Seiko 7A38 - by the numbers

Seiko7A38 at July 9, 2018 at 9:37 AM

An interesting post was added to the Webs Community (Total Lack of) Support topic this afternoon by another beleaguered website owner.

I'm sure I've tried this before with a couple of failed potential new members. I don't need to do the first part, because I already have your email addresses from the contact form messages. So later this afternoon, I'm going to try sending out some more invitations. Fingers crossed. 

O.K. So that worked after a fashion, but was a bit long-winded and involved rather more manual intervention on my part. But it did work - and this afternoon we were joined by our first new member in over 3 months - MarkH. 

To help document the process, I'm going to cheat by copying verbatim from one of Mark's emails earlier this afternoon. I'm sure he won't mind. 

I got the invitation. From the link it loaded a page and immediately redirected me to a registration page. That page failed with the capture message.

However, I then went to the sign in page and I get a message "Your membership is currently pending approval." Perhaps there's something in the Webs control panel you can see for that.

There is indeed, as Mark wrote. But because you're not signed in (yet), you don't necessarily show at the top of the Control Panel Members page (nor oddly under members waiting approval) where you would have done under the old system. So I first have to search for you to approve your membership. 

Hello.

I have provisionally approved your membership.

Please complete your profile fully, including location.

When I see you've done that, I'll upgrade your access level.

Regards, Paul.

The other thing that's different about this approach is that it automatically fills the Username field with your email address. Which is not a good thing. That's the first thing you need to change.

Once you've completed the profile stage, you will appear on the forum as a 'Limited' member. If I'm happy that you've completed your profile properly, then I'll approve you as a 'Full' member. If, in the event you subsequently fail to complete your profile properly, I'll send a couple of reminders, then delete any incomplete registration after a week.

One other thing I noticed, even after Mark had completed his profile and been fully approved, he still didn't show as ever having signed in on the Control Panel, nor on the top line of the Forum Member's page. So I suggested to him that he logged out and signed back in again. That did the trick ! 

Over the last two weeks or so, I have successfully managed to add 10 more new members to the site, using this rather long-winded 'workaround' method - taking our 'bottom line' number from 1013 to 1023. I did send emails out to everybody I'd mentioned on the previous page, asking if they were still interested in joining the forum. Not everybody responded, so I haven't followed up with them. One person, who shall remain nameless, was more interested in watching Football on TV (it was during the World Cup England vs Croatia semi-final, I concede) to commit to giving me 10 minutes of his undivided attention. So he got a very short sharp reply. A couple of our new members absolutely sailed through the process in a matter of minutes. Others, who were clearly less IT savvy, struggled - one took a couple of days and a lot of frustrating effort on my part, but we got there in the end. 

Admittedly I hadn't previously posted the full 'workaround' joining process, which probably didn't help matters. As I wrote before, it does work, but you really do need to follow my instructions to the letter.

Someone (in response to Paul Grogan's post) did write up the process here in the Webs Community (TOTAL LACK OF) Support topic.

We're basically using it as above from point 4) onwards. The one important thing that Paolo omitted - is by joining this way (I make no apologies for the re-post) .....

The other thing that's different about this approach is that it automatically fills the Username field with your email address. Which is not a good thing. That's the first thing you need to change.

Plus, on this site, where we've always had a manual two-stage member application / vetting process (principally to keep out spammers), you won't automatically be granted full membership status until your profile has been properly completed.

Anyway, what prompted this update, was that this morning I received yet another message through the website contact form. It's the first I've seen in a week or two.

I'm going to send Rens the initial invite and go for a ciggy and cup of coffee ....

A few packets of cigarettes, dozens of cups of coffee and nearly a week later, potential new member Rens has still not joined us. For reasons known only to him, he didn't get around to replying to my initial invitation until this morning. It appears that in the interim, Webs have managed to break something else. 

After I approved his initial application, I went to send him the second stage ....

The invitation (for passwordless members) to create a profile. But I couldn't.

Here's a screen print of the comment I've left on the Community Support topic:

What this means of course, is that not just Rens, but no other new members are now able to join the forum - until Webs eventually decide to fix something.

Yesterday, I received another plaintive message through the website contact form from Norm. I didn't reply to it, for the simple reason I didn't know what to say to him.

There's not even any point in my sending him the 'initial invitation', now that Webs have managed to break the 'workaround' process. 

I looked at his message again this afternoon and thought I ought to reply, if only to apologise for not being able to help him. At that moment a new email arrived in my inbox - from Webs !!

Finally, a week after I raised the call (on 30th July) I've got an acknowledgment !

I love the 'working assiduously' bit.  Personally I'm not holding my breath ! 

This afternoon, I received yet another message from an unsuccessful applicant, through the website contact form. This one asked a rather pertinent question:

Closed officially ? No.  Sadly just broken until further notice. Sorry, Doug. 

According to the most recent posts in the Webs (TOTAL LACK OF) Community Support topic, the mis-matched (non-functioning outdated V1) Captcha issue, preventing new members from joining the forum has allegedly finally been fixed.

http://support.webs.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360003859271-Oops-You-missed-something-captcha-error-when-signing-up-or-logging-in-on-the-Webs-Members-app-DG-21691?page=4#comments

There has as yet been no official statement from Webs that it actually has been. 

Oddly enough, yesterday evening I received a rather confused email from a Webs Tech Support operative - Eric.

It implies that the 'Oops' error (which had been preventing new members from registering) has been fixed, but if you look at the message title, that refers to the problem of unnecessary Captcha challenges when posting / editing. That issue certainly hasn't been fixed. I've had to complete half a dozen while creating / editing this post !! 

