Brad

Correct. Accounts have been banned. IP addresses have been banned as well. We are not going to make any more forums closed to the public right now. That wouldn't help as it is easy enough to get around these things if you try hard enough.

Most of the sub-forums they were stealing content from are available to everyone - registered or not - so aside from banning IP addresses (which I've done), there is nothing stopping them from continuing to do so, aside from maybe others calling them on it, and possibly them losing members once they learn what has been going on... The fact is, it's extremely difficult to start a successful deal site these days. There are just too many out there and it's nearly impossible to get enough unique content to bring people to your own site. Most of the bigger deal sites were started nearly a decade ago. GD was started over 4 years ago, and it has taken a lot of work (and luck) to be as successful as we've become, and so we're going to do whatever it takes to make sure others don't come along and use the hard work of everyone here on the site, including members like Miranda who spend hours posting here each week. I have no problem with anyone visiting other deal sites, or even creating your own. But don't steal our members, and don't steal our content. If you can't create a successful site yourself, then you really should find something else to do rather than piggyback on our success and use our hard work for your own benefit.

Thanks for once again bringing this to our attention. Unlike the last time I posted about this, this time it was a long-time member doing this, which is even more pathetic. They have been banned, the site name has been blocked from being posted/PMed, and I am looking into what actions I'll be taken regarding the blatant theft of our content. As someone said, they are pretty much copying and pasting many posts here in an effort to build their site without having to post anything original. We're dealing with it. Oh, and just in case you are curious, this other site is not worth your time. It is poorly designed, and pretty much all the content is stolen from here, so there is no reason to check it out anyway, lol. And I doubt many of you would want to frequent a site run by such pathetic individuals as the ones who are running it

If you are referring to the old member pages, yes, those were not compatible with the new forum software and have been deleted.

In the future we'll probably have a little icon under your avatar (like the eBay one in Marcster's post) to denote that a member has a photo album set up and pictures available for viewing. Also, the max number of photos and max size (both file size and dimensions) of photos increases the longer you've been a member. Similar to having custom avatars and custom user titles - once you hit the 50 post mark and have been a member for 2 weeks, you'll have the max allowed :)

They are part of your user profile, which is only viewable to logged-in members, so non-memebers / search engine bots won't see them. In addition, there is an option to have a specific album only viewable to those members on your friends list for added privacy.

I've added some FAQ threads about some of the new features (photo albums, friends lists, etc...) to the Forum FAQs sub-forum: http://forums.gottadeal.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35 :)

If you have at least 5 posts and have been around for a few days, you are now able to create photo albums and upload photos for others to see on your user profile page! Just go to your Control Panel (http://forums.gottadeal.com/usercp.php) and click the link for Pictures & Albums http://forums.gottadeal.com/album.php) You can then create an album and begin adding photos to it Once you have uploaded photos, others can view them on your profile page. They can also comment on your photos as well :) If you have any questions about creating photo albums, please post here.

While it would be a good idea, I don't think there would be anywhere near the amount of activity to warrant a separate forum. Travel deals can be posted in the Online Hot Deals forum, requests for travel deals can go in the Deal Finder forum, threads looking for suggestions can go in Deal Discussion, etc... If in the future there is a significant increase in the number of these kinds of threads, we'll re-consider adding another forum, but for now the exisiting forums are sufficient.

back in stock! http://www.kohls.com/kohlsStore/saleevents/old/0906nonph/kitchendining/3acookware/circulon/PRD~97384/Circulon+TOTAL+12pc+HardAnodized+Nonstick+Cookware+Set.jsp as a comparison, amazon sells this set for $179, and cooking.com and macy's both sell it for $279

I got rid of the New Member/Senior Member labels as they weren't really useful since they went by # of posts. So someone who registered 2 years ago but only posted 5 times would still show "New Member". So from now on, everyone will be a Member unless you have enough posts/time on the board to change your title yourself.

Both of these are back :)

Some updates: - I fixed the formatting on the user profile pages. - Your profile page now shows the latest members to view it. - You can now add "friends" which show on your member page (these are separate from your contact list - members on your contact list but not in your friends do not show up on your profile page). I believe it works like MySpace where you have to approve friend requests. - The "thanks" feature has been re-enabled for the sweepstakes/freebies/surveys forums. - The contest forum now uses the new Thread Prefixes feature to designate daily/weekly/monthly/1X contests. You can view only certain prefixes using the menu at the bottom of those forum pages. - the navigation "breadcrumb" has been re-added to the bottom of thread pages (under the bookmarks section) - Members with at least 5 posts should be able to create photo albums and share them. That's all for now. I'll continue tweaking things as needed

When I edit my signature, afterwards it sends me back to the main "Control Panel" home page (which for me just says I have no subscribed threads). Try again and let me know if it happens again, and if it saves your changes made to your signature.

Like I said, I'll be adding many of the old features back over the next week or two. Some of them will have to wait until there are versions compatible with the new forum software, but most should be back soon :)

Visitor messages are different from private messages. Visitors messages are the comments people can leave on your profile page. The PMs are listed separately.

None of the PM messages were deleted. Are you sure you're looking in the right place?

Yes, the breadcrumb (as it's called) will be put at the bottom as well. It's on the to-do list :)

I just upgraded to the latest and greatest version of vBulletin, our forum software. Because of the large number of customizations I did on the previous version, some things are not exactly right just yet. For example, there is no longer a column for the thread starter in the forum thread listings (the thread starter is now under the title). Also the formatting on the user profile pages is not displaying correctly right now. So I am going to continue to work on these issues, but in the meantime, you can once again use the forum, and please use this thread to report any other problems you run across, as there are bound to be some more issues that need to be worked out. Also, while I have enabled some of the new forum features, I am holding off on the rest of them until I can work the bugs out of what we have now. So take a look around, reply with any bugs you find or any questions you might have, and things should be completely up and running within a week or so :)

It's time once again to come up with a design for the next GottaDeal.com t-shirt, and this time we are asking for your help! We'd like your ideas, designs & suggestions for the next t-shirt design. We'll use this thread to collect ideas, and if your idea is used, you'll get one of the first shirts absolutely free! So reply to this thread with your ideas. If you have the ability to actually design something and post an image, that would work best, otherwise you can just post descriptions, slogans, etc... Be sure to be as specific as possible including colors (of both ink and shirts), font styles or anything else you'd like to add. Also if you see another idea that you really like, feel free to reply letting us know so we can see which ideas everyone likes the best. Note that these shirts will be GottaDeal.com shirts - we already have some plans for a Black Friday shirt, so we just need some ideas for the basic site shirt. Thanks and we look forward to your ideas!

We recently had someone register on the forum and PM some of our top deal/freebie/contest posters and try to get them to leave GD and post on some new site somewhere. This person has obviously been banned (as have his 3 other accounts). This is probably one of the lowest things someone can do on a forum like this. If you happen to receive a PM like this, please forward it to me ASAP so that we can deal with it. I doubt any of our great members would consider such a thing, but I'd like to take care of these idiots as soon as I can. Thanks :)

New thread, with the last few posts copied over so discussion can continue. Please keep discussion related to Target clearance only. Off-topic posts will be deleted.

thanks for the great inside info as always :)

We already have a Target clearance thread: http://forums.gottadeal.com/showthread.php?t=92485 Continue discussion there. Closing thread.

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