OK, You Can All Come Back Now

…from forum withdrawal rehab. The forums are restored at their familiar location.  I hope everybody has got their groove back after the…. uh… experience of the past weekend.

When you do visit the forums, the first thing you are going to notice is that things look a little different.  This is a new version of the underlying software, called phpBB.  The previous version of our forum used a page-generating template that produced the beige-and-brown look of the forums, also provided some of the icons and other page elements.

The template set that we used previously is not compatible with this newer version of phpBB.  So we’re just going to dispense with the templates and rely on the pretty much the default settings.  We did manage to find a way to create a beige background, but most of the stuff you’re going to see will be a light-blue.

So things are going to LOOK a little different.  Different colors, different arrangement of elements on the screen, a couple of different icons.  But after you’ve spent maybe five minutes with the new layout I think you’ll see that the functionality is all the same. 

The big change I hope we achieve with this upgrade is a normalizing of the registration procedure.  Hopefully, from now on, new users can just sign on using the conventional "register" routines, without having to e-mail me directly of their desire to join.  New accounts will still have to be activated by the forum administrator (that would be me).  But they shouldn’t need to contact me first.

I am also making a concerted effort to figure out how to configure a new forum called "Golden Threads," where I hope to focus much of the discussion in the future into a coherent effort to identify the unifying themes of this whole undertaking.  That section is set up, and I have unlocked it so that I can experiment with it, but please don’t anybody try to post anything there until I figure out a few particulars.  I’ll announce here and in the forums when it’s ready.

And, finally, re: the business over the weekend.  Per his request, I have deactivated "AM"s account. However, I have not deleted the account.  Merely deactivated it so that it cannot be accessed — nor any of the posts deleted.  It is evident to me and several others that, for whatever curiosity of manner he may have exhibited "AM" also dropped some real pearls in our path, and I think I need to spend some time trying to sort them out, and I’m sure others feel the same way about that. We may have heard the last from him in terms of real-time posts, but I believe his impact will be with us for some time to come.

I’m going to have more to say about how the forums work later this week, so please keep an eye on this space.

The pool is now open.

2 thoughts on “OK, You Can All Come Back Now”

  1. Paul,
    I like the new look ! I like how you can find posts faster.
    How do you look up private messages?
    Longboardlovely

  2. Look for the word “messages” from the index page (the first page of the forums). I think that links to your PM inbox.
    If that doesn’t work, then try finding your own “user control panel.” There are tabs there that access your PMs, among other things.
    Let me know if you run into any other probs.
    –PS

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