July 18, 2005

6:36 PM

The Swap deadlines have been rejiggered once again, and it's time to get this ship out of the dock. Sign up now, add your addresses now, get aboard. This is the last hurrah for this session, so don't wait for another reminder!
posted by Dreama to MetaFilter Music at 6:36 PM (20 comments total)

Yay!

/me applauds for Dreama.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:32 PM on July 18, 2005

All my info is entered, the CDs are burned, and I even have "liner notes" all ready to go - just waitin' on the names of my fellow swappers!

Thanks, Dreama, for organizing this. I'm looking forward to it.
posted by Dr. Wu at 11:11 PM on July 18, 2005

I tried to log in and it said I didn't have an account, although I set one up a couple of weeks ago. Then when I tried to make a new account, it said my email was already registered! Help.
posted by slimslowslider at 11:42 PM on July 18, 2005

I have entered my address (once a few weeks ago, and again today) - but it doesn't show up. Should it?

And if not, keep me signed up twice. Double the pleasure!
posted by Quartermass at 12:06 AM on July 19, 2005

How the hell do I sign up? I've asked for my password at least three times, and got no response. I tried registering as a new member and got no response. Am I blacklisted or something?
posted by salmacis at 3:43 AM on July 19, 2005

Same here. It ate my email address, didn't send the typical confirmation email, and won't let me log in. It's telling me I have the incorrect password, though I typed it in Notepad in plain text and pasted it in, both to create it and to log in with it.
posted by Tuwa at 9:20 AM on July 19, 2005

It does seem a bit broken. I'm worried I'll be left out.
posted by OmieWise at 9:47 AM on July 19, 2005

I also entered my address. It also did not show up.
posted by jeffmshaw at 10:19 AM on July 19, 2005

So ... this would be a good time to piggyback on and ask about logistics? How do you arrange who gets what? Do you just make what you like, or try to tailor it? I have several idea for mix CDs--one world, one obscure and/or OOP funk & R&B, one happymaking/joie de vivre, etc. I'd hate to send someone something they don't like (or, worse, hate).
posted by Tuwa at 10:20 AM on July 19, 2005

Tuwa, life is like a box of chocolates: some of it is jazz.
posted by NinjaPirate at 11:02 AM on July 19, 2005

Note to self: Don't send NinjaPirate any jazz in case he's allergic to it and sues me.
posted by jmd82 at 12:19 PM on July 19, 2005

I too was worried that my mailing address didn't show up immediately in the Contacts section. But then I looked at the 'Add a new contact' page again and it says that new contacts need to be verified before they appear on the live site.

I appreciate the effort Dreama's putting into this, but to be brutally honest the whole thing seems a bit complicated compared to when I did the swap a couple of years ago.
posted by chrismear at 4:07 PM on July 19, 2005

Dreama, would you consider taking on a co-moderator to take care of the niggling (technical) details for when you are offline, or to answer frequently asked questions?^1,2
(I would nominate trusted members like cmonkey or dobbs.)

This is my first time to join, but with all the wonderful things I've heard, interest in the MeFiSwap seems to be constantly growing.
posted by Lush at 5:41 PM on July 19, 2005

Can anyone tell me if you get some kind of confirmation if your address is accepted? It's not very clear how you are supposed to enter yourself into the system, I assumed you just add yourself as a contact in the address book, but like several others I did this a couple days ago and do not see myself yet - and at least on my browser I can't display the entire address book, just the "most recent entries". I don't want to clog things up readding myself but I would like to know for sure. Clearer instructions and feedback on what to expect would be helpful...
posted by nanojath at 8:43 PM on July 19, 2005

1. Per the news item posted on Monday night, every registered user should have received e-mail on Monday night, either confirming the activation of their account or with questions regarding their account which need to be answered before activation can take place. If you didn't get an e-mail, you aren't registered. If you tried to register but didn't get an e-mail and cannot login, there's some kind of problem, so please let me know. (Salmacis, I just saw your registration come through a few hours ago, so you're okay, you'll be activated in my next pass through that process.)

2. Yes, it does seem complicated, but over the long term this new system is going to be much less so for everyone involved, especially me, which was my primary motivation for going this route. You register once. Each swap session, you provide your address as a means of opting-in to actual participation. (As a consequence, you can feel free to register now, even if you don't want to be a part of the upcoming swap session.)

3. Addresses are being approved over the span of this week, and I've changed the out of the box setting so that addresses are instantly approved when I discovered that a.) they weren't and b.) I am now forced to go through and approve every single address one by one. Though addresses don't need to be available until swapsets are set up anyway, so whether or not they appear on the site is irrelevant until swapsets are finalized.

3a. I agree that the address book module could use clearer instructions and more ability to customize. If anyone knows of better address book modules for Xoops or knows how to create modules from existing open source, php-based solutions, I'm always open.

4. For those of you with spaces in your MeFi username who couldn't signup with your usernames exactly the same because the MeFiSwap system wouldn't accept a username with a space, please register with your username with an asterisk in place of any spaces.

5. A moderator would be appreciated, if anyone would like to volunteer. This is an especially good idea at this point because the post-swap survey for the upcoming swap session is due to begin the day after I'm due to give birth. A little help might be in order.
posted by Dreama at 1:12 AM on July 20, 2005

If you tried to register but didn't get an e-mail and cannot login, there's some kind of problem, so please let me know. ... Based on the comments, I thought that was clearly the case with at least two tohers.

I tried again after your post, Dreama, and now it got as far as advising me to wait until an administrator activates my account (which is a couple of screens further than it got last time).
posted by Tuwa at 2:05 AM on July 20, 2005

A couple people in my swapset have pieces missing from their address in the address book - either U.S. State or in one case their country - and when I emailed them offline they said that they tried to enter the information but it didn't show up on the page. Is there a bug in the system?
posted by matildaben at 10:52 AM on July 20, 2005

matildaben: you already know who is in your swapset? How do you know this? No such information is available to me on the Swap page.
posted by Dr. Wu at 1:54 PM on July 20, 2005

Right then. I still haven't gotten that email. So ... unless the date's been pushed back again, I should have some really good mix CDs for next time around.
posted by Tuwa at 6:08 AM on July 21, 2005

Dr. Wu: The address book appears broken into categories (band names in this case). I clicked on the first one and I was in it. I guessed that those were the swapsets. I may have been wrong.
posted by matildaben at 6:24 AM on July 21, 2005