Another day, another thread banging on at the messageboard.
"None of my passwords are recognised"
. Well, only
one will ever work, because that's how passwords work, isn't it?
"Once I get in and I try and post something I’m asked to login again"
. Nope, the board doesn't require you to do that. It's never happened to me, ever. You might well be running custom security settings in your browser which don't permit logins to remain active for more than a given period of time, or you may have refused cookies which the browser needs before it will authenticate you. Or you might be running an older version of your browser, or any number of other possibilities, any of which could be responsible for you needing to re-authenticate yourself prior to making a post. But hey, it's much easier to just say that the messageboard is to blame, isn't it?
"Why is it necessary to have a username as well as an email address?"
Well, because they're different things, aren't they? One allows people - and the messageboard - to contact you, to let you know there's been replies to your posts, etc. The other allows the board - and other users - to identify you as opposed to anyone else. It's like saying "Why does my car have to have an accelerator as well as a brake?" They do different jobs.
"Is it beyond MMOC to put it right?"
. Well yes, it clearly is, because how you - or whoever did it for you - set up your PC isn't something the MMOC were involved in.
The message board is, by some margin, the thing about my life I am least happy with. I didn't want control of the messageboard, I wanted to deal with the website, but the club lumps the two together and to do one, I had to accept the other. Why do I dislike it so much? Because it's ancient, and clunky, and about as reliable as a Michael Fish weather forecast. It breaks down more often than Katie Price, and each time it does everyone blames me. Did I do it? No, of course not.
Then we have the users who can't manage the task of logging in. They mail me, daily, in their droves. Usually, they write
"I can't log in"
, and nothing else. That's really helpful, that is, and it gives me every possible clue I could ask for in tracking down the problem. Oh hang on, no it doesn't. It gives me NO clue, none whatsoever. As I said to the club recently, it's like dropping your car at the garage and saying "It doesn't work" and expecting them to fix it. How about a flipping clue as to what's happening? So I have to write back to the person who can't log in, and ask them for a bit of detail. Like are you being told the password is incorrect, for example, and that's why you can't log in? Or have you forgotten your username, or which email address you signed up with? Does the page time out without logging you in? I've written to people and asked that, and very often been met with "Well you're supposed to be the IT expert, I thought you'd know". No, seriously, I
do get that reply, usually once a week or so.
Then you get the stroppy ones, who seem to imagine I'm here 24/7 purely for them to use when they can't be bothered to remember what they themselves wrote. After all, why
should they try to remember? There's some lacky there somewhere, and it's their job to work this stuff out, isn't it? Somebody sent me FOUR emails on Friday afternoon, because they couldn't find the link to reset their password (I've cleverly hidden it, by placing it
directly underneath the password field using the text "Forgot your password?"), and then eventually phoned the office and got
them to email me as well. I was at the NEC on the MMOC stand, supporting other people with their tech issues, and not by a computer. Not that that matters, as I don't ever remember promising a five minute response time anyway. Having been away, doing MMOC stuff, for the weekend, I thought I'd have a go at catching up admin stuff on Monday night. Until I got another email Monday afternoon in all capiltals, saying "NOT IMPRESSED AT ALL. FIX" Now, I dunno about you, but if that person had been saying that aloud to me, I'd have told them to go forth and multiply in rather robust terms. People like that, whether they're MMOC members or not, 'press my buttons'. In short, I don't like them.
Not that I'm pointing that at the thread starter, though, unless s/he recognises himself in the tirade above. I'm merely pointing out that (a) many times the board gets the blame when it ain't the boards fault, (b) even when it is the boards fault I'm doing all that the club give me the ability to do to put it right, and (c) being chief mod is about as carpy a job as I've ever had