Big changes to 5MD and 5MSV

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Yeah, I must have missed that setting. The system is sound; it's the users who are trouble.

[Scooter]

This is a very interesting idea. I may do something similar for 5MDW. Many more episodes to call...

[Derek]

Hopefully everyone who has had a long-standing claim on a DS9 episode has been emailed regarding its due date. As the email says, this is not a hard and fast rule, you can easily renew your called fiver, it's just a reminder that you have it out.

[Nate the Great]

I'm just curious as to what we do once we submit a fiver through the system. Are there e-mails to confirm submission? Is there a standard lag time we should expect before a response? I'm just asking because I submitted a draft of a DS9 fiver weeks ago and I've heard nothing. I don't know if it ever got anywhere, if you took one look and said "this is garbage," or what.

[Derek]

If you draft it online, save it, and submit it, you'll get an email confirmation saying that you did so. Then I review it (or Sa'ar will if B5), and email you back some correspondence on the fiver including a list of possible changes. Changes are made, fiver is accepted and passed on to Zeke for publication. When the section head decides to pass it on to Zeke, you will similarly get an email notification.

In your case, it appears that you have only called a fiver. You have not drafted it or submitted it to me, hence my lack of response. If something's gone wrong, email me and let me know.

[Nate the Great]

Oh, save THEN submit. That explains why the field is still blank when I come back to it. I just cut and pasted into the box and clicked submit.

[PointyHairedJedi]

It turns out that I ahve no idea what my password for the page is. After I went there last I found I was logged in (as I presume a result of Derek's tinkering to make it work properly for me), but now that my cookies have been cleaned out I can't access it again. Could I possibly get the password PMed or e-mailed to me?

[Zeke]

Your password is "0b1wanb3rt." Don't tell nobody. Spread the word.

[PointyHairedJedi]

That took about three seconds longer than it should have to get.

PHJ: 1, Zeke: 6774823.9

I'll catch you up one of these days.

[Derek]

I've made a few changes to the system. Most are minor or transparent to the end user, but I figured I'd document a few of the exciting ones:

1. Now when you sort your personal page by column, it's remembered. So if you prefer it sorted by series instead of the default (date called), then once you click it, it will remember it.

2. On the Settings page, you can now choose one of two stylesheets for the site. The first is the Default that the site is already colored. The second is called "5M.net" and it's my best attempt at trying to color everything the way the site colors stuff (red, black and gray).

3. I've made the 5m.net-style stats page publicly available, with the exception that any fiver that doesn't have a published date assigned to it won't be seen publicly. So now if people want to see my stats according to my own site (only covering 5MD, 5MSV, and 5MB5), they can click: http://dadean.org/Fivers/stats.jsp?author=Derek. Anyone else who'd like to publicize his or her stats just needs to replace Derek with his or her own alias according to the site (alias being your login name).

[Zeke]

Oho! Interesting timing -- for some time now I've had the idea of semi-automating the stats pages in the back of my mind. (This of course is fully automatic, which would be even better except that not every subsite is covered.) I'll take this as a nudge in that direction, along with your recent 94th-fiver comment.

[Derek]

I've made a few more revisions to the site.

1. I've loaded other subsites into my system in a private capacity. You can't call fivers from these subsites, but your stats on the stats page will now show them. Check out http://dadean.org/Fivers/stats.jsp?author=Derek for an example. You'll notice that 5MNG, 5MST, etc are listed in my stats. Not every subsite is loaded, but many are.

One benefit of this is that even if you've never used my site or written for 5MD, 5MDW, 5MB5, or 5MSV, you could have a stats page there. Just replace the name "Derek" above with your 5M.net name and you should see some or all of your stats.

A few examples:
FatMat: http://dadean.org/Fivers/stats.jsp?author=FatMatDuhRat
catalina marina: http://dadean.org/Fivers/stats.jsp?a...alina%20marina
Sa'ar: http://dadean.org/Fivers/stats.jsp?a...a%27ar%20Chasm

2. Also related to the stats page, you'll notice that the fiver names are now links to the fiver. I'm not sure if putting them in was a good idea since the site uses a "best guess" strategy on trying to figure out 5M.net's links, and if it guesses wrong, then you get that wonderful 5M.net error page that never ends. (For example, Generations from my stats page above will cause such an error.) For the most part though the site guesses right, so I've left it in. If people think this is a bad addition, let me know.

(For the curious, I construct the link by taking the episode name, converting it to lowercase, and then applying s/\W//g.)

3. I've made a few enhancements to the 5M.net skin, but it looks like no one really uses it, so maybe no one will care much about that.

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Derek

3. I've made a few enhancements to the 5M.net skin, but it looks like no one really uses it, so maybe no one will care much about that.

What's the menu name of said skin? I currently show only two options -- should there be more?

[Derek]

The 5M.net skin is called "5M.net". If you're logged into the site, click "Settings" and at the bottom, you'll see a drop down list called "Stylesheet" with two options: Defaut and 5M.net. Default is the light colors on a white background. 5M.net is the red, white, and gray scheme on a black background that's at least a little reminiscent of 5M.net.

Also, anyone who wants to preview the other skin can see it in Firefox by choosing View > Use Style > 5M.net. But that change doesn't persist, whereas the first way will.

If I were a better CSS artist, I'd have more skins for the site, and the ones I have would look cooler.

[PointyHairedJedi]

I was gonna say "We're geeks, we don't get to say 'cool'", but then I noticed that you used a somewhat nerdly term earlier in the sentence which makes the whole thing okay.

Yes, sometimes I read sentences back to front. Wanna make something of it?

(Don't blame me, blame the translated Nausciaa manga - I now want to read everything from right to left, for some reason.)

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by PointyHairedJedi

I was gonna say "We're geeks"

Speak for yourself :P

[PointyHairedJedi]

Hmmmmmmmm...

No, I don't think I will. Sure, you cause less wars that way, but where's the fun in that?

[Chancellor Valium]

Always with the smart answers :P

[PointyHairedJedi]

What other kind of answers would a smart person give, though?

ZIING!

(The extra "I" means it has extra zing.)

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by PointyHairedJedi

What other kind of answers would a smart person give, though?

ZIING!

(The extra "I" means it has extra zing.)

The type which doesn't get them hurt, naturally

ZOONG!

(The extra 'O' means it has an "ooh" sound.)