Showdog.com Forum · Alpha Dog Forum

A couple of updates...

Outages

The outage last week happened while I was on a work trip filming in Tennessee and Louisiana. I didn't have the Windows laptop I use to remotely access the server because I stopped traveling with it about a year ago due to the extra weight and lack of need for it on trips.

I'll start bringing it with me again whenever I can. Even then, it's not a guaranteed solution. Whether I'm able to connect depends on the internet connection where I am and whether the local network/firewall allows remote access without bouncing my IP every minute.

There will be more outages in the future. I still don't know exactly what's causing the issue with the legacy ASP portions of the site. That codebase has officially reached end-of-life, and figuring out the backend issue is beyond me.

Forum Spam


I've added a check that automatically deletes any new forum topics created by users who don't own any dogs.

I wasn't able to get the check working reliably during the posting process itself, so instead a cleanup task runs every 15 minutes. That means spam topics may appear briefly, but they should be removed within 15 minutes or less. If someone continues posting spam, those posts will continue to be cleaned up on the same schedule.

Future

Over the past two years, in my spare time, I've been slowly working on SteerJock, a show cattle game.

One of the reasons I'm building it is that I'm using a much more modern foundation that could eventually serve as the basis for a completely new version of Showdog. That would make it possible to support mobile apps and a number of things that aren't practical with the current site.

There is absolutely no timeline for that. It's simply something I'm working on when I have free time.

When that day eventually comes, this version of Showdog will continue to run. It won't be shut down just because a newer version exists.

Refunds

If you need a refund for the remaining time on a subscription, please email jeff@cattle.com.

I managed to break something while moving admin@showdog.com over to Gmail, so messages sent there may not reach me reliably right now.

Thank you for the update Jeff. I know I, for one, will never leave so I really appreciate knowing ShowDog will be around for the duration. Sometimes we old-timers forget you have a life now...

Thank you, much appreciated

Thanks for the updates, Jeff, and for removing that awful spam.