Tweaks & Changes (1/1/17)

[James Gryphon]

Merry New Year!

I thought now would be as good a time as any to comment on some of the changes that've been made recently, and that we anticipate coming in the near future.

I looked back at the old forum on Archive.org, and found some more stuff that can help us today. Some of the old announcements (the "rules" and "FAQ" ones, for instance) are up on the news ticker now. Also, Leo now has a copy of the Fan Fiction Directory, and intends to get up a present-day version of it as soon as possible.

To give an update on the theme work: I think I've made something of a breakthrough with the legendary buttons, and hope they'll be up within the next couple of weeks. To explain how the roll-out is going to work, you will not have to do anything or make any changes to get access to them once they're out; the theme will be changed to incorporate them. In addition to the existing theme styles (Default, "Modified" which incorporates different backgrounds in some different boards, "Castaways" which features the blue Castaways background and interface bars everywhere, and "Experimental" which contains my works in progress on theme styles), I also hope at some point in the future to include a "Classic" style based off of the original forum (with pastel blue interface bars, etc). If/when it is released, it'll be announced, probably as part of another T&C thread.

Finally, now that the holiday season has largely ended, I'd like to release some details on a new experiment the Staff intends to run here, through the upcoming addition of a new child board to Cavern Hole. We haven't decided on the board's name yet, but it will be a hidden board dedicated to the more controversial subjects that come up around here sometimes (politics, religion, etc.) It'll work a little differently from the rest of the boards on the forum so far; after posting, your topics and posts will have to be reviewed and approved by staff before they appear for others to see. There will be a topic showing some particular guidelines to follow when making your posts, so that you can be more sure of getting them approved and visible for others. I feel this should be a viable way to balance out your need to express your beliefs and feelings on things, and the need to keep the peace in the community. We'll give this idea a trial run, and judge after a period of time whether the board is serving its purpose and if it should stick around or not.

That's all I can think of that's especially newsworthy. Thanks for reading and for being a part of this community!