Hello. We have some exciting updates and changes to present today, so let’s dive right into them.
1) The Community Systems Subforum. There have recently been a lot of posts about specific community systems that have been clogging up the main forum. As such, the mod team decided it was time for a Community Systems subforum for people to discuss the sirens in specific communities, ask questions about what systems various communities have, etc. You’ll see some preexisting threads moved there (with more to be moved if they are bumped) if they fit the category. A word of caution: do not start posting a deluge of threads just to fill up the subforum. Make sure your posts are substantive, interesting, and more than just “what does XYZ have” or “look at this random rusting Model 5 I found.” Videos should still go to the media subforum, however, you may reference videos in your write-ups if so desired.
2) The Mystery Sirens thread has gotten to be so long that we are archiving the original one and starting it fresh. But we’re not starting it fresh as a new thread. We’re starting it fresh as a new subforum: The Mystery Sirens subforum. This will make for easier searching and tracking of responses to individual posts. It will make it easier for new users to consult mysteries that have already been solved. A word of caution: this is not the place for blurry Google Maps photos and random speakers. What is posted need to be substantively and obviously sirens whose model identity is a mystery.
3) The sun setting of some longer threads that have lost their way. An explanation will be included if we find this to be necessary.
While we’re at it, we want to take a moment to address some issues we’ve seen with posting habits recently.
1) Please refresh yourself with the Code of Conduct. Posts need to be interesting, substantive, and professional. We put emphasis on the professional piece because this is a full out enthusiast forum, that includes new enthusiasts and professionals both. The kind of misinformation and garbled communication on YouTube and Facebook doesn’t fly here.
2) Posts should be generally interesting to all and not so specific that they fulfill the interest of one or two users.
3) Mapmaking is interesting and fun but it does not need to and should not pervade every topic posted here. Please keep discussion of mapmaking to the maps subforum.
Finally, we are going to be upgrading to phpBB 3.3, the latest release, at some point in the future. We do not have a rollout date but we fully expect this is going to break the custom themes used on this forum. We will be implementing standard phpBB themes when we upgrade. I suspect this is going to be a welcome change in the long term as our old themes break quite easily and some are not entirely mobile friendly. We will post about this when we have a final rollout date determined.
Hopefully these changes make for continued improvement to ARS. Happy posting!
Please feel free to respond if you have any questions or concerns.