DemonGoddess

Guests can now view limited parts of the forum. View only, must register to post anything. As much as I'd like to enable guest posting in tech forums, can't do it at this point in time, creates a db error, which the upgrade will fix.

Not a couple days, but I guarantee ya I'll be glued to my damn monitor for at least eight hours straight that day. As I said, I plan on having all the pre-existing modification which have been updated for the newest version of the board ready to go at the same time. So, I'll have that already done and ready to go before I even initiate the upgrade part.

Very likely. Right now my primary concern is getting THIS thing ready for upgrade. Time consuming, but necessary what I'm having to do pre-upgrade. This entails, in part, finding appropriate modules to replace functions that are no longer available for the newest versions of the board, testing them offsite to ENSURE that they work, and then when time comes adding it to the new board setup. That's only a part of it, of course there are other things I'm doing now as well, such as the restructure which is integral to how the face of things will be once upgrading is complete, and you all can get a sneak peak as to what that will be once it's all done anyway. I'll finish THAT before upgrade so I don't have to it later. Trying to minimize board down time. I also upgraded my own forum today (same software) which was only 7 versions behind current. THIS one is about 15 versions behind. So, that upgrade took me six hours altogether. That's just to upload the software, run the upgrade and then the maintenance utilities that have to be run to convert this that, and the other thing. That time does NOT include time I will be using to make my old 2.15 skins compatible to 2.3.3, nor does it include the time I will be using to port BACK in the mods the upgrade erased. Of course, one of the strongest reasons I see for doing the upgrade whether on my own board or here, are the language differences. This version (2.3.3) addresses that. The board is now FULLY compatible to php 5 and mySQL 5. I realize that doesn't mean much to most anyone else, but it's a critical factor in how this board can operate.

ACK! One thing at a time guys. Gotta get all this stuff set up to work correctly first, before I EVEN start looking at new modifications to port in, like blogs. 1. Nope, will not be making a generic user with password that's linked to inside the archive for accessing the forum. What we WILL be doing is providing a LINK to the subforum (by category as listed in the archive) direct to the forum. It's up to everyone else to create their own user names and passwords. As there is no option to respond to reviews in the review threads for the stories, I thought that it would be good to encourage them to do that here in forum. Can make for some lively discussion, and, (so I'm told) can actually help an author in some ways. I'd bet that this other site you're talking about initially encouraged their archive members to join their forum to do exactly what they're doing. Same thing we're seeking to do here. 2. Blogs- First, we have to make sure that such a module or modification will not stress the resources more than normal. If so, not an option at ALL. PHP programs such as this board and the archive tend to be resource piggies as it is. Adding yet ANOTHER resource hog to the overall site architecture I don't think is a good idea at all. As to blogging in forum, yes, there is an installable module for that, but it's ALSO a paid thing, and I'm not so sure that we really have a need for that. So MANY people already have blogs in LJ and MySpace, it's easy to provide that link in your signature, or as your homepage, or something like that. So, from my point of view, I'd have to say blogging in future here (whether as a separate software module or whatever) is not an advisable thing to add to the overall site architecture.

I'll wait for manta2g or xax to give you a more detailed response, but honestly, it's more how the bandwidth would be used up by the graphics loading. It's more a resource issue than anything, really, as to why I personally would say no to something like that. But, this is not my call, so you guys have to wait for them.

I'll have a look and see where exactly I should stick a subforum for collaborations like that. It's a good idea.

Actually, archive members are going to be ENCOURAGED to join and use the forum. Part of that is some of the new sections you've already seen here. The Yahoo groups are all coming HERE. So, anyone who once participated in those, will be told this is where they should be going instead. Something else I'd like to see (once I have this restructure thing out of the way) is for the authors to actually interact with their readers in the forums specifically set up for the part of the archive they write in. Review responses here, rather than in the review thread of the story. That sort of thing. Further, once the upgrade to the forum software is completed, guest viewing will be allowed for most parts of the board. Guests will not be able to post, only to view. In order to actually particpate, you'll still have to login. Oh yeah, once I do the upgrade to my own forum this week, I'll post up the new features you all can expect to see and be able to use as well. It's really much nicer.

