Forum Updates and Changes over the next week or so

[danp]

Starting today and over the next week or so most likely I will be upgrading various software for the site and probably be doing some other reorganizing, so if something isn't like it used to be please poke around a bit before thinking something is broken and reporting it. The planned changes are:

1. Software Updates
2. Forum Reorganization: I think I'm going to change the way some of the forums are categorized, merge a few forums, and delete a few that are underutilized.
3. Configuration changes: I'm going to be messing with the things people are allowed to do to deal with some of the issues we've had over the last year (from both a server load standpoint and a "this isn't working out the way we planned" standpoint.

I'll keep everyone updated here as we go.

[danp]

Changes Made:

1. The Lounge no longer contributes to post counts. We prefer quality over quantity. The Lounge is fun, but people use it to inflate post counts. You may notice people's post counts dropping, sometimes significantly. If this makes you upset, that's the problem. Your posts are still there. Please note that this may also reduce your reputation slightly since every few hundred posts adds a rep point. However, posting pictures of cats should not contribute to reputation.
2. Users can no longer leave negative reputation by default. You must receive a certain amount of positive reputation before you are given the ability to ding people down. This will significantly cut down abuse by immature people who use negative rep as retaliation for personal issues. Everyone is still free to issue positive reputation to good posters.
3. After October 20th, the maximum # of saved PM's has been reduced to 50 for regular users Supporting Members still get 200 and Major Supporting Members still get 400. There will be ways to increase this, please stick with me, I had to lower it first to continue doing what I am doing on the list.
4. Signatures are now restricted to 1 line for regular users. Some of the signatures on here are getting really ridiculous. Half the height of any thread is signatures. There will be ways to increase this.
5. The concept of Supporting Members/Major Supporting Members has been removed and replaced with a new system of Paid Subscriptions. Users who have donated within the past year will finish out the remainder of their time in the closest tier (rounded up) which you will see as images on their posts. Donors who have not donated within the last year have been reverted back to normal status. Please see this thread: Paid Forum Subscriptions.

That is all so far.

[doug]

Sounds good, Dan. Will be more stuff to come.

[Nate]

Good move Dan. This will make the forum much better. Forums need this kind of "pruning" as they get larger. And this forum has really grown.

[ShakeyDad]

O.K. .................

[Koli01]

Sounds good to me.
Great work Dan and Doug.
again
thanks for a great forum.

[schr8er2000]

Looking Good there guys.... keep up the good work....

One suggestion though.. would still like to see a place where ya can mark all posts as READ... so you dont have to go thru the same ones again and again to get just the new postings....

Thanks

Paul

[str8shooter]

Cool beans, now it won't be so obvious that I waste half my life away playing Word Association!

[Emptymag]

Damn.
I had 1,000 posts removed, and I'm STILL the "number 2" post whore.






Does this post count?

[sgt7546]

Could you imagine if Rep was cut out of the "Lounge" area too?