POF Upgrades
 

I'm sure many of you have noticed we've shut off the forums a couple of times lately to do maintenance. I'd like to explain a bit to keep everyone informed of what we've done and what we're planning on doing.

First time it was off this year, I moved several files around on the server to make it easier for any vB (the site's software) updates we'll be making. This included moving some files that make up our skins which then had to be fixed.

Nick had just taken the site down to upgrade vB3.8.x to it's newest security patch. We do plan on updated to vB4.x in the near future. This will drastically change a lot here on the forums and something we are and aren't looking forward to..lol. The early versions of vB4.x has been very buggy and we've been waiting for them to clear up the worst of the problems before installing it here. Since there is a lot of cons and pros with installing vB4.x, I'll explain later when we add this to the site.

Soon, we plan on updating the Gallery here on POF. It'll have some new features and better intergration. I'll have to see what all the new features are once Nick gets it installed. I'll try to post up something if there are a lot of changes but hoping most will be minor or stuff that doesn't directly effect the users.

We also plan on adding a 2 step link. This is basically a warning message saying you are leaving POF's domain and not responsible for any content outside our domain. This is mainly to cover ourselves legally but a warning that some are leaving our website might be important to our younger members. There will be a whitelist, so links to POTCO/Disney and any other "safe sites" shouldn't contain the warning.


Commentary:

Here at POF, we try to provide a community for the game POTCO since Disney doesn't provide forums or communities outside their MMO games. We do our best to keep it suitable for all members of a family to view and participate. Because of this, we may appear to have some strict policies about certain subjects. I'll be the first to admit that our policies may not be for everyone's likings but please, try to respect what the mods and admins of the forums are trying to do here. All of them are volunteers that put in their own time to help the community to be safe and enjoyable experience here on POF.

Some of you have recently displayed some hostile and disrespectful opinions of the mods just trying to do their duties. But if the mods didn't do their jobs, this place would quickly turn into a spam and troll war infested forum. I don't think any of us really wish this to happen here. We want to try to provide a place where people can be encouraged and not put down for the smallest comments.

We all know that POTCO has had it's many ups and downs during the life of the game. Please, debate topics and not people when making commentaries about gaming issues. Once you begin to debate the people, it gets personal and someone's feelings is going to get hurt sooner or later. This is also against our policy guidelines. A mod will have no choice but to edit your post and enforce some kind of punishment depending on your past violations of policies. Now this isn't something we enjoy doing. I'm sure the mods have other things they'd rather be doing, but they do need to keep civil order here on the forums.

Well, you guys have listened to me ramble on enough. I did want to thank those that take the time out of their day to report policy violations here and to help make for a better community. We're all in this together. Mods, admins, guild masters, officers, etc. We're all pirates playing the same game seeking out some fun. Let's try to keep our community a fun place to be as well.

Kudoes to the Admins & Mods because like Bat stated-all volunteer their time to keep POF on-going & a safe haven for all pirates. The key word is FUN as Bat also stated. The waters of the Caribbean don't always flow to everyone's expectations, but for this pirate's gold-it is definitely worth it. Gotta run now-two Bounty Hunters are approaching fast!! "Ram Speed!"

Great job as you guys always do.

And what did Bat said that had to be Moderated by Tepcat? HaHaHa!! Love it!!

Well that explains why POF was down for a few days haha.

How drastically...? As in BBcodes would be changed, forum layout, some skins, and having different buttons moved to different places? Or more internal stuff that we mostly wouldn't notice? Just a bit curious as to how much everything'll change, and if you have an idea of the time you'll switch.

I'm not sure if this is the place to discuss this, and if its not feel free to edit this part out (although I'd rather it stay...). I understand that you mods need to uphold all the rules and such, because otherwise it would be, as you said, a spam and troll war infested forum. On that same note, I have seen a lot more unneeded editing than when I joined last year. As I said, I know that rules must be upheld, but a lot of this editing is quite unneeded, such as in the activities (most would agree that as long as people are participating in the game and aren't having full blown conversations that last several pages then it should be fine) or more recently someone was edited for saying Disney World because that was supposedly Personal Information. On several occasions me and several others have stated where we are going on vacations and haven't really been edited until now.

In no way am I questioning the authority of the mods/admins, but I do feel as if there is a lot of unneeded editing, deleting, and the occasional banning of users when what they did is not really harming anyone. I just felt that this would be a good time to voice my opinion, but I do not at all mean to act "trollish" or flame anyone.

Pretty drastic. Base coding will change for just about everything. We'll be loosing customized profiles, all our skins, many plugins that we use now won't be compatable, and the list goes on and on. It's one of the main reasons we've held off doing this upgrade. We have upgraded CarsOnlineForums to vB 4.x and if you browse that way, you can tell it looks a lot different from our other sites.



I was indirectly speaking about this situation and some other recent outbursts. I'm sure you aren't the only one slightly confused by recent modding actions. I think the main problem comes from a sudden shortage we had of mods on staff towards the end of last year until recently. We had several hard working mods suddenly decide to retire all about the same time. So the site wasn't being moderated as well as it should have beem. Some time went by hoping some of them would return but real life just became more of importance for them and they didn't have the time to moderate anymore. So I modded some people here that were already mods on our other sites and were members here. Less training involved and they only had to get used to the PG rules, since our other sites are all G-rated. But there was a major clean up that needed done from the lack of mods on hand to take care of things.

So now that the major clean up is done and they are modding the site as it should be taken care of, it leaves people a bit confused from a rather lax modding style to a little more rigid modding style. Actually, things are being taken care of as they should be and not being over looked due to a shortage of people modding. Of course, you do have different people doing most of the modding now than were doing it before. So they may interpret policies slightly different and some may be a bit more heavy handed than others. I think overall, we tend to balance each other out with our slightly different modding styles to form a fairly unified modding style.

