New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

The forum has moved to community.paydirt.co.nz, see you there!

This forum is now an archive to preserve the knowledge and finds posted here.

2 Pages12 >

Paydirt website update - What would make Paydirt a better site?

gavin		Posted : Sunday, 11 October 2015 10:42:33 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		I've been a bit absent from the forums for a while - just been too busy. I'm hoping to find some time to throw at the site to give it a touch of TLC that I think it needs. Don't expect anything overnight, it's something I'll have to nibble away at here and there when time allows. If you have any ideas about what might make Paydirt a better site (and not just the forums) then please feel free to share your ideas here. Here's a short list of immediate fixes / improvements I'd like to implement: Fix forum issues - RSS feeds, etc. including upgrade to latest version. Some functionality became a little broke when I had to emergency migrate the forums to a different hosting company some time back due to unresolvable issues. Use a "do not reply" forum email address for alert emails (people sometimes reply directly to forum email alerts expecting them to post a reply directly to the forum thread). Forum filters - introducing a gold only page and a detector only page (also keep a combined view like we have at present). Permit Map - update the data as it's quite stale now (date of last update is at top of map). Forum FAQ page.
		WWW

Erickd		Posted : Monday, 12 October 2015 2:13:14 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Registered Joined: 14/06/2014(UTC) Posts: 628 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 473 times Was thanked: 695 time(s) in 297 post(s)		Is it possible that when deleting photos in your album that you can actually see the photo your deleting other than the file name ??
		2016 Silver coins -400 Silver Jewellery/items - 22 Gold Jewellery/items - 7 Spendie $132.90 Fisher F75 & X-pointer

gavin		Posted : Monday, 12 October 2015 4:27:38 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		Originally Posted by: Erickd Is it possible that when deleting photos in your album that you can actually see the photo your deleting other than the file name ?? Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not sure. If it's a built-in feature of the latest version of the forum software then this feature will be included. This is the forum software I use for Paydirt - http://www.yetanotherforum.net/
		WWW

Metal Kiwi		Posted : Monday, 12 October 2015 4:42:19 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Registered Joined: 19/06/2011(UTC) Posts: 1,210 Location: Auckland Thanks: 498 times Was thanked: 484 time(s) in 322 post(s)		Speed up the system so that when you click Post it doesn't take ages to load. MK
		WWW BLOG

gavin		Posted : Monday, 12 October 2015 7:13:46 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		Originally Posted by: Metal Kiwi Speed up the system so that when you click Post it doesn't take ages to load. MK Might require a slightly more expensive hosting plan unfortunately. I'm going to put a more obvious "donate" button on the new site like www.topomap.co.nz has. If that works well then I'll see if I can upgrade the plan and get something a bit more meaty ;-)
		WWW

Jd		Posted : Tuesday, 13 October 2015 5:37:48 AM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Nugget Medals: Groups: Registered Joined: 5/07/2012(UTC) Posts: 99 Location: Blenhim Thanks: 114 times Was thanked: 19 time(s) in 13 post(s)		Hi gavin You have a great site I was thinking most members on here have been on here for some time me included, the cost to keep this site going I expect comes from you. I don't think the donation button would have great returns. According to your below Statistics There are 40,038 posts in 4,100 topics in 17 forums. Last post about 8 hours ago by Jd. We have 2,632 registered members. The newest member is NJC62-DN. Why not charge each member $10 per year not much for a year per member for this great service and you can offer visitors free access to read but they cant post or reply without payment that way you get only members and not drifters and a bit of money to help you with this site Id be a starter as you said theirs a bit of time updating even the permit map alone
		WWW

snowdrop		Posted : Tuesday, 13 October 2015 9:46:54 AM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Medals: Groups: Registered Joined: 24/12/2013(UTC) Posts: 191 Location: Canterbury Thanks: 225 times Was thanked: 66 time(s) in 49 post(s)		In relation to your mail about improving this site. Sure, there are one or two issues, but what percentage of regular followers have donated to the cause?

