Young Writers Society

Expect big changes around YWS over the weekend, some of which will be implemented beginning Friday! And as with every big change, some will upset a number of people, including me; the biggest upset being the loss of the dynamic avatar system. While it is a nice system, it will not be compatible with the version of the phpbb forum that the site will be updating to. However, since it really only worked with Firefox and not with Internet Explorer, it will not be that big of a loss.

All the other changes should be very welcomed. The biggest one that everyone will notice is a change in the general board layout; that is, there will be three seperate forum indexes, rather than just one big one. One forum index will be all the literature forums, the second forum index will be for usergroups, and the third will be for everything else. Seperating everything up like this will allow for faster loading times.

Other changes that you will notice are:

* Spellchecker for all posts
* A better rating system
* More avatars to make up for the loss of the dynamic avatars
* The introduction of different user levels to distinguish those members that actively contribute to YWS!

UPDATE:
4/22/05: Spell checker added
4/23/05: Dynamic Avatar system deleted; gallery avatars re-added
4/24/05: Content Rating System added

The spell checker has been added. You'll see it next to the "Preview button" whenever you make a post. Since it's a pop-up window, it may not work if you have a pop-up blocker enabled.

Yus yus yus....

willwe get are points we put into are dyamic avatar?

It is not possible to get the points back into the dynamic avatar. However, what will happen is that points will be reset at the end of the month, as they used to be before the dynamic avatar system was put in place. So points will go back to being used to help determine the member of the month.



The dynamic avatars are now deleted and all code changes have been completed. Sometime either today or tomorrow the forum index will change such that there will be three of them; one for the literary forums (called The Reading Room), one for usergroups (called The Clubhouse), and one for everything else (called General). Everything is already set up for it, but I'm trying to just make one big change at a time to give people more time to get used to it all.

After the new forum indexes are added, the rating system will be modified so that's it a lot more convenient, and then I'm going to add user levels (five in total; registered member, Author, Moderator, Junior Admin, Admin). At the moment, these are just distinctions (aside from Moderator and Admin), but I do plan on adding some cool perks to each level.

*runs away with points*

The member thing sounds cool though...

So what will happen to our unique level thing that you have when you get 250 posts

The user levels will merely show up as different colors for the usernames. Right now, there are three different colors according to your user level: registered member, moderator and admin.

Just added a content rating system; did not plan on adding this until two hours ago, but once I found it, I had to add it. Now you can rate your own topics quickly and easily! Note that ratings are not mandatory except if the subject matter may be offensive to some people (e.g., the topic has vulgarity, the subject is somewhat or totally obscene, attacks a specific group, etc.).

One new user level has been added: VIP. To become a VIP, you must be nominated by someone who is already a VIP. This new user level will show up as purple in the "Who's Online" list.

Cool! It just keeps on getting better and better!!

Here's where things stand right now (I've kinda hit a huge block)...

I have mostly everything set up for splitting the forum up into three smaller forums (actually, all set up), but there's three other things I want to do before switching over. One, I want to add a favorites list which will have your favorite topics and authors. Two, I would like something that you can easily manage/view the clubs you belong to. Three, I want a recent additions page for all new literary items (i.e., poems, stories, etc.).

At the moment, number three is proving to be the big one. It sounds fairly easy, but I discovered as I began working on it that the phpbb code doesn't quite allow for what I'm thinking of, so I'm changing around bits of code here and there to make it work.

In any case, everything should be done sometime on Saturday.

Also, comments on the changes already made would be very welcomed

With the V.I.P nominations, if you are nominated, what happens then? Is there a vote, or anything of the kind?

If you get nominated you become a VIP, there is no vote or anything, only one person has to nominate you. Or I might be wrong, but i'm pretty sure thats what happens.

how and why do you get nominated? what are all the other colours on the "who's on line" list?