The Official Site Update Thread

[Opal]

This thread will be for all updates and changes made to the site. It is a closed thread that only admins may post in. If you have any questions, PM me or start a separate topic, so as not to clutter this thread. Thank you!

[Opal]

Updates for February 5, 2014:

1. Did more board consolidation on the boards to reduce clutter and simplify. Major changes include:

- Merging Past Contest discussion with General Discussion. That board was barely used, and General Discussion is not used much more. Now you can talk about pretty much anything on General Discussion, contest-related or no.

- Making Article Discussion and Wiki Discussion child boards of General Discussion. Again, to simplify clutter.

- Making a new "Story" sub-category for all the past contests and making all weeks of the story child boards of them, so as to reduce clutter and make the boards look cleaner.

2. I was running out of colors to give contestant/coordinator/judge groups, so I've made everyone's primary member group normal and added their contestant/coordinator/judge title as a custom title. You are still part of your respective groups, they are just secondary groups now, and you should still be able to see all the contestant forums. If you can't, or are suddenly seeing forums you normally weren't, let me know.

3. I'm disabling display name and custom title changes, to reduce confusion. You should still be able to add personal text under your picture. If you would like to change your display name, PM me.

4. Deleted the Guest Chat. It wasn't a great service, it wasn't being used, and it was adding to the clutter. If you are a guest and have questions about this site, you may email me through the link on my profile, or register and PM me. We would be glad to have you as a member, even if you are still unsure of this place and what we're all about.


Planned Updates for 2014

1. A sleeker wiki design.

2. Actually, y'know, filling out the wiki some more. If anyone wants an account there to help with edits, PM me. I had to disable registration there because of a constant flood of spambots, but I would love for real people to be registered there!

3. Possibly a sleeker, cleaner main site design. Perhaps one that is the same as the wiki. Does this grab anyone's fancy? Let me know. And if you'd be interested in making a custom banner for it, definitely let me know.

4. A sleeker forum--nah, just kidding. I adore this forum theme, and I don't think I'll be changing it any time soon.

5. Moving all images from MediaWiki uploads to a Photobucket account. I just don't have the space, and photos take up a LOT of room.

6. Really turning the main site into a proper ezine, so people might actually visit it instead of just hanging out on the forums! If anyone is interested in writing individual articles or weekly/monthly columns, let me know. I'm going to try to start a "Contestant of the Month" thing or have polls for favorite contests and posts and whatnot on the main site as well.

[Airan]

Hey, everyone. I figured it was ripe time for me to finally pop in here and discuss some recent events. After many years of running this website, Tara - now Opal- has decided to step down as lead admin of Redwall Survivor. She was a great admin and wanted to keep making the site better and better for all of us to enjoy, but can no longer support it, deciding to ultimately pass the torch to someone who can.

With that said, I have decided to take up that mantle and am now the lead admin of Redwall Survivor. What I want to do primarily with this new position is to make the forums more interesting and eventful, encourage a more active (and hopefully larger) community, and give the website and wiki some very-needed attention. As this topic was already here, I've decided to use it to keep all of the users posted on my activity and progress.

Updates for January 10th, 2017

1.) Updated SMF to its most recent version. Certain bugs should have been fixed.

2.) Deleted the Article Discussions board. With the death of the main Survivor site, all of the articles died with it from what I understand. This board was basically pointless without any context, though it may return if we ever bring back the Survival E-zine.

3.) Equipped my new, shiny Captain Blade avatar. -Thanks, Vizon :D

Planned Updates and Changes for 2017

Lots of stuff.
*takes a deep breath*

1.) First and foremost, the website itself will be receiving an overhaul. At the moment, Redwallsurvivor.com is just a blank white HTML page with some links to the forums, fanfiction page, and wiki. Me and Opal both feel it could, and should, be more than that. Still considering what exactly I'll be doing for that, so if you have any particular ideas or suggestions to be considered for the site, feel free to send me a PM.

2.) Fix the wiki and get it properly up to snuff. The Survivor wiki is... a little broken at the moment. And when it wasn't broken, it was... kind of okay for Survivor information, but it could have been much better. So, I want to go through the wiki and properly catalog all the information in there, especially for more recent contests like MO1-3. Note: this is a massive undertaking, and one I don't think will ever truly be 'done,' so any and all help with editing information within it would be very appreciated, especially seeing as I haven't read every survivor out there, and definitely don't know everything. When the wiki is ready again to be edited, I'll make an announcement and call to arms, but for now, this is just in the pipeline.

3.) Haven't fully decided if I'll do this or not just because it's not totally necessary, but I'm considering migrating a couple of older contests to the forums- namely Midnight Mossflower 1 and 2. Maybe Redwall Revolutions as well- maybe I'll write an ending for that one while I'm at it...

4.) In an effort to keep the forum more active, and to make the waits in-between Survivor contests less unbearable- me, Matra Hammer, Vizon, Tooley Bostay, and Vera Silvertooth have discussed making a potential new board that hosts monthly contests of sorts. These won't be as complicated as something like say, a Mossflower Odyssey, but will be more straightforward and accessible. The idea isn't fully ironed out just yet, so stay tuned, but I'm hoping I can maybe get that ironed out by March.

5.) Some of the Mossflower Odyssey 3 gang and I have a skype chat where we discuss our current projects in art and writing called the Art Room. We've decided to bring it to the forums in a sense by making a specified board for posting and discussing our artistic endeavors, whether Redwall Survivor related or not. It should be up very soon. The Art Room is officially live. Happy Arting.

6.) The final two epilogues for MO3 should be up relatively soon as well. Thanks for your patience.

Smaller Changes

1.) Badge system and awards. I want to incorporate a badge system for user profiles to commemorate different accomplishments- whether that's by placing high in a survivor contest, winning one of those mini contests I mentioned, or being an active member of the community. Still working out any potential kinks in the system and being sure I know what I'm doing before I implement this, but it's a change that I think would be neat to have.

- When it does become implemented, I will assign badges based on previous accomplishments as well. So, anyone who was a winner from an earlier contest should finally get the recognition they deserve on the forum.

2.) Potentially a different theme than the current Red and grey one we have. Not because I necessarily want it to go, but because it seems to conflict with certain mods that may improve the accessibility of the forum.

3.) Account linking. This shouldn't be that big of a deal for any newcomers to the site, but contest veterans often have multiple accounts, each with accessibility to different forums and boards. It can get rather tedious to have to swap between accounts to view certain boards, so if you desire, I can link the accounts so that they all have the same permissions. I've done this already with Vizon and Matra Hammer's accounts.

Finally, something I'm sure everyone wants to know-

Upcoming Contests

Mossflower Odyssey IV (ETA: April-May 2017)
Mossflower Odyssey V: A Game of Kings (ETA 2018)

[Airan]

Had a brief issue with the forum that was preventing me and other users from posting. It's now fixed.

[Airan]

In an effort to revamp Redwall Survivor's identity towards that of a community of writers wanting to improve their craft, I've made the Writer's Workshop board. I feel like it could be a good place to allow us to critique each other's writing and grow without there needing to be a contest running. Maybe it could even be useful for potential applicants to get feedback on their writing before they begin writing applications. Who knows?

Regardless, it's now open. Happy writing :)

[Airan]

It's come to my attention that there's more that can be done to spruce up our community and make it better. Anyways, just a small update to tell everyone that I'm working on something in the background that will hopefully make our community much more active and interesting. Stay tuned.