The major upgrade of the Message Board software has hit the streets. I've downloaded it and am preparing to start the conversion. I just wanted to give every one at least a day's notice before I do this.

There is a posibility that the board could be down for a longer than normal maintenance period. I wish I could say just how long. If all goes well, the turn-around time could be as short as an hour or two. At worst case, it could be down for a day. I will update the maintenance screen with information on planned duration as the upgrade occurs.

Again, this is a major upgrade that I must not rush or it could be catastrophic to the board. All user profiles and board threads will be untouched.

The new board will have dramatic changes. I'll outline in another message after the upgrade the new features that are available. I'll probably enable the features slowly, so we can all get used to them.

At the moment, I plan on starting this upgrade about 7:00 PM Pacific on Tuesday, 3/20/01. In preparation for this, I have suspended all new registrations as of now. Once the new board software has been installed, new registrations will again be accepted.

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PaulC PaulC@MonteCarloSS.com
Original Owner, Silver T-Toped 86 SS - Webmaster of:


[This message has been edited by Z65_Paul (edited 03-19-2001).]

Ok People.. I think this new version is working. I've decided to activate all the new options that are available. Please check out your profile... You will find some new fields where you can enter a URL for your picture (or your car), and there is an entry listing for the year/model of your car.

Probably the bigest new feature is the ability to send private messages between users. You can enable or disable this feature via your profile... so if you don't want to accept any private messages, there is a way to do that.

There is also a User Ranking feature. You can rank any user you want. I've chosen to only show the ranking for those who have a ranking of 4 or 5 (out of 5).

There is also now only one "log-in" per session so once you've entered your user ID and password, the system will not ask you again during that session.

So.. have fun.. look around.. there are a lot of neat little features that even I haven't discovered yet. Post your questions about this new version here in this thread.

Please let me know what you think of the new version.

Interesting upgrade. Give me a few days to get accustom to it and I'll provide some feedback.

By the way, what is the goal of the user ratings?

Seems to work just fine.

Went to my profile and tinkered a little with my sig. I left all the preferences the way they were (I'm game).

It's nice to be able to just click for the graemlins and UBB code rather than having to remember the syntax.

But I still have to copy and paste the text and member name if I'm specifically directing a reply against a particular post as opposed to posting against the topic in general.

Norm

I sent you an email Paul. My profile came up when you posted the second message in the thread..kinda cool huh?

Do you have a split-personality?

Chris

I like it!

Yea Chris.. that's my fault.. I did some editing of the Member files after I posted that and didn't realize the affect. All of my future posts should be ok and show up as me. Sorry about that.

I like it Paul good job.

Very nice!!! I like the new format, good job. Haven't found any problems yet!

Regarding the Member Ratings.. the goal.. instead of answering that directly, I think a quote from the Software Company that developed the board will help:



I think the last line sums up what I hope the ratings will accomplish in our community. I have elected to only show Ratings for those with 4 or 5 stars as indicated above. I'd like to use this feature to indicate the quality of posts that an individual contributes and not based on the poplularity. But who's to say? I'm flattered that I have 5 stars showing.

BTW, I'll be changing the icon for those stars and a few other icons so they show up better on the dark background. That should appear later tonight.

[ 03-21-2001: Message edited by: Z65_Paul ]

It's definately different. But im geting use to it. Also one idea might be to take all the threads that have no replys and if no one answers them in a while delete them.

I love it!!! The old board was old and outdated, I like this one.

Weird that the newest version doesnt include an auto-quote of an earlier post feature like earlier versions did.

Not weird, really; Paul removed it quite a while ago on prior versions.

Ah ha! the culprit identified! This is gonna reflect in your rating mister! :p

Yep, the block quote icon was removed quite a while ago after what I saw were some abuses of the feature. Some were using the feature as you would on an email list, where you would need to remind the reader of what you were responding to. This option is great in long threads where it may not be obvious who you are responding to, but in general, on a message board environment, where all threads are linked together on one page, it is not necessary. The abuses I saw involved quoting the entire message of a post when it was the one and only reply. The UBB QUOTE code has been available if you wanted to cut/paste a quote from someone.

I will re-enable the block quote feature to give it another chance.. but be forwarned.. if I see the lack of common sence in its use that I saw before.. it will be turned back off.