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Armorama Contributors Forum: an explanation
staff_Jim
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New Hampshire, United States
Joined: December 15, 2001
KitMaker: 12,571 posts
Armorama: 6,599 posts
Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 - 02:31 PM UTC
For those of you who have read or seen topics for the new Armorama Contributors Forum, I wanted to post the same message here (by way of an explanation) that I just posted in that forum as a welcome for those people who can read/post in that forum.


Quoted Text


Greetings all those who can read this message. If you can read this message you can post in this forum as well. If you can read this message it *should* mean that you have been selected by an automated process on the server because you have submitted or had published a review or written feature on Armorama in the past year. There are about 80 or so people that qualified for the requirements.

Uses for this forum:

1. A conduit for passing review samples to those interested and qualified who have provided reviews/feature content in the past.

2. A somewhat more private means of communicating your feedback and ideas about the process and how we can improve it.

3. A way of communicating with editors about your submissions.

The obvious side benefit is that you others can share in the exchange of information about submissions and also we don't spoil any surprises for an upcoming feature or review by discussing it fully in the open.

The credit for this forum goes to Bill Plunk, who will I am sure have more to say about how we can best use it.

Please keep in mind that the ONLY people who can see this forum are those who contribute. That includes staff members. If someone for any reason is unable or unwilling to contribute on a regular basis they will no longer have access to this forum and be designated as an Armorama Contributor in your profile (more work to do on this yet though).

It's an automated process and will reset every 10 days.

Thanks,
Jim



We are hopeful that his new forum can help us continue to build on this site and hopefully make it even better. If you are interested in becoming a contributor it's easy. Just submit a written feature or review to us via the reviews online form, email, or the Network Resolution Center ( http://support.kitmaker.net ). If it is published (80-90% are) then you will automatically be added to the contributors group the next time the script is run on the server.

If you have questions please post them here.

Best wishes,
Jim
Tarok
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Victoria, Australia
Joined: July 28, 2004
KitMaker: 10,889 posts
Armorama: 3,245 posts
Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 - 05:27 PM UTC
Hi Jim,

Just wanting clarity on the criterion for access to the DG...

1. So basically a member has access to the AA Contributors DG for the 10 days following the publication of their article? Or is it 10 days following the submission of their article (regardless of method)?
2. If a member publishes/submits (depending on 1 above) within the 10 day period above they have 10 days added to the above 10 days (i.e. it's cumulative)? Or is the remaining (uncompleted) days of the period forfieted and the new 10 day period initiated?


Sorry to ask these questions... my analyst curiosity is just getting the better of me

Rudi
staff_Jim
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New Hampshire, United States
Joined: December 15, 2001
KitMaker: 12,571 posts
Armorama: 6,599 posts
Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 - 08:01 PM UTC
Rudi,
As I could have been more clear I am glad you asked. The criteria for being a member of the 'contributor group' (for Armorama) is that you have published a least one review or written feature (not an on-display) in the past 365 days.

The "10 days" is simply the time period for the script to re-run, re-calculating who meets the criteria, dumping all the existing group members from the group and readding back the ones that met the criteria above.

It's not complicated or anything.

Jim
Tarok
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Victoria, Australia
Joined: July 28, 2004
KitMaker: 10,889 posts
Armorama: 3,245 posts
Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 - 08:11 PM UTC
Thanks Jim.

Another question (there's a shocker ): Do you envisage rolling this out to all the KitMaker sites at a later stage? Is this a pilot project?

Hope I'm not asking you to reveal too much of the strategic plan...


Quoted Text

It's not complicated or anything.



Well... you know us business analysts... we try to make everything complicated

Rudi
AlanL
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England - East Anglia, United Kingdom
Joined: August 12, 2005
KitMaker: 14,499 posts
Armorama: 11,675 posts
Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 - 08:32 PM UTC
Hi Guys,

Must have missed the original post. This would seem like a good idea to broaden communication between the more regular contributiors.

On the subject of reviews; I did a number of book reviews for the site which ended about a year/18 months ago when I sort of fell out of favour with the supplier (since moved on to other things) lol, lol. However, if you need an extra pair of hands then I'm still around and happy to contribute where I can. I don't really have good enough indoor photo facilities for build reviews, something I must try and sort out with one of those photo tents I keep reading about.

Interesting development.

Cheers

Al
jba
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Rhone, France
Joined: November 04, 2005
KitMaker: 1,845 posts
Armorama: 777 posts
Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 - 10:27 PM UTC

Quoted Text

the ONLY people who can see this forum are those who contribute.



very well, then what about *hiding* those forum entries from non contributors so that we don't click on some links on the "latest post" page that actually lead nowhere?

staff_Jim
Staff MemberPublisher
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New Hampshire, United States
Joined: December 15, 2001
KitMaker: 12,571 posts
Armorama: 6,599 posts
Posted: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 03:53 AM UTC
JB,
I can try doing that with some javascript and cookie data on the page I suppose. But keep in mind the "All" latest post page is cached so everyone sees the same thing at this stage. Thus the reason I want to start doing all that data with XML and a client-side sorting, etc.

Cheers,
Jim
jimbrae
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Provincia de Lugo, Spain / España
Joined: April 23, 2003
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Posted: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 03:55 AM UTC

Quoted Text

very well, then what about *hiding* those forum entries from non contributors so that we don't click on some links on the "latest post" page that actually lead nowhere?



Alternatively, contribute to the best of one's ability - that should avoid those annoying 'dead-ends'...
jba
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Rhone, France
Joined: November 04, 2005
KitMaker: 1,845 posts
Armorama: 777 posts
Posted: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 04:30 AM UTC

Quoted Text

JB,
I can try doing that with some javascript and cookie data on the page I suppose. But keep in mind the "All" latest post page is cached so everyone sees the same thing at this stage. Thus the reason I want to start doing all that data with XML and a client-side sorting, etc.

Cheers,
Jim



This XML thing will be most welcomed indeed from my end -I was asking this merely because there is a "staff" forum and nobody can see the threads in the staff forum. And yet I know these could visible because once those posts appeared in the list! (no doubt a momentary mistake)


Quoted Text

Alternatively, contribute to the best of one's ability - that should avoid those annoying 'dead-ends'...



It sure might work for some people which is a good thing actually
- for me I have been writing a few articles here, but on HF Modelling, not on Armorama!
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