Forum Changes

[Koroush Ghazi]

The purpose of this thread is to quickly outline the major changes from the recent upgrade to VBulletin 3.6. Please read below to understand the changes. The main changes in VB3.6 are under the hood, and allow for greater customization and easier moderation.

Importantly I have also updated and greatly simplified the Forum Rules which everyone should read through again as well.


The new user-related features are covered below. I apologize for the length of this post, but it's necessary for all members to acquaint themselves with the major new features properly:

The Infraction System

This system provides a more transparent and more foolproof way of warning and penalizing members for breaches of rules. In the past we only had moderator/admin warnings placed in the relevant offending post/thread, and users could sometimes miss these. So now, for most breaches, an Admin/Mod can click the following icon (meant to represent Red/Yellow cards) above a user's post to instigate an infraction or a warning:



Note that this icon is only visible to Admins/Mods - users cannot start infractions on other members here. Once the moderator has entered the reason for an Infraction, and the number of points it incurs, the member will get several prominent notifications that they have breached a rule:

Infractions Shown on User's Title

Firstly the number of Infractions and the Points total of these infractions is shown at the top right of every post they make:



The first number is the total number of infractions - in the example above there are 2 separate infractions. The second number is the sum of the points from these: (3) points. If a member hits 6 Infraction Points in total, they will be permanently banned.

Each infraction type has a different number of points, ranging from 1 point for bumping a thread, to 6 points (instant ban) for posting illegal material (e.g warez links), spamming the forums with ads, or severely abusing other members. Moderators can also assign custom infractions as they see fit. Some infraction points expire after a period of time, usually 1 month. Some take more time to expire, while others never expire if serious enough.


Infractions Shown in User Profile

To make things much simpler to understand for people who receive infractions, the post(s) for which you've received infractions, the reason for the infraction, the date it was given and when (if ever) it will expire are all listed in your Public Profile:



So you can find precisely where and why you received an infraction. This is also viewable by other members. The reason I have done this is to make sure that the process is completely transparent, so everyone can see why an individual has a certain number of infraction points, and to also serve as an example to others as to how not to post on the forums (i.e. the types of posts which will incur infractions).


Automated Infraction PM

Finally, every member who gets an infractions will also get an automated Private Message sent to them each time, again providing full details of the infraction:



Moderators may still post prominent warnings in particular posts/threads, if it is necessary to prominently warn others not to do the same thing. Moderators can also provide just a warning (with no points attached) in place of a formal infraction, if the breach is minor or there are other circumstances involved. Much is still left up to moderator discretion. As always, do not argue with moderators in a thread, take it to PM if you believe you've been wrongly punished.


In any case given how many prompts a user receives after incurring an infraction - at least 3 separate highly visible prompts - there is no excuse for members to say they didn't know or didn't see a warning, or that they weren't given enough chances. If you see your infraction level reaching close to 6, then it would be wise to read the Forum Rules very carefully and consider whether these forums are really suited to your posting style.

Bans from reaching 6 infraction points are exactly the same as other bans - they will not be revoked for any reason.

Multi-Quote System

If you've ever wanted to quote several people at once in a reply properly (i.e. including their names in each quote box), you can now use the Mult-Quote System. To quote multiple threads/posts, click the small button next to the Quote button of the post(s) you wish to include quotes from. This icon will turn red:



You can select up to 8 different posts to use quotes from, in the order in which you chose them. When you're finished choosing the posts to quote from, click the Reply or Quote button and a new dialog box with all the contents of each thread in correctly-formatted quotes will appear. You can further edit this before posting it.

Check If Already Posted

This is similar to the modification I had recently installed on VB 3.5.4 - every time you start a new thread, after you enter a thread title, you should click the 'Check If Already Posted' button next to the Title box. This will do a basic search to make sure that your thread topic is not covered in other threads on the forum:



Clicking the button launches a search in a small new window which appears with relevant results.

This is not the only way in which you should do research before posting, however it has been included to prevent a great many threads which are posted despite the existence of a thread on a similar or exact same topic. So make sure to use this button each time you create a new thread and post in an existing thread if one exists.

New Forum - My Future Machine

Since we are getting more and more people starting up new threads - and often multiple threads - on their system upgrades, a new sub forum called My Future Machine has been created, and the My Machine forum has been renamed to My Current Machine. As the names imply, only post details of your existing system in the My Current Machine forum, so it can be discussed or used as reference for troubleshooting in another thread for example.

The My Future Machine forum on the other hand is not for posting lots of dream systems. It is for people who want to upgrade one or more components to post their intended upgraded machine specs. The Forum Rules have also changed to specifically prevent people continually creating lots of 'X vs. Y' or 'What should I choose' hardware threads. As you can imagine, based on budgets, brands and specific model types, there are infinite varieties of these threads which could be started and they will eventually overwhelm all other threads in the hardware forums.

So from now on, if you're planning on an upgrade, first post your full potential upgraded machine specs in the My Future Machine forum, and then you can discuss potential upgrade paths with others. This puts any single upgrade into the context of what other components you may want or need to upgrade at the same time, and provides others with details of your system so that an intelligent upgrade choice can be made. It also prevents spillover into the other forums, and encourages people to research an upgrade path rather than just asking whether one component is better than another over and over again.


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I will add other new features to this thread as I find or install them.




