Hurray for you, Martin. Thanks a lot.

Bravo!! Martin! What explanation was there for the troubles?

HIP
HIP
HURRAY

Three cheers for Martin!

PAM

That's great! Thanks.

Thanks and Whoo-Hoo!

Have you noticed that if you click onto someones 'name' or 'My Page' the format has changed? No info is given email, d.o.b etc.
Well we win a few and lose a few I suppose.

I've encountered a few glitches. Some odd things happen each time I access the page.

For one thing, I can't access the "My Page" of anyone outside of North America. If you're in Aus or UK, I get an error report. If in N. America, I can see your Page but there is no link for email unless I go to your Journal Page. I did a test, and it appears to be working. Hmm, it also appears IÂve lost the cap on the first letter of my user name.

I just received an email from Mary the woodnymph2. She says: " I am utterly frustrated today at Readers Paradise, because IVillage won't let me post or log in. When I tried to send a message re technical difficulties, I filled in the form provided on the screen but it rejected this, as well, telling me my e-mail address was in the wrong format! What to do? I have tried this several times." Like me, she also cannot access some other people's Pages.

If any of you are experiencing the same problems, email me and I will contact the technical problems people at the end of the day with a list of your name(s). Or perhaps Martin could, since he seems to have a contact name there already.

Mary, I tried emailing you through your Journal page but you don't have the email contact link enabled. You should be able to see that page without logging in. Are you able to log in and edit your page? Is it possible that you have changed email addresses since you first registered last February? And that you are logging in with a new address rather than the one you initially registered with?

On some occasions when I access the login page myself, my email address comes up, rather than my login user name. I am responding to your email here in case other people are having the same problems.

PS Happy Belated Birthday!

I have to log in every time I access RP and there are pop-ups being blocked frequently. I know others have had problems with pop-ups but this is the first time I've seen them or had them blocked. I think there are more ads appearing on the page than before, too. The caps in my sign-on name have also disappeared.

The member pages are working for me, however each time I access RP I have to log in again (which was not the case before). And my name's capital letter is gone, like Frances and Janalyn.

I've also had a couple of evil pop-up ads which I should not be seeing as I squeaked in as a paying member just before they discontinued it.

We evidently have serious gremlins! However, I'm thrilled to have the html and paragraph breaks back.

I can now access the non-N. American pages, but it looks like we've lost the caps... earlier I sent the tech people an email, because the user names are supposedly case sensitive, and if they caps are lost there are some names that are distinguished by them only. That might cause problems with some users.

It seems I have to log in every time as well...

Grrrrr!!!

I've had to re-register!!

I'm sure my password was correct, but they denied access to me - so I asked them for a password reset, and they failed to send it to me after three attempts....

But this is Martin.

And please don't thank me for getting it working again - I was just about to send another email, when I thought I'd check the other forums. A new thread on the Circle Forum said "Hey - we've got our formatting back" - so I tried it - and it worked!!

I re-registered, they refused me so I re-did it without caps and it worked! Let's hope it calms down from now on.

Caps in usernames are looking like a culprit. I was logged out, but I was able to login fine. My username has long been all lowercase, though, where as Martin and Vee had caps in theirs formerly.

Russ

Looks like everyone is being affected.

I notice that now when you register you have to give an address etc -- I don't recall that being the case anymore. I sure hope they don't start selling my email address to third parties.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Gremlins possibly explained?

Hope this eventually gets straightened out for people like Mary etc..

Here is a link that might be useful: From ivillage

From another posting on the Tech forum:

RE: Privacy and General Sloppiness
Posted by: contaflex z5 (My Page) on Thu, Jan 5, 06 at 11:56

Everyone Needs to Read This!!
I just created a new membership to log in here. The membership page has changed as V notes above. You must now provide name, age, sex, zipcode and email address. You must also check a box at the bottom of the screen agreeing to Terms of Service which brings up an iVillage page.

This is coppied directly from their privacy policy:

Please note, however, that iVillage reserves the right to share any personally identifiable or other information about you which you provide to (or which is gathered by) the iVillage Network with any or all of its subsidiaries and affiliates...

Everybody listen -- we are rapidly becoming an iVillage product!!

Not acceptable by my by any stretch of the imagination.

Oh, thank goodness, this is a general fault. I thought it was me and missed a favourite TV programme trying to get to write a follow-up.("Stacked" if you must know!)
Even if I am diminished in stature name-wise, at least I am able to answer back!

