Administrative note: This is a double wide issue due to my deciding to take the last deadline off for personal reasons. Some of the information in here is about a month old, but I have included it just in case anyone has been awaiting this publication. Feedback is still ironing out a few bugs and trying to keep things rolling, so if you submitted feedback, and it hasn?t appeared here, or you haven?t been contacted, be sure to contact Cpt Roguefighter.
Forum Feedback
S: I was wondering:
#1 if I can get a little feedback for myself if this has helped the moderators with link post/deletion on public forum
#2 Can it please be changed to: Wanna share a link? Add it to the Red-Library! Or: Wanna share a link? Add it to CAs Search Engine! Instead of: Wanna share a link? Add it to the RedLib!
R: This has been fixed.
S: I've been looking at people's signatures and was wondering if part of the signature such as current brigade could be automated? I keep seeing incorrect information displayed in the signatures. Ex. someone changes brigades and forgets to update their signature. I think maybe adding a $currentbrigade or similar feature would work
R: The staff feeling is that signatures are an individual feature which does not belong to the site itself and therefore should be taken care of/ updated by each individual member himself. You can check an individuals profile by going to /~nickname to get the correct information.
S: I think that either changing forums to allow sticky notes, or altering our current forums to allow them would help immensely in fighting the guest hacking questions. having a bolded READ BEFORE YOU POST ANYTHING sticky at the top of the forum saying the don't ask about hacking, etc.
R: The "sticky" posts on forums are coming in the next major version of the ca site (Dinah 0.6).
S: I thought it would be a good idea to create a function how normal CyberArmy members could moderate the boards. This could be combined with the rating function which is being developed afaik. A very bad rating after 10 users have rated it would effect a that the post would be moved to another forum or getting deleted. This way could malicious posts removed when no moderators are around. It can also help to decrease the workload of the moderators.
R: Staff currently doesn't favour implementing the option for "removing" posts in this manner. However, rating posts is in the works. The Staff feeling is, that mod is a pretty good team of folks who keep the forums clean and that there haven't been any issues with this which would suggest they can't handle the work.
S: I asked about a search engine for the CA forums a while ago (almost a year I think) and I was told it would be happening soon. A search engine is a VERY necessary, useful feature, and is fairly easy to code. I would like to see one soon and am even willing to code the thing myself. Thing at all the redundant posts, that have the same question asked OVER and OVER. I really think that a search engine for the forums not only would make the CA forums a much better place, but would also save a bit of bandwidth.
R: all forums have an optional search feature but most (if not all) forum administrators choose to not use this function because its very touch on server performance. For that reason it will never be set up on the high-traffic forums (like public, brigades, recruiting). It is however possible for the forum admins to set it up on the smaller forums (like SAS, CSA). I hope this answers your question.
S: I was curious as to why you guys use the current forum, it seems a bit confusing and very hard to deal with. Personally, on my website, I use invision board...it's free, pretty simple to setup and very nice to work with. I just thought I'd bring it to your attention, hope it helps.
R: Right now as the system goes the current forum program meets our needs, and the majority of coding that goes into it is custom to CA (at least that?s how I understand it). Otherwise if we happen to change the system, staff will keep your suggestion in mind.
Mission Feedback
S: I have spoken with people who intentionally do not vote on missions BECAUSE it has the potential of being rigged. I believe that fixing this, will not only make it a more fair vote, but also increase the amount of voters. CA Missions are not secure. Clearing your cache/cookies, and reconnecting to the Internet allows you to cast another vote. You can keep doing this as long as you want to keep reconnecting and clearing cache/cookies
R: Firstly, this is known publicly - and was discussed in the staff and RR channels publicly when we first decided to bring in these temporary mission scripts. We discussed the pro's and con's of protecting completions/votes and came to decision on how to handle it. We do not ask users to login before voting on CA missions...even though this is pretty much the only way we can stop multiple voting. The reason we chose not to ask people to login was because it was strongly felt it affect the number of people choosing to propose/complete missions. At present mission completions are just about ok, and proposal ratio's are low - asking people to actually login as well, would only decrease the number of people participating in missions...the more work it is, the less people will do it - it's sad but true.
