Re: Re: An Open Letter to the Overrequester
 

Do I detect a little irony there Bob?

I wish this whole episode would go away very soon. It's leaving a very nasty taste. :(

Re: Re: Re: An Open Letter to the Overrequester
 

From someone who is indirectly affected by all of this

(this M!O!R!O!N! is spreading Mr. Lee too thin and I need him to get me up on the Moon correctly)

I could not agree with your statement more!

Re: Re: Re: An Open Letter to the Overrequester
 

How do you think I feel about this?

Roger -Dot- Lee, wishing for a permanent and irreversable failure of the internet to certain parts of the country.

Re: Re: Re: An Open Letter to the Overrequester
 

Excellent.

It's finally over.
 

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, and anyone that I happened to leave out unintentionally: it's finally over.

After struggling with web servers and other such nonsense in an attempt to put a halt to this while giving our favorite overrequester the opportunity to visit the rest of the site, I finally called out the Cavalry. With the help of our very own VAXMan, Our Favorite Overrequester has been permanently banned from the site. They can still tune into the station all they wish, but attempting to connect to the station (or, for that matter, send email to the station) will be met with an eerie silence.

(Email blocking is a regrettable side effect of the effort to put a stop to the overrequesting).

WARNING: HEAVY GEEK FACTOR BELOW. For the feint of heart, those with supressed constitutions or weak bladders, or anyone else who doesn't want to read it, move on. Nothing to see here.

You've been warned.

BEGIN HEAVY GEEK FACTOR

The suggestion given by VM was that we block them at the routing level. This has the effect of taking the packets that arrive from their network to be routed to a non-existent location. Thus, they can't connect. At all. Nada. None. This goes for port 80 (HTTP), port 25 (SMTP) and whatever else they may wish to try (that's not already handled by our firewall). Unbeknownst to me, they slipped in a 'reject' parameter into the routing tables. I was not aware that this existed in Linux (our host OS for the web site). I thought this was limited to SGI, Sun Solaris, and anything else that descended from the SVr4 code base. Score another one for Linux. You can't do that on Windows.

END HEAVY GEEK FACTOR. Thank you for your patience.

Anyway, one simple command to the routing interface by Yr. 'umble Narrator has left Our Favorite Overrequester unable to request. I have taken steps to assure that the new routing tables will survive a reboot.

I will, over the next few days, take the opportunity to return all of the songs I was forced to remove due to said overrequester to the station request rotation.

Thank you for your patience in this matter. Hopefully we will never have to endure another situation like this again.

Roger -Dot- Lee

PS: I was going to post the email thread between Our Favorite Overrequester and Jim, but the idea no longer amuses me. In fact, this entire episode sickens me. If someone is interested, they can either shoot me an email or post a request here. If I get a request or two, then I might post 'em. Otherwise, I think I'm going to let this die like the pox ridden cow it's become.

Re: It's finally over.
 

Let's move on. It's over. And I am profoundly sorry that this was one of the first things to happen after Davin handed Aural Moon over to me. I promise that Aural Moon will continue to be a POSITIVE place in the future - that's what brought me here in the first place, and what inspired loyalty in me.

Jim

After reading this entire thread I was exhaused....I just wanted to express my appreciation for all that jim and roger do to make this the best radio station on the net.

What is dedication but a sense of urgency....

Re: Re: It's finally over.
 

Amen to that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now let's look into getting back the people who can no longer participate in the day to day banter because of the demise of The Shout Box. For example jnighting, artboy, the spanish lads and Steady Stan and Artemis.

I know that there is a Bandwidth issue here but I'm wondering if this might not be as bad as it seems. The Black Box was taken away immediately after the 5th anniversary party during which it was, understandably, HAMMERED. The way I see it and the way people who have been affected by this have explained it to me (Yes, it's true...people do talk to me :) ) the problem arises in that the Chat Room is Too obtrusive for when they are in the office. It can get VERY busy and it's difficult to concentrate on work with all that activity going on. What they need is an area that they can look at occasionally and comment from time to time should they wish to do so.

If that area was away from the Home page and refreshed every 5-10 minutes (or some other convenient time period) and not every time someone posted, would that have a less harmful effect on the Bandwidth issue? I'm guessing that the code for the original Shout Box is still in the system somewhere and perhaps with a bit of tweaking from someone in the know could be adapted to work in a way that will suit both our beloved and much missed moonies and the Hosts.