Perhaps that 'unofficial' announcement / rumour of a fix was a bit premature. Because based on it, I'd emailed a couple of recently unsuccessful applicants and asked them to try registering again. No great surpise when both came back and said they were still getting the 'Oops' error.

This afternoon I received a confident sounding email from Webs Tech Support:

That would appear (for a change) to have a ring of truth to, it, because yesterday morning, I received my first email notification from Webs in the last six months, of a new member joining the site !!

I've approved his application, but as yet he hasn't created a member profile.

Well, after 6 months, we've finally made a little progress - I think. 

The above member who applied to join the site a couple of days ago, still hasn't managed to complete a profile. However, in the interim, two other people, that I'd been in correspondence with: 'DaveT' and 'Lolo*' have successfully joined and completed their profiles. Both of them registered themselves, meaning the 'Oops' Captcha bug is fixed and completed their profiles unassisted, without me sending them the link from the Control Panel Members app (because that's still broken). 

There are other bugs in the Members app besides, as I found to my annoyance this morning ! 

Two I already knew about. This one's new. When I approved their membership, both 'DaveT' and 'Lolo*' immediately showed as (full) Members. Which is odd, because I still have that two-stage approval process in place, where, any new member joining the forum, initially defaults to 'Limited'. I thought no more of it. This morning, having completed their profiles, both 'Dave T' and 'Lolo' showed up on the members list - but as 'Limited' - as I would expect.  So I go to the Control Panel Members app and select 'Member' from the pull-down, against their names. Click 'Finished' - screen refreshes and nothing changes !!! 

*Edit: 'Lolo' has since changed his username to 'Speedtimer'. 

My apologies on behalf of our Webs host - to those members like the two above who still remain on 'Limited' membership status after a week - and also to those potential new members whose pending applications I have effectively put 'on hold'. I am still experiencing all kinds of problems with incorrect or total non-functionality in the Control Panel Members app.

Later the same day I'd made my previous post, I received this email notification of a new message in the Webs Community (TOTAL LACK OF) Support Forum:

That was followed the next day, by yet another message via the website contact form from what might at first appear to be another unsuccessful applicant.

Guess what ? John H isn't among the current pending member applications !! Neither have I approved nor declined an application from his email address (trust me - I'd remember). So what gives now ?

Latest update from another Webs forum owner - posted about 15 minutes ago. 

I'm not sure I can believe my eyes.  Webs appear to have finally fixed some (if not all) of the various bugs in the forum's Control Panel Members App. My post dated 30th July refers. This morning, prompted by a 'chaser' from one of them, I decided I ought to accept the 4 pending new member applications, notifications of which had arrived in my email inbox earlier this week. Despite the fact that in recent months, actually getting them onboard has usually required lots of manual intervention on my part.  When I came to send out the second stage of the invitation (to passwordless members, including a link inviting them to complete a profile) - it wasn't greyed out this time and actually appears to have worked !!

There was also the other ongoing issue, referred to in my penultimate post (dated 8th October) where for months, I'd been unable to upgrade newly joined members from the 'Limited' (default) status to (full) 'Member'. My apologies to the 15 of you who'd been left hanging in that manner. I've just belatedly upgraded you all.

At lunchtime today, I sent out (via Webs) a standard 'Complete Your Membership' (invitation to complete a profile) to 10 potential new members. 4 of them are new applications from earlier this week; the other 6 were incomplete members who still haven't created a profile (a couple from literally months ago). Apparently, the message did go out this time. So far, only one person has joined successfully.

I should have known better than expect Webs to have fixed something properly. 

Jeremy kindly emailed me back:

Clicking on the second link in Jeremy's invitation email (which will be slightly different for everybody) does indeed return a HTTP # 404 error.

It's due to a bad URL link, which includes some pretty obvious duplication:

https://www.seiko7a38.com/https://www.seiko7a38.com/apps/profile/noProfileForm

It should correctly read: https://www.seiko7a38.com/apps/profile/noProfileForm

I've raised a call on Webs Tech Support. Let's see how long it takes them to fix.

Seiko7A38 at April 12, 2018 at 5:07 AM

This morning I received another message (the 4th) through the contact form, from someone else who has been trying to register on the forum. Although Dempsey doesn't actually cite the Captcha issue, I think it's fairly safe to assume it's the same problem that's preventing him from completing his application.

Talk about irony. That prospective new member 'Dempsey' who unsuccessfully attempted to register on the forum back in April 2018, during the long-running Webs (expired V1) Captcha problem turns out to be none other than Dempsey W***** ....

.... a.k.a. deranged, embittered (and banned) eBayer aussiewatches who from mid-February 2019 through to the beginning of July this year, conducted a one-man hate campaign against myself and this forum, by creating dozens of abusive and fraudulent eBay listings for Seiko 7A38's, using other people's (including my own) stolen photos, the majority of which he lifted from the pages of this forum.

All online evidence of those bogus listings have since been removed by eBay, but here's a typical example of how they looked - usually with ridiculous 'pie-in-the-sky' Buy-it-Now prices, typically ending in 9.95.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123733470850

And an earlier version of his eBay profile, showing his own well-worn example:

Later revised by brazenly stealing the banner from this website:

.... and subsequently permanently banned by eBay Trust & Safety on 2nd July:

In the latter stages of his campaign, in an effort to draw more attention to his hate fueled diatribes, he even changed that eBay ID to seiko7a38forum. 

Note the eerily creepy first sentence of his Webs contact form message:

Hello, firstly I really like your work here, it is incredibly comprehensive.

Not knowing who he was at the time, I inadvertently sent him a follow-up email on 10th July 2018, informing him we'd found a workaraound for the bug, inviting him to attempt to re-register. Thankfully, he doesn't appear to have taken me up on it. For the record, here's a less expurgated version of his contact form message: