We've been working hard lately to improve the SQLServerCentral site. There have been a number of bugs we've fixed over the last few months and we are working on bringing you some enhancements on the site. We had a deployment last week with a few changes that some of you might want to take a look at.
Profiles
We've expanded the profiles in the My Account page to include additional information that you might want to share with other users. If you visit the page, you'll see that you can add the following links to your profile:
- Google+
- Public Email
If you wish to add this information so that people can contact you, please feel free to do so. This information is publicly accessible, so make sure you only include those links you'd like others to have.
One quick note: if you add a URL, make sure you include the http:// prefix.
Search Updates
Search is one of the most used features on SQLServerCentral. We log thousands of searches a day, but it's been a weak point for a long time.
A month or so ago, we added a few additional fields to the search results: authors and dates. We also added the ability to resort the results. This month we've enhanced this a touch more with default dates if none exist. We are looking to enhance this further, so let us know if there are things you'd like to see.
SPAM
Spam is a constant problem on the Internet, and we're not immune. I receive notes from many of you every day about posters that have left SPAM on the site. I built a process a few years ago to remove posts from users we've flagged, but it's lacked some tooling, and it hasn't prevented users from immediately changing their password, username, and posting again.
We've enhanced our tooling to allow for administrators to easily flag SPAM accounts, which are then prevented from future postings, including changing names. I hope this improves the level of SPAM, but we'll have to keep an eye on this.
Hopefully these changes improve the site. If you have any other ideas, please feel free to start a thread in the Suggestions forum. If you find bugs, please report them to the webmaster.
Steve Jones