As a matter of interest.............the "other chat room" that appears on the left hand side of the Home page has a lot of the attributes that are required here. Could THAT be adapted? It is less obtrusive, gives people the ability to say whether they're working, lurking, away from desk etc. I remember that there were issues with it but maybe a bit of tweaking could resolve those.

OK Boys and Girls, fire away with the "Dork" comments. :D I make no apology for posting this as I know it's something that people out there would like to see.

Re: Re: Re: It's finally over.
 

Dr. Dot rolls up his sleeves...

If I didn't make it clear, I'd like to now: this hasn't been one of my more pleasurable experiences with Aural Moon. I'm glad it's over. Now let us address Keithie's concern's regarding Shout:



A worthwhile task indeed...certainly more enjoyable than cleaning up after the subject of the recent ire around here.



Well, I personally don't KNOW precisely how much of an impact the shoutbox will have on our bandwidth usage, but I suspect it'll be fairly significant. Exactly HOW significant has yet to be seen.



(Emphasis changed to conform with quoting style sheet)

Yes, it would likely have a beneficial effect on bandwidth usage if we were to move it to a lighter page. However, I'm afraid that doing that will have a serious negative impact on the viability of the shoutbox. Part of the draw of the shoutbox is that it's there when you go to the main site. You can keep the site up, still keep in contact, and not have the SPChat window popping up on top of what you're trying to do. Updating it every 5-10 minutes might not be a bad idea, however...although it's mighty tough to keep even the most extended of real-time conversations going with that sort of delay.

It's a balancing act that would impress even the Flying Wallendas.



It's on our plate. It had to be pushed aside, however, due to more ... pressing matters.

Now I wouldn't do that. The only people that receive that sort of invective from me are maturational children that have a sense of entitlement that exceed the standard norms of civil society.

Roger -Dot- Lee

Oh, and one more thing...

All of the Flower Kings and Grendel by Marillion have been restored to the playlist. Subject to removal, as usual.

If I'm missing anything, let me know.

Roger -Dot- Lee, compassion toward my fellow man not covered by this statement.

Blue Shift - Rome
The Appleseed Cast - Blind Man's Arrow/Flower Falling From Dying Hands

I knew I could count on you, Spaz.

Restored.

Roger -Dot- Lee

The restoration of the Black Box is a very positive move and can only benefit the Aural Moon movement and postive vibes.

Thansk for Jim and Dot for that.

I don't think it's possible for me to agree more with that statement, Rogor. It CAN only benefit the Moon.

I just need to tune the system a little bit to adjust for the extra load.

Roger -Dot- Lee, one thing at a time...

The return of the shoutbox
 

gladdens my heart and reconnects me with my dear friends. The beauty of the shout is the short history it saves, allowing you to sense the day's vibe. It also allows the "theme of the day" request idea to work, if we're so inclined. Personally, the themes were one of my favorite aspects of the station, as it allowed the collective creativity of the listeners to shine. It also prompted people to pick unfamiliar songs, just to fit the theme.

Thank you Roger & Vax for using the simplest & most effective way of combatting the over-requesting situation (i.e., ban the problem child). It seemed to start on the heels of the 5th Anniversary party. I often wondered if it was a jealous competitor that was the guilty party. No evidence, just a thought.

See everyone in the shout! :) :cool: :p

Re: The return of the shoutbox
 

;) Pays to have a geek or two around once in a while.

Re: Re: The return of the shoutbox
 

This is most assuradly true.

And ya know...

For our efforts, we should get at LEAST TWO gripe free geek-out sessions.

It's the least they could do. :p

Roger -Dot- Lee, like that's ever stopped us...

black box
 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart dotman, and KW for asking the question. It is glorious to have the BB back, for all the reasons mentioned above. I think it's the largest part of what makes AM 'family'; let's us all stay in touch, kinda like grooming in apes :)

your bugs....
 

taste better than mine!

Coming into the discussion late...
 

Just like to say THANKS to Roger for taking the time to address this issue. Lots of good ideas are floating around. Here's hoping whichever solution eventually chosen (if any) is easily implemented.
For myself, I will be happy when the AM station folks are happy.
With over 12000 songs to hear, and normally roughly an hour or so after requesting until it plays, I can't imagine wasting a request on one that's already known to me...
Go figure.