BWTF/Ben updates

[Dominic]

Great news.

Dom

[Bumbleyee]

Greetings everyone,

It is done! Thanks to the stellar efforts of several fellow fans, BWTF.com should be up and running by the end of today (barring unforseen circumstances). The DNS entries have been changed to point bwtf.com to the new domain. Please keep in mind there may still be some bugs to work out, missing links etc. I hope everyone enjoys the new BWTF (once you can get to it).

[Dominic]

Great news. I will post about this at MS.

Dom

[andersonh1]

It'll be great to see it up and running again.

[Onslaught Six]

Can this go on to be a bug report/etc. thread?

Aww there's new forums. If they weren't wedged into such a small space, I'd consider them an option, but as-is? They seem pretty...cluttered and barren and such, so I'd probably suggest we stay here for the majority of our forum activity. <.<

I have also set all users to be approved by me

Aww. That's not a good policy, Ben, I know from experience. We did something similar at a forum I used to admin at, and eventually the incoming amount of users just became unbearable. Eventually (long after I left) they actually closed new registrations entirely.

Also, I personally think Universe '03 and Current Universe should be seperated out, because they are clearly two different lines. Universe '03 had a story and stuff.

[Dominic]

Can this go on to be a bug report/etc. thread?

Is there a problem, or do you mean as a bug thread for Yee's page?

I am fine with that plan, assuming I am reading your post correctly.

Dom

[Onslaught Six]

The latter, yes. We've already got an entire forum where we can report issues with TFV, of course.

[Bumbleyee]

Aww there's new forums. If they weren't wedged into such a small space, I'd consider them an option, but as-is? They seem pretty...cluttered and barren and such, so I'd probably suggest we stay here for the majority of our forum activity. <.<

That's fine. I wanted to provide the option. Trying to stick in a vbulletin option or something similar requires a major overhaul. In time I hope to put a newer interface on it as well. I am confused however. How can something be cluttered and barren?

Aww. That's not a good policy, Ben, I know from experience.

So do I. On the old BWTF boards, I used to get at least 10 "false" registrations a day from users that were clearly just "bots" trying to post garbage. I want to keep an eye on that. Some will still get through of course, but overall I'd prefer to have a barrier up even if it's not the strongest one around.

Also, I personally think Universe '03 and Current Universe should be seperated out, because they are clearly two different lines. Universe '03 had a story and stuff.

I'm considering it honestly. For now I'm leaving it as is, but it's super simple for me to just cart it off into its own section. I'm trying to see it from the layman's POV. He sees a toy called "Transformers Universe Sunstreaker" and then comes to BWTF and wants to see a review, he'll go to "Universe". He may not know the difference between "Universe" and "Universe 2.0" the way we do. I'm still batting the idea around however, perhaps call it "Universe 2008-2009" or something.

[Onslaught Six]

I am confused however. How can something be cluttered and barren?

Well, you're not crazy, which is why you haven't figured it out yet.

No, seriously, it's just that the whole forum is concentrated between the sidebars, which is annoying for a forum setting (at least to me) while simultaneously the actual forum itself is nigh-devoid of traditional features like avatars, signatures, and whatnot. It looks more like an amped-up commenting system than a full-fledged forum.

Speaking of, it'd be incredibly awesome if you could add some kind of commenting system to the reviews themselves, but if that's not an option you'd want to consider, that's fine.

So do I. On the old BWTF boards, I used to get at least 10 "false" registrations a day from users that were clearly just "bots" trying to post garbage. I want to keep an eye on that. Some will still get through of course, but overall I'd prefer to have a barrier up even if it's not the strongest one around.

Fair enough, it's your site.

I'm considering it honestly. For now I'm leaving it as is, but it's super simple for me to just cart it off into its own section. I'm trying to see it from the layman's POV. He sees a toy called "Transformers Universe Sunstreaker" and then comes to BWTF and wants to see a review, he'll go to "Universe". He may not know the difference between "Universe" and "Universe 2.0" the way we do. I'm still batting the idea around however, perhaps call it "Universe 2008-2009" or something.

But these days, is there even such a thing as a TF layman? Not to mention, Layman Jim sees Universe Sunstreaker, which is all Out Now and such, he's likely to make a connection that, hey, *today* is in 2009, so it's probably in that section marked Universe (2008-09).

[Dominic]

The last thing the hobby needs to do is to assume knowledge from people. The idea of assuming knowledge has poisoned comics these last 20 years. No need for the toy hobby to go in that direction.

Dom