Merge complete!
We’ve had a busy afternoon here at the Zoo working hard to merge the Galaxy Zoo and Galaxy Zoo forum user accounts. I’m pleased to say that the process is now complete!
The details of the merge process have been outlined in this earlier post but basically some of you will have had your accounts merged automagically, others of you will have to ‘reclaim’ your old Zoo or forum account by using our merge tool. If you are having trouble logging in since the merge then please use the password reset form at this address: https://galaxyzoo.org/signup
Unfortunately as a consequence of moving the forums to a new server some people won’t be able to see the forums for up to 24 hours. Don’t worry though, they are there and you’ll be able to see them soon! (It’s a DNS propagation issue for you tech-minded folk out there.)
Merging the different accounts has been a long-term goal for us at Galaxy Zoo and we’re really pleased to finally have the right solution in place. It’s been a real programming challenge to get the logic just right and it wouldn’t have been possible without a huge amount of effort from Scott Miller and Pamela Gay and the rest of her team at SIUE – thanks guys!
We realise that the merge may cause problems for a few of you so if you have any questions or are having trouble logging in then please email us at team@galaxyzoo.org
Cheers
Arfon
Forums merge part deux
You may have noticed that the forums are again in maintenance mode and new registrations are disabled on the Zoo at the moment. That’s because we’re currently churning away in the background merging the accounts from both databases. For more information have a read of our earlier post We should have some more news for you later today…
Cheers
Arfon
New from the Zoo – gas clouds around active galactic nuclei
With the excitement about new observations of Hanny’s Voorwerp, this might be a good time to point out that Zoo participants are finding new examples of a related (albeit less spectacular) class of objects. (That was evidently my roundabout way of saying “hey, everyone, you can look for these too!”). What do these four galaxies have in common?
If at first you don't succeed…
So it’s been a busy 24 hours at Galaxy Zoo. As we outlined in the earlier posts were working hard on unifying the Galaxy Zoo and Galaxy Zoo forum accounts. During the merge we had to disable the forums and new registrations on the Zoo so that we could be sure of exactly who was registered where.
So 24 hours later and with some tired eyes I’m sorry to report that we ran into a few technical difficulties with the merge. Specifically, the tests we had in place for checking the post-merge user accounts showed us that we had some problems. It’s of prime importance to us that we get this right and once we’d done the merge we weren’t completely satisfied that things were exactly as they should be.
So what next?
We’ll by now you should see that the forums are back up again as are new registrations on the Zoo and so we’re back to how things have always been. We’re going to review what happened yesterday, figure out what went wrong and then have a go again in the next week or so. Watch this space!
Cheers
Arfon & The Team
Things are moving slooowly
So the long promised forums/Zoo accounts merge is underway but unfortunately things are moving a little slower than we’d like. The good new is we’re making good progress, the bad news is the forums won’t be back up until tomorrow now – sorry!
More news in the morning…
Cheers
Arfon
You may notice a few new things are going on around the Zoo today. From today, you should be able to log in to both Galaxy Zoo itself and the forum at the same time with a single login and password. We are also creating a single profile page, so you can edit all your details in one place. We should have done this in the first place, but better late than never!
The short version of this post is that the sites will be down for a few hours today, and then you’ll be able to login to both the Zoo and forum with the same login. If you want the gory details, then read on :
Changes are coming…
Today is a big day for those of us who work behind the scenes at Galaxy Zoo. More news later but for now the forums are in maintenance mode and new registrations are disabled on the Zoo until this evening. More news later…
Cheers
Arfon
Beaten to the punch
Our own paper covering the discovery of Hanny’s Voorwerp is still working it’s way through the refereeing process. We’ve come up against a referee who really understands the subject and it’s taking time to put right our numerous missteps and to make everything clear. A new version will be submitted in the next couple of days, so hopefully you’ll be able to read it soon.
In the meantime, a group of Dutch radio astronomers have published a paper reporting their own results which is accepted and available online. They were kind enough to discuss it with us, and add some of the team to the list of authors – and they’ll be blogging here next week to tell you about what they’ve done.
It still hurts to be beaten to publication, but at least they’re friendly and it’s another sign of how this remarkable object has captured people’s attention.
Spread the word
In our latest (behind-the-scenes) update of the Galaxy Zoo blog software, we’ve installed a plug in that makes it easy for you to share any story on the blog that you particularly like via portals such as digg.com and facebook. If you do like a post and want to spread the word about it, all you have to do is click on`Bookmark it’ to submit the story.
Why do you zoo?, part two
A while ago we asked you to fill out a short survey about your thoughts about Galaxy Zoo. The purpose of this survey was to get an idea of what was inspiring people to participate in Galaxy Zoo. Thank you for participating in that survey. We are starting to analyze the results of that survey, and we’re learning some interesting things. We’re waiting to share the results until we are finished with all the research, so that we don’t run the risk of biasing your answers because you have heard about the results. But don’t worry, we’ll describe all the results here on the blog, just as we are doing with all the Galaxy Zoo research results.
We’d like to ask you a few follow-up questions about why you participate in Galaxy Zoo. Please click on the link below to answer a short 4-question survey. Your responses will help us learn more about why so many people have found Galaxy Zoo engaging, and will help us design future projects to be even more appealing.
Please click on the link below and fill out the short survey. Thank you for your help!
Galaxy Zoo user follow-up survey
Clear skies,
Jordan
Galaxy Zoo 