I have just had to re-register again this morning and hope it wont become a daily event.
Janalyn I didn't have to give address etc only user name and code word; perhaps it is because I am 'foreign'.

My goodness, there are some upset people on those threads. Particularly the first, where a really petty argument seems to have degenerated into name-calling....

Keep your tempers here, team!!

But I have to say, this change has been completely botched, and no warning made to any of us. Very very unprofessional - if I'd made a change like this to our systems at work, and it had caused this many problems, I would no longer have a job - and quite rightly too.

I had to log in again, but still no re-registration. Maybe they already know everything they care to about me :-) I'm trying out the "store on computer" option to see if the cookie will keep me from having to login everytime I reopen my browser.

And Martin is correct. At any real company there would be technology people, project managers and testers looking for jobs after an "upgrade" like this one.

Russ

The "remember me on this computer" box is such a joke. I've checked it 20 times and still have to log in every time. I blamed my DD for messing about with my settings. The gremlins owe us an apology for that little fuss!
I'm very disappointed with the general messing about that seems to be going on with this site. It wasn't broken.....
Not only does the lack of information cause us to all think our computers have fritzed, but it is becoming more and more user-unfriendly. The fact that so many of us stick with it, tolerating the frustrations in order to continue as members of this valuable community, should earn us a higher level of coutesy from the gremlins. I miss Spike.

I visit the bird watching forum, as well, and it seems the problems are throughout gardenweb. What a frustration! sadly, many people left over technical difficulties that are being fixed.

Well, it seems to have left me logged in between browser sessions...now let's see if it'll let me post.

Russ

I've not had to re-register and don't have to log in again as long as I don't close Internet Explorer. Most of the pop-up ads are being blocked but occasionally one appears across the screen. The ads bother me more than having to log in multiple times, especially now that I know I can just keep an IE session open.

Vee: It sounds as if you are just logging in, not re-registering another account. I've not had to re-register either. The people who have set up new accounts now have to provide address and gender information. For those who are having to do that, we are a very creative group, aren't we? ;-)

Mary, no reply to my email yet.

I have stayed away from this mess since it started yesterday morning but I finally decided to try to log in, altho I shouldn't have to as I am permanently logged in. Anyway, the log-in went normally and here I am. Now I'll go to another forum and see if my log-in holds.

The site is full of ads, tho, which I have not seen before because I renewed just before The Big Change. Would much rather pay than endure this stuff. Would NEVER buy anything from such intrusive advertisers.

Oh, look. I am now lower-case ginny12 instead of Ginny12, as formerly. Like everyone else, I know.

I'm having to re-log-in each time which is merely annoying. I am not seeing the ads, which I understand can be quite vulgar. As someone pointed out on another forum, here we are putting our names on a page that might have naked women's behinds on it. Hmmm. Are they still blocking naughty words? That might be the 2nd straw that breaks the camel's back for me. Not that I mind naughty words as much as the characters that accompany them.

The end of this thread tells how to go about diabling most of the ads.

Here is a link that might be useful: Disable most ads

I had the same problem as Mary yesterday and thought it was my computer. Today, I've had to log in name and passwrd but that's all. It remains to be seen if I have to do this every time - same as everyone else.

I'm not having a problem with ads, but everything is terribly s-l-o-w-

'God bless us every one!'

Dido

Yuck! I hate the lowercase rendering of my user name. Who can tell whether I'm "FriedaG" or "fried ag" or maybe "frie dag" unless you've known me previously? "friedag" looks even more Teutonic than I really am. Oh well, at least I'm in.

Hello, everyone! I seem to be back, today, having been unable to log in or even send an e-mail to complain to tech. support yesterday. However, I note that my "home page" has been completely obliterated and now they have my birthday wrong! I've also been a member much longer than my home page says. I already was kicked off once for no reason suddenly over a year ago and had to re-register. But I do wonder why certain folks are now required to give personal information when they register.....

So far, so good, but who know what will happen tommorow, sans warning! Janalyn, thanks so much for all you did to help and I will answer your e-mail. Frieda, I had to laugh at your "teutonic" post above!

Mary

I had to re-log-on. Not re-register, I am glad to say. But that's enough! What the Scunthorpe is going on?

~Anyway, Hello boys bach! Glad we're all still around. Keep at it!

Dido

Yes, Mary, they got my birthday wrong too. Not that it matters - except I'd rather they didn't put up my birthday AT ALL! SO WHO CARES ABOUT MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! Except.... THEY DID ASK, DIDN'T THEY!

SO WHO'S SHOUTING? NOW WE'VE GOT THE LINE-BREAKS BACK, LET'S USE THEM, EJH?

