Greg

Yes.

@Argus In terms of the clubs feature, lets just let the chips fall were they may... I've added the clubs feature to provide members with options on how they want to participate. If they want to create a unmoderated (or differently moderated) forum, then they can do that within the MLW community. I want everyone to get a taste of what it's like to be on the other side of the coin - the club leaders and moderators are going to have to make the same decisions the mods and myself make everyday. And I don't mean that in a negative manner either, I believe the clubs feature will allow everyone to find their niche, and have some control and ownership over their niche. And as I said earlier in this thread, lets not shit on this idea before we've given it a chance to work (or not work). If this turns out to be a failure, I'll remove it. There is never any harm in trying something new.

First, add a topic (which will act as topics do in these forums). Then add your first thread by selecting "Add your first topic" And yes, I do realize the confusion, as topic is being used to describe a forum section, and a thread - I'm working on correcting that.

It’s your club, you can do whatever you want! Send me a PM with which ones you want deleted and I will remove them. Yes.

While viewing your club homepage, look at the top right, under “Manage Club”, select “Topics”. Club owners and club moderators can, normal club members cannot.

Yes, the clubs will be run and managed by the Club Leader and their moderators. It's ready to go right now! Just visit the clubs page. Sure, and that's ok too. I'm hoping some of them return.

Come one guys, lets see how this works before we crap all over it. As I mentioned in the intro, if the clubs become echo chambers, so be it...

You can create as many new topics as your want in your club. You cannot duplicate threads (in public or open clubs), so if the thread is visible to the public, it needs to be unique. Otherwise, you can do whatever you want in your club. So if it's an open/public club, no cross-posting, but if it's a close or private, I don't care what you do.

Yes, so long as it's a public or open club, I believe they will appear in the activity timeline.

The new clubs feature will allow members to create a club. What is a club you ask? A club is basically a public OR private section of the forums that you can discuss whatever with whomever. Four types of club are available: Public clubs - Clubs that anyone can see and participate in without joining. Open club - Clubs that anyone can see and join. Closed club - Clubs that anyone can see in the directory, but joining must be approved by a Club Leader or Club Moderator. Non-club-members who view the club will only see the member list - not the recent activity or content areas. Private club - Clubs that do not show in public, and users must be invited by a Club Leader or Club Moderator I am going to restrict the creation of the actual clubs to only members, new members (those under 1 total postings) will have to post a couple of times before they can create a club. Club users will be broken down into three groups: Leader - A leader has all of the permissions of a moderator, and can add other moderators. The club owner is automatically a leader. Moderators - Moderators, as the name implies, have the ability to moderate content posted within the club. The moderator can remove content, etc form their respective clubs. Moderators can also remove members from a club. Users - Anyone else that joins the club. Clubs FAQ ------------------------- Why are you implanting this new feature? Because I think there are times that certain members what to discuss specific things amongst themselves (without any outside interruption). Won’t this create a whole bunch of echo chambers that encourage people to only speak to those who agree with themselves? Perhaps, but I doubt it. We will still have the normal forums open and available for everyone, and I’m willing to bet that members will engage in both the general forums and the clubs. What is the moderation going to be like in the clubs? Moderation will fall almost exclusively to the Leaders and Moderators of the individual clubs. The Forum Admin (Greg) and Forum Moderator (Charles A) will ONLY step in if something illegal occurs. So anything goes in the clubs? No, porn (while technically legal) isn’t permitted in the clubs. However, something unforeseen might crop up that we will have to deal with, but I’m not interested in being heavy handed with the clubs. For the clubs to be successful, everyone has to take ownership of them. How does someone join a closed or private club? They have to either ask to join or be invited by a Club Leader or a Club Moderator. What if a member is booted from a club, can the Forum Admin or Forum Moderator allow them back in. No, the Club Leader and or Club Moderator have exclusive justification over their club. If you tick them off, or break their rules, it’s their decision whether you remain in their club. Can someone rejoin a club that they have left (or been removed from)? Yes, but only at the discretion of the Club Leader or Club Moderator. Does a club need to be about politics? NO, a club can be about any topic that interests you (and your club members). Is this going to be a permanent feature of the forums? If people use this feature, we will keep it around. Can a club start as a public club and move to closed/private (or vis-versa). Yes, however you will need to request this change by asking Greg (Forum Admin) to change the permissions of your club. Can anyone create a club? Yes, but for now (while we’re testing everything out), I will approval all the clubs manually. Once we get everything figured out, I’ll open it up so that anyone can create a club. What if I have a question that isn’t answered in the above FAQ? Then ask the question in the support section of the forums. This is a new feature, so we can accept a few issues to arise and we will all have to adapt to make it work. ------------------------- So what does everyone think? I’d like to hear your feedback. If you have a technical question, please post your question in the support forums, but if you have a general comment and or feedback, then please post it below. Thanks!

We don't have a specific for section for "education", however if you wanted to create a new thread about a educational issue/topic, then it would fall best under the Provincial section of the forums.

This is mostly a case of semantics - the word "ban" used to be used within the board software, but now it's "suspend indefinitely". Which obviously means that same thing as banning, it just displays differently on the front end. Thanks

What topics fall outside of what's already available in the "OFF-TOPIC DISCUSSIONS" section of the forums? Can you give me an example?

NO, we clearly do no welcome trolls. And to continually perpetuate this kind of nonsense is your way of trolling the mod and myself - kind of ironic, isn't it?

That was my fault - we had an issue with the forums a month ago; shortly after a upgrade, the forums because unusable. First thing you do in a situation like that is turn off all modifications and plugins - which I did - to ensure that it's not a third party code conflict with the upgrade. Fortunately it was just a caching issue, and after clearing the cache, everything was back up and running. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn on the plugins back on! Sorry about that. The posting number plugin has been activated and everything should be back to normal. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Ok, looks like we have a tie - so I'm going to break the tie with my vote - I'm for having chat functionality. I will look into the logistics and cost of adding it back into the forums. Thanks for participating everyone! I'll be posting another questions (relating to the forum functionality) shortly!

I've moved post editing from 30 min to 24 hours - that should be more than enough time to correct any errors. However, that's a different topic, lets keep this thread on the topic of chat functionality.

Chat has been removed due to Invision Power Board not supporting the functionality anymore. I have looked into different options (mostly paid options), and I'd like to know if everyone wants chat functionality implemented again. Note: the third-party chat plugins I've been looking at have a great deal more bells and whistles, so if you didn't like the original chat feature because it was barebones, any new chatroom would be considerably more feature-rich.

Unfortunately Invision Power Board has pulled support for their chat function. The latest upgraded completely removed this function, hence why it is no longer available. I have looked into different options (third party plugins), but I want to know everyone's feelings on whether it's a feature you want to see again. I'm going to create a support thread about this issue, please post your options on whether you want me to add this feature again. Thanks!

I've increased the amount of time between when a member posts and when they can edit that post to 24 hours. It was previously set to 90min, and I don't believe that was enough time. I will also be activating a feature that will force members to acknowledge a warning before they can post again. I'm doing this to ensure that member understand the reasoning behind some moderation actions. If you have any issues or questions, post them in the support section. Thanks!

Can you show me a screenshot? Did you try to restart your browser?

I'll look into this issue. can you give me an example?