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Global Announcement
11-12-2016 until 12-01-2018
DS Forum Support

 
Join Date: Feb 2000
Posts: 12,563

(we bet you thought this was a different type of announcement, no?)



Hi all,


We will be initiating work to upgrade the forums to a new platform soon. This will be the first time since the Digital Spy community began 16 years ago that we are moving to a completely new platform - no small task as we prepare to move over 600,000 users and over 84 million posts - and we wanted to let you know ahead of time.


The reason for this move is, as dedicated members of our boards are aware, the system we are currently using has not scaled as well as we hoped. The age of the software and our size has throttled functionality that you would expect a forum to have (a working search being one of them).


The forums will be going in read-only mode for up to 72 hours when we commence migration of all your threads, posts, messages and accounts. Once we have a definite date scheduled, we will let you know - though don't hold it against us if that turns out to not be enough notice!


Some of the things that will be changing:


Search


We will be gaining an advanced search. You will once again be able to search through users, posts, threads and forums.


Notifications


Any time someone replies to your thread or mentions you, a notification will pop up on your screen.


Reactions


You will be able to react to any post: like, dislike, laugh... Maybe even cry if you're in the Politics forum (kidding)


Ban Amnesty


In 16 years, we have amassed over 16,000 banned accounts. Starting now, we are going to be reviewing anyone who chooses to appeal their ban again. Those wishing to appeal should email forum@digitalspy.co.uk with the title 'Ban Amnesty'. Be sure to include your forum username when messaging!


Similarly, users that have had their accounts terminated (but haven't been physically deleted) are also able to request a return. In this instance please title your email 'Terminated Account'.

Jail


Our new forum software brings with it a points based warning system. This means that rather than issuing bans for smaller offences, we can place users in jail - this allows you to stay on the forum but certain privileges will be lost (the ability to make threads being one of them).


Forum Updates


With this change, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to review the many different forums we have on offer and whether they are still necessary. As such, the following are our current proposed changes:

- Fashion & Beauty will be merged into General Discussion.
- Comics will be merged into its parent forum, Print Media.
- Gaming Forums will receive a restructuring; PC and Mac Gaming & Mobile Gaming will be merged into the main Gaming forum, with more focus being placed on the major consoles
- Need Help? Ask the Digital Spy team: This forum will be archived. We will be making ways to contact the forum team more visible, so the need for this forum will be replaced.
- Netflix and BT Vision will be merged into Online Entertainment Services
- Doctor Who will be promoted to the main board.
- Football will be promoted to the main board.
- Dancing with the Stars will be merged into the Reality TV forum.

No threads should be lost in this process, however if you want to save anything we would recommend looking at it now.


New Forum Design, Emojis and auto-save


The forums will be getting a new lick of paint and our current emojis, including fan-favourite cat-dog will be retired and replaced with new models. All posts created will now periodically save as a draft so there is no more risk of losing long posts.


Embedded Media


With this new forum software, we will be lifting the restriction on embedded media. As an example, if you link to a YouTube video it will automatically embed into your post for users to play without the need to leave the site.

There are several new functions and ideas that we have and when we flesh them out a little more, we will of course announce them in a similar way.

We know this is a lot of change and that we haven't always got it right. We ask that you will be patient with us, both before and after the migration, while we try and iron things out. We expect that some things will not be correct immediately but hope this will go as smoothly as possible.

Update: December 16, 2016



We have successfully completed the migration of all the user data from 2000 through the Wednesday we placed the forums as read-only.

This preliminary process was necessary as we needed to check that all user associated data - private messages, posts, threads, polls, emails etc - can come across seamlessly. We identified a few issues that we can now iron out when we do a final migration of all user data from this point on.

We appreciate your patience and we apologise for the interruption to your forum enjoyment. We are hopeful that when we begin the next migration, we can take our learnings and speed up the process.

Thanks
DS
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