- Created By James
Help us make your anime forums better!
You might remember that we held a vote a while ago where we asked members what anime should receive its own sub-forum. For a long time, all anime topics were covered in a single forum Anime Central.
We wanted to begin expanding the forums so that people would have more freedom to discuss just the animes that interest them, rather than having to wade through one forum just to find the series they're interested in.
There is now a follow-up topic about this very subject - we're looking for recommendations and comments on how best to re-arrange our anime forums. We really want to provide the best format for the whole community and we really want your input on that; especially if you rarely - or never - post on OB.
theOtaku has such a great chat system and we have a strong art-sharing community, but OtakuBoards is really the only dedicated space for deeper discussions on anime and manga. And if we aren't doing a good job of giving you guys the best options, we want to change that.
This discussion is open to everyone and we really want to make sure that we do what works best for most people.
To visit the discussion topic and weigh in, just click here.
And we're back.
OtakuBoards XL is live.
Countdown...
OtakuBoards XL will launch within the next few hours. Before it goes live, though, I do want to mention a couple of quick things.
First, if you're an existing member of OtakuBoards, there will be a couple of suggestions waiting for you when you first log in (you'll see all of this mentioned in an announcement - so don't worry).
Secondly, while we are just about launch-ready, there will be a few bits and pieces that we still need to attend to over the coming days. This just includes stuff like restoring our network links (links to OB World, Otakupedia, etc...) and a few other little things (like fixing up some broken BB Code and adding to/tidying up our various guidelines threads).
Having said that, I have created a topic in the Soapbox forum which will act as a kind of running list of any bugs that members encounter. I'm assuming that some issues will just be because long time OBers may not know how to use some of the new features (and some old features now work in a different way), but nevertheless, it's a good idea for us to keep track of those things.
And finally, we still need to re-upload our Avatar Library to OB from the old system. So if you were using a pre-set avatar on the old system it may not appear for you now. You can simply upload a new one while you wait for the library to be re-installed, if you wish.
So, other than a few of those little items on our to-do list, I'm happy to report that everything else is looking pretty good. Stay tuned for the re-launch!
We're almost there!
Progress on the new OB has been moving at a lightning pace over the last few days. I thought it might be a good idea to tell you a little bit more about what you can expect on the new site.
First and foremost, the question I've had from a couple of people is whether or not all of your old posts have been saved - the answer is yes. We have moved all of OB's historical stuff over to the new software, so all your posts and threads are still there.
But what about new features? Here are just a few:
Display Name
On our new version, User Names are different from Display Names. Your User Name will be exactly the same as it was on the previous version.
However, you can also choose a Display Name. And this you can change up to three times each month, if you wish.
The great thing about this is that you can keep your User Name the same (so as to "reserve" it for yourself) but you can actually change your Display Name to be whatever you want (provided, of course, that nobody else is using the same Display Name).
We can also show a history of your Display Names on your Profile, to make it easier for other Members to identify you.
Notes
This is a feature we've wanted to have for a while now and finally it's here. The Notes area allows you to store snippets of posts directly on your OB account.
I think this is especially useful for OB because of our RPGs. You can create new posts using Notes and always keep them right there on OB - this is especially useful if you access OB from different locations, because it means you'll never lose a work in progress.
Messenger
The Messenger replaces our old Private Messaging system.
There are a couple of great advantages with the new Messenger. For starters, you don't need to hunt between your Inbox and Sent Items to piece together a full conversation (or have PMs full of quotes). Now, whenever someone replies to your message, it will create a conversation (which is just like a regular Thread). This will keep your Messenger tidy and easy to read.
You can also search through all messages in your Messenger, which is a nice touch.
Those are just a fraction of the new OB features. In addition to those, the site itself is much cleaner and easier to navigate now. And with no locked width, you can stretch or shrink OB as much as you like - it will adapt to your monitor resolution with no trouble.
Our team has just a few more things to iron out before we go live with the new site, but hopefully this will only take a couple of days at the very most. Watch this space!
Where's OB?
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, we recently closed OB so that we can move it to our shiny new server. That step is now complete and it went very smoothly (thanks to Adam for doing the move and Petie for doing the pre-move upgrade).
The next step is a little more complex and I thought I'd talk about it a bit here.
For those who have been using OB for years, you'll probably be aware that we've been using vBulletin for a very long time. vBulletin is the software that drives our forums.
What normally happens is that we pay an annual fee for a vBulletin license - in other words, we have to renew each year.
For various reasons, we have decided not to renew our vBulletin agreement this year. As a result, we've had to decide on an alternative software to power OB.
We're going to go with IP Board.
Because this is a big software change, it will take us a little while to make sure everything is set up correctly. So at the moment I'm expecting that OB will re-launch early next week.
Initially we won't have all the updated FAQs and things for the new features - it will take us a little time to put those things together. Also it is likely that we will launch with a fairly barebones type of layout, with a view to doing a bigger update shortly after re-launch.
So I hope this sheds a little more light on what we're doing at the moment. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to comment.
