March 21, 2004

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Favorites Only Entries

Good Monday,

I am a nerd. Or at least a closet nerd, I think. The evidence:

I have several t-shirts, but my current favorite is a black one with the Death Star logo on the front, that says “Ruling with Supreme Authority” on the back. In fact, I wore it yesterday.

I still have my original Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, and Player’s Handbook, version 1.0 published by TSR Games. Which may explain why I’ve always been comfortable with the moniker “DM”.

I read The Silmarillion. Twice.

While I was cooking the other night, Star Trek was on the telly – a TNG rerun, the one where they found Scotty in suspended animation and revived him. When he went to the holodeck and visited the reproduction of the original Enterprise bridge, and realized that it wasn’t the same without the rest of the crew, I (almost) got misty.

I know the difference between XOR and OR.

I can navigate a standard Mannheim slide rule, and quite possibly solve math problems with it.

However.

I owned a Rubik’s cube, but I never solved it.

I’m releasing an upgrade today that many people have asked for over the last few months (and which I am glad to have finally finished to programming on). This is the “Favorites Only” entry – meaning that you now have a third option for privacy on your entries.

Whereas before there was only private or not-private (public) entries, now there is another choice – Favorites Only. A Favorites Only entry will only appear in your diary to people who are on your Favorites list (and to you).

When you go to write an entry, you will notice that the Private Entry checkbox has been replaced with a dropdown list. This lists three selections: Public, Favorites Only, and Private. Just select the privacy option you want for the entry you are posting.

Favorites Only entries will appear in the table of contents for your diary with an “(f)” next to them, like the “(p)” next to private entries. As I said, people on your Favorites list will be able to see them, and you will too – but to anybody else they will be invisible (like a private entry is). They won’t appear on the table of contents, or on the previous and next links in your entries, or in your notes page, unless the reader is one of your Favorites.

Favorites Only entries also will not appear on the front page or in Recent Entries, and (like private entries) can not be nominated for Reader’s Choice.

You can also change the privacy setting in the Entry Manager – there you will find a dropdown list like the one on the entry editing screen, instead of the checkbox that used to be there. Through the Entry Manager, you can set blocks of entries to different privacy levels.

I think that covers it – for all the work that went into it, it doesn’t sound like much. Enjoy!

Answers to later questions:

If you remove somebody from your Favorites, they will no longer see any FO entries, regardless of when they were posted. Conversely, if you add somebody to your Favorites, they will be able to see all FO entries, including past ones.
Someone with a Reader’s Password is not considered a Favorite – that’s a whole nother ball of wax (what a weird expression).
This feature is available to all members – it is not a Plus only feature.
Readers will know that it is a Favorites Only entry, because it will say so at the top of the entry – just like how a private entry says it.

The DiaryMaster

This was nice!

ohhhh! yes! thank you!

Excellent! 🙂

that is so awesome. Thank you!!!

excellent! Thanks

This is an awesome option. Alot of times I want to write but feel weird making private entries because it almost feels like I’m “hiding” from my friends here. This gives me an option whether to hide it or share with a select few. As always, thanks so much for the great work you do! I know alot of it seems tedious but even doing tedious work you still manage to make it cool anyway!

wow thats a great option thank you 🙂 now i can consider coming off faves only and going public again….

(tedious for you that is because you work hard making things where they wont be tedious for all of your users. =) Missed your box this morning. The one on GoodNight Moon made me smile from such pleasant memories. Thanks for inspiring the memories to come to mind. =)

you, my dear, are the total shiznit.

sweet. you rock.

Hey thats great cos i was going to go favourites only, but now i can have my “boring” entries public and my “personal” entries semi-private. You rock DM :o)

There’s nothing closet about it! A friend of ours just did the rubiks cube for our church talent night. A member of the audience twisted and turned it and then he put it right back while horrendous music played in the background. He might also be considered a nerd.

wow….i wish i had half the knowledge you do! that is so neat!

p.s. i love nerds. lol i never solved rubik’s cube but i did turn my son into one for halloween when he was six!