The completions/proposals *do* log IP to avoid multiple votes from the same IP, but obviously anyone with dialup can simply reconnect and vote again (or use proxies) - but every vote is logged in the mysql db and is shown to us via log scripts our end. We monitor these logs, along with the IP's that voted/completed, and the dates/times - proposals do not automatically become missions when they pass, they are simply queued - which gives us the time to investigate the voting for misuse. If we see suspicious IP's, or the same ISP voting repeatedly, or dates/ times that look suspicious - we remove the votes/completions.
We have the IP protection, we have the cookie protection - but as anyone knows, you can simply clear cookies and easily change your IP...not much we can do, and I mentioned why the login is not required. The important thing to remember here is that these scripts are a temporary solution - they are not intended to be the fool-proof CA mission solution, they are simply so that we actually have some work for the brigade! The real CA mission scripts are on their way along with the new CA site, and those will obviously require you to be logged into CA...removing this problem.
S: Considering the Ideals Forum is a Public one and CA/RR Missions can only be accessible by members (unless they wander themselves down the line to RR site) and are virtually blind to the public. Can a Link to the Missions Script be added the same way it appears on MyOffice? It would shed a bit of lime light That this is what CA considers as its Ideals?
R: Done.
cMS Feedback
S: Perhaps it would be a lot easier to use radio buttons next to the cMS's listed in /office/ and have a "delete selected" option?
R: Coming out in Dinah 0.6.
Brigade Feedback
S: The brigade links need to be updated here: http://www.cyberarmy.com/forum/members01/messages/122592.html
CASR and CIA are no longer and CSA and Morale are missing ;)
R: The site admins have been advised of this. It?s just a matter of time before they get around to fixing it.
S: How can I find out which brigade that suits me? I?m not a programmer, though I want to learn, and I?m not very experienced in firewalls and such, even though I completed the mission to learn about them. But still I want to feel like I?m doing something important, how can I help?
R: Please post a list of your skills and interests in the brigade recruitment forum located here: http:// www.cyberarmy.com/forum/recruit/. You are very likely to receive a lot of suggestions from C/O's in need of additional help. I would advice you to wait for a few different offers, consider all of them and then go ahead with the one you like best.
You can join #recruiting on irc.cyberarmy.com as well if you do not receive any offers you like on the forum.
S: Perhaps show the number of people who want to join the brigade under my office for C/O's and X/O's
R: Dinah 0.6 (the next major version of the ca site) will move the "number of new cMS" to the header. As far as getting a cMS that someone has joined a queue, the idea has been submitted in the past and the feeling is that currently, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. So it is unlikely that this feature will be added.
S: Wouldn't it be easier to allow a C/O to change their brigade description? I REALLY think this should be allowed and I will list why.
1) Obviously if the person is the C/O of a brigade they are trusted, and will probably not write something immature in there just to be an ass.
2) It is a hell of a lot easier, and more accurate if the C/O writes the description of the brigade, as they know better than ANYONE what their brigade is all about.
3) If the C/O wants to change the description they have to bug the C/O's and X/O's of the top level brigade just to do something as petty as change a title. This I?m sure bugs the ***** out of the top level staff in the brigade, as well as the C/O of the brigade wishing to change the description. Not to mention is counter productive.
I see NOOOOOOO reason why this is the way this is. I would like to see it changed, and would like to hear back on this. And if this is not gonna be changed I would like a very precise and detailed explanation as to why. Thanks for reading guys
R: The group C/Os can't change the description/titles of their groups because of the security problems that could arise from it. The balance between security and inconvenience definitely goes to security is this case. The Brigade Descriptions are public information. In order to preserve checks and balances, a senior C/O or X/O will review the material, thus preventing an individual from updating his/her own "group" description. I hope this answers your question.
S: A brigade to do services for other CA brigades. examples would be: recruiting, web-design, gfx
R: Basically this has all been considered in the past before. Some of it will in some form or another be implemented, others not. It's really too soon to tell right now which will and won't make the cut.
S: I saw a brigade I liked and wanted to join it so I hit request and nothing happened. what went wrong?
R: When you hit the request button you were then put on the list to be accepted into a brigade. The C/O or X/O of the brigade must accept you before you are in the brigade. I would suggest cMSing the C/O and X/O in question and see if your request has been processed.
Office Feedback
S: Is it possible that your browser will refresh after you updated your signature. So you won?t have to press the signature link but you will see the result immediately.
R: This is under discussion by staff as it sounds a lot easier than it actually is, but does have merit. Keep your eye open for it when Dinah 0.6 is released.
S: Do the announcements every get updated?
R: These are supposed to get updated regularly by staff, but every so often it gets put by the wayside.
