Hello all,
As many of you know, I've been working on the next version of the forum for a while now. It's been slow going for two-reasons: 1. I'm doing this in my spare time - which i have very little of 2. I'm working with Elektron on this and they have had their own priorities and schedules. Regardless, it's coming.
What's coming...
- Elektron-Users will become Elektronauts. A name change has been on the table a for a few years. It's happening, hope you like it
- Elektronauts will be hosted by Elektron HQ, but still be a user ran community. What does that mean, it will be exactly like it is now, but it won't cost me $125.00 a year + maintenance time.
- MUCH improved spam protection.
- MUCH improved search. Thank gawd!
- Categories for each machine.
- Improved forum tools for all-users (ignore user, report post, favorites, subscribes, etc).
- Soundcloud implementation.
- Polling per thread
- Voting up and down w/in the forum - Meaning, the order the threads will now first be prioritized by the communities voting up/down. In hopes this will highlight important/pertinent comments and bury nonsense.
- Improved user-profile.
- Various fixes: PM'ing, etc
- Cleaner more streamlined user interface.
- New logo.
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What's being ported…
- The current forum in it's entirety will not be ported. Why? Well, i have ported the forum over across two CMS's now. The forum works but the database is a bit messy and isn't all that 'clean', so to speak. With the new name, new home, some needed changes, and after months of debate we felt it would be best to start fresh instead of trying to shoehorn the old info the new digs.
That said the old forum will remain archived and remain available as a read only forum. Logging in and forum posts will no be available after well flip the switch to the new site.
- User data, profiles, attributes, etc will remain tied to Elektron-Users.com, but we're all starting anew on Elektronauts. Hopefully your pride and egos aren't tied to your forum status and post count because we're gonna start new. All of us.
- Files. Files will be ported, but due to the user data not being ported (see above), all current files will be upload by a single created user. Likely by 'Elektronaut' or something like that. Files after we flip the switch will work as they do now.
- There will be a new wiki made available to all in the community that registered users. It be up to the community to port any information from the current wiki or add new information. The wiki has always been the communities responsibility. Aside from some key contributors it unfortunately widely underused. So much good info in there. I hope to see it grow.
I know for some of this will be a bummer, but again we're working to ensure this new site has a solid foundation that can grow and grow, but we need proper footing and with this move, this is the time to do it. When E-U was started by Scott some years back, he worked with the best and easiest solution at the time, which worked great, but no one new how much the community would grow or how Elektron would grow, etc. Having hind site allows is to see the communities current shortcomings and the new site allows to look a bit ahead.
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Other notes…
- Science Labs will be moved to the forums and no longer be a top-level navigational item. Also, 'Labs will run per machine on 3 month cycles. Allowing 2 months for the lab and a month for voting.
- Merchandise - FKCING t-shirts and other goodies. Finally! Not sure on the details on this yet and won't be ready for the launch, but it's for real happening.
- The new site will be a 'responsive design' - meaning it will scale on pcs, tablets, and mobile technology.
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When? Soon. Very soon. I'm working diligently to get this up and running. I will keep you posted. Giving everyone plenty of time to ask questions, make suggestions and posts their hate
Seriously though, I think you all are going to love the new site. It IS better in all regards.