Hi, I'm John Stanton, a member of the AboutUs.org team. My area of interest is wiki productivity tools with a view to making AboutUs easier and more fun to use. I have a long history in the software development arena and more recently have become a wiki fanatic. I administer a batch of public and private wikis that include WikiIndex.org [1], FortWiki.com [2] and one for my high school graduating class (private).

I also intend to work on the Genealogy Category and to establish a Genealogy Portal as soon as I can get our one-click portal generator tool operational.

Glad to help in any way I can, just drop a note below!

edit Contact

• 
• +1.800.226.8887
• Skype: Rupert_Stanton
• IRC: Join us at irc.freenode.net, #AboutUs

Hi John! Right now I have some time on weekends, so I am trying to do as much as possible! Nice to see you. Cheers, MarkDilley

Hi John, check out whos.amung.us - do you think we could add this to the ad sidebar without consequence? MarkDilley

Don't know Mark it didn't seem to add much value? John Stanton 09:57, 5 April 2007 (PDT)

Hi John, just saw your reply above! The watched pages function will hopefully help with the conversations around here! Question, ErisX is trying to get the AboutUsBadge up on their site.. can you see any obvious things? [3]. MarkDilley

I think the new image server may have something to do with the badge problems but I could not find the badge on their site to verify the problem John Stanton 19:54, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

Well, that may be a big problem then, if all our Badges suddenly aren't working! oooops. I do see it on their site [view-source:http://www.eris-x.com/conjunctions.html] maybe it just showed up. Can you check again? MarkDilley

edit WikiIndex.org

Doesn't seem to be forwarding to WikiIndex.org anymore - it's a GoDaddy.com parking page. Is that by design? TedErnst

That's Ray's domain name and he will have to re-forward it when he gets back...John Stanton 09:09, 3 May 2007 (PDT)

Sorry to see your DH nightmare continues. How many days has it been down, now?

If you move to another shared host, I am intensely interested in where you go. FQ is top notch, but too expensive for a goodwill project (AwardAnnals.com). Probably faster and more reliable than I need. Still, I don't want to end up with a nightmare. Could you post your choice, and perhaps options you considered? Kennylucius 16:59, 9 May 2007 (PDT)

We are moving to 1and1, it is the best of the hosters I have been on and we know their limitations. As I write this I am just finishing up the transfer of WikiIndex.org. Some character set problems but otherwise a fairly easy move. John Stanton 19:13, 9 May 2007 (PDT)

Dang! I'm embarrassed that I never heard of "The world's #1 web host" ;-) They're quite cheap, but they don't seem to have a forum. I'm afraid of forumless hosts. Kennylucius 17:09, 10 May 2007 (PDT)

edit inputbox documentation?

Hi John,

Is there documentation of the inputbox feature anywhere? Specifically I'm interested in having more text fields than just the pagename. Is it possible? Thanks much! TedErnst

Hey Ted, there is limited documentation here John Stanton 06:14, 29 May 2007 (PDT)

Thanks, John. It seems the extension doesn't do what I want it to do. No worries. Perhaps I'll take a look at extending the extension. :-) TedErnst

edit Storyteller's Bazaar

Hello John,

Have you paid a visit to TheStorytellersBazaar yet? If not, please do. It's jam packed with all sorts of writing activities. Read some of the contributions and hopefully they will inspire you to contribute too. The more you contribute the better the site will become. Come and have a look and enjoy. Tanwir Shah

edit My spam blacklist

John, do you understand what TedErnst did here? [4] - MarkDilley

edit Compact or collapsing TOC

Hi John,

I'm not sure what you've got on your plate, but at some point I'd like to see if you could help me build a better TOC for the FeatureMePotentials page. As you can see, there's a lot of info on the page (and it's constantly changing); when I met with Chris, Blake and Kasey last week on it, they felt it was necessary to keep everything on one page, but if we could figure out how to make the TOC work better as a navigation tool this could help.

I'm thinking that maybe the list could be collapsible, possibly collapsing to the main sections:

1. Wiki Pages Nominated to be Featured
2. Nominated Pages
   1. Awaiting Comments
   2. Still Under Discussion
   3. About to Fall of the List
3. Process (although this is about to be refactored off this page, maybe even tonight before you get this message)
4. Discussion

We can talk more about this, I'm just not sure how to do the collapsing trick. I've also been eyeing some of the Wikipedia Compact TOCs for ideas, although none of these seem right for this application.

