CHSS-ALUMNI.ca

A mid-October update

Stephen Oliver — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:44:17 +0000

Almost one month ago, I disabled the creation of blogs for all new registrants. If you registered before September 18th., you had the option of also creating a personal blog when you signed up. I disabled the blogs simply to get a handle on the potential harm caused by spambots that were registering here. Since mid September, bogus registrations have dropped to almost zero.

A couple of you have contacted me recently saying that you were getting nonsense comments made on your blogs. Though this is certainly a nuisance, it is easy to erase them and be done with it. Be sure that you have Comment Moderation turned on so that you must approve all comments before they are publicly displayed on your blog.

If you ever receive a message from a registered user here that you believe is spam (i.e. you do not know the person or the message is full of advertising links and nonsence text) I want to know about it ASAP. Do not erase the message but rather email me your concerns. I can then go in and look at its source in ways that you cannot see.

Thanks again everyone for your patience and understanding as we work through these issues. Please continue to encourage new registrations.

Bogus registrations continue to be made

Stephen Oliver — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:46:08 +0000

The frequency and number of obvious spam registrations here is starting to get ridiculous. It’s a little past 10:30 am and already I have deleted half a dozen bogus registrations. For the moment, I have disallowed the creation of blogs. Only user accounts can be created. That way I do not have to look in multiple locations for the garbage. What I’m anticipating having to do very soon is limit registrations say, to the first 10 days of the month. These spambots have far greater stamina than I. If they are not dealt with in a timely fashion, it could lead to a rash of unfortunate spams sent internally here to members. Suffice it to say, I am not pleased. Your cooperation and understanding is appreciated. Please continue to look out for and notify me of any suspicious registrations. Thanks for your support.

Mr. Oliver

Catch the Intruders

Stephen Oliver — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:50:22 +0000

In the past couple of days we’ve been visited by spammers. Please keep an eye out for user profiles that contain obvious nonsense. I’ve deleted a couple of user accounts that were obviously not CHSS Alumni. Their blogs also contained blatantly – shall we say, “questionable” material. I’d really appreciate you letting me know if you come across something suspicious here that violates the spirit and intent of this website.

Mr. Oliver

One Week Later …

Stephen Oliver — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:25:03 +0000

Its now been just over a week since this new Alumni site was launched. We now have a little over 100 people registered. This pace of registrations bodes very well for the future of this site. Please continue to encourage others you know to also register here. Feel free to grab their email address from the former site to send them a message about the great things happening here. I am glad to see people starting to network with each other and to begin conversations in the various groups found here. Thanks for your support and encouragement to date.

First Day Access Hiccups

Stephen Oliver — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:13:42 +0000

To all those individuals who tried to log on and register mid to late Saturday evening (last night), you may have experienced inordinate page load times or you might not even have been able to access this site. There were several network issues at the host provider end (beyond their control or ability to fix) that caused the delays. I have been assured that all is well now (crossing fingers) and I hope to see even more registrations made today. Thanks for your patience as we work through these matters.

Your Alumni site … version 2.0

Stephen Oliver — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:00:31 +0000

Many years ago (before the dawn of MySpace and Facebook) when I quite naively created a small series of linked .html pages and called them the CHSS Alumni website, I could not have imagined then how quickly the site would grow. There was an obvious desire out there in people to stay connected to their former high school classmates. More than 1000 people registered on the site and it has kept me quite busy manually doing all the profile update requests that come in each month.

In recent years, with the explosive growth and popularity of social networking sites, I began to wonder if there was a future or even a need for such dedicated sites such as ours. People, it seemed, had found other ways to stay connected. Could we still be relevant?

The answer, of course, is that I honestly do not know. Maybe sites like ours have already been eclipsed by the likes of Facebook. That quite possibly is true. However, I also want to believe that there is still a desire/need for a blatantly non-commercial, smaller scale, more private, less “data-mining” option than what the behemoths currently offer.

And so, rather than just let the old site [www.amdsb.ca/CHSS/ALUMNI] gradually fade, I’ve been investigating a number of options in the past year or so. Obviously, expense was one of my criteria as well as scalability. If this new site grows in popularity (as I hope it will), I want the installed software to do the heavy slogging of managing all the new registrations. As you can see, I finally settled on a combination of WordPressMU and BuddyPress to be the backbone of the new site. Both are open source and both are currently being actively developed and used by a large and dedicated community of enthusiastic end-users and creative developers. Given this new direction, I also thought it appropriate that we launch on our own brand new domain. This has obviously meant that certain new domain registration and hosting expenses have been incurred which we did not have before.

And so, moving forward, it could all fall apart. Maybe only a small percentage of people on the old site will bother to register here. Maybe there will be some software problems that come up that need the attention of more knowledgeable brains than mine. But, perhaps equally possible, things could also work out just fine. The new social networking features of this site might just draw back those who had abandoned the previous site as being too static and non-interactive. I guess only time will tell.

Thank you for reading this. I value any and all constructive feedback. I would sincerely appreciate your support in promoting and building this new version 2.0 community. Please encourage fellow Alumni to come and register.

Mr. Stephen Oliver
Site Administrator
Teacher at CHSS since 1981

What’s Public? … What’s Private?

Stephen Oliver — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:09:48 +0000

Much of your activity on this website is logged and displayed for all to see. Visitors to this site (i.e. NOT registered) are free to browse the Members Directory and look at individual member Profile Details. Registered Alumni (i.e. Members) have full control over what information is publicly displayed in their profile. Feel free to edit/update it to show only what you want.

Information posted on an individual’s or a Group’s WIRE is public. Unless you change its status, your personal blog is also open to viewing by everyone. These features are all deliberate decisions designed to help develop and promote a sense of community here. You are encouraged to share and cross-pollinate information. Very much like the old, this new site is OPEN. However, now your email address is no longer visible to anyone! This is a big improvement which I think everyone will appreciate.

If you wish to communicate privately with a fellow Alumnus, send them a “Message” which only they will be able to read. Private messages do not appear in the public “Site Wide Activity” listing. Only registered members can message other members. If you want to start an exclusive Group for only certain members, designate the group as Private. Only that group’s members then will be able to view the group’s activities.

Finding and Updating YOUR Profile Information

Stephen Oliver — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:12:02 +0000

If you want to update your own personal Profile information, follow these quick and simple steps.

1. You must first LOG IN as a member with your username and password

2. Click on your name in the upper right hand corner of the screen to the left of “/ Log Out”. Your Profile Page will be displayed.

3. In the second column labeled “My Profile”, click on “Edit Profile” and proceed to make your changes

4. Be sure to click on the “Save Changes” button at the bottom to save your changes

You have now successfully updated your profile information. [Also added to FAQ]

How the Members Directory works

Stephen Oliver — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:57:49 +0000

If you are looking for someone in the Members Directory, the letter tabs at the top correspond to a person’s FIRST NAME – not last. I guess the logic behind this is because people seldom change their first name and it is, perhaps, what we remember the most. Any way, you can still search for someone by last name using the “Find Members” search box in the top right.