Yes, that's what that means, that by making that correction upload, it SHOULD fix the format errors throughout the archive. Yer not being a drone, just thorough, and asking for clarification. Nothing wrong with that at all.

yes, there will be subforums to the main anime entry. Thinking about a way to make it a bit more navigable as well, so there will likely be an additional level of nesting so I can limit subforums to say, maybe six anime/manga titles per initial subforum to Anime. This is very likely the most difficult one to set in a manner that'll make sense, while at the same time not giving you a forum category with a bizillion subforum choices all at once. That defeats the purpose.

hehe no prob. not a distraction actually. I already readjusted that setting for you. Sorry about that. It's the Central Index that will be mirrored here in forum. Yeah, there's a bit of work to do, but how it'll make the board perform in the end makes it well worth it. You will actually be seeing those structure changes here in forum first, oddly enough. So, once it's done here, if you don't actually see it in the archive yet, it will be happening in the not to distant future.

It is being worked on.

Bots don't validate, nor type in visual verification/registration codes. I've already adjusted that setting, by the way. That's why most boards if allowing guest access, for example, DON'T allow guests the ability to post. Only to view. Bots generally will spam a board as a guest user. Or auto register with a false email address, so of course they can't validate, which means they can't use the forum anyway.

I probably tuirned that option back on when I changed the setting to allow people to immediately edit their profiles. (habit, other boards generally have that set). Not a problem I'll check and turn it off if I did that. No, it's NOT part of the reordering. That's a STRUCTURE thing. What is ultimately going to occur here, is that the fanfiction category, for example, is going to MIRROR the archive main categories. While I won't be branching off to the sub sub levels the archive will ultimately end up with here in forum, it will still be a large change in how things appear in future, as compared to how they appear now. The primary reason for doing this is for optimizing how the software accesses and uses the hardware framework the site itself works from. By making it so the software module (in this case, the forum) does that more efficiently, it also will make the board itself work faster altogether. Plus by doing all these maintenance type things now (this is only one of them), it makes it so that when the software itself is uprgraded, the downtime is greatly reduced. Then there's an incompatibility issue between php 3 and php 4. I have a forum specific fix I'm actually testing offsite before I even think about implementing it here. I want to be sure the thing works before I do it. That should correct the html code insert for a space (if you forward a message, the person who recieves it will get it like that, improperly parsed), and a bunch of other oddball things that keep occurring. But that's actually for another post, when I do it.

I've set that to disabled, as it allows a KNOWN exploit to be present and usable. So, for anyone who is currently using html in their signatures, please edit them and use the bb code instead.

Next task on the agenda is to make the fan fiction main category actually mirror the archive software and ITS main categories. Won't be getting to that for at least a week, I think, but so you all know it's coming.

haha, this part ain't a bug, it's a setting. Just no time to really LOOK at it yet.

As I said earlier, I'm not sure WHY the editing your whole profile was set to wait 'til a member reaches twenty posts. At this point in time, I'm working on allowing guest view access to certain parts of the board, so, while I'm not getting to looking over these settings now (and making adjustments where necessary), I will be getting to it soon.

While I appreciate the praise, I actually had very little, if anything, to do with the archive coding. That's manta2g and xax's excellent work.

I will be consolidating all the "Searching for a fic?" sub-forums into one. I expect to have this done within the next 24 hours.

It's 20 posts, looking at the setting for it. The Game Forum is where you were directed, not a specific thread. I'm unsure as to why that was set before, that post limit to be able to edit your profile, but I'm sure there was a reason for it at the time. Like you, I have my own discussion board, which actually is a later version of this software, so am aware of where I need to go to adjust that setting. I don't see a need for limiting that ability, but I'd like to be able to check and see why it was done in the first place, before I go ahead and change that setting. There may have been an actual need that was seen and addressed as a result, at the time it was done.

The archive login has actually been centralized for at least the last few weeks that I know of. I found that out by accident when I was reading in one section, jumped to another and stayed logged in. So, curiosity got the better of me and I started jumping from category to category, to see if I was logged out, and I was not. That's something that aggravated me to no end (as a user), the login not being centralized, and I only READ. I can't imagine what a pain that must've been to the authors. This was done thanks to two very talented much younger than me coders.

Ya know, the whole idea is to integrate the archive and forum as much as we can. By not having different groups to login to, for example, as those are now here; and other things that you'll be seeing done.

Actually, am in progress of doing this right now. I just have to do some edits in some globals to disable that required login that shows up on the index when you go to it. I already set the board to allow for guest viewing this morning. In just a couple of areas for now.

Yep, same here. Apology wasn't even necessary.....

Errrm.... Acal posted that here so that those who need to be made aware of it and handle this, can. And yes, advertising in the archive is not allowed.