Howdy folks,

Been awhile without any updates on my end and it's time to update everyone on the state of everything that's happening around these parts.

Why vBulletin?

As you noticed we dumped the UBB boards that had been our reliable pony for years. We have a lot of reasons for looking around for alternatives but the gist is that vBulletin is stronger message board software than ubb.threads and comes with better support.

We're able to put more things in to the forums to make it an overall better experience for you guys. One of the goals was to increase the ease of posting by way of a WYSIWYG editor, so that the quality in posts goes up and so far we've noticed an increase. Other features we've added so far which you may or may not be aware of is:

• spoiler tags w00t!
• Imbedded video support
• WYSIWYG editor
• Greater text control
• Changing colour, size, font, font style etc. is easier now
• Increased user profile options (Gamer tags, LinkedIn, etc). If you have suggestions for what you'd like to see in this regard, let us know!
• Increased user security
• thread tagging (more on this at another time)
• image wrapping (more on this at another time)

On top of ease of posting for you guys, it has stronger page formatting for us so that we can write posts of a more professional caliber. Part of us switching was how easy it would be to edit text, include word wrapping, ease of previewing, and so on. If all things go as planned one of our 'major updates' we have coming will really utilize this update and we're pretty stoked about it.

Okay, but what about the crappy new look!?

Haha, we know how the majority of you feel about the new theme. You guys did a good job on letting me know how much you love it. ;) This is a temporary theme update - it's not the 'new' style we're going with now that we're on vBulletin - that's actually being made by professionals. That, and our logo/identity. If you want to sumbit a theme for consideration, you know where to find us.

Basically, the short story is we wanted to change the software to vBulletin on Polycount's 10th birthday and we wanted to keep that a secret, so we told no one. We couldn’t send out cakes to every one. Now that it’s out there, we've asked for help from our members who do this sort of things professionally and they're busy working away on Polycount one sexy beast.

Infractions

One of the abilities of vBulletin is “user infractions” and we're going to start utilizing that feature. The reason being, we want to see some actual respect between members from time to time so that discussions can be had without it resorting to name calling, trolling, or cats. (Well, maybe cats are fine ).

We're an opinionated bunch here which I flippin' love, but when it turns to the shit storms we often create it gets a little embarrassing, don't you agree? We’d like to bring the level of discussion here a little above where it’s been. If that’s too much for you, please delete the link to the forums from your browser as we’re no longer going to get along.

Without getting technical, the way infractions works is simple: Get a slap on the wrist 3 times in 5 days, and you're on a 5 day temporary ban. The first infraction will get you a warning if the moderator or admin issuing it believes it to be useful at the time.

While banned, you can still browse the forums but you'll have lost your posting privileges. If you can't control yourself from there on out, we'll have to discuss the repercussions.

Here's a few things that may get you a slap:

• Name calling
• Trolling
• Obnoxious thread derailment
• Reporting a thread without just cause
• General douche-baggery

If you see someone doing any of the above, you're welcome to report the thread and one of the moderators will handle that post accordingly.

Help wanted

On the note of moderators, we're looking to fill out our moderator team with 2 new members. Myself, MoP, hawken, adamBrome, and bearkub are already watching over the boards but some can dedicate more time than others.

Ultimately, we'd like to have our moderators spread amongst as many hemispheres as possible. So, we'd like it if those who take this role be from Europe, Asia, or Australia. But with that said, anyone is welcome to put their name in the hat as we'll take anyone we figure best for the job.

The general role of moderator is to help maintain the site by enforcing our rules. We'll go in to more details once you're on the team.

Important: A few of you have already PM'd Adam about this which is great, but I'd like to ask you to do it again if you are still interested. Additionally, if you were a moderator in the past but have been somewhat inactive and would like to continue please let us know.

adamBrome? Administrator? Uh oh...

Also on a note that a lot of people are probably wondering about, Mr. Brome has indeed been tinkering on the inner working of polycount. He came to Kub and me last year with an idea and a plan on reinvigorating the site and making it better than we could have imagined. We were a little skeptical, but we gave him a little rope and he’s been doing a great job ever since. A lot of the momentum that we have is the direct result of his involvement. He definitely should be given a large community hug for the love and effort he’s been putting into the site for the community. He has been working with me every week to review plans and ideas on where we are going. He does his damnest to implement it all after we’ve signed off on it. Don’t be too worried, everything is still as it always was. We’re still the same old space station of green and black love. Our deepest concern is keeping this community active and vibrant. We’re the oldest game art community out here and we’d like to continue making sure its here for you.

cheers,

Awesome news. Thanks for the update

Hey not funny I have 15 infractions already!

jk

Sounds good guys, love the upgrades, looking forward to whatever else you guys cook up.