Thanks,

Tak

Happy to help Tak, just let me know when you want to get together.

edit Portal Builder tool

Hi John, can we make it so that the category AboutUsPortal doesn't get added to new portals, just the portal being built category? I think that would be a nice division. What do you think? MarkDilley

edit Hi, test

edit WikiIndex.org

Hey John,

I just changed the external links to 1and1 and DreamHost in the history you put on WikiIndex.org to internal links. I just figured I'd ping you and make sure there wasn't some reason why you did them as external links originally. If so, go ahead and change back.

Tak

edit Friday - Content Strategy

Hey John, are you up for pairing this Friday on content strategy? - Scott Keeler

It will have to be remote on Friday or today in the office John Stanton 06:20, 26 July 2007 (PDT)

edit AboutUsLogo

Hi John, The AboutUsLogo ConsensusPoll has surpassed all it's GoThresholds and we will be turning on the DoneTimer as soon as all participants have been notified. This means that all participants now have the opportunity to check AboutUsLogo one more time, to make sure we haven't overlooked something. Please feel free to change the document and/or change your status, if need be. Best, Obed Suhail

edit AboutUsPeopleCleanup

Hi John, as an effort to minimize the distinction between AboutUsStaff and ActiveMembers, we are replacing the AboutUsStaff/AboutUsEmployees/AboutUsStaffCity categories with AboutUsCity Category. You are welcome to share your ideas/thoughts on AboutUsPeopleCleanup#Discussion page. Best, Obed Suhail

edit projects change today?

John,

I seem to have seen you change projects to all be company-wide, whereas tasks are specific to one team, correct? This makes a lot of sense to me. Is it still true that anyone can propose a project by creating a page for it, fully specifying how it connects with goals, values, whatever? And then once it's fully specified, it moves out of NeedsLove into CurrentProjects (for the company) and the tasks can then be determined by whichever team(s) need to work on that project next, correct? Ted Ernst | talk

Yeah, Ray and I came to the conclusion that there were enough projects that included more than one workgroup that it made it simpler to have projects at the company level rather than have them spread out over the whole matrix. The movement of a needs love project into current project status will probably need some agreement between work groups but I think the process will be just about as you described it. John

edit NewSkin Beta Preview

Hello John!

We've noticed your contributions and are glad to be on the AboutUs team with you! As an ActiveMember your energy and ideas determine our future direction. One way that ActiveMembers stay "in the loop" is to participate in the beta previews of large new changes to the site before they are generally released.

Today we're starting a limited beta preview of an earthy NewSkin intended to reflect the alive and growing AboutUs community. The NewSkin is designed to feel wholesome and connected with the real world. This choice was made to reassure the many folks who feel that the internet is a "scary place" where mean people hide behind fake identities and shout insults at each other. We hope that the NewSkin evokes our values in a way that helps visitors and members alike feel grounded in true community.

We'd love your help putting the NewSkin through its paces! To give it a whirl you'll need to be logged in. Once you are logged in, go to "my preferences" | "skin" and select "design". Don't forget to then click the "save" button! You can always go back to the current skin by selecting "aboutus" via the same steps.

Your feedback on the new look for aboutus will help ensure that it has a maximally positive impact when we roll it out. Thanks for being a valuable member of the community, we look forward to your feedback on the NewSkin page!

Warm Regards,
the DevelopmentTeam

edit Added a default MyWork picture

You can find it over at Image:MyWork-Default.jpg. I also added it to the template as the default image. --Vinh Nguyen

edit speaker phone in AboutUs office

John, I'm not sure if this goes under the complete conference room task or somewhere else, but I'm writing to suggest that the acquisition of a real speakerphone is essential for including others that are working in places other than OMCC. Thanks! TedErnst | talk 15:41, 17 September 2007 (PDT)

I agree Ted, Panasonic makes a great one, I'll see if I can make it happen John 15:49, 17 September 2007 (PDT)

Hey John, is this still part of the plan? TedErnst | talk 14:03, 1 October 2007 (PDT)

Working on it now but still have to secure agreement :-) John 11:45, 2 October 2007 (PDT)

It's on order Ted John 13:57, 3 October 2007 (PDT)

Yay! TedErnst | talk 14:22, 3 October 2007 (PDT)

edit another way to find stuff

RSSMicro.com ~~ MarkDilley

edit New Framework

John, I LOVE the new framework... it really rounds it out. LOVE it! Julia

I think it is close. John 18:41, 25 September 2007 (PDT)

edit Thanks!