gavin		Posted : Tuesday, 13 October 2015 1:33:00 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		Originally Posted by: snowdrop In relation to your mail about improving this site. Sure, there are one or two issues, but what percentage of regular followers have donated to the cause? Only a handful have donated so far (including your good self - cheers!), but I must say that after I made the donate button more prominent on www.topomap.co.nz and added a nag screen for people coming in using ad blockers in their browsers then I was very pleasantly surprised to see how many donations started coming in. Was very encouraging. You can actually tell who's donated on Paydirt - they have a little $1 coin medal showing on the info under their name when they post on the forums, my little way of saying "thank you". Originally Posted by: Jd Hi gavin You have a great site I was thinking most members on here have been on here for some time me included, the cost to keep this site going I expect comes from you. I don't think the donation button would have great returns. According to your below Statistics There are 40,038 posts in 4,100 topics in 17 forums. Last post about 8 hours ago by Jd. We have 2,632 registered members. The newest member is NJC62-DN. Why not charge each member $10 per year not much for a year per member for this great service and you can offer visitors free access to read but they cant post or reply without payment that way you get only members and not drifters and a bit of money to help you with this site Id be a starter as you said theirs a bit of time updating even the permit map alone I'm not really keen on charging people to use the site. I imagine it would stop a lot of new blood joining. I may try and push the sponsored listings on the equipment page a bit more to see if I can get a bit more revenue to cover costs that way. I may also add a few extra ad units down the side of the page to try and bump up revenue a little. Edited by user Tuesday, 13 October 2015 1:35:03 PM(UTC) \| Reason: Not specified
		WWW

gavin		Posted : Tuesday, 13 October 2015 4:01:09 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		Another addition might be some forum behaviour guidelines. We've lost a couple of highly valuable members in the past through abuse (perceived or real) unfortunately. Perhaps we need some fairly loose guidelines to try and prevent this? I don't want to police the forums unless people report abuse via the "report" flag, but having clear guidelines in place may allow me to temporarily ban people / delete offending posts without causing waves in the community. If anyone knows of some good baseline rules then feel free to share them. We can then all nut out the details later on as I start updating the site.
		WWW

kiwisouth		Posted : Tuesday, 13 October 2015 10:04:10 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Medals: Groups: Registered Joined: 3/04/2010(UTC) Posts: 326 Location: Blenheim (Renwick) Thanks: 39 times Was thanked: 105 time(s) in 83 post(s)		Gidday Gavin, pleased to tell you that I have made a small donation. I think I started in here before we got to our first 100 members. I was looking through the membership list and there are a lot of Gold Dust members from China with names like 'yhu5cwr1" or similar who have never posted. I wonder how many true members we have if these weren't taken into consideration. Perhaps a small membership fee might be the way to go.
		Nulli Illigitimi Carborundum
		WWW

gavin		Posted : Wednesday, 14 October 2015 8:36:07 AM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		Originally Posted by: kiwisouth Gidday Gavin, pleased to tell you that I have made a small donation. I think I started in here before we got to our first 100 members. I was looking through the membership list and there are a lot of Gold Dust members from China with names like 'yhu5cwr1" or similar who have never posted. I wonder how many true members we have if these weren't taken into consideration. Perhaps a small membership fee might be the way to go. Thanks for the donation - much appreciated :) Yes, there's a lot of spammy users from China. Originally I'd just disabled their accounts, rather than deleting them, as it meant they had to keep creating new email accounts to re-register and spam. Making the process a little harder for them. I've since turned on one of those catcha type images (crazy letter images) as part of the registration process. This works well so I assume most of these spammy users were bots rather than humans. That's one of my first jobs - look for spammy users and remove them. I'll also look for spammy web addresses in user profiles to remove them also. Don't worry - this doesn't include legitimate blog, business, etc. web sites.
		WWW

Golddigger7		Posted : Wednesday, 14 October 2015 10:25:48 AM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Medals: Groups: Registered Joined: 6/09/2012(UTC) Posts: 252 Thanks: 1 times Was thanked: 46 time(s) in 35 post(s)		I think that the site works fine, not sure whether rules on conduct will work, the abusers simply wanted to abuse, so dont know how to manage unless want to kick peeps out. A few good members have left over very minor stuff as it turns out, so guess the old ego is a delicate thing.

