Forum Upgrade: November 27

[Tormod]

On November 27, from about 0900 AM (Central European Time...that means it will happen during the night for our North American members), a planned and frankly long-awaited forum upgrade will take place.

 

Our forums will be ported from the current software to a different platform.

 

During the upgrade, the forums will be available, but it will not be possible to sign up or post new posts.

 

The upgrade is expected to last at least 5 hours. When it is complete, a short message will be sent to all registered members (even those who have opted out of our newsletter). The message will inform you whether the upgrade was successful or not, and that the boards are (hopefully) open for posting. You will also find a link to the post about resetting your password.

 

There are some important aspects of this upgrade which everybody will need to be aware of:

 

1. Password change

All passwords will be deleted, and you must reset it manually. After the upgrade, an article about how to reset your password will be posted. You do not need to perform this upgrade until you want to post again - we are not locking anyone out. But please be aware that we cannot send you your new password since it simply does not exist until you reset it.

 

That the passwords are deleted does not mean that you can log in with a blank password - the system wil not let you log in until you reset your password.

 

2. Things which are ported

These features will be ported correctly:

-all categories, threads, posts, and polls

-signatures

-usernames

-private messages

-images in messages (except smilies)

 

3. Things which will NOT be ported

These objects cannot be ported:

-avatars

-passwords

-smilies

-HTML in posts

-Private topics

 

I will make sure that all the current avatars are available for use in the new forums - including the ones from the current competition. There is a new size limit on avatars: 80x80 pixels, max 20Kb size. This means that if your current personal avatar is larger than this limit, you need to edit it yourself or make a new one (or choose one of the default avatars).

 

All smilies will be stripped out of the old posts. This is because the old smilies are image-based, while the new smilies are BB-code based.

 

All HTML in posts will be stripped out. This will only be a problem for old posts so it should not have a large impact on your posts. If you have old posts with a lot of HTML that you want to retain, you can edit them with the new WYSIWYG editor after the upgrade. Some HTML will probably still remain, but most likely it will be visible as code since HTML will not be allowed in new topics (as is the case today).

 

The "private topics" have not been taken into use by many users (it is *not* the same as private messages) so I don't think anyone will miss them.

 

4. New features

Better search functionality - it is currently impossible to search the forums except for topic titles

Faster load times - the news forums load much faster than the current software

Better RSS feeds - you will be able to subscribe to an improved and more reliable feed with any newsreader

Better moderator tools - our moderators will be able to have more control over their different groups

New design - the new forums will have a distinct design. They are also skinnable, so we can have different styles for different sections

More expansion possibilities - there are numerous add-ons for the new boards which we will consider adding in the future

No ads for members - the Google ads will not be shown to members who have logged in (the rest of Hypography will still feature banners - this is how we pay for software and hosting)

Improved messaging system - the Private Message system makes it easy to sort private messages in folders, send messages to multiple users, organize them by date or topic, etc.

User Control Panel - you get your own control panel with options to change your password, avatar, e-mail etc.