cigarette cessation attempts, and general therapy, lol. Many have been the time when I read a post in that thread and just sat there - pondering what I had just read. Maybe I liked what I read, maybe I was made somewhat uncomfortable by it,
maybe I found myself a bit "choked up." So, you know, time spent
digesting content. If I had punched the ol' 420 Time Clock that morning, I'd would have, instead, had to simply read each post as I looked for guideline violations, then
immediately move on to the next thread. Been there, done that, and... Yes, it would be difficult to do so here without getting paid for it, lol, because this isn't a "hobby" for us and it's not something that we could easily disregard in order to put in the massive amounts of time that are required from the staff.
In personal terms... I still have my crackups (periods where the depression stops being a thing to deal with and is suddenly
every thing). So there are still a few cracks in the eggshell. Sue is sort of like a layer of tape that holds me together when those cracks threaten to widen. In the meantime, she seems to slowly be gluing those cracks... SHUT. All while we talk about cannabis
. I know that she's been voted Member of the Month (multiple times) and Member of the Year (ditto!). But - to me, at least -
SweetSue epitomizes what it means to be a good member here at
420 Magazine. I'd vote for her for Member of the... you name it, lol. I consider Sue to be every bit as much of a "feature" here as the medicinal-use sections, the grow journal areas, et cetera.
Anyway, best of luck with the upgrade. I hope it comes off without 420 bugs and issues popping up. I also hope that the literally thousands of threads that I have bookmarked in my web browser will still be valid. If not <SHUDDERS>... Hopefully at least the relative few (couple thousand) threads that I thought to subscribe to via my User CP will be. As for the several thousand that I only bookmarked, maybe I will be able to search by the respective thread titles if I think to manually paste their titles, one by one, into a web search engine (weeks' effort, I expect). But I am hopeful that this will not be required. I seem to have built myself a rather massive reference guide - and it is all contained within the forum, lol, which means I do not have to worry about hard drive crashes <KNOCKS WOOD> like I would, had I chosen to capture the information and store it locally.
BtW,
THANK YOU for all that you do, and the same to your staff (present and past)! It is no exaggeration to state that I wouldn't be...
above ground without you, and I wouldn't be as stable and happy as I am without the huge amount of work that both you and your staff put in. A pat on the back for the general
membership, too.
Some debts can never be repaid....
Then I thought "Oh....a day off!"
There may be other sites, but we all know from experience there aren't better.
I look forward to the learning curve.
Cool!