No hon your not a nerd! Your smart. BIG differance. (Not that being a nerd should be a bad thing) You are smart with eclectic taste. Never put down your intelligence or your taste for sci-fi. You can never have too much of either! 😉

*lolz* i love ur lil text box stuff. nerds rock!! (especially the candies) woohoo! see… ive been waiting for something like that. go mr dm!! isabel

Awesome. I’ve been hoping you’d do that for ages now. 🙂 Thanks!! Take care….

i just peeled the stickers off and stuck them all on the right sides. (shrug)

I also never solved the Rubik’s Cube, a sure object of the devil. Currently reading The DaVinci Code for a book club this month. It is so not last year! Just don’t tell me how it ends. 🙂

Is this for all users… Or only Paid OD members?

Oh wow. I’d asked for that too – thank you thank you thank you! This makes such a difference to my diary 🙂 ‘course now I’ll have to go through and edit all the back entries, but thank you thank you thank you 😉

thanks for your note. in my last diary i had tons of notes and NEVER had ONE from you. i have no clue who you are or what you are about. except that i think this is a cool place and that being the leader you are target for alot of bad stuff. That’s normal. Anyone who is visible is a target for criticism. Thanks for everything good I have from this place…

Yes, yes, yes! Alright : ) Hey, you are the coolest nerd! Thanks much!

!!! This is a great idea! Maybe I can make people feel all elitist when they get to read a friends-only entry, too. Awesome. I liked Unification, where they brought back Spock–it made me all warm inside, especially the part where Spock mind melded with Picard so he could have a little insight into Sarek. Ah, the drama!*tear*

Hi : ) So you mean the reader passwords can’t read the favorites only entries, right? Anyway to change that so they can? Would be so good if that option were added for the reader passwords. Thanks for all you do : )

RYN: Thanks! I like the proof of being a nerd on the side.

I have a suggestion. Maybe a box at the bottom that changes all of the options at once … instead of having to do them all individually. If you need me to explain more indepth I can.

Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You Thank You!!!!

I want to thank you so much for your diligence. It is really great to see someone who cares about their site to keep it up to date and listen to what the people want on this diary or take it to consideration! Thanks again!!! ~Sophia

I’ve been wanting to ask this for YEARS. Thank you SO much DM. You have NO idea how happy this is going to make people.

This maye have already been brought up, but is there any possibilty for Favorites Groups of some sort? For example, I have favorites from OD and some from real life. Say I only want the real life Favs to see a certain entry… Something like that… Just a suggestion 🙂 *G

Again, thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!

I still contest that TNG was the best of the series conceptions. I am sure you would agree but feel free to let me know if you do not 😮 )

300 entries. that’s alot of info/advising there. congrats

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!! I have been hoping you’d write this entry. I really apreciate it. Thanks again.-Julia, the

i can’t leave notes on any diary except yours. when i type a letter i get an error message. is it something with the site or just my computer?

Woo! fun!

hi.. I was just wondering, how can I use pictures to put on my background? and how can I get my diary to have those special effect things? lol Look at this diary (a.static.lullaby.)and i think you will know what im talking about thanks!

WOO HOO!!!!! That’s all I have to say. 🙂

excuse me Diary Master how do you block people?

RE:Your entry There is nothing wrong with liking LOTR! I love those movies,and I have grown to cherish the books!

Slightly stupid question: If your diary is set to favs only, but one of your entries is “public,” will that entry show up to everyone, or just your favorites?

how cool

If a diary is set to favorites only, but a person sets the entry to “public” will everyone be able to see the entry, or will everything in the diary stay at favorites only because that’s how the diary is set? Please let me know. Thanks for your time. 🙂

thank you.

I am working on a modern-day fanfiction spinoff of Tolkien wherein my heroine finds the lost Silmaril that was cast into the depths of the ocean… and suddenly the Tolkien characters start appearing at her doorstep – the Silmaril is the key to the doorways between dimensions – our world and that one.

My diary keeps messing up when I try to leave notes, telling me theres an error in the script and not letting me type. Currently, I have to copy/paste my notes from word in order for it to work at all. I was wondering if you know what is going on. Thanks. ~*~Theresa~*~

Wow, sweet — I ask for something yesterday, it’s up and running today. Coincidence, I know, but still, pretty cool. Thanks! 🙂

If your whole diary is favorites only, all of the entries are still only available to favorites right? Even if they are marked as “public” when written.

