December 01, 2008


Changes

• Extended the member ranks a bit, since post counts are so high. Ranks go as follows:
  
  New Member : 0
  Stranger: 1-19
  Initiate Member: 20-99
  Common Member: 100-499
  Frequent Poster: 500-999
  Regular Crowd: 1000+
  
  I don't believe the changes affect existing members, but we'll find out. If people have a problem with this, I'll change it back to the way it was. Stopping at 500 just seemed silly to me when everyone's in the thousands now anyway.
  
  
• New members may not post on the board until they manually agree to follow the board's rules by posting in a duplicate of the rules thread.
  For convenience, this duplicate is hidden so as to not burden members with "new" posts that are actually of no interest.
  
  
• Members may not post new threads until they have at least twenty ten posts. This may be a minor inconvenience to some, but hopefully it'll help combat the spambots. I don't think I've seen a case where spambots have posted into existing threads. If anyone with more experience has more information on this, please let me know and I'll adjust accordingly.

Future Plans

• Fine tune the different member groups to help prevent unwanted spam, as well as maybe throwing in a perk or two for older members.
  
  
• Update the moderation staff slightly, and make sure that the staff generally has the authority to handle board-wide problems.
  
  
• I'm considering ways to condense the board a bit, and maybe combine some sections. We've branched off into so many sections that, for the number of us that there are, it makes the place seem dead because most sections get very little traffic. I'd also like to get rid of a few relatively unused subforums here and there. What do you guys think?

---

December 10, 2008


Changes

• Updated the moderating team:
  http://z9.invisionfree.com/Hapslashs_Void/...dpost&p=1606215

Yolly good, Sire!

20 posts seems a little hight to me. I'd say cut it to half that, but that's just my opinion.

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to the changes. :)

Well, I put it to twenty because I have seen bots go past that. Granted, without the ability to start threads in the first place, it probably doesn't matter. We could try it at ten, and see how it works I suppose. Any problems and I'll just bump it up then, and tell everyone it was your fault. :P

:blink:

sounds like great ideas man!

mono and TK are kinda of like jesus for the void.
they're revolutionising the board.
VIVA LA REVOLUTION!



(in the literal sense, as in long live the new age, nothing too anti-establishment =p )

I'm not sure how I feel about this....

Oh, Mono. That reminds me. When are you going to set up the sections for the weekly worship services?

:mellow:

It's low on my priorities right now, mainly because I expect people to continue their worship on their own until we can manage.

Dear Mono

I've been such good Voidian all year! I hope I get the Spam Forum for christmas, then maybe we could get DK and DW back too, oh boy! Christmas sure is going to be magical! Please bless Darksteel because he is a meger Frequent Poster now, and please let the heavens be merciful towards DK, as abandoners must be forgiven!

Your favourite ASCII encoded result of a malnutritioned life style,
Nox.

P.S I hope you enjoyed the sacrificial bunny last week, it put up quite a struggle!
(\_/)
(X.X)
(>.<)

You know, I've always wanted to make my own religion...

...so I did!!



Heh, really. Minotaur god and all. Working on scripture right now. Anywho, good to see you're actively re-sorting things, Mono and TK! It's late and I'm tired now, but I'm willing to offer suggestions later if they might be of interest, though I'd probably be parroting what I already said in the Change topic, heh.

Suggest away. :)

Heh, I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. I guess it wouldn't hurt to give it another chance at some point, however there are other things I want to take care of first. Also, if we bring back the spam forum, everything needs to remain in the spam forum, and not spill over into the rest of the board like last time. Anyway, that's a discussion for a later time.

Oh, and thanks for the bunny.

Nice to hear all this...




I've been trying coming up with some new design ideas, though a lot isn't thought through yet... I'm not saying we seriously need one, but just wanted to use some of my free time for something that might turn useful. PM or meet me on Messenger if you are interested.

TK and I have discussed it as well. I'd like to see about adding in more skin options, and anything you come up with would definitely be appreciated. However, there are a few things I want to take care of first. Most importantly, I want to restructure the board and get rid of things that aren't used. I'd really like some input on how you guys think things could be better organized, as I think Grant is the only one to give a detailed opinion so far. After that, I want to update the Mod staff a bit, but I want to wait until after we restructure so I know how many people we actually need for various sections. Once the Mod staff is in a better position to take care of day-to-day stuff, I'll start worrying about things like Spam, and skins.

I would have to say, glancing at the boards, and looking back to see how much of it is ever used...here's my suggestions or removing/combining sections...

There hasn't been any posts in the entire News and Information section. Either in the Welcome area, News and Announcements, and suggestions. While the News and Announcements are important, and house the rules and regulations, and other fine crap like that...the others are useless at this point. If anyone has an idea or suggestion, they post it in Member's Only, not suggestions. They're useless and taking up space. Either find a use, or get rid of them.

Few people use the modding area, and the most popular still seems to be the Jedi Academy modding section. I would say leave a modification area open for some popular games, but combine them with PC Gaming. The Development: Learning and Resources section is still not even finished yet, so I would just make a thread where you can post tutorials on popular games and such, and make it a sticky.

PC Gamers, Console Games, Graphics and Art, Movies and Television, and Music all seem to be fairly popular, and while some people like myself use the Written Works forum on occasion...it doesn't seem to be very popular. And the Web Design and Management section seems to be useless, as there have only been 3 topics made since it was introduced. Remove those two, and move some of the threads, so people can still get to them.

