Big upgrades coming tonight

[Admin]

Tonight is the night apparently! Probably somewhere around midnight the forum will be shut down and users will not be able to log in. From there, new forum software will be installed.

This new software offers much more than we have now. You will be able to explore the benefits once we reopen (this process should not take any more than two hours).

We expect no loss of posts or user logins and have been assured that the new software will import all of this without error. Of course we are doing a complete backup beforehand in case anything goes wrong.

[inthelead83]

i think i speak for all of the regualar users and esspecially bigbone since he is always sucking up to yah good work in making this forum expanding since we are now getting so much more interest in our little winnipeg forum.

[Admin]

As you can see, the forum has been updated!

There's still a ton of work to do, and I'll be doing that starting right now. These changes will take a few days to complete so bear with me while I do them.

[Admin]

From what I can see of the upgrades these are the consequences so far

1) Users lost their avatars - They are still here but did not get associated with your profile

2) Usernames and passwords all appear to work fine

3) The forum is UGLY - I'll be working on that after all the setup and configuration is done

4) Lost a bunch of smilies somehow, but there appears to be the regular ones still kicking around

5) I changed the User Titles a little (yup I cheated). Now the top level title is at 4000 posts instead of 2500.

6) I'm still going, watch for more updates here and changes to the forum.

[Admin]

Lots of little things fixed, and the biggest change as you all can see is the change in the style (skin) of the forum.

This is the new look, hope you all like it.

Another item that users may enquire about, the members page.

Members pages on forums are a popular place for dumbasses to come and spam their porn and pill URL's on. The problem is that search engines will rank a site higher if your link is listed on more sites. So users will go register on 500 forums just to get their links up.

A cheap workaround to that has been added. Your profile will no longer show up on the members page until you make a minimum of five posts. This will prevent most of the spam links from showing up (it won't prevent them from signing up though).

Now on to other changes
1) No more images in signatures! Those were against the forum rules from the beginning and now you cannot have them at all, the forum will not allow it.

1.1) Yes this forum is still dealer friendly, that is why we have a dealers section and an advertising section.

2) Must have 5 posts to show up on the members page

3) Increased the amount of PM's users can have in their inbox

4) Referral Program (I'll be making a seperate post about this) - Yes, you'll be able to take my money.

5) Sub forums - This was one of the many reasons for the upgrade. A winnipeg forum has been added, if we see lots of activity from other areas we will gladly give that area a subforum to use. Note that you need the activity first, not the forum.

6) Search engine optimization - Another big reason for the upgrade. We will temporarily lose search engine rankings but will come back with a vengeance.

7) RSS Feeds - Many of you may not know what these are, but they are a way for other sites to include the latest posts from the forum on their site. A great way to cross promote sites. You can look at an example of an RSS feed in action at http://www.pocketbikeforum.ca.

So far the upgrade has taken about 10 hours in total. About 3 hours of work was done last night before the forum was shut down, downtime of around an hour and then around 6 hours of configuration, changes, updates and modifications. There's still little things to do but they won't take much more time at all.

[Gibson19]

It looks nice so far, Good job Admin

[Sleeves]

looks good admin , was alittle worried at first , but is ok , without the search engine are we going to get the hits we where before ?
or are we looking to word of mouth now ? I guess that would make better sence seeing as winnipeg site , or does it? All i know is that you have built alot of members through the internet and i have chatted with , and met some intelligent riders . I hope i understood the post you made and am not sounding like a retard !Just making sure that people that are looking for us will be able to still find us! Anyways the new look is nice pal!

[Admin]

The search engines will come back quickly, although it may take a few weeks.

This isn't only a Winnipeg site, it just happens to have started in Winnipeg and have a large winnipeg userbase. But that is expanding daily.

Build it and they will come!

[device]

great job...i really like the new look!!!

[Bigbone57]

4) Referral Program (I'll be making a seperate post about this) - Yes, you'll be able to take my money.
..............Dude you have got to be kidding.......Where do I sign up.....? Heck I'm not proud..
I'll take any or all of someone's money if their gunna give it to me...Heck I aint prejadice either, Canadian spends.....don't it?......OMG I forgot.........Nice Job AdminDude. I Dig the New Look, its "All Good"........Thats why your AdminDude...........