Funny though, but I'm going to miss this crappy theme as I've gotten use to it.

too many changes bad!

Great to hear Drew, and awesome job to Brome and everyone else involved in making this community better and bigger Scared me a bit with the no cats, but then again would we be polycount without them? Looking forward to the new theme and direction, and I promise to play nice!!

Spark

Thanks for the hard work guys. Personally, I like this gray and green look a thousand times better than the old look. Can't wait to see the new Sexy Beast Polycount though!

Interesting, I thought Brome had gotten fatter, now I see it's because of those POWAR PILLS!

Bizzarely I've kinda gotten used to this theme, So long as the new theme aint as harsh on the eyes as the old one I don't mind :]

No cats? = Thank the lord!

Here's to the next decade ;)

Originally Posted by nacire

Personally, I like this gray and green look a thousand times better than the old look.

Agreed. It's easy to see how much work has gone into Polycount, and it's appreciated.

You're doing a great job guys. Still my favourite forum.

heh true true, i visit the forums a couple times per day (i think more lol)

saludos!

great forum, thanks to all for keeping it going, and i hope the cats stay, polycount without cats is like hell without fire ;D

im hoping i qualify for just enough infractions to be one of the cool kids without being sent home from schoool

Gotta say Ro, I've been about these parts, as an active member and a semi lurker and been noticing an upwards curve in how things are going

the new boards, once gotten used to, work just right and Adam's not broken anything so I think all's cool

I have noticed that the forums have been getting more harsh at times, then again it might be me getting older- But the fundemental thing that makes Polycount great is that you're always going to get some kind of help and there's always something interesting to read about or pretty things to look at

We've had 10 years of PC, and at one point it was looking like it was a bit touch and go whether we'd see another 10 out of it but now I know that this place is an institution and hopefully will be around for quite some time to come

I think everyone should raise a glass/spliff whatever you celebrate with and toast everyone involved in running Polycount

This place is solid. Always has been, always will be.
Thanks for that.

Just throwing down my.02 as well. I like the new boards, including the look. The old stuff just had to go. It was an eyesore from day 1, but it was all we had.

New boards are easy on the eyes and a breeze to navigate keep up the good work hombres!

Woo thanks for everything! The new forum engine does feel very smooth and easy to use. It's even more obvious when compared to the other forums out there!

As for the look, I just was revisiting my own little mockups last week! Would you be interested? (even tho I am sure that what you have in the works is great!)
Later down the road it would be neat to have a bunch of different schemes to choose from.

yay! yeah the new boards are really growing on me. I look forward to see how Polycount evolves. Congrats guys your doing a great job!

- BoBo

Looking great guys keep up the good work!

Rough transition, but so far the end result has been a huge improvement. Still a few bugs, but overall it's great. I also like the new theme. I didn't have much of an issue when it started though.

great work guys looking forward to whatever is planed.

So far so good...

I know we probably don't mention it often enough, but:

<3

Great job to everyone involved! I like the new boards including the look.

Please don't merge with cgtalk or something now

I never minded the look of the boards, in fact liked that it was different.

I hope this board doesn't become too uptight. It would bother me if I couldn't receive the brutal crits I have come to expect from these boards and I get enough political correct bs from my real world life, nothing like getting a thank you I really appreciate what you do type comment when the person saying it is just waiting to stab you in the back and want you to burn in hell. Not sure if that made any sense at all, but the point is just because you write nice things doesn't make them so or helpful. I rather get a harsh comment that is helpful than a good job comment that doesn't help me improve.

Thanks for the hard work.

Alex

Do me one favor: Put a confirmation popup or something on the "report this thread" function. The number of times I've hit "report" instead of "reply" by accident is.. well fewer than 10 I think, but still its just embarrassing knowing someone might have to sift through that.

That said: Thank you for all the hard work. These feel really robust as boards go.

As far as themes go, the boards have a css theme selection dropdown, so couldn't we have a number of themes to choose from? I'd love to be able to switch between themes from Hawken, Pior, and Qubism as the mood struck me. Or hey, a Bobo-Crazy-Monkey theme? A Poop Green melty greentooth theme? Polycount retro theme? could all be awesome and totally community generated, and thankfully stylesheets don't take up that much room either. You could fit all of the above just in MOP's post count. :P