Eventually yours (and Brandon's) thoughts on PrettyURLSandbox helped, thanks for that! I had to move my wiki to a subdomain, then was able to remove the /index.php/ completely. I've tagged the page for deletion as it's served its purpose. Thanks again! Nathan ^(talk) 18:44, 29 September 2007 (PDT)

edit our work

Hey John, re: [5], have you seen RevertsHurt? I ask because I'd really love to see more of your reasoning in the edit summary. I know you're the most experienced in this area and I have no doubt your revert is for good reason, I'd like like to know that reason, so I can learn. Thanks! TedErnst | talk 22:06, 5 October 2007 (PDT)

Ah, I just saw your note to Mark with the reasoning. And, I'd love that note to be in the edit summary, so anyone seeing the edit will know the reasons. What do you think? Do edit summaries feel like a good place for us to be communicating about our changes? TedErnst | talk 22:08, 5 October 2007 (PDT)

Sorry to offend but there doesn't seem to be an easy way to roll back with an edit summary so I always drop a note to the person I rolled back (revert is such a harsh word). How do you get an edit summary into a roll back? John 09:07, 6 October 2007 (PDT)

Offend is too strong a word. :-) The "undo" feature actually allows for the rollback function and an edit summary. Before we had 1.10, the only way to do it was to go in the history to the previous version and edit it, then type the edit summary and save. Undo is a bit faster. TedErnst | talk 23:25, 6 October 2007 (PDT)

edit AboutUs Widget Works

John -- I've got a version of your Widget mockup that works. Check it out:

http://c2.com/~ward/au/widget-test.html

it takes the desired site domain name as a parameter. Try view source to see how I do this. I've updated the AboutUs Widget page to be a dev task for the next iteration. -- Ward 13:46, 7 October 2007 (PDT)

Looks great Ward! John 18:44, 12 October 2007 (PDT)

edit OurWork

Hi John, can you explain this to me a little more? Best, MarkDilley

Our values affect everything we do at all levels so, instead of repeating the values link for each level, one link serves all levels. John 18:40, 12 October 2007 (PDT)

• I agree with that John, it just looks to me to be a value for content at the current moment, and my edit spoke to me as a value for everything ;-) MarkDilley

edit work group flow

example: http://wiki.espians.com/User:Cre8radix ~~ MarkDilley

edit Universal Wiki Edit Button

Hi John, I left you a note here: UWEB:Status/John Stanton. Hope all is well. peace, TedErnst | talk 08:57, 21 October 2007 (PDT)

edit iChat

I started a page where we can build our 'how-to': iChat -- TedErnst | talk 12:37, 11 November 2007 (PST)

edit a week from Monday

Hey John,

I'll be working at the OMCC the week after Thanksgiving. Is the keypad entry activated yet? If not, what time is safe for me to show up and know someone will be there? Thanks much!

Ted I am there at 9am or shortly thereafter but I'll ask Keith to mail you a key. John 09:30, 18 November 2007 (PST)

peace, TedErnst | talk 21:23, 17 November 2007 (PST)

edit WhoWeAre

Hi John, I left you a note: WhoWeAre:Stage2Status/John Stanton TedErnst | talk 18:26, 18 November 2007 (PST)

edit IP spam blacklist?

John does this mean anything to you? [6] Best, MarkDilley

I think this is a SoftSecurity measure, rather than a hard one. We have banning for hard security. I'm not sure what the point is, but it seems to be like putting sex offenders names on billboards or something. TedErnst (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2007 (PST)

Oh, I thought there was some technical blacklist... MarkDilley

edit PHSDL feel free to use

Hi John, feel free to use PHSL Malware Domains Spam List. Regards, Igorberger 18:44, 26 December 2007 (PST)

edit strange bot edits

What do you make of this? http://www.aboutus.org/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=100&target=211.233.78.237 TedErnst (talk) 04:50, 9 January 2008 (PST)

Another one: http://www.aboutus.org/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=100&target=80.250.210.12 -- Obed Suhail 05:05, 9 January 2008 (PST)

Looks like the jibberish bot is back, bummer! John 15:25, 9 January 2008 (PST)

edit url page names and other questions

Hi John, I am having trouble with this page, in particular it is not linking right. [7] additionally I would like to know if there is a way to insert a url to goto that is not the page name. Best, MarkDilley

Mark, I think part of the problem is that the website for that user group doesn't exist. TedErnst (talk)

Ted the link that I put at the top of the page shows the link. ~~ MarkDilley

Ah, I see. I fixed it. There were two problems. One, it needs to use {{Domain Page}}. Two, it needs the full url for pagelink, including http. TedErnst (talk)