New Features and Changes

[davehc]

Re: Update to WinVistaForums.com

That is the most innovative thing I have seen on websites such as this for some time!
Many websites make great claims to "hits" and membership. We have just been having this discussion on another help site. It claims 9000+ members. When I pointed out that more than 6000 had only made one post, the "old boys club" got a bit shirty with me!!

 

[Mike]

Re: Update to WinVistaForums.com

We are integrating some new features from the new release candidate of our forum software. Here is a summary of the improvements:

• Social Group Discussion Topics
• Private Messaging Improvements
• Most Recently-Updated Albums
• Moving Album Pictures
• Thread Prefix Permissions
• Social Group Categories
• Social Group Avatars
• Profile Customization
• Performance Improvements

Should be an overall better experience. The theme of the forum was changed slightly (mostly under-the-hood) to accommodate this update.

 

[Mike]

Experience Points System is now active.

An experience points based reward system has recently been added and with that comes a great opportunity for anyone excited about Windows 7. The more you use Windows7Forums.com, the more points you will gain!

First, here are some details on how this works:

• You must be a registered member with at least one post to be included in this system.
• You must be an active member of the forum. Being active means you have used the forum within at least 30 days to be calculated in the results.
• Your use of the forums will help you gain points, whether it is from replying to a post, starting a thread, writing a blog, referring a friend, or anything in between. Link Removed due to 404 Error
• You will earn awards which can be gained or lost and displayed on your messages when you use the forums.
• Your experience points will stay with your account for as long as you are a member of Windows7Forums.com, and may be used for promotions like a Windows 7 giveaway...

Link Removed due to 404 Error
​

 

[hammydown]

An experience points based reward system has recently been added and with that comes a great opportunity for anyone excited about Windows 7. The more you use Windows7Forums.com, the more points you will gain!

First, here are some details on how this works:

• You must be a registered member with at least one post to be included in this system.
• You must be an active member of the forum. Being active means you have used the forum within at least 30 days to be calculated in the results.
• Your use of the forums will help you gain points, whether it is from replying to a post, starting a thread, writing a blog, referring a friend, or anything in between. Find out exactly how points are calculated here.
• You will earn awards which can be gained or lost and displayed on your messages when you use the forums.
• Your experience points will stay with your account for as long as you are a member of Windows7Forums.com, and may be used for promotions like a Windows 7 giveaway...

You can view all of the features of this system here.
​

Mike this is very impressive and gives people something to work for. I believe this will be a huge success. Maybe we should add something in for quality of posts. I mean someone could have 50 one line posts while the other person has 10 eight line posts. Just something to think about for the future if you want to implement.

 

[Kyle]

Good features, for sure.
This is definitely going to up the level of intellect used, as many users will see it as an opportunity to win stuff, instead of an opportunity to just increase their post count.

Nice job.

 

[hammydown]

Indeed Kyle. What all will the deductions be for and how will they be determined? on the points page do the 2x and 1x mean they get 2 points and 1 point respectively each time?

 

[Radenight]

Very good idea!!! This should make things interesting...

 

[Mike]

The way the awards are distributed is kind of bugged, but this does show some promise

 

[Radenight]

@ Mike.. I agree that the distribution of the awards is kinda bugged.. I admit I'm certainly not the most helpful poster on here and yet I have the Helpful award.. odd....

 

[Matt]

I also see that the reputation system is on, so now you can give +rep to good posts as well.

 

[Mike]

New Features

Link Removed Link Removed

System stats now linked from every post.

Show the world your computer's system information by Link Removed due to 404 Error. This will help troubleshooting easier and help show the Internet your brand new or ailing system.

Experience Points System

An experience points based reward system has recently been added and with that comes a great opportunity for anyone excited about Windows Vista. The more you use WinVistaForums.com, the more points you will gain!

First, here are some details on how this works:

• You must be a registered member to be included in this system.
• You must be an active member of the forum. Being active means you have used the forum within at least 30 days to be calculated in the results.
• Your use of the forums will help you gain points, whether it is from replying to a post, starting a thread, writing a blog, referring a friend, or anything in between. Link Removed due to 404 Error
• You will earn awards which can be gained or lost and displayed on your messages when you use the forums.
• Your experience points will stay with your account for as long as you are a member of WinVistaForums.com, and may be used for promotions or reedemable in the future.
  

Link Removed due to 404 Error
​

 

[kemical]

Re: Update to WinVistaForums.com

All good stuff! Thanks for the update..

 

[03hdfatboy]

Re: Update to WinVistaForums.com

Thanks

 

[Mike]

New Theme

It should be somewhat obvious that the theme of the site has been upgraded. You can still go back to the old fluid WinVistaForums theme by using the jump menu at the bottom left of the screen.

 

[Mike]

Re: Update to WinVistaForums.com

A significant effort has been made to speed up the overall operation of the website. This includes changes to the way the website and database are cached in memory. We are now using a datastore and also optimization software to speed things up. As a result to one change, it will appear that less people are actively browsing the forum since sessions now expire after 10 minutes. Members can prevent this by checking "Remember me" when logging in.

Regards,

Mike
​

 

[kemical]

Re: Update to WinVistaForums.com

A significant effort has been made to speed up the overall operation of the website. This includes changes to the way the website and database are cached in memory. We are now using a datastore and also optimization software to speed things up. As a result to one change, it will appear that less people are actively browsing the forum since sessions now expire after 10 minutes. Members can prevent this by checking "Remember me" when logging in.​

Regards,​

Mike​

Much thanks for the hard work...
Although I've noticed that when editing a post, after you click 'save' the page doesn't seem to do anything . In fact the post has actually saved but the screen just doesn't show it..(until the screen is refreshed) Anyone else getting this problem?

 

[Mike]

Re: Update to WinVistaForums.com

I've noticed this as well - I'm not sure if it is normal behavior and am looking into it.

 

[Mike]

2009 Updates to WinVistaForums.com

Happy New Year to all.

Several changes, have been made. I have been informed that there has been a spam issue very recently on the website, as a result some things have changed:

• Re-Captcha Human Verification has been re-added to the forums.
• You will need to have at least 5 posts for your username to appear on the Memberlist.
• Every member (90) who never verified their e-mail address has been purged.
• Several IP addresses of known spammers have been banned. (Please do not try to sell Viagra on your profile.)
• Several thousand user accounts were removed who had met the following criteria: Never posted a message.
• The accounts of those members who have actively posted a message will never be removed.

Regards,
Mike

 

[Mike]

Blogs

An upgrade to the BLOG feature recently required a full wipe of this area.. my apologies in advance but there was no recourse since there were problems with the Blog database. This should not happen again.

 

[Radenight]

Thanks for the update Mike! I also wanted to bring to your attention that some of the posts don't seem to be updating.. Could just be my comp I guess but I'm not sure.. this thread for instance, if I don't sign in it shows up as being the most recent thread in the "Water Cooler" section, but as soon as I sign in it goes back to the "Links to Beta Builds" thread as being the most recent one in this section.. kinda weird.. So far it's only done it a couple other times.. just thought I'd mention it in case it's something wrong with the forum and not just my compy..