We have reworked our site and upgraded to the modern forum package vBulletin. There are quite a few changes in layout and functionality. Apart from the new "skin", the following are the most important additions:
More or less interesting changes:
Note: we had planned to install the new server hardware today as well. Unfortunately it could not be delivered on time, so we will replace it later on this week. It is possible that the site will be slow in the first days. We will perform some optimizations later, but we wanted to go live as soon as possible.
Update: everything has gone as planned and we have scheduled the server maintenance for next sunday around 15:00 (CET). Some logins were not imported properly; we are very busy fixing people's login problems and will tend to the less urgent requests after that.
Thanks to everybody who helped with the upgrade!
skydancer/BL
- myBL, your control panel containing a buddy list, an ignore list, forum and thread subscriptions, and a lot of new options to customize the board
- Private messaging
- Polls and attachments
- A more powerful user and post search engine
- "Drugs in the Media" and the front page news have been merged; interesting posts from DitM can now be displayed on the moderated front page
- A new "official" chat channel #harmreduction aimed solely at information and harm reduction
- The links database has been improved and is now featured on the front page - submit your links!
- You can upload your own avatar (1000+ posts required; EXPERIMENTAL)
- More post format options, a few more icons and smilies
More or less interesting changes:
- We now use a MySQL database with improved reliability. (no more 1920s or lost threads when two people reply at the same time) We will continue tweaking it in the next few days.
- The login process has changed. Everybody who had a displayed name that was different from their login name, must forget their old login name and just use their displayed name to log in.
- To improve security, registration is now mandatory to view the community forums; the public services (drugs & events forums) are readable for anyone
- To protect your privacy, all IP address information will be purged frequently.
- Moderator regions are now only accessible to current staff members.
Note: we had planned to install the new server hardware today as well. Unfortunately it could not be delivered on time, so we will replace it later on this week. It is possible that the site will be slow in the first days. We will perform some optimizations later, but we wanted to go live as soon as possible.
Update: everything has gone as planned and we have scheduled the server maintenance for next sunday around 15:00 (CET). Some logins were not imported properly; we are very busy fixing people's login problems and will tend to the less urgent requests after that.
Thanks to everybody who helped with the upgrade!
skydancer/BL
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