The switch to the new Bulletin Board system was finalised this morning and hopefully everything went smoothly.
You may find that some threads were damaged in the transfer -- the order of posts might have changed and the hour of post may well be off by 7 hours. All these are unavoidable, I'm afraid, but it's great that we could even import all the user database and the threads intact.
There are many new features that you might want to take advantage of. Here's a list of some:
- User Time zone: go to your profile and enter the time offset for your time zone (compared to GMT). For example, users from the East Coast of the USA will put down -4 whereas users from central Europe will put down +2. Once you do that, all times in the Bulletin Board will show up in your time zone.
- Preview post: you can now preview your post before you post it.
- Members list: a complete listing of all registered members on the Bulletin Board. You can find different information about fellow members and I recommend you update your profile accordingly (remove what you don't want to be seen and add what you do want seen by others).
- Secure e-mail: when clicking on a user email icon, you no longer receive hisher e-mail address, but instead receive a form to fill in a message to send the user. Therefore, users' privacy is not invaded and those who preferred to hide their email address could not set it to visible, if they want to receive e-mails from others (again, without the other knowing your address).
- Go to Last Post: you can now click on the "last post" blue arrow icon, which will take you directly to the last post.
- View new Posts: Once you are logged in, you can click on "view new posts" on the Bulletin Board's front page and receive a list of only the threads which have new posts.
In the next couple of months more features will be added, among them PM (private messaging), subscription to specific threads and the option to post a picture of yourself in your profile.
This Bulletin Board system performs much better than the previous software we were using, so I expect you may find the Bulletin Board performing much faster and smoother. However, this is a relatively new system and probably not yet 100% clear of bugs. Therefore, please post on the Alas F1 forum any problem that you may have, so that we can assist you in solving them, and so that you can assist us in tracking them.
Thank you.
