Where have we been?

[Administrator]

22 hours ago, Nighthawk01 said:

So glad this is back up. I was devastated and a little mad when it happened, but figured there was a good reason and it would be back soon. All in all, better a smal forum than none at all. A few quick questions: are we still allowed to make posts and topics? Also, could you bring back the general topic and polls thread? 

Nighthawk, you certainly can start making posts and topics. Let me say again how sorry I am to hear you were mad. I totally get it. Hopefully this will never happen again. I think you might agree 13 years is a pretty long time to go with no catastrophic failures? I will bring back the general topic.

As far as the polls, that is something that requires a forum moderator to focus time on and we don't have such a person. I am going to start a small forum topic called Jobs at Mitch Waite Group here and see if I can find any volunteers. Fraser (Bigfoot) was doing a fantastic job, but he had other demands, such as managing his land and goats, that took him away. 

[Administrator]

19 hours ago, Mike Tricolor said:

Glad to see the forum back at least. All of that valuable information, gone....time to rebuild. I frequented the forums for several years now, formerly known as Mike Mars. I mostly identified amphibians and reptiles in those forums. It would be great to see them back and I would be willing to help moderate those forums. Combining "amphibians and reptiles" into one forum might be a better approach if you are looking to streamline. 

Mike I will be sure to bring back the amphibians, reptiles and other critter topics back.

[Administrator]

4 hours ago, Charlie Spencer said:

Another couple of revival questions.

Is it possible to easily restore the 'Location' field to user profiles?  It's very handy to have someone's location easily referenced when tackling an ID.  If not, the comments section of the profile will have to do.

I notice someone has already posted a library with a large number of photos in the gallery.  Are the limitations on total size higher / gone?

Regardless, thanks for reopening the fun house!

Charlie I am not 100% sure but I believe the image size is limited to 2 MB, at least that is what is indicated in the "Drag files here to attach" area below. In the previous forum we had to limit the file size because there were over 60 GB of images and we had to pay storage costs for those. We are now using Amazon AWS for storing images, where the costs are much lower, so I expect there will be no limits for as long as we can afford to keep this site running. 

Regarding the Location field, let me look into that for you.

Mitch 

[Administrator]

16 hours ago, pictaker said:

Sometimes you have to step back and punt!!... sounds like some real serious work went on behind the scenes, Crashes/hacks suck, been through it before, Thanks for the long days and hard work to get back, I think I speak for most of us in saying that a loss and inconvenience of some posts doesnt amount to what you guys went through to get us back...

pictaker those are very kind words, and much appreciated. The real hero here is Rick.  Your right, we have had our share of hacks, spammers and malware zealots. I expect those douche bags will return, but hopefully I will find some moderators to beat them down.

[Charlie Spencer]

9 minutes ago, Administrator said:

Regarding the Location field, let me look into that for you.

That's all I can ask!

[Administrator]

For the questions: Can we add Location and Signature fields to the Profiles for users?

I was able to turn on Signatures and Gravatar features (see attached) but I did not find a Location field to enable. I will ask the powers at be at Invision if this is possible. Or if any of you are enterprising, do a google search on "Invision community server add location to profile" and let us know what you find. I have also attached the About Me screen so you can see the choices we have. I was not sure about turning on "Show publicly on member's profile?" which I believe lets anyone see your permissions.

[aveschapinas]

Hi everyone! I admit I stopped checking every day (and this week has been a loooong one) but glad to see the forums back online. 

[aveschapinas]

Couple of things: I went to adjust my settings and I see that private message notifications (on the site) are marked as turned off by administrator; can they be turned on? I don't want to receive e-mail notifications, but I do want them on the site.

Also: I would like to see the ID forums for non-North American birds restored. I know you said you wanted to keep things simple, but IDs for other parts of the world tend to drop down the list in the ID forum very quickly since fewer people are familiar with them. Many of my ID requests went unanswered until the additional forums were added. I think it also reduces frustration for people who want to focus on IDs for North American birds. Since it's a new beginning, maybe have several - Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia/New Zealand, Central and South America maybe? Or the way it was before: UK and Europe/World if that's too many new forums for the moment.

[zoutedrop]

Thanks to the WhatBird team.

[Bird Brain]

I'd like to add my thanks as well to all the Whatbird team who worked long and hard to get us back up and running!! I've missed the site and all the people on here who I've come to think of as family. It's a shame so much was lost, but having the site back on more than makes up for lost material. Heck, I can start posting old photos again!  I have tons of material to work with!! Thanks again!!!

[Nighthawk01]

I didn't realize how much I genuinely enjoyed helping with identification and communicating on this website until it was gone. I am so glad its back and have been more than ready to do my best to help you guys identify any of the birds that have you stumped, and  maybe even ask for my own help here and there.

[JimBob]

I haven't been on whatbird in ages, but I was definitely sad when I saw the forums seemed to be permanently down. Really sucks that so much of the data was corrupted and not recoverable... reading through old trip reports was always fun. 

Almost didn't make an account since I doubt I'll use it much, but didn't feel right not doing it. This forum is one of the main reasons I got into birding!

