Now that we’re on Discourse, the “Civilized Discourse Construction Kit”, not only are you getting accustomed to this new forum, but so am I. There are still things being tweaked, features being fine-tuned and other things being worked out. In addition, there are category changes, new tutorial texts or other major updates that you should know about, not to mention two major software updates per year which add new features, improve existing ones and bring the technical foundation of this forum slowly forward.
November 21: The old Forum was successfully migrated to this new one, running Discourse. All posts and categories were migrated, most avatars, too. To my current knowledge, personal messages have not been migrated due to complications in how Discourse handles those.
November 26: I have belatedly activated Akismet, a service that check for spam. There were also some minor tweaks to how you reach Trust Level 2 and there’s a new badge awarded to users entering their SWDb username (applies to those of you who are also SWDb editors)
November 29: Our Terms of Service (TOS) have been updated to their initial and binding version. Please do read it (you will earn a badge). We reserve the right to amend and modify them in the near future.
Also, our Privacy Policy has seen a slight adjustment, please consult to inform yourself about which data we collect or process and which third-party services are involved in collecting and/or processing data relating to your account and/or person.
November 30: To facilitate onboarding, the welcome topic is now called “Getting Started” and will be simplified into a “quick start” guide this week. As a collection for all tutorials and help content, please refer to our new Forum Signpost, which will be continuously extended from now on.
December 3: User language selection is now enabled. To change the interface of the forum to a language other than English, go to your preferences, and scroll below the background image choice. Select a language locale (e.g. “pt_BR” for Brazilian Portuguese) and click “save changes”. Once you refresh the website, all interface elements are now in your language.
December 9: I figured out how to show names in the posts, so if you have set a real name in your profile, it will now shown next to your username, like this:
April 2: The upgrade to 1.5 is done, and we’re now enjoying the new version of Discourse. I invite you all to check out your new profile page, specifically the badges you’ve earned, and notice the faster loading times of the forum. I am excited, been waiting for this upgrade a long time, it greatly improves the experience with this forum! I hope you dig it
The developers have outlined the major new updates of in this blogpost. Full list of new features is here and here.
April 26: Topics in the “lost and found” section can now be labeled “solved” by chosing a reply as the best answer to one of those “I am looking for a certain movie” type questions.
May 8: Two days after the SWDb itself, this forum is now officially running via https encrypted connections, bringing you more safety and privacy. You’re welcome Watch for the little padlock in your browser
May 21: There is a new badge “Contributor” that you can earn if you’ve done anything in the SWDb recently (let’s say within the last 10 months or so). Applicants please PM me
May 24: Made some minor tweaks to the Category overview page. Updated the category pictures and description, and fixed the order for all categories. Also increased the number of latest topics shown from 3 to 4.
June 1: Email notifications and digests, as well as any other email related functionality, currently not working because our provider has blocked us. Can you help? Yes and no. I will try to get us unblocked, but in general, keeping SWDb emails out of your spam/junk folders helps to cut down on the complaints and bounces rate
June 7: And blocked again… working on it. Annoying piece of clusterfuck
Update 5pm: Working again. Please keep your email addresses up to date. At any rate, I put some Amazon links up top, please do use those for your shopping needs, it really helps us out!
Aug 5: Discourse 1.6 is out and should be applied to this forum quite soon. According to the official blog post announcing the update, the major changes are a) vertical timeline, as teased further up b) better merging options c) easier polls d) warning of duplicate links e) better unsubscribe options f) deep linking into texts via anchors g) personalization of invitation emails h) some new badges i) “watch first post” alert option. And a lot more. Click here to read their summary, and here is a list of all the changes.
Edit: Some of my favorite new features are also the additional personal stats that were added, better thumbnails for large images. The update will arrive in the coming days, I will keep you posted.
Aug 20: As you may have noticed, the new version of the forum is already up and running. See my previous post to dig deeper into what has changed, I will be back shortly with some highlights. In the meantime, I removed the ugly top bar and instead added some icons to the top right corner that lead you to the FAQ/Help, the donation page, the SWDb, and of course then as you know the powerful search and the hamburger menu which gives you tons of options. Play around, see if you like it.
Watch for the little padlock in your browser
