Overview of changes

[Austin]

Some of you may have noticed other slight changes around here. Some noticeable, others not so much. Before i address the changes i want to point out that we are working on implemented changes we thought were necessary as a response to the surveys. I just didnt want you all to think we werent going to do anything about what you all said or anything. We have a list of changes and once we have time we will fully finish once we get the chance to.

Just to highlight the plan this is what we got:


Promote userpage's and the chat feature
Start creating articles on the science of rides, histories of rides, and manufacturers of rides
Keep attitudes overall in check(not overbearing just to keep the peace and others happy)
Trip report section (centralized like TPR does)
Make the forums look professional with the use of new graphics or other options
Add more games to arcade
Cover Banzai beach over the next year and a half.
Promote the website with our facebook page and twitter. Look into expanding our efforts in this department by maybe adding a "PR" Guy that updates the fan page, which updates twitter automatically, daily to keep us active on peoples news feeds


I think that is a great response to the survey's. Its pretty ambitious but i believe its very achievable.


Update on the status of these changes:

Underway -

Trip Report Section: Ive transfered all TR's except two to the server and i have centralized the threads to one location. Next: Make a page for every park we have a TR on. Sorta like TPR

Better looking forums: We used the T2 skin as a experiment since most hated it. Now that it has a new background i think its great. I just need to get the banner fixed and it would be perfect.

Creating informational articles: This is being worked on and we expect to see the first article soon.



Slight changes around the site:


Skins: The T2 skin has been re-done partially and isnt finished. Still a better looking skin than before. We also added a more family-friendly Halloween skin: http://sfkkonline.com/?styleid=16. Yes its a bit late but its a nice addition. We are currently working on new years, Christmas, and Thanksgiving skins. I already finished our Memorial Day skin to a certain point. Its not totally done but its good for now until i get more time.

Homepage: We recently have been reorganizing the modules on the homepage to make it more flowing and better looking. We also added a countdown box to countdown the time until the park re-opens. We also added a operating hours box which will be more useful next season.

Images: Like the Trip Reports we also moved all the images on our site over to our server. This reduces time to load pages and keeps them up if photobucket crashes.

Rules: We will soon be removing the rules mod that makes you approve the rules before posting. This never worked out the way i thought it would be. I just feel its more restrictive then it needs to be so i will be going back to the old way we used.

Spam: Yes we do have this covered but I'm feeling all the barriers are restricting registration. I am working with the developers of Vbulletin to make the site safer using the software already in the site. I will then disable a few mods and go a few days then add a few back as needed if anything happens.


I think this effectively sums up everything. Just be on the look out for those changes. When i do let the spam barriers down i will be on while they are off so i can catch any problems before something happens.

Feel free to post your opinions or suggestions on these changes. These are meant to make the site better for you all.

-Tiger

[Austin]

In addition we also closed for a few hours today to update our forum software.

We was running 3.8.3, we are now running 3.8.4 Patch Level 1.

This adds better security, improves speed slightly, and kills a few bugs that was in 3.8.3. I'm sorry i didn't announce it, it was just one of those early morning things that turned into a long project. Unless I buy vbulletin 4.0 do not expect any kind of major shut down like this again. Vbulletin 3.8 is no longer a supported version(or is in the process of not being one) since they have released vbulletin 4.0. They will still release a major update if they need to if theres a major issue but they most likely wont.

[Austin]

To round out updates for a while I made significant progress towards finishing Multiple goals/projects.

I now have in place the New years skin, Thanksgiving and the christmas skins.

The new years is labeled for 2009 an error, it'll be fixed soon.
Christmas is fully done as with the thanksgiving skins. The major difference with these from the others is that they have no buttons under the banner to navigate. Instead i have put them int he nav bar(the strip under the notifications box, which is just under the banner) I will eventually roll out the no-button mode to all skins. To make it easier to navigate i put them on in order they were on the buttons and i even added a few new links.

Trip reports is coming along great. I just finished transferring all the pictures to our server and I can now begin building the trip report index which is the 3rd and final phase of this project. That is going to be the main project ill be working with for a few days.

Banners: I have a prototype T2 banner in the works and it could eventually shape how the other original banners could look like once i roll out full visual changes to those.

[Space]

Alright. :)