State of the forum(s) + changelog

[Christopher]

Good day,

My name is Christopher MacManus, and I've been chosen by Eric [webmaster] to join the administrative team. Some of you may know me as moltar from the Minidisc T-Board, or my photo contributions to minidisc.org. Nonetheless, I am here to organize things a bit and make this forum a quality experience [not saying it wasn't before, of course :wink:]. Please register with us if you haven't, too!

I have made a few changes already in terms of structure; the current month and the month prior will reside on the top, and older news posts [for now] will reside at the bottom. I will look into creating a bin for all of them so they aren't all visible. Posting in the news forums is now limited to moderators only, as there are far too many posts dealing with other topics that should be in a relevant subforum. I'm going to make posting a little bit more focused and make sure that we all get into the habit of posting in the relevant forum. This is very important, so please comply.

Members may not post "sticky" topics anymore, but moderators can always grant that privledge if they believe it is worthy of such. Also, signatures have been increased to 1000 characters - we will not allow massive sigs, though [huge pictures, huge text, etc]; try and use this efficently. I will also be introducing some sort of ranking system soon, and I am entertaining suggestions [PM me]. Maximum avatar file size has been bumped up to 17.5 kb.

I have more in mind for this place, hopefully giving it a better status than before. I believe that dedicated forum'ers [and visitors too :wink:] deserve an organized + nice place to discuss this wonderful technology that has brought us together.

I'll respond to this post when I make further changes, and please PM me with any questions, comments, etc.

Cheers!

p.s. - There will be a change in the structure of our moderators. Despite my lack of posting in the past, I have read many posts and know who's been deserving of such responsibility. More on this later.

[Christopher]

Decreased the font size for the main index by one, and also created the subforums "Hi-MD", "User Opinions of MD" and "'phones" [everything headphone/earphone/etc goes there ].

[Christopher]

Meh, decided to merge "Japanese MD scene / Importing" + "MD Media" together, as well as "Future Minidisc Feature Requests" + the newly created "User Opinions". Also created a Marketplace subforum for sales and such.

[Fernando Olmos]

Change the "The World of non-Sony Minidisc Gear" to "Sharp Rules!"... nah only kidding.... but seriously I want the name changed to something like "Sony-Free Zone" or "non-Sony Forum", etc.

That's if it's ok with you guys and the members.

Cheers

[Christopher]

Changed the title and description of the subforum you mentioned. What do you think?

[actorlife]

Congrats Moltar!

How about a seller/ buyer feedback section?

Thanks!

[Fernando Olmos]

Changed the title and description of the subforum you mentioned. What do you think?

Hmmmm

Prefer "non-Sony Zone".. sounds more hip

[Christopher]

Congrats Moltar!

How about a seller/ buyer feedback section?

Thanks!

Will have this in as soon as a little issue with permissions is handled; once that is resolved the buyer/seller feedback will be a subforum of the Marketplace that is viewable right under the Marketplace listing in the main index. I will also put all the old news as subforums so it's not as obtrusive.

Prefer "non-Sony Zone".. sounds more hip

Are you sure? Sounds a little off to me. Anything else in mind [not saying this is a bad idea, but would like to hear other ideas as well. ]?

p.s. Added new logo to the forums, but it'll probably change. We're very close to having a new theme here as well.

[Fernando Olmos]

What do you mean a little off? So it's not ok to offend Sony now and then!!! God pal! Is this a bland vanilla planet I am in or what!?

Alright then... leave it as is, if you feel I am about to step on someone's poor little golden toe!

[Christopher]

You're a riot. I dunno, Non-Sony Zone? Sounds dorky.

As you can probably already tell, new template for the forum and logo.

[The_Stamp]

how about the

"Minidisc Vanilla"

Forum?

(btw, if youve looked at my post number, it being one, its more like at 50, b/c ive had problems with my username)

[Mystyler]

How about, "Join The Revolution" Forum. No Sony users or advocates of capitalism. Especially combinations of the two. :twisted:

[Christopher]

Added

- user is online/offline icon to all posts, profile, and memberlist [if you're hidden, it will only show hidden to you, mods + admins].

- moderator name color to yellow, and admin to red. These colors are present just about everywhere.

- if a user creates a post and views it afterwards, his views will not tally on the total views. This always annoyed me.

I was finally able to consolidate all of the news posts into subforums! Integrating subforums was quite an experience, but it appears to be fully functional. Unfortunately, I accidentally lost three months of news forums and all posts within [11/2003, 12/2003 + 12/2002 I believe]. I am extremely sorry for this, as it was completely my fault since I'm still a little bit inexperienced.

