CSN update

greta
greta Member Posts: 237

I apologize to everyone for not having communicated sooner. You have been more than patient under the circumstances.

At this point, all of the content that was missing following the upgrade has been restored with the exception of private messages. There has been an ongoing investigation for several weeks that has yielded variable findings. But to make a long story short, it appears that it will be possible to restore at least some messages. That is all that can be reported at the moment because the investigation is not finished. I just wanted to let you know that the level of effort being devoted to it has in no way diminished. It is well-understood how important the private messages are to you, and you can be assured that there is a strong commitment to reach the best possible outcome.

Another ongoing effort is improvement of site performance. The consensus seems to be that, overall, it is better now than it was prior to the upgrade. However, steps are being taken to further improve it in the next couple of weeks.

In the interim, other technical issues are being addressed as they are identified, and ways to improve responsiveness to technical concerns and better meet your needs in the future are being discussed. Additionally, we are planning a formal evaluation of CSN this year.

Thank you again for your patience.

Warmly,
Greta
(aka Your CSN staff)

p.s. The man in the picture is my father. He was in his late 70s when this photo was taken in a Texas cotton field.

Comments

  • lovesanimals
    lovesanimals Member Posts: 1,366 Member
    Hi Greta

    Thank you for the update about the private messages.  I'm finding, though, that it frequently takes a very long time to log onto the site and to open up posts.  I'm sure I'm not the only one having this problem.  It's frustrating for me and I also fear for the "newbies" who are seeking advice and support as they begin their journeys.  I'm hopeful though that you will be able to address this problem and make the necessary improvements.

    Kelly

    P.S.  That's a very nice picture of your father!

     

  • poopergirl14052
    poopergirl14052 Member Posts: 1,183 Member

    Hi Greta

    Thank you for the update about the private messages.  I'm finding, though, that it frequently takes a very long time to log onto the site and to open up posts.  I'm sure I'm not the only one having this problem.  It's frustrating for me and I also fear for the "newbies" who are seeking advice and support as they begin their journeys.  I'm hopeful though that you will be able to address this problem and make the necessary improvements.

    Kelly

    P.S.  That's a very nice picture of your father!

     

    We have been getting hacked

    By Coach purses and fashion designers,,they bring up old posts and try to sell. This is very painful as several of these ladies have passed......val

     

  • Alexandra
    Alexandra Member Posts: 1,308
    Thank you for the update Greta

    It is great news that work continues because site needs improvement. It is very slow, frequently freezes or goes down. Shortcuts are missing to add friends from their pictures. There is no option to delete your own posting, which creates numerous duplicates. I just went to your profile and unfriended "Greta" and "WebmasterS" - I should not be able to do that. Sorry, old hacking habits die hard. 

    Val - I hack for testing purposes only, I do not sell Coach purses. Those people don't hack, they create a new profile and comment on old posts with their spam. Usually it's the same person posting on different boards. There should be an automatic flag rejecting multiple identical postings like craigslist has.

     

     

  • ktamp
    ktamp Member Posts: 81
    I would love to see some improvement

    I find this site almost impossible to use and therefore I don't come here much and post.  Often I cannot log in or it takes so long to even get a page to load, that I give up.  It hasn't gotten better for me since the upgrade. 

  • greta
    greta Member Posts: 237
    Spammers

    The IT folks continue to work on solutions to deal with the various ways that spammers attack websites. I've been getting a real education about the damage they do. But the main thing I learned is that they sniff out new and upgraded sites as favorite targets. There are multiple reasons for this but to make a long story short, after all the initial fixes were made to the site, it was learned that CSN is under almost constant attack by spammers. These guys' sole objective is to lower its performance by having robots continuously tying up the site by repeatedly attempting to log in with bogus information. And the robots can do this with great rapidity. What they hope to get out it is a consultant gig to fix the problem they created. Then there are the spammers who post the ads and links. Their focus is getting as many impressions on the web as possible to elevate numbers and falsely inflate the keywords used. These people are hired by speculators who sell keywords. That's a very simplified explanation but if you want more info, visit the kidney cancer board where there was a very detailed conversation about it. 

    Bottom line, the IT folks continue to look for solutions and have implemented at least 4, so far, that are designed to minimize large scale spamming that ties the servers up (slows them down and makes it hard for legitimate members to access the site). We (IT, that is) are now in the midst of making another substantial change to improve site performance. So please hang in there. Everyone is working diligently to make things better. 

    Thank you again for your patience!

    Best,

    Greta

  • poopergirl14052
    poopergirl14052 Member Posts: 1,183 Member
    greta said:

    Spammers

    The IT folks continue to work on solutions to deal with the various ways that spammers attack websites. I've been getting a real education about the damage they do. But the main thing I learned is that they sniff out new and upgraded sites as favorite targets. There are multiple reasons for this but to make a long story short, after all the initial fixes were made to the site, it was learned that CSN is under almost constant attack by spammers. These guys' sole objective is to lower its performance by having robots continuously tying up the site by repeatedly attempting to log in with bogus information. And the robots can do this with great rapidity. What they hope to get out it is a consultant gig to fix the problem they created. Then there are the spammers who post the ads and links. Their focus is getting as many impressions on the web as possible to elevate numbers and falsely inflate the keywords used. These people are hired by speculators who sell keywords. That's a very simplified explanation but if you want more info, visit the kidney cancer board where there was a very detailed conversation about it. 

    Bottom line, the IT folks continue to look for solutions and have implemented at least 4, so far, that are designed to minimize large scale spamming that ties the servers up (slows them down and makes it hard for legitimate members to access the site). We (IT, that is) are now in the midst of making another substantial change to improve site performance. So please hang in there. Everyone is working diligently to make things better. 

    Thank you again for your patience!

    Best,

    Greta

    Thank you

    For looking into these problems. This site is very important to me and has helped through some tough times. I like the fonts and other options here....thanks again.....Val