I have implemented several website performance upgrades this week. Please let me know if you see anything weird with the site.
From a technical perspective, we started storing a copy of critical files and images on servers around the globe. So, instead of every image request going to New York, most images will come from a server near you. We have positioned image content on New York, LA, London, Falkenstein, and Sydney servers.
It will take a couple of weeks for all the images to be loaded on the various servers.
For our Windows desktop users, there is a really neat feature. In the URL bar, you will see the following icons:
Chrome:
Edge:
When you click on this image, the browser will repackage Lotuselan.net to an app on your desktop. It is a pretty nifty little feature.
I will also point out two additional features. Look for this in the bottom of the left sidebar menu:
The little icon that looks like an abacus allows you to change how tight the text is on the website. Currently, everyone is on Default. I run on the Cozy setting.
A little keyboard will show you the keyboard commands to navigate the site. You can do almost everything with keystrokes.
Scammers and Bots Concern:
Every new user’s posts are reviewed for potential issues. I have done this for the last 10+ years. On a given week, I delete 3 to 5 new user request posts due to spam and potential scammers.
Our first parts scammer broke through the system in the last few years. It was a person, not a bot. The person’s intro post was suspected but covered the basics I require for initial posts. The person started sending PMs to people requesting they contact someone to get the needed part. The account was promptly deleted within 12 hours of the incident. (The person sent out about 20 PMs, each manually sent.)
You evaluate the risk with all online scamming activities. LotusElan.net is a low-probability target. We are a small forum with a limited parts market. There needs to be more money for someone to create and send a bot our way. For example, I belong to one Porsche forum with over 330,000 members. We have 3,000 total members. If you look at active members, we have about 1,200 over the last year. There are not enough potential victims on LotusElan.net to make it worthwhile.
In a couple of days, the “bot hysteria” being frothed by a couple of members will die down. We could create a new term called botialism. It is a type of “ism” where ordinary people are accused of sounding like a bot due to quickly written posts.
If any “others who have been scammed” exist, please send me a private message. I don’t know about any such users on LotusElan.net.
I am returning my attention to being on Holiday and being a pa-pa to my grandkids. Four generations will be under one roof for Thanksgiving for the first time in many years.
If you need anything, email me or send me a private message.
jeff
The following post was created by a human with assistance from an AI tool called Grammarly. Grammarly gave it a thumbs up, except for the word “botialism”. It does not like this word.
Thanks again for all the effort you are putting in to keep the forum going and to update it. This is the only forum I read everyday, and the only forum I bother to post on. It is an invaluable source of information, and is the first place I go to for advice and help.
The new format has taken some getting used to, but now I have the hang of it, it is clearly much better.
A member was suspended today for violating the commercial posting rules.
The member has been warned on multiple occasions
The member was given opportunities to become a sponsor and declined
As a reminder, we do not allow commercial postings.
We allow cottage products by our members to be posted. If you are a member who has built a one-off product and is doing small manufacturing runs to sell to other members. Please list your products here: Member DIY Products
We allow customer testimonials. The testimonial can not be incentivized or paid for by the business you are telling others about.
If you are a business that wants to advertise and sell products here, then help pay the bills.
The member was suspended again today. As soon as the suspension was completed, the first post back was a commercial post. The member even specifically called out in their post it was a commercial oriented post.
We recently upgraded the system to support a rich text editor. The current editor has an edit pane and a viewing pane. This allowed you to edit and view your work in real-time.
The new editor is a rich text editor, so you can type and see everything in one pane.
To activate the rich text editor, click on the slider in the upper left corner of the editing pane.
which particular comment this time.
