it's been a while that we had a big community update post. There is a lot happening behind the scenes right now, and I'm excited to share more information with you. Please invest a moment of your time to catch up on the following.
COMMUNITY UPDATES
Forum Cleanup Operation - 2023 RebootAfter many months of frustration with the forum engine, I can finally restart the "Forum Cleanup Operation". This is still the same procedure as talked about in in September 2021. However, while I had to run this manually last time (June 2022), it is now fully automated. The only thing I need to do, is flip a switch.
Before I do that, some additional information.
A lot of users solely signed up for the purpose of receiving a newsletter (this is a separate topic for further down below), others are currently idling, and there are plenty of users that "signed up" yet never even visited the forum. The main purpose of this cleanup, is to trim the fat of the database. The automated engine will send out "reminders" on regular intervals. To check if certain email addresses are even still valid and active, or if users are still interested in our community.
I already activated one module of this engine, focusing on the so called "Sleepers". I will turn on the rest of the engine for "Idle Users" (those that haven't been around for a while) on Sunday, 14th May.
EDIT 08-MAY-2023: Due to a miss-click on my end, the module to inform the "Zeroposters" (those that have an activated account, yet haven't posted anything) is now active as well.
The engine will check the following:
- Sleepers:
- General Info: These users have signed up for an account, yet never activated it and therefore also never visited the forum. From now on, these accounts will get one reminder email to please check in with your account. If there is no response within a certain time frame, the accounts are being automatically deleted
- Timeframe (as of 07-MAY-2023): reminder email sent after 45 days of being inactive, auto deletion after no response within 21 days
- Zero Posters:
- General Info: These users have an activated account, but haven't participated in any game or any conversation. While this is okay, especially for the purpose of getting the newsletter, your account is still being at risk for not "checking in" ever so often.
- Timeframe (as of 07-MAY-2023): reminder email sent after 90 days of being inactive, a second reminder email will be sent after 15 days, auto deletion of account after 10 days of no response to the second reminder
- Idle Users:
- General Info: These are accounts from users, that have participated in a game or a conversation, but haven't visited the forum in quite a while. This is the "regular check in", if one is still interested in the community.
- Timeframe (as of 07-MAY-2023): reminder email sent after 90 days of being inactive, a second reminder email will be sent after 15 days, auto deletion of account after 10 days of no response to the second reminder
- the time frames will be adjusted on 01-JUN-2023 to:
- Sleepers -- set to 15 days (single reminder, auto deletion after 10 days)
- to prevent your account from being automatically deleted, you merely only have to log into the forum. Then your account is safe until the next reminder is sent out. The engine will explain this in the reminder emails as well.
- posts from deleted accounts will remain (unless it was a spam account), deleted accounts can not be recovered!
- you can sign up to the forum again at a later stage
You can always request an account deletion or temporary suspension of course. In this case, please reach out through the official contact page. As a security measure, I do not allow "account deletion" by users themselves. My policy is to ask for a confirmation first to get the account disabled and deleted (removed user accounts can not be recovered).
If you are using a so called "throwaway email address", I highly encourage you to update your account - else you're at the risk of loosing it.
Server Move and Engine UpdatesThe whole page will move to a new server in the coming weeks. I plan to get this scheduled around Sunday, the 14th May 2023. I do not expect any severe problems with the move. However, there might be rare instances where you will not able to access the community page for a couple of hours.
Reason for this move, is getting access to a more modern server. Which in turn offers access to new features and add-ons for the community.
On that behalf, I also plan to upgrade the forum engine once the move has finished. Unfortunately, this will definitely result in an access issue of the forum. Something I can't prevent. There is however no way I can schedule this any better outside of any running game. I apologize in advance for the inconvenience.
I will post an update for the planned forum engine update time frame in the green announcement bar above. I strongly recommend that you prepare your posts in a TXT editor before posting them to the forum, especially during that time.
EDIT 10-MAY-2023 3:15 UTC+2/CEST: The server upgrade has been moved up in schedule to 10-MAY-2023. The relocation went without any severe issues. Thank you for your patience.
Community Add-Ons (Part 1: Newsletter)The HTML Newsletter is coming! I am aware that I have been announcing this for quite a while now. I tried to handle this service through the phpbb forum engine. But it just doesn't work without a lot of hoop-jumping and getting errors that I can't find solutions for. So I will be using a dedicated engine for that particular purpose.
The "Newsletter" through the phpbb engine will then only be used to inform game participants, if they made it to Round 2 (Mix Challenge) or once the Voting Process has started (Songwriting Competition). Despite that fact, I will also use this engine to send out (rare) important reminders for administrative purposes.
I am still testing what might be the most suitable engine that can run "on-premise" (Mix Challenge server). However, once everything is set up properly, everyone that is signed up the forum will also be "ported over" to the newsletter engine. Future users will be added/ported as well on a regular basis (ideally before the next newsletter is sent).
Important for you to know:Your contact data (email address) will not(!) be shared with any third party service like MailChimp, Google or similar. Everything will remain "in house" (Mix Challenge servers).
I will make this engine change/addition more clear in the community privacy policy prior to June 2023, and hope to have the first HTML email out in time for the 9th Anniversary.
GAME RELATED UPDATES
Songwriting CompetitionA major update to the Rule Book is long overdue, which will also cover recently overhauled game mechanics (the voting process). Unfortunately, time has been very tight on my end, and I can't guarantee that the update will be ready by June 2023.
I apologize for the scattered information. Until this revamp has been sorted out, I will still posts suitable reminders / references in the game threads directly.
This is but the start of bigger updates / changes for our community.
I hope to provide you with more information soon.
Thanks for reading
Updated: 10-MAY-2023 03:15 UTC+2/CEST -- "Server Move and Engine Updates" section
Updated: 08-MAY-2023 02:35 UTC+2/CEST -- "Forum Cleanup Operation - 2023 Reboot" section
Updated: 05-OCT-2023 06:15 UTC+2/CEST -- "Forum Cleanup Operation" - final adjustments announced
