At last (assuming all goes well this week), the switch in forum software from Fusetalk to vBulletin will take place on Thursday.
BEFORE THURSDAY, MAKE SURE THE EMAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR PROFILE IS CORRECT! YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LOG IN UNTIL YOU CLICK ON "confirm" IN THE EMAIL THAT WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY SENT TO YOU.
The forums will be off-line most of Thursday for the transition. It is expected to take 15 to 18 hours to migrate all data to the new forums. All of the archived threads have already been migrated.
It was attempted to keep the look of the forums almost the same, but you will note a few changes & enhancements to the forums:
1. Embedded images will be allowed in most of the sub-forums. These will be turned off by default, but users can change their profile to allow embedded images. Only those signed in to the forums will be able to see the images.
2. The babe thread will no longer be in L&R. The babe thread will be re-located to OT. However, due to problems in the past - people hot-linking to sites that don't allow hot-linking, resulting in porn pages being displayed, no members will be allowed to post directly into that thread. All links will need to be PM'd to an OT moderator who volunteered to preview them & add them to the thread, if appropriate, on a weekly basis.
3. Politics and News will now be Politics & Religion. A separate sub-forum for non-divisive, non-political news stories has been added.
4. In an effort to attract more outside interest to the forums, there will be more social sub-forums. In addition to OT, P&R, L&R, News, The Garage, and Health & Fitness, the following sub-forums have been created:
Hobbies, Blogging, Finance, Rants and Raves, and Homework Help
5. As all they've done in the past is encourage neffing, titles such as "lifer" have been eliminated. All new titles will be rep-based.
6. Post counts have been eliminated. See #5.
7. The minimum word count for posts has increased from 1 to 6. Replies of less than 6 words, not including emoticons, will result in an error message. The 15 seconds between posts rule has been increased to 30 seconds, and 5 minutes in any one single thread. See #5
8. There are two separate rep systems - one for the more technical & help oriented forums - responses will count toward titles; and one for the strictly social forums. User feedback in the social forums will be used to lock threads or automatically vacation users. (Good luck, Savoyboy.) This will be implemented much the same way the feedback on Craigslist is used to flag posts there. This feature will also be added to Hot Deals and For Sale/Trade to help combat spammers more efficiently. Anyone posting 3 threads that are locked within a 10 day rolling period will automatically be vacationed for one week. Moderators will continue to be able to vacation members who violate rules, at the moderator's discretion. User votes are logged and any user or group of users who show a history of maliciously flagging threads will wind up vacations. The automatic vacations may be appealed to a senior moderator.
9. Moderators will be addressed by "Sir" and "Ma'am" as appropriate.
(Just kidding. We asked for it, but Derek said "No.")
9. Moderators will become pseudo-anonymous. As it has led to general confusion over moderators posting as regular members and moderators acting in the role of moderator, ALL moderation will be done from each moderator's second account. Only Derek Wilson and the other moderators will know which moderator belongs to which moderator account. (i.e. Happy Moderator, Kinky Moderator, Mean Mod, and other titles we have chosen.) Each moderator will continue to be accountable for their actions in that role. Moderator's regular accounts will be subject to the same rules as other members. (See #8.)
BEFORE THURSDAY, MAKE SURE THE EMAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR PROFILE IS CORRECT! YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LOG IN UNTIL YOU CLICK ON "confirm" IN THE EMAIL THAT WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY SENT TO YOU.
The forums will be off-line most of Thursday for the transition. It is expected to take 15 to 18 hours to migrate all data to the new forums. All of the archived threads have already been migrated.
It was attempted to keep the look of the forums almost the same, but you will note a few changes & enhancements to the forums:
1. Embedded images will be allowed in most of the sub-forums. These will be turned off by default, but users can change their profile to allow embedded images. Only those signed in to the forums will be able to see the images.
2. The babe thread will no longer be in L&R. The babe thread will be re-located to OT. However, due to problems in the past - people hot-linking to sites that don't allow hot-linking, resulting in porn pages being displayed, no members will be allowed to post directly into that thread. All links will need to be PM'd to an OT moderator who volunteered to preview them & add them to the thread, if appropriate, on a weekly basis.
3. Politics and News will now be Politics & Religion. A separate sub-forum for non-divisive, non-political news stories has been added.
4. In an effort to attract more outside interest to the forums, there will be more social sub-forums. In addition to OT, P&R, L&R, News, The Garage, and Health & Fitness, the following sub-forums have been created:
Hobbies, Blogging, Finance, Rants and Raves, and Homework Help
5. As all they've done in the past is encourage neffing, titles such as "lifer" have been eliminated. All new titles will be rep-based.
6. Post counts have been eliminated. See #5.
7. The minimum word count for posts has increased from 1 to 6. Replies of less than 6 words, not including emoticons, will result in an error message. The 15 seconds between posts rule has been increased to 30 seconds, and 5 minutes in any one single thread. See #5
8. There are two separate rep systems - one for the more technical & help oriented forums - responses will count toward titles; and one for the strictly social forums. User feedback in the social forums will be used to lock threads or automatically vacation users. (Good luck, Savoyboy.) This will be implemented much the same way the feedback on Craigslist is used to flag posts there. This feature will also be added to Hot Deals and For Sale/Trade to help combat spammers more efficiently. Anyone posting 3 threads that are locked within a 10 day rolling period will automatically be vacationed for one week. Moderators will continue to be able to vacation members who violate rules, at the moderator's discretion. User votes are logged and any user or group of users who show a history of maliciously flagging threads will wind up vacations. The automatic vacations may be appealed to a senior moderator.
9. Moderators will be addressed by "Sir" and "Ma'am" as appropriate.
(Just kidding. We asked for it, but Derek said "No.")
9. Moderators will become pseudo-anonymous. As it has led to general confusion over moderators posting as regular members and moderators acting in the role of moderator, ALL moderation will be done from each moderator's second account. Only Derek Wilson and the other moderators will know which moderator belongs to which moderator account. (i.e. Happy Moderator, Kinky Moderator, Mean Mod, and other titles we have chosen.) Each moderator will continue to be accountable for their actions in that role. Moderator's regular accounts will be subject to the same rules as other members. (See #8.)
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