Technical workaround

Copying a technical workaround made in the Rec version (commit
e0def55f9d851110af3ef0dde482a8569a764dfe)
Cleaning diffspec param

Diffspec param used to take '0' but now takes 0. Fixing old strings.
Param fixes

Updating how properties looked at to determine whether to send params
Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/master' into Working-Branch-for-Fall-2014