The Everything Else section seems to work fine the way it is. I would suggest no changes.

In fact, I really don't have any ideas for anything else. Take my ideas or leave them, it's up to you. It's not my decision. I'm just saying, I'd at least consider these if I was in that position. Good luck.

Well, a lot of that is pretty close to what I was thinking as well. I just want to give people a chance to offer up their opinions because I don't want to just do what I think would work and found out I've pissed off half the board.

We need to bring back the golden ages by pumping GDP back into the economy.

Cool, so the general preference so far is pretty close to what I wanted to do.

Also, guys, if you can as you're planning these out, try and keep the number of sections as low as you reasonably can; I don't want to have five sections with 2 forums each because the section mods won't have much that they can really do. So, if you can, aim for a small number of sections.

Took a few minutes to look it up, and it looks like the "skin chooser" feature won't be an option on this board. Unless you know something I don't..

*Edit: Forget that. I did a little more digging. Apparently you can only add one extra skin. At least I believe that's correct. There are a few scripts and things linked to, but I'm not sure how you'd get them to work.

Adding CSS Skins - IPB Support

*Edit #2: lol, screw it. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. :P Heh, anyway. Take a look at this, if you haven't already. You'll find it useful.

I'll see what I can do with the test board once I get some skins to work with.

Only one? Strange, I could've sworn I had seen more. Well, we'll just have to figure something out.

Well, if you do find more, Mono, could you see if you could find a Red Scheme in there somewhere? I usually like red and it'd be cool to personalize the Void's look to what we all think would fit what we like. Hopefully your journey for that goes well, Sir Giganto.

If anyone else wants to collaborate with the skinning stuff, go ahead and send me a private message.

I guess this replaces the annual
http://z9.invisionfree.com/Hapslashs_Void/...topic=5081&st=0
thread.

Actually, one of the ones I wanted to do, if possible, was the original Void's theme, with the red backgrounds and yellow text. Honestly, though, I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to know how much of it is possible, so I am going to let TK be the one who takes care of that.

A red skin design would be totally possible, but I'm still not sure if we're going to be able to give members the option to choose between more than one skin. I still have to look into that. I'll give you guys an update once I have something concrete.

We need a Christmas theme.

As much as I'd like a P.O.V. Analysis section, I'm unsure whether we have the manpower to keep it from devolving into petty bickering and flame wars.

Sadly, we probably don't.

Discussion Zone, huh?

A lesson that I've learned with Point of View posts, such as mine.... usually no-one gives a crap what others think and rely on flaming that person because they either: A) Worded a lot of stuff wrong (raises hand). B )It was annoying and people didn't want to even bother caring with what the person says or resorts to flaming because their posts are 'too long' and their mind doesn't want to comprehend it (raises hand again). So, sorry Marden, but I think a POV section would be pointless if almost noone wishes to post anything constructive, even in disagreement, to those types of threads. Just my thought.

The "POV Analysis Room" was my idea, Ajax mate.

But it might also help by providing some insight into different members' objections or beliefs. We all know each other pretty well right now, but such a forum might be helpful in analyzing what people do or don't like, agree or disagree with; and while we may have differing opinions, at least we'll know in the future that some people might be sensitive about a certain topic discussed, or similar things.

Nonetheless, since we're still a rather tight-knit community, it probably wouldn't be needed right now, unless there's a boost in new members whom want to introduce their own concepts and beliefs for future reference or forewarning.

lol Ajax? I understand if you're a bit mixed up tonight, Grant. Must've not seen that text on your idea. It's a great idea in my opinion...and now that you mention a lot of great points, you kinda made me think differently. Thanks, Grant, bud. That is true, at least in my eyes. Also it does keep members from spamming 'the Members Only' and 'Lounge' sections with their life problems. Just keeping it to one thread.

I'd like a rule to be placed down that flaming against someone because of how they see things should be kept to a very low minimum, to none at all (preferably). Keep things nice or there will be consequences, ya know? Just how I see it. Because I've seen a lot of times, including my threads on how I saw things, that I kept getting flamed because they saw that I 'worded' things wrong, etcetera. We word our things the way we see no other ways of wording it...and it's just degrading, at least in my eyes, how people start bashing someone else because they used words that didn't appeal to someone else. Granted, not everyone can change the way they say things because someone wants them to. It just doesn't work like that. The only person that can change someone else's actions or words are themselves. In my eyes, it's not the words...it's the context you use them in, and as long as it's not meaning to be offensive to people, then all is good, unless it was the 'N' word, anyways, which I will not get into right now.

I see what you mean, Grant. I support you and your idea.

I think a lot of the problem is that people tend to say too much. Individual restraint would do a lot toward making this place into a nicer hang-out.

Oh, sorry, Revan-not-Ajax...just sometimes get your signature and avatar things mixed up I guess.

Heh, that's true--I agree with you, TK' mate. And this post is more or less worthless in terms of quality content since I'm just saying I agree with you.

lol, your post is a great jumping-off point for a great joke.. if.. only.. I.. could.. share it...

Oh well. I guess you'll just have to be content with knowing that it's about Revan.¹ :D

1. Perfect example of too much said. Don't do this.

True, true. I often set out to write a sentence or two and end up writing a 3-Page paper. It can be quite daunting to read at times, I'm sure.