Added Buyer + Seller Feedback subforum to Marketplace, as per actorlife's request.

Think I'll put some ranks in next..

p.s. The forum was down for about a hour and a half today whilst I was attempting to install a mod for the forums that completely backfired. Due to some brilliant work I was able to restore the forums to it's normal look + everything is a-ok.

[Christopher]

I have hired Majestic, KJ_Palmer + iceeedtea to the moderator team. I may hire one other person, but this is probably good for now.

I also added new smilies to the forum, iceeedtea's suggestion that borrows off the Invision format. I will probably add some more to that as well. Please take the time to familiarize yourself with these new smilies.

As a closer step to removing guest posts [and a general reminder to those who may post when they're not logged in], there is a javascript reminder that will ask you to login/register when you post under a guest. If you're posting more than a few times, please register. :happy:

Also, a few of the graphic elements such as folder icons/etc will change in then next full days to better fit the new look of the forum.

The forum may also seem a little bit faster, as I made a few code adjustments.

Please private message me with any issues.

[iceeedtea]

Yay! Thanks for adding the new smilies, Chris! :happy: Much better than the older ones, I think.

I shall do my best in the NetMD forums.

:happy:

[onlykaria]

Thank you so much for the new smileys :love: this is more than i had hope for very nice :smile: :grin: My fav smiley, i might have to invent reasons to use that one

[actorlife]

Thanks Kurisu!

WOW! This place is looking great so far... :smile:

For some reason my avatar is not working

[Christopher]

Actorlife, make sure that the avatar is 150x150, and equal to or less than 17.5 kilobytes.

[actorlife]

for some reason it won't show the image when uploaded from my machine, but it worked when i put it in url form, and it doesn't even work when i tried putting back the other pic i had before. It worked before, hmmm wonder why

[mAjEsTiC]

yay :happy: new smilies... :grin: good work...

[JohnnyLocust]

I can't seem to get the avatar to work either. It's less than 150 x 150 and only 8K. The link to a URL doesn't work for me either.

[iceeedtea]

I can't seem to get the avatar to work either.  It's less than 150 x 150 and only 8K.  The link to a URL doesn't work for me either.

I just tested this by trying to upload an avatar from my computer, and I can confirm that. Uploading seems to be broken.

[Christopher]

There is indeed an error with uploading avatars, although offsite linked avatars are still functional. I am having the site administrator assist me with this issue.

Anyway, I've changed the font for the title on the main logo [yes, a blatant grand theft auto font knockoff, but I am keen to it], but it'll probably change again sometime soon. I have also added new icons to the main index; the white disc represents posts within that have already been viewed, and the blue [Hi-MD] disc signals that there is a post within that has a reply that you haven't read.

I am going to turn off guest posting tonight. I think now that I've established a solid foundation for the forums, despite a few little errors here and there, we can continue into the vision I had when I first joined the administration team. Plus, new members are flooding in more than before. :happy:

Sorry if the disabling of the guest posting puts anyone off, but it doesn't take that long to register, and it's much easier to keep track of the forums you subscribe to, anyways.

[iceeedtea]

Avatar uploading is now fixed. Registered users should now be able to upload images to represent themselves, as long as they are no larger than 150x150 and 17KB.

And please, keep it within tasteful and acceptable limits?

[Daijoubu]

No offence but you cannot use IPB emoticons no non-IPB board

And btw, if you need a php coder, just let me know

[Christopher]

I doubt we'll get scorned with the emoticons, D. :happy:

Thanks for the offer, I may enlist you in the future but things are still pretty basic right now. I know how critical you are of things, and I'm surprised you didn't have anything else to say - so that must mean you like this place a bit now. Puts me quite at ease.. :happy:

[Daijoubu]

I'm going to report your guys!

Just kidding :laugh:v

You still have to see my netpicking in the suggestion forum...lol

IBPlanet.com Mod Team :happy:

- Daijoubu

[Christopher]

Custom ranks are in. There is a 45 character limit, but it will be increased or lowered depending on how it plays out - and it requires five posts for you to use. GZIP is now on, as well. I will introduce predefined ranks as soon as I find/make some decent icons to compliment them.

I will probably spend a good bit of tonight organizing the forums, as there are alot of sticky-type posts that shouldn't be, posts that shouldn't be in certain forums, etc.

[Daijoubu]

Custom ranks are in. There is a 45 character limit, but it will be increased or lowered depending on how it plays out - and it requires five posts for you to use. GZIP is now on, as well. I will introduce predefined ranks as soon as I find/make some decent icons to compliment them.

I will probably spend a good bit of tonight organizing the forums, as there are alot of sticky-type posts that shouldn't be, posts that shouldn't be in certain forums, etc.