S: OK, I know that the different sections of news on the main office page are randomly placed but would it be possible for announcements and global news to be permanently placed at the top? This would be best as these are definitely the 2 most important of them all and it wouldn't be favouring any brigade since these aren't related to them.
R: Newest stuff goes at the top of the Office ?CyberArmy News? section. At the time of this submission it was suggested that a poll of some kind may be conducted.
S: I recently came across an error in the Signature preview. When you have a long line of text followed by a short line of text. The preview shows you the long line followed by a empty line followed by the short line. Whereas in the real signature it displays normal.
Might wanna fix that :)
R: Sadly staff is not sure if it's really possible to 'fix' this behaviour...
Staff is aware of what you are talking about.
The following line below in Preview mode looks like:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Where in the forum, of course, it wraps to the Window size:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
Just to point out another error with the preview.
The 'Office' page (as well as most pages on cyberarmy.com) is in a table constrained at around 700px, in order to prevent horizontal scrolling at 800x600 resolution. Then you take away from that 700px the amount required for the menu on the side, and you're left with probably around 550px or so.
Forums pages have no constrained table, to prevent this from happening:
Here is a thread
Here is a sub thread
Here is a sub thread with
a long subject line and it
wraps.
another. doesn't that
look dorky?
To make both look identical, you'd have two options:
1. Constrain all forum pages to the 550px inside the Office page (then you end up with the problem described above)
2. Make the Office page in an unconstrained table, which would STILL not provide an accurate picture of the signature because of the navigation on the side that the forum pages don't have. (Not to me mention that it would also make the cMS page stretch the entire screen length.)
So to make a long story short, there is currently no solution in sight. Please either don't use really long strings of text (capping it at about an 80 character width keeps things pretty accurate, and this is standard for USENET signatures for example), or post on the last page of the lounge to test your signature before using it in "prime time" and ask a moderator to remove your post afterwards.
S: I received this message when I tried to play with the options for under the Profile menu:
Security error: Invalid HTTP referrer
R:The problem you mentioned comes up if someone is using a firewall or a tool like proxomitron that removes the referrers. It is the staff feeling, that the effort of adding CA to the "trusted zone" of your firewall or simply disabling those tools for the time needed to access the office does not outweigh the security question here. I am sorry, but there won't be any changes in the system in the near future.
S: I was thinking before that there should be a section on the CA Office home, by all the news and Messages thing where it says how many people in Join Queue lists that you have access to. So say I have access to BotFire and the 2 sub-brigs:
Project.BotFire Join Queue: 1
Project.BotFire Researchers Join Queue: 0
Project.BotFire Plumbors Join Queue: 0
And have a link under the number to goto /command.
R: Staff have taken note, and this will be implemented as soon as one of them has time.
Other Feedback
S:http://www.cyberarmy.com/about/home.html I suggest you update that page, the CPC news is missing and it looks old, not much like the new one, and I believe a lot of the screenshots on the /about/ section should be updated.
R: At the time of this suggestion, the CAM was still being updated.
S: http://www.cyberarmy.com/about/Related links I think CyberArmy Philosophy should be added there, the url is http://philosophy.cpc-net.org
R: This was added.
S: I joined this program because I want to learn how to become a decoder/coder. There?s many things that the government has to offer but doesn?t fit with my way of understanding. I want to take back what I?ve worked for and give it a higher meaning, my ideas, my thoughts, and my way of life isn?t free and I want to fight back for what is mine and for that is for another
R: We have 10 different brigades here at CA which you can find by browsing www.cyberarmy.com/brigades. Most offer some tutorials on their specific tasks or at least train their members if possible. So you should be able to learn something by participating there. The community as a whole will be glad to assist you with questions as well. You might want to check out the programming forum on ca.com/forums for possible answers. Last but not least there is always google.com for easy questions.
S: I have a suggestion that you bring back the old Zeb challenges until the Sered challenges are finished, and I?m sure you have all the code for the Zeb challenges somewhere...
R: It was decided sometime ago NOT to bring back the old Zeb challenges. There were a couple of reasons for this. First of all, completing them would not allow anyone to gain in Challenge rank, that's what Sered is for. Second, seeing Zeb, instead of the long awaited Sered, would give folks the impression Sered wasn't being worked on. Third, there are some components of Zebulun that *may* be added into Sered, and we didn't want folks playing with (talking about) those components. Therefore, we've tried to make folks aware of several challenge sites that exist so they can continue to play and practice. A great resource for finding challenges is hackersgames.net. We assure you that work is being conducted on Sered and greatly appreciate your feedback.
