Board Maintenance and Updating

Hey guys,

I'm working on the board's add-ons system, and so for the next day or so, the board may be laggy. This is because I'm going to have to occasionally use the board's resources to resolve a troubleshooting issue we've been having with a specific add-on. It should clear up in a few days at most, and I apologize in advance for the inconvenience, but this is something that has to be done.

*Before you ask, no, this has nothing to do with the discourage system, and any comments regarding discourage will be ignored.*

John

Is there an encourage feature?

Just admit it John, you're putting us all on discourage.

You should probably pin this in the Red Room to get more eyes on it.

Good idea.

There is now a link in the Red Room, though the thread is still in the Help Desk, and so HD rules apply.

If you're trying to build Volpone's silly rep bomb, I shall be most displeased.

Oh my, no.

Good heavens no.

As was mentioned often in the Tamar and $corp Splinter/Protest Board thread, social media has been eating BBS's for years now. So we're trying out a new Xenforo 'skin' that basically turns the board into long form twitter. If anyone uses Hootsuite that's basically how the UI will look. Forums and threads will go away, replaced with hashtags (#redroom) which is how conversation streams (similar to threads) will be organized. All significant words in a title will automatically be hashtaged (#obama to #phaseout all #coal #powerplants) You'll be able to sort streams any number of ways (all #coal #redroom streams for example). Combined with allowing people to use twitter accounts to post it should hopefully net us some more eyeballs.

We tried that on the testingforge site, but it created a continuous feedback loop and blew up the server.

Tell me you're joking.

Comrade Ginger never jokes while organizing us proles for missions of conquest.

To the Discouragement Booth with you!

On a more serous note this idea of his is more proof that the other owners need to step up and cut off Ancalagon's legs, arms, and for extra crowd-pleasing points his head.

I don't see a problem with it as long as it's not the default skin, you can change it, and you call it 'world of suck'.

From how it sounds it sounds like it is the new default skin and it can't be changed because then the server would have a headache.

If that's the case, reactivate Haven! Who can copy the database this time?

If you want to attract new members to the board, I'd much rather you fish for new ones at Big Blue (sorry Bonzie!) or tell the mine fielders at TK your creating one here, or open a porn forum. Those are all preferable to changing the layout and functionality of the board to attract the ADHD set, who wouldn't come here anyway.

Yeah I don't come to Wordforge to "Twitter"

If I want to "Twitter" then I go to my account over there and do it.

This drive to get new posters and fuck-all what the old posters think is getting out of hand.

Where did you get that? I assumed it would just be a skin like any other. (I certainly hope that's the case, because it sounds pretty dreadful, but more choices can't hurt.)

Well I'm just inferring it from this: So we're trying out a new Xenforo 'skin' that basically turns the board into long form twitter. Forums and threads will go away, replaced with hashtags (#redroom) which is how conversation streams (similar to threads) will be organized. All significant words in a title will automatically be hashtaged (#obama to #phaseout all #coal #powerplants) You'll be able to sort streams any number of ways (all #coal #redroom streams for example). Combined with allowing people to use twitter accounts to post it should hopefully net us some more eyeballs.

You can't have one part of the board using this and not having forums and threads while another part of the board still has it.

Everything will be a "stream" and I can't see the board being a BBS and a giant Twitter dildo at the same time. Everyone will have to use the same skin.

This, unfortunately. Also due to the resources needed for the conversion, we'll only be able to bring forward about 18 months of threads.

John is fairly confident he can bring over all the user accounts. Worse case scenario people will have to use their Twitter accounts.

See!

Fuck you Ancalagon. You may be a part-owner of this board but you've no right to make this change in your never ending quest for "eyeballs" without at least talking to the members.

If we wanted Twitter-like things we'd already be doing them. Nor do I think most people here want to post to Twitter nor use their fucking Twitter accounts to do so in a "worst case" scenario.

Is it April 1st?

I know which end the server beeps from.

Fuck that... expect to see activity die off completely. I don't use twitter, never have used it. I've also stopped using FB, mainly because of the way they're set up.

I really hope you're fucking with us. If not, expect WF to die within a week.

I found a great cupholder, and it came with the server!

You think you hate it now, wait 'til you try it.

The only way I can think of to interpret this is that you think people are questioning your skills. As far as I know, nobody is. We just think the IDEA is fucking stupid.

But by all means, let's jettison several years' worth of threads and risk losing a bunch of accounts. It's a small price to pay for a feature that nobody wants.

Are you trolling the help desk?

OK, this is turning into the BBS equivalent of one of those news stories you stumble across and don't know if you should get pissed off, or if it's from The Onion.