[aveschapinas]

1 hour ago, JimBob said:

I haven't been on whatbird in ages, but I was definitely sad when I saw the forums seemed to be permanently down. Really sucks that so much of the data was corrupted and not recoverable... reading through old trip reports was always fun. 

Almost didn't make an account since I doubt I'll use it much, but didn't feel right not doing it. This forum is one of the main reasons I got into birding!

I agree! WhatBird forum members were my first birding buddies when I didn't know anyone else in Guatemala who birded and all the online resources now available weren't. I don't know what I would have done without this community, and I missed it when it was gone.

[Birds--sdriB]

Thanks for all of the hard work!  I really enjoy the forum!

[zoutedrop]

3 hours ago, JimBob said:

 This forum is one of the main reasons I got into birding!

Ditto that.  I have made lifelong friends, sadly BigFoot and SnowyOwl,

and always always appreciate the help from this community, which

by the way, included you.  Thanks to all for an ongoing great experience.

[zoutedrop]

4 hours ago, Bird Brain said:

Heck, I can start posting old photos again!  I have tons of material to work with!! Thanks again!!!

OMG, deja vu all over again

Now I won't know if it's failing memory or Easter morning. 

[zoutedrop]

Why do people provide links rather than inserted photos?

How do we know if it's a hotlink to the address displayed?

In the ID forum people are asking for help, why create extra work?

Please display your photos in the forums.

[The Bird Nuts]

2 minutes ago, zoutedrop said:

Please display your photos in the forums.

Yes, but only your own photos and not anybody else's! :)

[MattR]

Hello and welcome back. 

 

Please can you add the Rest of World Identify a Bird forum again. Thank you. 

[TooFly]

Welcome Back!

[Administrator]

20 hours ago, Aveschapines said:

Couple of things: I went to adjust my settings and I see that private message notifications (on the site) are marked as turned off by administrator; can they be turned on? I don't want to receive e-mail notifications, but I do want them on the site.

Also: I would like to see the ID forums for non-North American birds restored. I know you said you wanted to keep things simple, but IDs for other parts of the world tend to drop down the list in the ID forum very quickly since fewer people are familiar with them. Many of my ID requests went unanswered until the additional forums were added. I think it also reduces frustration for people who want to focus on IDs for North American birds. Since it's a new beginning, maybe have several - Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia/New Zealand, Central and South America maybe? Or the way it was before: UK and Europe/World if that's too many new forums for the moment.

TooFly I looked into turning the private message notifications on. It appeared that Notifications where disabled so I turned them on. See attached. I'll eventually add the birds of the world forums too.

[Administrator]

On 6/23/2018 at 4:19 AM, Charlie Spencer said:

Hey!  New emojis!  The new ones are a bit more detailed (and there are far more of them), but they're also a bit smaller and may be hard to differentiate on phone and tablets.

Compare and contrast.  In each pair, the old style is the first one.  ?  ?

✏️ Charlie just select the emoji and then change its Size like you are changing the size of text. You can enlarge them up to 72 points.

[aveschapinas]

4 hours ago, Administrator said:

TooFly I looked into turning the private message notifications on. It appeared that Notifications where disabled so I turned them on. See attached. I'll eventually add the birds of the world forums too.

Thank you! I was able to turn them on. Oh, and by the way, I sent you a private message; maybe you didn't see it if your notifications were not turned on? 

[HamRHead]

Wow, it is great to have the forum back. Thanks, Mr. Waite, for all your hard work. And a special thank-you to Rick and his family.

Breaking an addiction is hard. The first week was the worst. After the sweating and shaking subsided, I could actually have waited longer.

The forum as been an amazing help to me. I hope all of the wonderful members find their way back. My only regret about the lost data is the massive number of posts and likes that some of the veteran members had amassed. Those numbers were like hard-earned badges of honor and reflected, to one degree or another, incredible levels of expertise.

One suggestion: I think it would be nice to have a dedicated place where members could display their bird related art—sketches, paintings, carvings, stained glass, etcetera.

And finally a question. If we can now drag and drop images from our desktops, is there a way to control the size at which it displays?

Okay, two questions: Are the emojis a tad blurry or is that my eyes?

Edited June 25, 2018 by HamRHead

[lonestranger]

@Administrator   Like everyone else, I too am grateful that the forums are back up and saddened by the loss of the old content. There was a lot of history in some of those old threads, some of which I was hoping to reference once the forums came back online. I am particularly saddened about the loss of one particular thread from the photo sharing forum, the "Our new backyard" thread specifically. Our landlord has decided to try and fabricate reasons to evict us and some of the posts in "our new backyard" thread would go a long way in helping us present the truth if/when legal action is needed. I know it's a selfish thing to ask and I am sure it's not something easily done, but if that thread isn't totally corrupted is there any way I could get a copy of that particular thread? I totally understand if that's not possible but due to our situation, I have to ask and hope that it is possible. Thanks for ALL you have done in getting the forums back online, and thanks for your future efforts as well.