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Important Forum Announcement - Please Read |
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#1 |
![]() Join Date: Feb 2000
Posts: 12,563
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Important Forum Announcement - Please Read
(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 being 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. 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! 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. All posts created will now periodically save as a draft.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. Thanks DS From: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/annou...t.php?f=&a=397 |
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#2 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: The Sixth Circle of Hell
Posts: 20,165
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Quote:
(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 being 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. 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! 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. All posts created will now periodically save as a draft.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. Thanks DS From: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/annou...t.php?f=&a=397 ![]() Do all our points/warnings start from zero then or are they carried over (I am on my last atm)? |
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#3 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: With MyAndy!
Posts: 15,178
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Quote:
That sounds brilliant.
![]() Do all our points/warnings start from zero then or are they carried over (I am on my last atm)? ![]() But I am quite excited for the emoji's and not having to use google to search
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#4 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2003
Location: The Green Hills of Earth
Posts: 80,413
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Hope they don't make it read only during the next Big Brother. We need to vent!
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#5 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Aberdeen
Posts: 12,185
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Tl,dr
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#6 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 53,623
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Fantastic news!. Look forward to all of the new features and hope the move goes nice and smoothly for you at DS Towers. Quote:
Football will be promoted to the main board
About bloomin' time !
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#7 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 7,310
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Sounds fine except the reaction bit.
It's suppose to be a discussion board. So many will now just click on a reaction and leave it at that instead of adding any actual discussion. Leave that nonsense to Facebook, please. |
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#8 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Southern East Anglia
Posts: 75,202
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Some great new and innovative ideas there, especially "reactions" and "jail".
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#9 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Essex, UK
Posts: 6,238
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Xenforo or Invision Power Board, DS?
I'm just really hoping its not phpBB |
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#10 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2013
Posts: 30,172
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Quote:
Sounds fine except the reaction bit.
It's suppose to be a discussion board. So many will now just click on a reaction and leave it at that instead of adding any actual discussion. Leave that nonsense to Facebook, please. The rest is good news. |
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#11 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Derbyshire / UK
Posts: 3,724
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That all sounds quite interesting an it's good to see they have listened to members ideas with some of the updates and acknowledge that things haven't been handled as well in the past.
Thanks for keeping us informed and it's good to see Hearst have faith in the forums. Perhaps the advert issue will be finally be cured too! |
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#12 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Essex/ex NW London
Posts: 1,410
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Quote:
Sounds fine except the reaction bit.
It's suppose to be a discussion board. So many will now just click on a reaction and leave it at that instead of adding any actual discussion. Leave that nonsense to Facebook, please. |
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#13 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Derbyshire / UK
Posts: 3,724
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How do we know that this announcement wasn't made by Richard Poormans mum?
She may have used her ninja hacking skills to break into the DS building and write yet another thread to discredit her poor son and their good family name! |
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#14 |
![]() Join Date: Feb 2000
Posts: 12,563
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Quote:
How do we know that this announcement wasn't made by Richard Poormans mum?
She may have used her ninja hacking skills to break into the DS building and write yet another thread to discredit her poor son and their good family name! To clarify some of the questions that have come up: - Ban amnesty: this is not a straight 'you appeal, you can come back' - we will be reviewing every account and deciding on an individual basis. If someone was incredibly disruptive, chances are we will not be allowing them back. What this does allow us to do, however, is if some time has passed and someone accumulated too many small bans, ending with a permanent ban, maybe we can allow them back. People that have re-registered again and again are unlikely to be allowed back. - Reactions: we will be introducing more positive than negative reactions. All actions are logged so we can review them all. Similarly, they are for the lurkers more-so than the regulars, though they are of course welcome to use them as well. Many members sign in and just read rather than taking part. We are also keen on the burying of poor-quality posts that are voted by the community. We can then see if there are particular trends ("does a user have many buried posts? Maybe they are doing it deliberately to disrupt the forums?...") - Embedded media: how often do you see YouTube links posted? It's a lot less often than you'd think. That is the only time a video will be in a post and they will absolutely be user-initiated (click to play). We will be paying close attention to feedback and seeing how images work out. We will have some new guidelines in place that will prevent people from responding in just memes or just posting a picture and moving on. We anticipate they will get used in the first few days after relaunch, then it will calm down. |
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#15 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Midlands, UK
Posts: 4,964
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Sounds great! It sounds like Invision, or something similar?
I'm used to similar features on other message boards I visit so it'll be great to see them here as well.
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#16 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Cork
Posts: 996
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Love the idea of reactions, pics/vid and emojis, it's just bringing the forum inline with everything else. Also love the idea of jail, especially if theres a pinned JAIL thread and you put who is in jail and why and how long for !
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#17 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: England
Posts: 1,704
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Pleased that the forums are getting an upgrade, although i dont mind the present system at all, the only irritating thing at present is the search function!
I'm probably the only one wanting a direct link to the Sports competitions embedded on the Sports link on the main page but other than that all is good! |
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#18 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Lancs
Posts: 14,452
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How about having a new username change allowed if users want another change?
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#19 |
![]() Join Date: Feb 2000
Posts: 12,563
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Quote:
How about having a new username change allowed.
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#20 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2016
Posts: 141
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Pleased to hear about all of this, especially the reactions - have often wanted to simply like a post, not requote and comment. Looking forward to seeing all the changes.
At first, thought the announcement was going to be that you were closing down! - so, phew! - good news. |
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#21 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: Cork
Posts: 996
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Quote:
The new software will allow us to facilitate username changes, though this will not be immediate. Primarily: spaces in usernames (including ours!) will no longer work, as @ing users and auto-complete needs a full name and not a spaced one. We will be offering username changes to these users first, should they wish to take one, before deciding how we proceed with this feature going forward.
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#22 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: England
Posts: 1,704
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Quote:
How about having a new username change allowed if users want another change?
Quote:
The new software will allow us to facilitate username changes, though this will not be immediate. Primarily: spaces in usernames (including ours!) will no longer work, as @ing users and auto-complete needs a full name and not a spaced one. We will be offering username changes to these users first, should they wish to take one, before deciding how we proceed with this feature going forward.
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#23 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: High Wycombe
Posts: 1,031
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Sounds like a lot of positive changes coming. Hopefully the moves goes well for all of you doing the work.
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#24 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 53,623
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Quote:
The new software will allow us to facilitate username changes, though this will not be immediate. Primarily: spaces in usernames (including ours!) will no longer work, as @ing users and auto-complete needs a full name and not a spaced one. We will be offering username changes to these users first, should they wish to take one, before deciding how we proceed with this feature going forward.
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#25 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 7,310
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Quote:
Well it saves those posts that just say Agree. Plus it gives lurkers a chance to enter the thread slowly, giving them confidence. I lurk most of the time and have only recently started to post more, so a thumbs up or down button is fine by me.
Not sure what the relevance to lurking is. If you lurk, you're not contributing. If you click a thumbs down, you're not contributing. Quote:
Pleased to hear about all of this, especially the reactions - have often wanted to simply like a post, not requote and comment.
Quote:
We are also keen on the burying of poor-quality posts that are voted by the community. We can then see if there are particular trends ("does a user have many buried posts? Maybe they are doing it deliberately to disrupt the forums?...")
We will be paying close attention to feedback and seeing how images work out. We will have some new guidelines in place that will prevent people from responding in just memes or just posting a picture and moving on. We anticipate they will get used in the first few days after relaunch, then it will calm down. Thumbs up threads/posts dominate the top of the board over the latest ones? Also, didn't realise we'll be getting images... worst idea ever. Will we be able to turn off that feature? |
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