Visit Frequency

[Alex Stokes]

Hi,

I've been a member of NC Woodworker for a few years. I was overseas for a bit so didn't get on much. I'm back now, and despite getting up here a few times a week, my visit frequency remains a decimal figure. Are you able to reset that? I think it's averaging visits over the entire time I've been a member.

Thanks!

 

[Mike Davis]

It averages over the last 180 days.
It is part of the discount qualification program.

 

[Mike Davis]

The North Carolina Woodworker Discount Program is intended to provide our members who are regular visitors and/or contributors with discounts on their woodworking related purchases. Each vendor that participates in the program has their own customized method of required identification and participation. BUT, in all cases you must attain and maintain a minimal set of requirements to become Discount Qualified (DQ). The following are the requirements as of November 5, 2009.

1. You must be a member for 60 days.
2. You must have 5 posts
3. You must have supplied your full name as it appears on your Photo ID
4. You must have introduced yourself by starting a thread in the "Who We Are" forum
5. You must have met our visitation frequency policy (see below)

In addition to the above requirements, some of our vendors wiil require that you provide your full address for participation in their discount program. Our Privacy policy requires that for NCWW to send your address to the vendor, you must specifically "Opt-in" to allow us to do this. Currently, the following Vendors require your address:

Klingspor's Woodworking Shop
The Woodworking Source
Anchor Hardwoods

How do you enter your Photo ID Name, street address and optional email? On the right side of the top of most pages you will see "Settings". Click on that. Then Click on Edit Profile and provide the information near the bottom of this panell. If you wish to opt-in to the programs provided by the vendors specifically mentioned above, Click on Edit Options and you'll find the opt-in options at the bottom of that page.

Visitation Frequency Requirement:You must sustain at least one visit per week for the last 180 days. The DQ status time starts at 60 days for new members and then must be maintained. Only one visit per day is counted towards that average. A day starts at midnight Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or 7:00 PM EST or 8:00 PM EDT.
Why do we not use local midnight? Because it is easier to compute and doesn't have to be adjusted through the seasons.
Once I reach DQ status, how long does it last?In general, once you have met all the requirements, your DQ status is valid for 180 days, even if your visitation frequency falls below the minimal requirement. DQ Status is maintained for 180 days from the time you last met all requirements. You can confirm your status by clicking on Your Profile and the letters DQ will appear to the right center of your Public Profile.
The only exception occurs if you have deleted any of the required information above. In that case your DQ is rescinded immediately.

This article was originally published in forum thread: NCWW Discount Program (DQ) started by SteveColes View original post

 

[cobraguy]

Alex - I too have noticed a lack of consistency in the visit frequency tracker. I rarely miss a day to at least check on what's happening around the community and missing multiple days is very rare. I have noticed my number fluctuating over the last few weeks, and mostly trending down. I attribute all this to the server and software issues we are experiencing, so never brought it up as a concern. The new site looks pretty good so far BTW. Not sure if the old software is the issue, but food for thought. Maybe an admin can chime in.

 

[Barry W]

I also have questioned the accuracy of the visit frequency computation of NCWW and have one question. If one visits the site several times a day, closing the browser after each visit, is each visit counted individually?

 

[SteveColes]

I also have questioned the accuracy of the visit frequency computation of NCWW and have one question. If one visits the site several times a day, closing the browser after each visit, is each visit counted individually?

As above in mike davis’ post only one visit per day counts.

That raises a point; is the visit frequency calculation been working the new site?

 

[nn4jw]

I have seen a frequency recently (today) of 7.85 for bowman in this thread (post #10). Seems like the calculation isn't actually what people believe it should be. Not doubting the people, but I would doubt the software. Just another bug I suspect.

 

[ehpoole]

I have seen a frequency recently (today) of 7.85 for bowman in this thread (post #10). Seems like the calculation isn't actually what people believe it should be. Not doubting the people, but I would doubt the software. Just another bug I suspect.

There are a couple members where it’s a bit broken, likely because they visit very frequently and have hit the site during a period where the database server was overloaded (there are several events that can result in temporary overload, and it was overloaded for several days when they did the migration on us) in which case during those moments you can either gain or lose extra days as we don’t use a formal transaction so the checks for prior counting of the day and, if not (or can’t be determined), the incrementing of the VF counter. Each day missed or visited within the 6-month window is worth about 0.08 on the VF counter. The counter also does not run midnight to midnight (I forget what hour exactly is the 24 hour window, though it may be UTC as everyone tends to get a 0.08 boost when Daylight Savings goes into effect — but if you often visit just once in a formal day, but at differing times each day, this does mean that some days you will actually check-in twice within the 24hr window and other days may not register at all.

But it should be mostly working correctly for everyone and we do not require especially high VF umbers for DQ and nearly all users have the same permissions regardless of which user group they are a member of so very little access wise, save for Corporate Members, is limited to members based upon VF.

 

[SteveColes]

Ethan, thank you. As usual, you have done a better job of explaining than I do.

 

[ehpoole]

As above in mike davis’ post only one visit per day counts.

That raises a point; is the visit frequency calculation been working the new site?

Steve,

I don’t know all the details with respect to the new site as I have had to leave the new site migration to Ron this go round as my health and other responsibilities (I’m president of our local amateur radio club) simply were not up to another major migration — though I very much enjoyed working with you on our last major forum migration.

But my best guess is that most of the non-forum specific site features and plugins will be unimplemented initially due to the manner in which the forum database migration is having to occur. Ron is first needing to install Xenforo 1.x for the initial vB database migration and then upgrading to XF 2.x after the database has been migrated over because some aspects of our site do not transfer over in the 2.x migration utility (if I understand, the XF 2.x vB4 migration tool is incomplete at this time). This means any work on plugins likely gets obliterated in the double migration. That is partly why the test site warns everyone that any posts made there will be lost after the transition because the database will likely be entirely overwritten at the transition when this vB site shuts down and the XF site goes formally live.

My guess is that we will be working on the custom plugins after the migration is complete and everyone has switched over. That would mean that, at least initially, it will be just the site forums that are operational and everyone will likely be fixed in their usergroups for a period of time until all the related new plugin code is rewritten and installed to the new site. That means that we will have to prioritize which plugins are most critical and tackle those first, then focus on the less critical plugins later. I do plan to help as much as I can with this aspect of the new site once the transition has occurred since there is a fair bit of custom plugin code to migrate over, including large chunks that were originally written by you and I both. Hopefully I’ll have command line access by then to the new server as well to help facilitate that work.

However, at this time I am much more the observer since I have had to leave the major work to Ron insofar as migrating the vBulletin forums over to Xenforo 2.x.