S: Why not maybe on the users profile.
finger/<username here>
page to include if the user is online right now or not.
R: your suggestion is thought to be to bandwidth intensive and not productive enough to be implemented. Staff suggests the use of IRC to see who is online. A simple /whois will do the trick.
S: Wouldn't that Blockhouse banner look ALOT better either aligned to the left, or moved to the bottom. And taking off the ugly blue border too. No offense, but it makes the front page look odd the way it is. Would look a lot better I think at least aligned to the left and without the border.
R: We have received a lot of feedback concerning the banner and most people are expressing similar opinions as yours concerning the border. The alignment however is liked by most. Staff is currently discussing the feedback and will take appropriate actions once a decision is reached.
S: Any ETA for the next release of Dinah?
R: No ETA now, or likely ever. Due to past situations involving such information, this practice is thoroughly frowned upon.
S: What happened with CA radio? I know it still exists but you should get Tr. Quorum or Capt. turtleboy back to do some funny stuff.
R: CA Radio is now under the control of LtKer. r00tpig. Last thing I heard he was in the process of setting up a recording studio of sorts, and looking for fresh ideas to resurrect CA Radio.
S: By chance I had a look at the automated email I received from CA when they accepted my registration, and looked like this:
----------------------------------
The following is an automated email from Www.CyberArmy.Com.
You have successfully registered as Trooper ******* Of The CyberArmy.
Check out your new office at http://www.cyberarmy.com/office/
Your password is ********
-The CyberArmy.Com Staff
Www.CyberArmy.Com - Fight for a free internet
-------------------------------------
That looks kinda... "cold", in the sense that in my opinion someone could think "and now, what do I have to do?", so I thought that maybe you could add in the email some useful links, such as:
- A link to the CyberArmy manual (www.cyberarmy.com/about)
- A link to the Recruitment Forum
- A link to CA-IRC page
- A link to the CA skill database
And explain them *shortly* what's the purpose of those links. Also, fine, you put a link to the office... but the person who just registered will go to the office page, and find absolutely nothing. I noticed that some newbies don't even have a clue at what a cMS is!!! So, maybe someone could send them an "automated cMS" with the necessary info about the CyberArmy messaging system and about the CA IRC network.
Furthermore, I'd encourage people to connect to irc.cyberarmy.com port 6667 (in order not to have to tell this in every recruitment message), and maybe give them a list of the "official" brigades channels, AND mention the #help channel and above all the #recruiting channel, where you can find plenty of recruiters but no people looking for a brigade at all...
Also, maybe, Morale could do his part starting motivating them, by providing some sort of welcome CMS?s with those info: we could prepare about maybe 10-15 different ones, and then CA staff can auto-send one of them randomly to everyone who join CA.
R: Here is the final answer:
Sending new folks a cMS with a welcome message was discussed. Staff came up with a message and just before staff implemented it, some things changed. Staff decided to hold off a bit and let some of the changes settle and see how the CAM was going to do.
Now, new members get 2 emails. The first is a confirmation email, from which they get the confirmation code. The second is the welcome message. Long story short, the CAM is almost finished.
As soon as that is done, a link will be added to the "welcome message" to the CAM. Once again, we don't do ETA's, but there is a push to get this completed.
S: In regards to moderation it would be helpful if we could search for posts by IP/hostname.
R: The search function you requested is currently not planned. It might be implemented in later Dinah releases but will most likely not be around for a while.
S: I'd like to see a 'log out' option on all pages, not just the office. This saves having to go back to office to log out, handy for people who are checking the boards whilst at work.
R: Planned in the next Dinah release, if it hasn?t already happened.
S: How about someplace to log in on the pages where it is necessary to be logged in?
R: This has been implemented for the next Dinah release. It will be placed at the top of every page in the right hand corner as far as I know.
S: Would it be possible, or even a good idea to have some sort of system to log a members class attendance? Say if I attended "Legal Research 101", and "FormVuln 201" this would be noted in my finger profile; or perhaps somewhere else like the skills database. Education is beneficial, and I would attend classes regardless. I just thought that this would perhaps, be an incentive to those looking for that extra reason to attend.
