steamlocomotive.info

Link: http://www.steamlocomotive.info/europe.cfm

We're now up to more than 6000 locomotives in the database, with the addition of 112 locomotives in Denmark. Special thanks to James Hefner of Surviving World Steam for data, help, encouragement and friendship.

Also thanks to our editors:

John A. Craft
Jeff Terry
Steve Frost
James Hefner

Regards,
Doug
The Webmaster

Link: http://steamlocomotive.info/scoreboard.cfm

If you recently tried to look at the Photo Scoreboard in the library section, you'd have found that I missed transferring something called a 'Stored Procedure' from the old database server to the new one.

The feature now works correctly again, and may be seen simply by clicking on the title of this posting.

Regards,
Doug

Bad news/good news. When I moved the steamlocomotive.info database to its new primary server on 9/22/2006, I also broke some features of the website in the process.

One was the Notes system. Any time you tried to post a note you got a database error. This has been fixed, and I'm looking for other similar oopsies.

Thank you for your patience,
Doug

Link: http://www.steamlocomotive.info/notelistingx.cfm?startval=1

The note system that we built into this website continues to fascinate me, long after it went into effect. It was actually a part of the original website, but after about a year it became necessary to add a moderation system to require that a posted note be approved by a moderator before appearing on the website.

This occurred because people were using the note system as a private bulletin board to chat with friends, because folks posted notes that had links to objectionable imagery, and because people would post notes that simply read "Restore This Locomotive!". Sometimes in 24 point type.

So we've been trundling along nicely for the last couple of years, and I think our moderators have done a very nice job of constraining the posted notes to ones that contribute to the understanding of the locomotives, their condition, disposition and prospects.

So why am I babbling about this? I continue to receive some fairly nasty e-mails when some individual posts a note, and that note doesn't get approved for display. So...though it is probably futile...I thought I'd explain why some notes never appear.

First of all, I don't really care very much whether you provide an email address when you post a note to a locomotive. We ask for it solely because we might want to contact you to ask questions about what you posted. So, absence of an email address when you submit a note won't automatically get your note disapproved.

Secondly, there's no requirement to use your real name when posting a note, but if you choose to use an alias, try to avoid obscene, disgusting and/or stupid aliases. That will get your note automatically canned.

So, you may ask, if a note is submitted without a name, and without an email address, will it get automatically disapproved? Nope...if the content of the note contributes information about the locomotive, its condition, history or specifications it'll get approved.

What Won't Get Approved?

Notes whose sole content is "This is my favorite locomotive" or "Restore this locomotive!", as examples. Notes that are devoid of information, content or interest. Notes that insult me, the staff or other users of the site. Annoying notes.

Anyhow...click on the title of this post and you'll see about 4000 examples of notes that were approved.

Regards,
Doug

Link: http://www.steamlocomotive.info

I'm very happy to report that the code that handles the approval of uploaded files has been fixed to use the new methods of image resizing, so any future photos added to the system will have nice looking thumbnails.

So...onward and upward. Today, I'm going to work on finishing the administrative tools that will allow our appointed editors to manage photos and photo albums without having to resort to manipulating the database with Enterprise Manager.

Other interesting things in the works, as well. Will post about them separately.

Doug