Forum Problems

There are also a range of cosmetic changes and minor touches throughout the forums which you will eventually notice, but I won't cover them here as most are minor and self explanatory. For the most part the forum upgrade has been done to make the forums more secure, more compatible, and more transparent. It took me quite a while to implement all the changes as it was pretty much done from scratch. Many of the customized appearance and functionality we have here requires manual editing of a large number of templates and a lot of testing to ensure they all work properly. So the fact that things look pretty much the same as before is actually due to a lot of work - the appearance didn't just 'carry over' during the forum upgrade unfortunately.

Custom Themes/Skins

The work involved in the forum upgrade is why the forums now have a single standard theme. I cannot provide multiple themes as each set of theme templates requires varied manual editing and testing each time I implement a modification or customization, as well as each time the VB software is upgraded. This just isn't feasible since it takes up far too much of my time. I won't be providing any additional themes in the future, so please do not ask for any. The default theme now is perfectly fine for day-to-day use, even if it doesn't please you visually.



Obviously I haven't been able to test every single aspect of the new forums, so if you run into a forum glitch or problem - whether cosmetic or otherwise - please post details of them here and I will fix them as soon as possible. Also post any feedback or thoughts on the 'new forum' here, but bear in mind the forum rules and the general structure of the forums is not going to be changed significantly.

Additional Comment:
Note I've already found a major problem which need to be fixed

The login doesn't seem to remember the username/password permanently - this is due to the custom skin we use, so I need to do another manual edit to somehow fix this.

/EDIT: The person who created the custom skin is going to provide a fix for this shortly.

/EDIT 2: Doesn't matter, I've fixed it myself. There is now a 'Remember' box you can tick which means you won't have to kee relogging back into the forum each visit.

[bigtabs]

Well done mate. Great work.

[Koroush Ghazi]

No worries, sorry the forum were down for so long. The VB3.6 software upgrade took only around 1 hour to do yesterday. The amount of manual editing required to get this damn Element skin (which was supposedly upgraded for VB3.6) has been crazy, not to mention the fact that many of the software mods we've been using haven't been upgraded to VB3.6, which meant I had to manually recode and retest them - and I'm no PHP coding wizard I can tell you that

Anyway everything is finally looking like it's up and running and fixed. However please if anything looks odd or you experience problems using the forums, please post here and I'll get on it.

[bigtabs]

I'm sure you are pretty bored of tweaking the forums at the moment after yesterdays major efforts, but might I suggest the inclusion of another form of spoiler tag that may be used in sigs? Or possibly an extra button by the person's name for spec details.

These could contain people's PC specs and remove alot of the repeated info that one sees in a page. Rage3D has this feature if you want to see it in action, though you may prefer to have a set name (say 'Specs') for the tag.

Personally I don't like seeing specs if they're not pertinent to the discussion, but it is useful info to have available to people if they want or need it.

Also it could allow for people to go into a bit more detail than the current sig line limit allows.

The code there is (hide=Specs)$$insert info here$$(/hide), though this allows the user to specify their own name for the tag.

[Koroush Ghazi]

I've merged the request into the existing Forum Changes thread, and to be honest I'm not really after any more modifications to the forum at the moment.

The problem with mods is twofold - the more you add, the more can potentially go wrong, the longer page loading times take (due to extra code processing), and the more confusing things can be for users. Plus of course the more editing I have to do each time the software is upgraded.

Only essential modifications which reduce admin/mod work and make the forums run more smoothly are on the immediate agenda at the moment, sorry.

[Stryker]

Considering how we are always after people to post their specs, more detailed the better, best if in signature, etc, etc, the "Specs" button over on Rage3D would probably get in the way here. But the idea is good, especially some of the other uses it has been put to over there.

[Koroush Ghazi]

We can definitely look at it a bit further down the track. For the moment it is much too early to consider modifying the board when the current software hasn't even been fully tested yet.

I think the current method of using a few lines to post specs in the sig is fine, such as the specs you've posted in your sig Stryker. Or even better, a simple link to the full spec details in a thread on the 'My Current Machine' forum, complete with pictures etc. is also great as it provides maximum detail, all from a simple link. That is one of the reasons we have the 'My Current Machine' forum in the first place

/EDIT: By the way, I'm finding that editing, posting replies etc. is a lot faster on the new forums here, anyone else find that as well?

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Stryker

Considering how we are always after people to post their specs,...

What I like most is the small arrow next to the "Originally posted by", which when clicked will take you to the post where the quote was taken from. Saves a lot of time searching where a user found the post from which the quote was taken.

[bigtabs]

Ahh yes, I'd not considered that link to the 'my machine' forum. I'll have to make a thread there. Though I'm not particularly looking for feedback on my rig, it may prove interesting.

The quote-link feature is very cool. I've not seen that anywhere before.

[Koroush Ghazi]

Originally Posted by Stryker

What I like most is the small arrow next to the "Originally posted by", which when clicked will take you to the post where the quote was taken from. Saves a lot of time searching where a user found the post from which the quote was taken.

There are indeed a lot of nice features in VB3.6 which I haven't bothered to get into, best to let users discover it themselves

Most forums around the web are running older versions of VBulletin. We would be one of the few more 'major' forums up and running with VB3.6, since it was only officially released in final form 3 days ago.

That's why I'm eager to see how things go, because VB3.6 is actually a very major upgrade, whereas all our previous upgrades were minor incremental 'patches'.