Season 3

[ChuckEZone]

If you remember our "Season 2" remodel from last year, we're now heading into "Season 3". Our vBulletin needed an upgrade, so it was decided to change things up earlier than last year. Not everything will take effect at once. This 'season' will be a work-in-progress to prevent the site from shutting down for an extended period.

The most noticeable change so far is the appearance. Currently, the new default skin is the only one available... it's being tested with the new features to see how everything works out. Don't worry, more skins will be posted in the future (which we hope will be the nicest ones to date.)

Take a look around and you'll realize everyone's member profiles are looking very different, resembling a myspace profile or other networking site. You can customize your own in the User CP (http://www.showbizpizzaforum.com/usercp.php). To the members using Firefox and Opera browsers, everything should be working smoothly for you now without the huge gap on the forum homepage.

There's a bunch more going on, which I'm sure Aaron would be overjoyed to share with everyone. :-P He knows vBulletin better than I do anyway, so hopefully I can convince him to chime in soon.

P.S. The chatroom is back up! ;)

[Aaron]

What?! The forum is down?! Was I banned?! When will it be back up?!

As Brian mentioned Season 3 will kinda be in different phases, so from time to time you might notice small (or long) outages. The purpose is to do things slowly, rather than close for a week while we tear the entire place to pieces again.

The User CP (http://www.showbizpizzaforum.com/usercp.php) is where you will notice most of the changes. There are new features such as now you are allowed to customize your profile backgrounds, images, layout... all that jazz. As Brian and Jeff mentioned in the Podcast though, we are not able to help you customize it to look spiffy... we only can take responsibility for the default settings. There is absolutely no way for us to change it for you from our controls, so please be careful if you aren't too sure exactly what you're changing. Maybe someone can start a thread with ideas and tips on how to adjust some of the new things so that everyone knows.

Also new are the "Social Groups"... which is kind of like MySpace groups. We are testing this to see exactly how well it goes over, and if it's handled the right way, we'll keep them. If not, we will get rid of it. These are a priveledge, and we are asking this perk not be abused. As of right now, anyone can create a group and have as many members as you'd like. You can also be a member of as many as you'd like, so feel free to express yourself! With the addition of Social Groups, I removed the titles such as "Ultimate Fan," and "Super Fan," and whatever else they were.

Also under your User CP now, you can have photo albums on the forum. We've been toying around with this addition for a while, so let's see how well it goes over. It should be a pretty popular feateure, so if you guys like it and want us to keep it around let us know.

Last thing I'll point out is that you can comment a user's profile, which I've already started doing because communication is key! Hope you guys like the look and now you know why we were down for a day. We were only planning it to be a few hours... >:) Now we know -- "and knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe.

I'm not going to give away all the secrets of Season 3, so explore it for yourself and let us know what you think. Have a magical day and take a little time to enjoy the new view.

[VegaNova]

"With great power comes great responsibility" - Uncle Ben (not the rice guy)

As stated above, there's a lot of neat new features on here. Most of which I'm going to start playing with myself as soon as I get this posted. Definetely worth having the Forum down for the day IMHO. Brian and Aaron added some really cool bells and whistles for everyone to use so I'm hoping everybody enjoys.

There was some conflict in the past about member titles and such, so that was pretty much scratched in this update. Now members have more abilities to define themselves with photo albums, profile appearance, group memberships, etc - far better than us defining what type of member you are right?? :)

I also want to take a moment to make sure that everyone reads and/or reviews the Code of Conduct (http://rock_afire.tripod.com/help/forumconduct.html) and also the new Discipline Code (http://rock_afire.tripod.com/help/forumdiscipline.html). These were both slightly revised to coincide with the "Season 3" update. Rule of thumb is simply this - behave, keep the drama to a minimum, and everybody can be happy and share their love of singing robots. ;)

[CEC3066]

Where'd the Arcade go??

[RAFE CEC Guy]

Wow. The new updates are nice!!! I added all of the 'Fan' groups to the group section. I'm looking forward to the rest of the updates.

[Aaron]

Where'd the Arcade go??
It shall return. ;)

Have a magical day!

[Vega III CEC]

I've gotta say, this is a very nice setup and looks really great now with my FireFox browser! I can't wait to see the other skins as you release them. I'm fond of the current one though, especially the background. Really awesome job. The thing that stands out is the huge usernames. Easy to spot, but it'll take me getting used to. Once again, awesome update to the forums guys! :cec_thumbs:

[Wakko]

Nice job on reskinning for the new forum version. :) Finally, no more stupid "indent" in my Safari! :-P

Also, what's with the quotes? /:) Inside joke?

[CECExtravaganza]

The new skin is great!