Now for activities; there seemed to be a lot of extra chatter going on in several threads rather than actually playing the game. The mods began cleaning this up. Some members began voicing that this was unfair where the mods saw it as just doing their job of getting rid of a lot of off topic and spammish posting. I can see points where the members were just saying they were having a good time but I can also see where the mods were saying they were off topic and spamming. This is debatable, considering most posts found in violation were just being edited without any punishments being given out. A few users took it upon themselves to say some rather rude comments directed at the mods just trying to do what they felt was their job.

I'm sure you probably figured out that this is about the time the issue was brought to my attention. I for one will not tolerate mod trolling. I've been a mod for nearly 10 years and I've put a lot of hard work into our sites. I don't think anyone that takes time out of their day to help a community deserves such treatment. If you want to discuss an edit or mod action, PM the mod. If you aren't happy after having talked to them, PM an admin. Staff is here to help as well as enforce policies. Making rude comments towards a mod or any other member of the forums will not be tolerated here.

I'm hoping as the newer mods get settled in and the users get used to having mods around full time, there will be a point where both parties can find an nice even balance and everyone can be happy. Each of our sites is slightly different with its interests and how members do things. It takes time to adjust to modding here as say another of our sites. Since my last post in activities, the mods say that a lot of the extra chatter and off topic comments have stopped but people are still having fun playing the thread games. Sounds like it's a step in the right direction to me.


P.S. My wife edited my last post because I have horrible grammer after teaching myself Klingonese for 3 years, or so she says.:psmiley35:

I was looking at Cars Forums and noticing things that we may or may not lose. Just a list of things I'm wondering we could lose:

Arcade
Blogs
Top posters list
User Pages
Limited members having a signature
The amount of pirates we would be able to list on our profiles (which I would hate, considering the work that was put into that recently)

I think that's it.

Why would POF take down any of that? i don't seem to be noticing glitches, or anything....

It's just the fact that the software needs to be upgraded. You may not be noticing it, but Bat and Nick probably are. Also...

It seems we're off to a great start.

Oddly enough, you listed everything that POF would be keeping the same.

I have to say, you guys aren't the only ones not looking forward to this update. I prefer the old style to the more modern-looking style. I hope you guys get to keep the rustic look to the site. :P

You can change the skin of POF to make it look like whatever you want WD.

Yes, but I thought the current skins will be incompatible with the next update? If not, then kindly disregard my noobyness. :D

I have been looking over COF for a little while, and I'm not quite sure on my stance yet. Unfortunately I'm not a member there, so I can't explore all the changes, but that isn't needed to know that it does seem significantly more "modern" than POF. One question, though - during the update, will all stats such a reputation, number of posts, profile views, etc. be reset, or no?

And I do understand where the moderators are coming from, though you can assure that at times I did have a cannon sitting by my side itching to blow. I think the main problem between the moderators and the members, however, is that we usually aren't specified as to WHY we are being editted, and then given a specific example so we can realize you aren't just doing this to be strict. Of course, this can also fail on the member's part, for not understanding.

Let's take an example from the Ban Game. One of the main rules there is to not have conversations through posts - however, the members don't think they are doing as such, while the moderators thing they are. Here's an example of a a ban session that you may see on the game (I'll highlight areas that outline "conversation":)

From viewing the mod's editting patterns, that is basically what is defined by having a conversation. Now I know that a lot of banners like to type long bans to try and create the "better ban," per say, but in moderator's eye, it's just you and the other person developing a conversation that is slowly drifting away from the conversation, which, in cases, does happen quite a lot.

So, I think the bridge between member/moderator peace can only be achieved if there is a better understanding on both levels.

Why change?? I like the way it is

They won't be. Brand new skins will have to be created from scratch.

Yes, new skins will probably have a more modern look to them. They took a very simple and easy process of creating skins and really complicated it. So it's going to take us time to create several different skins for everyone to use. They also changed the base graphic file type from .gif to .png. Which will cause some problems on it's own till we're able to convert some our present skin graphics over.

Post count, rep, and all the other things you listed, should remain the same.

vB4.x should be able to use the full functions of the newer browsers, high level of security, a more intergrated blog feature, and some other updates we should be moving on to before long. This is just going to be a headache for everyone to adjust to.

The ban game thread is ran across all our sites in activities but this seems to be the only site where there are issues coming up with it. There is a lot more chatter going on in the POF's version of the ban game than on any other site. A little off topicness isn't going to hurt much, but it seems the game is getting side trekked from it's main topic with so much and so consistent extra chatter. We're also seeing some joking that is probably being taken too far. The mods don't know who are friends and who aren't. Since we try to protect users from being flamed or trolled, this can easily be viewed differently by the mods than the 2 friends making jest at each other.

Every mod edit, should be included with a reason of which policy the poster is in violation of. If you have any questions about your post being edited, PM a mod and ask them directly. They'll happily answer your questions and try to explain the reasoning behind their actions. We're not about to open the can of worm of having open public discussions about policies and their finer points. From my experience, it just gets ugly.

The admin staff have began working on reviewing our policies. We'll be checking to make sure we don't need more, trying to make clearer definitions of the policies we have so everyone can better understand them, and review what policies we have are still needed. This is going to take a while as we haven't updated our policies in several years. We've got more forums now, a much larger staff, and trends on the sites have shifted from when the policies were originally wrote. They've served our purpose but it's time to update them. These will be posted up for everyone's review once we're done revising them.