S3F's 699th Day (of Not Being Abandoned By The Internet) Celebration Extravaganza

[missionhockey21]

699 days is truly legendary, so we thought it was the perfect time to kick off a huge upgrade. A lot of hardwork was put into this upgrade, I am sure there will be an error or two along the way (if so, please notify us in the Admin Notification forum), and there is still more work to be done through out the season. But if you happen to dig it, the best way you can show your appreciation is by continuing to make high quality posts and tell any friends you have who feel as strongly about baseball as you do about us.

Styles- Should be largely familiar to you, but they have been completely rebuilt with keeping that and usability in mind. There are styles for every team of course and four variations of the default S3F style (fixed width, wide width, fixed width with a horizontal postbit and wide width with a horizontal postbit.) I have determined about doing team styles wide yet, only because the editing for them would be quite intensive on top of what I have to handle (which is quite a bit more than the average forum.) Since I am still working on upgrading the forums, I would likely wait until I feel like we're pretty much set with the style until doing the wide versions (if I decide to.) As for player pictures, most teams I was able to get the players I wanted, but for those that I weren't able to, I will be on the lookout for those pictures as the action starts up and the influx of new pictures come in.

Profiles- We're not using Zoint Local profiles for our profiles here. I realize that some may not care about the extra information a profile like this can provide, but many will. If you want to see the old profiles, you can do so by accessing a person's Zoints profile and then clicking "Forum Profile" in their navigation bar. If you're a person who mostly uses profiles to private message, you will find that there is a quick link to private message on every post. If you have any questions regarding Zoints, please post it in the appropriate forum for Zoints here (problems should go in Admin Notification as we have the best chance of quickly hashing it out in that private forum.)

The profiles will add for a much higher level of customizing and interactivity amongst everyone. The site rules still apply (and that should go without saying), but I imagine this will be a nice way for everyone to express themselves better and connect with one another.

(Make sure to check out the customized blocks, there are several ones I have put in which could appeal to different members.)

Other Features-
Where did my post count go? Nowhere, it's still on the site, it's just not being displayed on every post. In part with a new internal philosophy we have taken on, we have realized how overplayed numbers can get. Post count isn't the best indicator of a poster's quality but it often is. So we're now using a calculation that measures (essentially) your posts to your reputation for an ERA calculation. Is it a perfect system? Not quite and we will seek to improve it, but I feel it's a fairer representation of everyone's post quality. Post count can still be displayed in the new profiles.

S3F Cash? S3F: Vegas? Guh?
It's an upcoming year round contest Fishercat will be running. That's all everyone needs to know for now. C'mon, we got to keep a few aces in our sleeves for later use.

vB Favorites?
I don't know about you all, but sometimes I see a great post that I want to respond to, but I get busy, leave and forget about it. With the new Favorites system, simply click "Add Post To Favorites" and it will be saved in your User CP to check on later. You can also click "Thread Tools" and then "Add Thread To Favorites" and it works the same way. Under Quick Links, your last three favorite posts and threads will be displayed so you can view them from any part of the forums.

iSpy with my little eye?
iSpy is a tool similar to DIGG's Spy function, that it will automatically update through an AJAX function each new post to come onto the forums in relative realtime. If you click it and go off for a few minutes, you automatically will see what posts have came in since you left with a small preview. This can be access under Quick Links.

Ugh, where did the links go?
Quick Links has been modified to show extra site function links (as well as a few more important forum links) so those missing links have been moved over to a dropdown under the User CP button. User CP was also modified a few days ago to give you quicker access to some features with the dropdown and it now has a bit more of an attractive layout.

I really don't care if fictional players are traded in 2020.
If you haven't been in any of the sim leagues, I would be scared for you if you happened to care. The good news is that you can new choose which forums you want to ignore when calling for new posts in the get new function. To do this, follow these instructions:

User CP -> Edit Options -> Scroll to the bottom and you will see it
Make sure to use your CTRL key when selecting forums (so you can select one and keep all the ones in between of another one if you choose.)

Lost, but not forgotten.
There are a few pretty cool things last year that weren't ever really touched, so make sure to check them out this season. Such as our RSS news feed of several major baseball sources (found under MLB Links dropdown) or the S3F Member's Gallery found next to MLB Links. We also updated FlashChat to display within the forums so it didn't feel so distant from the site.

What's this? Why did you change that?
I am sure there are other elements I didn't mention you might be wondering about, if so, they are likely minor or will be covered later. I will be updating FAQ's over the weekend (especially with reputation since it was changed some) and I will continue to update in this forum with any future changes you should know about.

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Again, if there are problems, please notify us in Admin Notification. If not, I hope you enjoy the changes will stick around to see us improve in the future. It might seem like there is a lot of emphasis placed on the upgrades and there is to some extent, but that isn't out focus. We are truly going to be all about providing a level of content far exceeding our past two seasons. We will need your help for this and we hope that by making the forums more friendly, we can all enjoy the sheer euphoria of posting about the MLB.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and thanks in advance for anyone who helps us troubleshoot bugs. Please make sure to thank Fishercat and Redsrbetter as well as they have been awesome with helping me decide how to modify the forums and what is truly needed.

[missionhockey21]

I try going for a random birthday and I end up with the 19,000 thread on this forum. That's irony folks.

Oh and if some graphic appears to be funky in it's coloring (with matching up), I'll be fixing it. I likely still have future additions to make to the style, but just doing the work I did (with the icons, player pictures, etc as well) we're talking about hundreds of images. So just be patient.

[browntown653]

Dear missionhockey,

YOU ARE THE MAN

Love browntown

[Kingdom_of_Zito]

s3f cash = like vcash/vbookie?

[CincyRedsFan30]

Nice!! Very, very nice!!!!!

[GiantsFanatic]

Dude this is awsome!

So instead of our post, it counts as ERA? How does that work?

[HollywoodLeo]

Originally Posted by missionhockey21 I really don't care if fictional players are traded in 2020. If you haven't been in any of the sim leagues, I would be scared for you if you happened to care. The good news is that you can new choose which forums you want to ignore when calling for new posts in the get new function. To do this, follow these instructions:

[HollywoodLeo]

I'm not seeing it in the edit options area

[DravenX]

Wow, purely amazing. I love the new style. Can't wait to view the team styles as well. S3F just got 150% better.

[SLAM]

Pretty cool.

[missionhockey21]

Originally Posted by HollywoodLeo I'm not seeing it in the edit options area

Actually, I know the problem. You're using the old 2006 styles (the 4 I created after the move to vB 3.64.) All of the new features and such (or many of them) are only available on the new styles, please switch to S3F 2007 (Wide or Wide/Horizontal) and it should work for you.

As for the rest of the questions, I sincerely apologize, but I will answer them tomorrow. I am glad to see it's a hit so far.

[DirtyKash]

I really don't care if fictional players are traded in 2020. If you haven't been in any of the sim leagues, I would be scared for you if you happened to care. The good news is that you can new choose which forums you want to ignore when calling for new posts in the get new function. To do this, follow these instructions: User CP -> Edit Options -> Scroll to the bottom and you will see it Make sure to use your CTRL key when selecting forums (so you can select one and keep all the ones in between of another one if you choose.)

NICE.