By Cyrris , 24th February 8:17 pm
I don’t think it’s much of a secret, but activity here has been a bit down lately. This goes for both the blog and the forums, but to be honest it’s more depressing seeing the lack of forum activity, as I’m used to message boards being so alive, with ForumPlanet and all. I know this particular slump could be attributed to many different things, but what it comes down to is that even at our highest points of forum activity, we don’t have enough regular posters to keep things moving along smoothly. So, I’m making a decision.
» Read all of “The Circle of Blogging“…
By Cyrris , 6th January 4:19 pm
Some ctrl+refreshing may be required in case you see any old graphics that don’t fit in, but here it is. It took a solid few days work to get it how I wanted but almost everything seems in order. The forums have also been fitted out with the new look, though aside from the header nothing really changed over there. On this site itself, however, quite a few things have changed, so sit back, relax, and I’ll show you round a bit.
» Read all of “Meet Aelon v8“…
By Cyrris , 18th December 4:55 pm
I thought that, seeing as I’m bored, I might give an update on things which are happening around the place. First and foremost, the site is actually back online. Our extended downtime was due to some pretty hideous bad luck. One server had problems, so we moved to another which was previously very stable, and as soon as we moved, that server ran into some serious errors that required everything on it to be reinstalled. Everything seems to be fine now though, and it should be stable from here on out.
Secondly, I’ve taken the chance to make a few tweaks I was planning on doing. First of all, I’ve replaced the aqua colour on hovered links with a light blue, as the aqua didn’t quite seem to fit properly. This goes for the forums as well. Secondly, as the thumbnail shows, the comment textarea can now be enlarged for all of those who feel the need when writing very big posts, like DarkFlow. The grey text in those textareas is also now darker for you IE users, who’s browser doesn’t blacken the text when typing.
In other news, I’m not so happy with my exam results, Pseudo is feeling better after being quite sick over the past while, and Wolfanoz, who’s not been around in ages, has found his way here after a long time with no typing.
By Cyrris , 17th September 11:57 am
It’s hard to write this without using expletives. But Taco must have had the same problem, because he’s already said what I wanted to say. Recently, Aelon was hit by it’s first barrage of spam comments. Holliday was able to erase all but one of them (why he couldn’t delete the last one is beyond me, and obviously beyond WordPress), but thankfully it’s all clean now. In light of this, I’ve had to make some changes to minimise the chances of it happening again.
To prevent anonymous spam posts, which made up the majority (so far), all users are now required to enter their nickname (which wasn’t an issue before), but are now also required to enter in their e-mail as well. I would have been happy with just entering the nickname, but WordPress only has the option for both or nothing. Your e-mail is not publicly displayed at all, so spam bots will never find it.
Also, any comments made which have 3 or more links in them will not be displayed until they have been authorised by me, or (WordPress-willing) one of the other staff. Also, some common words associated with spam posts have been recorded, and posts which contain any of these words will likewise need to be moderated before they’re put up. To make things easier for yourself, don’t put the word “Viagra” in any of your comments.
So, that’s what it’s come down to. I don’t know exactly how effective it will be. Moreso, I hope that this doesn’t really affect the commenting styles of anyone here, but I’m not going to sit around and let spam take over the place. Continue as you were, and if you see any spam comments, please contact one of the staff.
By Cyrris , 20th August 12:34 pm
Those of you who are good at spotting obvious things will notice the new “Recent Comments” listing to the right there. It’s a WordPress plugin which I knew existed, but didn’t bother with it until recently when I noticed that posts further down the page did receive the odd comment later on, which would go unseen by many. So, that’s that fixed.
If there are any particular features you’d like to see on this site - be it small intuitive features you see on other blogs, or a completely new aspect to the site, now’s your chance to let us know. Some ideas have been tossed around on the forums regarding such things, and everyone’s input would be most welcome either commented here or posted in there.
Also, everyone’s favourite forum nazi, Hardflip, has joined us here on the blog. So say hi!
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