Young Writers Society

YWS 3.0 User Manual


Note: If you are a new user, I highly suggest reading The New User FAQ in the Welcome forum first.

This guide explains all you need to know about YWS 3.0. If you have any questions not answered here, feel free to ask any moderator or site admin. Also, I understand that not everyone has the time to read through absolutely everything, so at least check out section I, which explains the most important information, such as username changes and the new user ranks.

Table of Contents:
I. Important Information (READ THIS)
II. What Made The Transition, What Didn't
III. New Look(s)
IV. Explanation of New Features

I - Important Information

Subforums: Explained in the new features section. Group leaders should contact Nate if they want subforums for their usergroup.

Points: Your points made the transition, but it really doesn't matter. From now on, points will be reset at the end of every two weeks. The points leader will then be featured on the front page. Some forums will still cost to post, but your points number will only be reset to 500 (not 0) at the end of every two weeks. That means you get, say, a free 50 posts in The Lounge every two weeks. This is actually a return to the original policy on points.

Username Changes: A lot of members changed their screenname when moving from YWS to The Society Revisited. Thus, until August 5, you have the option of changing your username when editing your profile. After that time, you will need to contact either Firestarter or Nate to have your username changed.

User Ranks: No more VIP's. It was a silly rank that really meant very little other than a prestige sort of thing. Instead, there are three new ranks in its place: Greeters, Instructors, and Mentors. These three ranks each come with responsibilities of their own and you must apply for each. An explanation follows, and there is a more detailed explanation under "User Ranks" in the Information Desk forum:

- Greeter: These are people who greet new users to YWS and are the new user's first contact. They are expected to be very active in the Welcome forum and to be able to answer whatever questions a new user may have.

- Instructor: An instructor is someone who routinely publishes new articles on writing in the Writing Tips forum, or actually runs an online class here at YWS.

- Mentor: Mentor is just one step below moderator and, like moderators, is a representative of YWS. Mentors are expected to answer any questions from any user, to help maintain civil discussions, and to generally provide backup for moderators. In short, a mentor is a moderator, but without the mod powers of locking topics, editing any post, etc.

II. What Made The Transition, What Didn't

Instead of listing everything that made it, I'm only listing what didn't, since that's a pretty short list fortunately.

- Your userdata on favorite books, foods, last book you read, etc. did not make it. This could be added again, though, as I still have the data.

- Over 14,000 blog replies were deleted, or 60% of the total. Of these, 95% were the stupid "visit my online pharmacy" links put out by robotic spammers. The remaining 5% was accidentally included. In addition, all blogs are now set to registered user only access to prevent all that from happening again.

- Games will not be coming back. They were a diversion from YWS in many ways.

- The Friends mod, at this time, will not be coming back. This was similar to the friends program at MySpace. However, as implied in the first sentence, I could bring this back, and will if there is enough user demand for it. And, I still have the data.

III. New Look

There is now a new look for YWS. I can't take the credit though (other than choosing it) as it's borrowed from a phpBB template called iCGstation. There are a few minor changes, but it's mostly the same.

For those wanting a dark look, Bobo, our local graphics extraordinaire, is working on it and it'll be ready soon. You can be sure that it will be announced when it's ready.

I'm very interested in feedback on the new look, so if you got any, head over to the Official Polls forum and go to the thread called "Thoughts on YWS 3.0." You can leave any additional comments on the new YWS there as well.

IV. Explanation Of New Features

Subforums: The most significant new feature. Subforums will only be used for Usergroups, meaning that now usergroups, instead of one forum, could have several forums. For example, the Language group could have a forum now for each language. The Hogwarts group could have a forum for each House. Every group could have a Lounge forum too. But, each usergroup is restricted to five at most, and the group leader should contact Nate in order to have the new subforums added.

Attachments: Probably the second most significant new feature. Attachments allow you to upload pictures to your post so you that have to worry about first putting your picture online at some other place. The maximum size allowed, though, is 256 kb. That is there to prevent huge picture sizes, and will be enforced even for images that are not hosted here. Also, your picture cannot distort the size of the page (meaning it cannot widen it).

Scribble Pad: This is awesome. The scribble pad allows you to draw a picture into your post. It can be helpful when discussing math in the homework help forum, or just whenever a picture can do more than words. To add one, find the button called "Add Scribble" under the attachments section when making a post. After you click "Add Scribble," it'll take a bit to load because it is java. Additionally, when you're done and you click submit, it could be as much as a minute before you notice your computer doing anything (for me, so far, the longest has been 20 seconds).

New Templates For Blogs: At the time of this writing, this actually wasn't added yet since the site that has them for download is down. However, there will be new templates that you can use for your blogs.

Profile Picture: Not exactly a new feature, but it's fixed. Sometime during the last YWS, this feature ceased to work correctly, but that's not the case anymore.

User Ranks: Check out the important information section of this guide.