THANK YOU! This is a great alternative to having 2 diaries! yay

yea i think that makes u a nerd lol

heehee. nerds are cool. but anyway. i have a problem with my OD. i made a diary under the name “buzzle” and when i sign into it (password is “michael”) it opens up and everything is dandy. but when i search for it it says that no such diary exists! does this mean other people cant find it when they search for it?

I got a little misty on the episode of ST:TNG as well.

Now this totally rocks. And so do you by the way. This is awesome, solves the whole dilemma of “do I want to say this and have just anyone read it, or do I have to go fav’s only again to ensure I don’t get the riff raff in.” Thank you so much. <3

ryn: Well, when you’re walking along 5th Avenue in downtown Seattle at dawn, and you see a very large white horse trotting toward you in the middle of the street, past the Coach and Nordstrom stores, wearing no saddle or halter, it does tend to give you pause. Or when tall, slender blonde strangers wearing soft gray clothing start following you… you know something’s amiss.

And then there’s the long-haired blonde woman dressed in what appears to be Saxon-type armor and helm, with a sword at her side, who appears at the end of the hallway in your apartment complex, and who turns and walks through the wall with no effort at all… those are the kinds of things that make one sit up and say, “Time to pay attention. Things are not as they seem!”

Yes… this is a VERY GOOD thing!! Now how about figuring a way where we can download our photos in our entries straight from our hard drives…? I know… I’m a broken record.

P.S. I think you just keep making this place better and better. Thank you.

I cheated at Rubix, and I also own my first DMG, however it is AD&D. NERDS UNITE!

Favorites Only entries is a very good idea. I’ve used it already. Thanks!

My husband would love that t-shirt, Ruling With Supreme Authority. 🙂 I’ve never been able to solve Rubic’s cube, either. Very frustrating!

READ ME READ ME READ ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now that I (hopefully) have your attention… What about maybe creating an option where you can block teenagers from showing up on the random entries, and readers choice entries. This place is infested with teenagers! It would be great if we could sort of customize the watering hole around here. Just a suggestion. Thanks. Hurry. 🙂

Why can’t I go to “all notes” for one entry? I had to set my whole diary to accept “all notes”.

On OD+, why are there ads when I go to write an entry?

previous note. nevermind. its ok now.

Microsoft VBScript runtime error ‘800a000d’ Type mismatch: ‘CLng’ /includes/db2connect.inc, line 1 This has been popping up instead of letting use my diary as normal. I can log in from the front page, but when I click on the top (go to my diary), that is what I see. I can search for myself and get to my diary that way, but it’s sort of getting old, ya know.. going on the 3rd day. 🙂

My brother solved the Rubic’s Cube in his sleep…no lyin’. Of course…….he was a freak, then. Still is, too. 😀

ooh! it works now. i dont know if you fixed it or if it was just a coincidence. but yeh, thanks anyway 😀

hello! ummm,” Chronic_Sin ” , im not particually sure who it is, but has been copying entire entries off my diary, not a LOT of entries, but a couple of poems etc. just wondering what to do about this?? i don’t want her diary to be blocked or anything.. thank you!

You should try and solve your rubik’s cube. They are quite fun, and if you’re lucky, you have the one with the stickers on it, so you can just jumble around the stickers so it looks like you solved it. If you can’t solve it that is.. Good luck if you decide to solve it.

I like the little box in your entries and another OD member told me to get the code from you. Can you please email me the code? My email address is grace5283@hotmail.com Thanks ~Rachel

Cool.

hmm…i love TNG but I can’t say i’ve ever gotten misty-eyed watchin’ it, hehe. 🙂

*laughs* I guess that makes me a nerd as well. I love The Silmarillion!

Got a solution to your Rubik’s Cube problem : http://www.nerdparadise.com/puzzles/333/

I like the poem in your previous entry. To me, being a nerd or geek is a good thing. It shows enthusiasm and responsibility. People have called me “nerd” or “geek,” but I take it as a compliment. I read The Silmarillion twice, too, so I could understand it. The 2nd time, I made notes and a family tree. I also had to keep referring to the maps and index.

wow…The Silmarillion TWICE?? you do your nerding with style. 😀