GZIP isn't on, just checked

How did you actualy "turned" it on?

You can test with:

http://pipeboost.com/GetReport.asp?URL=htt...ms.minidisc.org

http://leknor.com/code/gziped.php?url=http...minidisc.org%2F

[Christopher]

Indeed, avatar-changer-oplenty :rasp: , since I would never dare to install something of gzip's caliber on Eric's server - this is a matter that he will handle on his own time. I'm sure it'll be installed soon, and I merely assumed it was already in since he did "check" it, like you guessed..

[Daijoubu]

You shouldn't have to install anything

Built-in feature of PHP and phpbb

Haven't used phpbb for awhile, let me download it and see where's it

Should be somewhere in the Admin panel...

Edit: Found it

General Admin

- Configuration:

Enable GZip Compression

Edit2: Made a little edits and tested this extreme style mode...over twice as fast

[Daijoubu]

I installed that extremle style mode on local and got 2x speeds up, definitivly worth it, took me only 2mins

No files to edit, just upload a few and overwrite one

If you want to get the time shown at the bottom, let me know

[Christopher]

ExtremeStyles, as per D's recommendation, is in. Cache mode is on to further improve preformance, and I must admit the forum is purring quite nicely. We're still having issues with GZip, but it doesn't concern me as much as it used to since things seem pretty sufficent for the time being. I added a word count, and if you have posts but it isn't showing up on your word count, please PM me and I will fix it [granted you follow an instruction I give you]; it works for mostly everybody, however - the info is in each of your posts and in your profile.

I have changed the online/offline icons, and also added a googlecounter to the bottom of the index. Can't miss it.

I also fixed some code today that's been bugging me for the last week, whereas when you used to be in a subforum or thread it wouldn't show the links to the thread/forum/etc - it would just show a link to "The Minidisc Community Forums" index. Glad that's over with. :rasp:

That's all for now.

[Daijoubu]

I was wondering what happened to the nav :laugh:

What google thing?

Oh here, little debug mod: http://phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=178048

[iceeedtea]

It's still running as slow as ever on my end.

Can someone remove the 'Your message has been posted, click here to...' screen that you recieve after you preform an action? It is quite annoying; I think it would be better for it to directly send a poster back to the new post.

'nother user posted in the 'Old News' section. Link. Eh?

While viewing the NetMD subforum:

Moderators: None

Total Words: 3,229; 33 posts.

Holy crap!

Chris, do you mind if I take down/revise [more of the latter, however, as I am quite lazy :pfft:] a few of the NetMD 'stickies/announcements' in the subsection? They're quite old, and some of them are quite outdated and need to be changed to reflect newer times.

Ooo. I want to do some tweaking of this forum, too! :pfft:

[Christopher]

I'm not sure about the speed thing with you, as it's blazin' on my side. Try a traceroute?

I think I might be able to remove that message you spoke of, but it's not that bad, is it? I'm sure it's not too hard of a MOD, so I'll snoop around and see what I can do.

As for the post in the "Old News" section, yes, it is unlocked because I feel it's fair to allow people to reply-only to topics that are still recent. They cannot post new topics there, though..

Not sure about the moderator bit, but you are a moderator in that forum and that's all that matters. :happy:

Whatever you feel fit to do within your forum go ahead and do so. This place needs a major cleanup, and that's one of the key things that needs to be revamped.

[actorlife]

Running much faster than before, good job! :smile:

[Christopher]

Okay, put a few things in:

When you submit a reply now, it will instantly go to the post you wrote in the thread. This goes for new threads as well.

I added a links section at the top of the page above the "log out" link. Right now it contains some favorable e-tailers that are reputable, as well as the lone sponsor for Minidisc.org. Please consider visiting these sites for your future Minidisc purchases. I don't recieve any comission, they're simply just great sites that should be well known.

I will be adding further links covering various things as time passes.

Also, at the bottom of the page where the information about who is online resides, hidden users are no longer counted, as well as guests [i will note that guests show up in the total visitor count, though]. Simply just registered members. Hidden users do not show up in the "Who's online" anymore, either. If you're hidden, you're hidden! :happy: [not to the staff, of course].

I took out the google counter. I guess the spiders haven't infiltrated us..yet.

p.s. I'm very glad that so many of you have registered with us as of late, and I thank you for contributing to the Minidisc Community Forums. Let's make this a great place for related discussion!

Oh yeah, I might change the forum structure a little tonight, so keep an eye on that.

[Christopher]

I did indeed change the forum structure a good bit; hope you like it. :happy:

[Shepherd]

Well, I do. :love: