Forum Updates

[Asomadus]

The forum system is now running on the newest release of vBulletin. With this there has been some new features and additions to the forums as well as some changes done that I will outline.

Mark Forums Read with Icon
If you wish to mark a forum read, you can click the status icon on the index page and the change will be processed without reload. You can even mark individual sub-forums as read in the same way.

Quotes Tags and Multiple Quotes
When quoting a post, the ID of the post is automatically included with the [quote] tag. When the quoted text is viewed in a thread, a small icon links back to the quoted post.

The multi-quote feature allows users to tag multiple posts that they wish to respond to by clicking a small button on each post. Once the user clicks the reply button, each tagged post is quoted.

To increase usability, by default, only posts within the current thread are automatically quoted. If you wish to quote posts in other threads with multi-quote, you simply need to click a link on the reply page, and the text of those posts will be added without a reload.

Signature Restrictions
There are new signature restrictions put in place to keep signatures under control. The new changes will restrict sizes in signatures from going over size '4' so that we do not have any oversized signatures that takes up alot of room. Furthermore, several of the BBCodes have been disabled for signature use as well.

Please note that any signatures that use restricted bbcode or are over the size of 4 need to change their signature to follow these rules as the old signatures didn't get changed. Any signatures that are over the limit will be edited or removed.

Private Message Preview in Notification Emails
If you have elected to receive emails when receiving a new private message, the email will now contain more than just the name of the user who sent you the message. The title and body of the message will be included. Any BB codes in the message will automatically be converted to an equivalent plaintext version using the new plaintext bbcode parser.

Show Threads or Posts from Quick Search Popup
You can now choose to show search results as threads or posts without having to click through to the advanced search page.


Infraction System
This new system will allow our moderators quickly note an account if the Forum Rules and Social Guidelines are not followed. If you do violate the rules you may now recieve a Private Message stating that you have recieved a warning or infraction and the details in regards to why you had recieved it.

If you recieve an infraction it is noted in both your UserCP and in your User Profile so you can keep track of the infractions that you have recieved. If you do not have Private Messages enabled the infraction details will be mailed to the address on file. This will serve as a method to keep track of your own infractions and we will make every attempt that is possible to make sure that you recieved the details on your infraction and why it is on your account.

If you recieve too many infractions or if deemed appropriate, any moderator may lock down your access to post in the forums and use other forum features until an administrator is able to deal with you directly on suspension of your account.

If you feel that you recieved an infraction when you didn't deserve it please feel free to PM me or another moderator but in any case do NOT make a new thread about recieving an infraction or about a thread that has been moderated as that will only get you a suspension quicker.

Please also note if you excessively post off topic material in the Editor News forum then your access to that forum may now be locked and not able to make any more posts.

Other Changes
There are several other changes to the forums that you may have noticed. In addition to these changes there are many performance enhancing features so you should experience quicker load times on most pages.

I moved around a few forums and plan to do some more work over the next few days on them.

[Asomadus]

A reminder that all signatures over the size of 4 and any other restricted code will be removed in the next few weeks. Please take a moment to review your signatures and have this removed. Also, any users that have a username with characters outside the allowed characters outlined above or in the Forum Rules will be changed without notice.

Please also note that using the code 'size=+4' to bypass the size filter in signatures is not allowed and can quickly lead to not being able to set your signature or suspension from the forums. Standard size is 2 and max size is 4 this means if you are going to use the size=+# the # must not be greater than 2.