Hey - Mary - we're both'Aquarius - Aren't we.

Dido

Just for the record, my birthday is not January 1. (I know you were all going to send presnts!) I never had my birthday up before, so I'm wondering if January 1 is the default for any unfilled in birthday?

I have been having the same problems as everyone else-having to log in even though I ck'd the box to remember me! But so far I haven't had to re-register.....
For those of you that have been around a long time-does this remind you of a few years back when some of us had a separate forum that we went to due to lots of problems here?

Pat

I remember the last time we went through this...if memory serves, it was the first time Spike sold the site, right? It was topsy turvy for a while and then Spike came back and all was well except for getting Disneyed if you weren't familiar with the rules.

I had to sign on with a new name, captain nemo, but will still sign my posts with "PAM" in all caps simply to differentiate myself from the other Pams on the site.

Thank you to Martin, who helped me figure out answers to the difficulties I was having with RP. I was at wit's end. I think it horrible that these changes came along without the common courtesy of posting a thread to alert us. I could not, in my "non-member" status, even ask for help from ivillage.

It's good to be back. It was a long two days. Frie Dag, you know that just might stick.

We may want to try to find an alternative place to meet up just in case this site goes astray. I've come to value all of you as reading friends and great sources for knowledge and book recommendations. Does anyone know of another site that may not be as good but would serve as a gathering spot in case we should need it? Can we persuade someone to create one? (I have no idea what would be entailed as the only thing I truly grasp about computers in the keyboard.)

PAM

Good idea, PAM and Pat, it would be great if we could have a "lifeboat" site in case things here continue to deteriorate. A couple years back someone DID set something up, but I don't think it was ever actually used.

We could always use Bibliophil as a backup, they do have book discussions and several of us are already registered there. Plus, it's free.

We had the site set up by Robin-and we used it alot until one day it went away! Count me in for the lifeboat.

2nd day: logged in with no problem, but they still have not fixed my "member page" like it should be. I checked others' member pages at random and saw a lot of Jan. 1 birthdays, so I agree, it must be the default.

Count me in for the "lifeboat" site, as well, as they seem to give us no warnings about the changes here.

Time was, one could send e-mails to another through the member page. Now, I don't think this is possible....

Hello, Dido ---yes, I'm an Aquarius!

I was able to sign in this morning, but I have a security alert flashing about this site, so I'll stay away for a while until things get sorted out.

....Sheri, what a great idea to use the Bibliophil forum...no ads either! Do you think Mike would mind? ;-)

Pleased to note I'm not the only one finding difficulty here - managed to get through as you see. Thanks Vee for advice. Mind you I do come through as Cessira sometimes - for some reason - anyway that's me.
Aquarius? - moi aussi!
Dido I sent you an email re an expected response to a shared posting - dont want to got into details here = but did it get through to you? Just wanted to be sure about source.
Thanks
Jan

For everyone's information, Tamara has posted an update on how to e-mail her with your problems as of today, Saturday, Jan. 7. To see this, go to the Garden Web forum list and page down til you come to the thread "Comments & Suggestions." Her post is there. Hope this helps!

About having a backup site in case things go bad - I can set up something. I have a small cooking forum set up on Proboards and am quite happy with it. If you have suggestions for other message board servers (MSN, Yahoo or other), let me know. I will need a couple of volunteers to be co-administrators.

Finally able to post here again. Probs with using upper case letters in my user name. Even so when I tried to log on this morn. first few times I was asked to register as a new user then with exactly the same user name and password i was able to log on???
Don't mind being asked to log on in order to post - it happens in a lot of forums - just so long as the bloody log in system works.
Re mummsies security alert when visiting this page. If you keep your eye on the status bar as this site loads you will note that we are served data from DoubleClick.com. This company a well known advertising server on the web. Probabaly giving us a dose of tracking cookies to watch our journeys across the net - all the better to serve us ads based on our net preferences. Reasonably harmless but some anti spyware tools (Pest Patrol especially) identify this as spyware and give you a security alert.
Can I just suggest a cooling off period whilst things settle down and shelve all talk of setting up alternative sites. Seen this type of thing happen a few times on forums I've belonged to. All these splinter sites do is dilute the available number of posters, split the communities into less functional, viable and interesting sub groups and then usually collapse through lack of interest.
Would prefer things as they were but would hate to see this place denuded of some good posters because of the ham fisted
efforts at "improvements" by the curent owners. Maybe they'll learn something from this little debacle - I hope so. Larry