R: CyberArmy University is currently working on a certification project which will include a type of informal certification and will require attendance of special certification classes. Attendance of such classes will be logged, although probably not automatically in the /finger/ As for standard CAU classes such "legal research 101" or "FormVuln 201", this system would not be implemented because of required database space. If you wish to personally add such information to your profile along with any other information you think it is helpful.
S: I remember when cyberarmy used to set a cookie upon login, which meant that you didn't need to log in each time you visited. There seems to be something similar now that relies on a static IP address.
Why can't there be a login cookie for dynamic IP addresses?
R: If you uncheck the 'Safe Session' checkbox that is located under the password field on the login screen, you stay logged in until your session expires, even when your IP changes. You can set how long it takes for your session to expire here: http://www.cyberarmy.com/office/profile/Session_TimeOut/ . I hope this answers your question, if not, please use feedback.cs and further specify it.
S: Would it be possible to login through ssl
R: Planned for the next Dinah release if not earlier.
S: Masking IP Addresses. This is a good idea, keeps quarrels here from turning nasty and/or illegal. But why on EARTH is this issue used almost everywhere except the one place it is probably the most important. I?m talking about the security forum. That?s the number one place for some script kiddie to get pissed off cause we deleted his lame, probably illegal question and do something stupid with someone?s IP address. Anyway, just a suggestion that I hope gets seen through :)
R: The IP?s are masked on all forums including security. However they are displayed to whoever has moderation or admin access on the boards, i.e. I am for example able to see the IP?s on most public boards as I am a moderation associate, but not in the security forum as I am not on the moderation list there.
S: Make it so you can see how active they are when you finger a nickname?
R: To clarify, the author meant things like when the last time they did a cMS, or went on IRC, etc. This won?t happen. Suffice to say it serves no useful purpose, and has no conceivable reason to why it should be implemented.
S: Being that CyberArmy isn?t here for its self and that the community was/is built for the external thriving of technology, can we get updates/reports as to what Public Relation projects are going on, the status of them etc etc. This is something that is strangely over looked. CA's Public Relation should be one of the, if not THE most active and talked about activities in CA
R: As it stands this is a problem that the C/O of CA Public Relations us already aware of. Currently this problem is being looked at.
S: how long do you have to wait between password resets?
R: Usually 24 hrs, provided there?s still an email address for the information to be sent to.
S: sort the non-officers of a brigade in order of who last logged on. too tell who?s new to a brigade maybe put 'NEW' next to their name in the first week(or whatever's a good time) or so they've been in that brigade or CA. So if someone had been in either a brigade or CA for less than one week you would see 'NEW' next to their name.
R: This one has been given to the site admins, and is currently in debate.
S: Wow, you guys did an amazing job on the site, great layout, amazing inside scripting; search, log in/out, mailing system.
Wow, that?s all I have to say, because its the best site I?ve seen yet, not only the layout, but the scripting that goes along with it, I just wanted to say that it is a very tightly, and neatly put together site amazing job :)
R: Needless to say when we see feedback like this, staff gets all light headed and such. Thanks goes out to the author for the positive feedback. :)
S: OK, this is just an idea that I just had. With the current system if you try to access a page that requires you to be logged in then it will redirect to the page with the login and continue as guest options. If login is picked, it then continues to the login page.
What I suggest, is that that first page with the options shouldn't appear at all, but rather it should go straight to the login page. That page could then contain a link to continue as a guest. Like I said, just a thought, but it would be useful for us poor souls imprisoned by our 56k connection ;)
R: Your idea is nice for members of CA, however it would be infinitely frustrating when you're browsing the forums as a guest. Each thread you clicked on would forward you to your office. We also have to respect the fact that there are participants of our community who don't want to/can't be full-fledged members. If you want to go straight to the login box, you can click the "office" link, as this always forwards you there.
S: remove the CVS link on the main CA page whilst the OSI site is down, the link is currently broken.
R: Noted by staff but has yet to be fixed.
Final Word
This is the information as complete as I can make it for the time being. If anyone has a question/comment about this digest or any other feedback sent in, feel free to contact me personally via cMS or on the IRC (#feedback or #freak). If you want to discuss or need to get in contact with someone specific regarding one of these points, find associate Feedback members in #feedback (irc.cyberarmy.com:6667) and we?ll talk, because after all we?re here to help you.
Fideliter!
Cpt. Roguefighter
C/O Feedback Digest
This article was originally published by CyberArmy.net in the CyberArmy Library.
|
|