[Darth-Apple]

We've been working hard on the forum over this past week. A few quick updates that I wanted to share! 

• Users can now log in with Google, for the very first time. Still working out the details of this, but it's much easier than the standard form of registration and authentication. No existing users will be affected, and the standard form of registration will still work as always! More social networks to come in the future. (If you're a member already, you may optionally link your account in the user CP if you wish!)
  
  
• We have a brand new PM conversation system that uses text-message style PMs. Check out any existing PMs to see the new system. It groups all PMs with any given user into a single thread and shows you the full history. 
  
  
• You can now put a youtube link to your favorite song into your profile (Go to user CP -> Edit Profile). Special profile photos are also now added and available as well.
  
  
• You can now drag/drop attachments and images directly into posts. You can even drag/drop images directly inline to your post imgur-style. Give it a try next time you need to post an image with your post!
  • We still recommend using our image host if you have large image files or a large number of them. Attachment limits are capped at this time, whereas our image host has no limits.  

We've been working harder than ever on our community and have added these new features courtesy of plugins at MyBB Boost. We're determined to grow and to become more established than ever before. We're coming up on our 7th year anniversarry, so consider the numerous updates just one part of our 7th year celebration!

Regards, 
-Darth Apple

[MofaMF]

Someone is spending their quarantine time wisely!

Well done dude, excellent job.

[Darth-Apple]

Thank you, MofaMF!

One quick note. New feature in profiles. Check out the ratings:


Every user will have a new field in their profiles for their average thread rating. This rating is an aggregate average of all threads that you've created on the forums. We are giving a pilot test of this for the next few weeks and we will see how it goes!

[s3_gunzel]

Every user will have a new field in their profiles for their average thread rating.

I can't remember the last time I even rated a thread, so imagine *my* surprise when I found out today that there was a plugin that not only utilised, but expanded upon, and even pushed the importance of that feature.

[Darth-Apple]

Haha glad you like it. I'm threw it together tonight, going to release the plugin soon. The idea is that it will give a good overall "content rating" for users on the website.

[Guardian]

Content rating is a good fit for MS due to the nature of the place. May not be as great for say a general discussion forum. That said, hopefully it will generate some interest/action for people by choosing to actually rate things more often now.

[Darth-Apple]

Content rating is a good fit for MS due to the nature of the place. May not be as great for say a general discussion forum. That said, hopefully it will generate some interest/action for people by choosing to actually rate things more often now.

It should work out well for us just because it provides an incentive to write good quality content. That said, I've never seen a plugin like this anywhere, so if we have issues, we'll evaluate on an as-needed basis. 

I'm putting a minimum threshold setting in to prevent averages from being calculated until at least a few ratings are available. This should (hopefully) help prevent abuse.

Edit: Should I have a forum select feature as well? Allows certain boards to be included and others to be excluded, might be useful for keeping it to project-journal type creations here.

[Guardian]

I'm putting a minimum threshold setting in to prevent averages from being calculated until at least a few ratings are available. This should (hopefully) help prevent abuse.

Good thought, makes sense


Edit: Should I have a forum select feature as well? Allows certain boards to be included and others to be excluded, might be useful for keeping it to project-journal type creations here.
[/quote]That would be awesome. At minimum I would say exclude the forum games, and maybe even off-topic. If you could include speciffic ones you get more the overall result you're looking for.

[Darth-Apple]

Just added the feature. We haven’t set it up yet. The functionality is there and I’ll throw some boards into it later!

[Darth-Apple]

I just set it up to only count ratings in project/creative arts related boards. It skips out on the general discussion sections, makestation related sectons, and so forth. Ratings will fluctuate a bit as we adjust the boards that are included, but it should be a little better now.