Homepage Maintenance and Forum Cleanup

[Mister Fox]

Hello everyone...


It (sadly) only came to my attention now that this forum has been overrun with 18+ spambots. I'm sorry about this and will try to cleanup (and DELETE) the users in question within the next hours, also change the security regarding "registration" in the process. Should you be deleted by accident (since your account has been inactive), I'm terribly sorry in advance. In this case, please sign up anew.


EDIT 9pm/GMT+1
The forum has just been pruned of over 60 spam accounts - again, sorry for the inconvenience
On that behalf, I also fixed the "Auto-Prune" settings for those sub-forums that delete posts every 90 days. Some posts got lost due to a mistake I (the admin) did while settings things up. I'm sorry about this.




Other than that, the server provider for this page informed me, that there will be maintenance work done to the servers during the four nights following the 21st June (read: after the end of MC33). Chances are that the Mix Challenge page will be down for 1 hour each. If that is the case, please don't worry.



I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

[Mister Fox]

An update on the situation:

As you've probably noticed on 22nd June, you should have been prompted to log back into your account. This was due to the fact that I (the admin) purged the cache of the forum after installing an anti spam-bot extension. I just tested the registration process, and things are working smooth. The bot attacks got drastically reduced in the process (prior to that - 6-10 bots per day).


I also apologize for messing up the auto prune settings for the Off-Topic and Site-Stuff area. I saw in the logs that some of the users tried to post there, but it was deleted after one day and not after 90. This is not forum censorship or accidental deletion of accounts/posts! It was completely my fault for setting up the engine wrong in the first place. I'm sorry about that.


Things should be back to normal now.
Please continue to enjoy your stay.

[Mister Fox]

An update to the forum and the homepage:

01) Please be aware that Europe had it's daylight saying time switch back to winter time. That means that there have been adjustments for the forum world clock and the countdowns on the homepage.

02) I just installed an extension that makes it clear whether or not a user has been suspended (temp-banned) or banned from the forum (permanently banned). The forum doesn't show this allocation otherwise. I still try to make this more distinctive (colored), but this might take me a while. For the time being, there is both a written-out rank and an additional image (suspended in orange, banned in red) showing what's going on.

03) I also removed a couple of disabled/unused extensions for the forum. This might speed up loading times in turn (mobile users)

[Mister Fox]

Mini Update:

• Unlocked all December 2017 challenges a bit more than 2 hours sooner than planned. Reason being: I'm running super low on sleep and wouldn't make it past the usual "midnight GMT+1" mark. I apologize for breaking the monthly suspense
• Updated the homepage (navbar, Global Timer, Sponsors, Donation / Hall-of-Fame)
• General forum maintenance (mainly removing "demo" threads, thread pinning, etc)

[Mister Fox]

Mini Update:

• Landing Page - now showing all challenges as "rotating countdown"
• Song Pool (Campaign Menu) - added an information regarding the Song Pool status for the Mix Challenge, Remix Challenge and Mastering Challenge --- page will get a general overhaul in the coming weeks
• Contact Page - due to users reporting that they "never got a response", I also added the direct mail address (not only on the About Page) for reaching out --- Contact script will get an overhaul during the Christmas Holidays (from AJAX to oldschool page forwarding)

If you tried to reach out via the contact form in recent weeks, and you did not get a response so far, chances are that you did not get the green popup informing you that the message was sent. This is an issue due to Firefox's and Chrome's auto updates, not resetting the browser cache properly. Please clear your browser cache and send the message again, or use the direct mail address now shown on the contact page.

I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

[Mister Fox]

Mini Update:

• Challenge Dropdown Menu (navbar) - every competition now has a working link to their own statistic
• Contact Page - fixed behavior. Instead of getting an on-screen message "mail sent", you should now be forwarded to a separate page saying "thank you for your inquiry".

!	Bonus Info
	If you tried to reach out via the contact form in recent weeks, and you did not get a response so far, chances are that you ran into an error with the contact script (caused by the browser not parsing code correctly). I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. The engine is fixed now. Please try to get in touch again.

[Mister Fox]

Mini Update:

• cosmetic changes to the forum (bbcode)
• The "Bonus Block" got a smaller "!", which will be vertically aligned in center the more lines of text are existing (better optimized for mobile devices)
• There will now be two(!) types of Moderation/Administration commentary blocks (exclusive to the moderators / admins)
  • The (new) green one will be for general moderation (fusing/splitting threads, moving, general thread editing reasons)
  • The already known red one will be for warnings of any kind - if you see this, you will be in trouble

[Mister Fox]

Announcing Forum Clean up:

• clean up scheduled to be handled by Monday, 19th March 2018 12:00am GMT+1/CET+1
• Q&A and Gossip Area: all Poll threads will be removed
• Mix Challenge: "Rookie Mode" thread will be removed
• Off Topic Area: "Auto Prune Mechanics" info thread has already been removed

[Mister Fox]

Mini Update:

• Polls removed from
• Q&A and Gossip Area: all Poll threads have been removed
• Mix Challenge: "Rookie Mode" thread has been removed

[Mister Fox]

Mini Update:

• Forum engine updated for more security and faster response
• overall "user account cleanup" (automated) starts during CW40 (Calendar Week), but no later than CW41 (Calendar Week)
• "user account purge" process with "Sleepers" in second stage
  • relevant users have been pinged a second time
  • in case of non-activity, "Sleeper" accounts will be purged without further notice on 15th October 2021
  • new signed-up accounts that have not been activated 7 days after sending a reminder, will be purged without further notice

Please also see:
Announcing - forum clean-up operation / "(unused) user account purge" (Q4 2021)