gavin		Posted : Wednesday, 14 October 2015 2:51:47 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		Originally Posted by: Golddigger7 I think that the site works fine, not sure whether rules on conduct will work, the abusers simply wanted to abuse, so dont know how to manage unless want to kick peeps out. A few good members have left over very minor stuff as it turns out, so guess the old ego is a delicate thing. I guess it's too easy to take something the wrong way, or to heart. Definitely found it a bit of a tricky topic to deal with when it's come up. Thankfully it doesn't pop up too often.
		WWW

The Hatter		Posted : Wednesday, 14 October 2015 3:09:07 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Registered Joined: 21/05/2013(UTC) Posts: 259 Location: Westport Thanks: 62 times Was thanked: 320 time(s) in 125 post(s)		Hi Gavin I don't think we really need rules of conduct, they tend to make people to scared to give an opinion. I don't know if you have moderators on here.But they can be a big help when a bit of shit starts flying around. Its a bit like three strikes and you are out. A warning first. I run a forum with mostly members from the USA, Around 2500 members. In its hey day it flew. But now pretty quiet. Often politics would come up, and I would stop that with a warning. Other times it was African Americans or Native American bashing. A quick post from me, and it stopped. I also have three moderators. But generally everybody was nice. It is a gold forum. Cheers Trev Edited by user Wednesday, 14 October 2015 3:10:38 PM(UTC) \| Reason: Not specified

kiwikeith		Posted : Wednesday, 14 October 2015 4:45:10 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Medals: Groups: Registered Joined: 28/06/2011(UTC) Posts: 648 Location: hector Thanks: 359 times Was thanked: 230 time(s) in 154 post(s)		hi gavin if you make rules I wouldn't be able to post anything since all I say is bullshit

gavin		Posted : Wednesday, 14 October 2015 6:09:45 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		Fair enough - no rules it is ;) And thanks for the advice Trev. A couple of users have been given moderator permissions but I don't think they're as active as they used to be. Can't blame them as I've been pretty absent lately!
		WWW

gavin		Posted : Friday, 4 December 2015 2:35:55 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		Bugger - almost had the permit map refreshing it's data daily from NZPAM data, but now they've gone and removed the API endpoint I was querying to get the raw data. Emailed them to find out what's going on, a bit annoying!
		WWW

NJC62-DN		Posted : Friday, 4 December 2015 10:17:24 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Flake Medals: Groups: Registered Joined: 12/10/2015(UTC) Posts: 22 Location: Otago Thanks: 6 times Was thanked: 10 time(s) in 7 post(s)		Wow, just as well I donated!

gavin		Posted : Sunday, 6 December 2015 9:15:13 AM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Groups: Administrators, Registered Joined: 20/02/2010(UTC) Posts: 1,326 Location: Christchurch Thanks: 736 times Was thanked: 535 time(s) in 287 post(s)		Originally Posted by: NJC62-DN Wow, just as well I donated! It's very much appreciated - thank you :) Added a little "thank you" medal to your profile.
		WWW

Iggyrulz		Posted : Thursday, 17 December 2015 10:54:41 PM(UTC)
Rank: Gold Ingot Medals: Groups: Registered Joined: 21/12/2013(UTC) Posts: 438 Location: Dunedin Thanks: 501 times Was thanked: 327 time(s) in 196 post(s)		Hi Gavin everyone's entitled to there opinion and mine is ..... Charge a subscription ( it's a user pays world we live in) you have a fabulous site which provides hours no days and weeks of entertainment and knowledge for everyone who visits. Unfortunately people forget myself included. When the donation topic arose, I thought yes good idea I must do that........one day! That day never comes. I wonder how many see the donate button down in the fine print, I had a wee bit of trouble but hey I am blind. Maybe once the yearly or bi-yearly (if preferred) sub is up for renewal a hold could be put in place to prevent further posts until subs paid up? (Maybe after a two or three month time period) I realise some will disagree but I have thick skin. I hope this great site lives on thanks for your hard work Gavin Iggy

2 Pages12 >