There are some small changes I wanted to highlight:
1. New forums structure! As you can tell from the top level of the forums, I've added a bunch of new categories. I'll talk later about how we're going to get the old posts moved into the right places.
2. The old "Profiles" and PM/Messages sections have been combined into one "User Control Panel". If you're logged in, you should see a link for this just underneath the "Board index" link above. Look through the new User Control Panel to get familiar with it. Under the "Profile" tab you'll find a custom field to list your eBay userid if you wish to share it.
3. Avatars - this isn't really a change - just a warning - all the avatars converted over but a few are displaying weird. If your avatar doesn't look right, please just re-upload it.
Major change - Moderators
There is one major change I want to announce. After three years of trying to manage these forums by myself, I've decided it's time to branch out and add some other "Moderators" to help me keep an eye on things here. Here's what the forums FAQ says about Moderators:
I haven't had to do a *lot* of moderation here in the past because you guys and gals don't stir up too much trouble. But the big chore of moderation is keeping an eye on all the topics and posts to make sure everything is running smoothly. That's mostly what the new Moderators will be doing.What are Moderators?
Moderators are individuals (or groups of individuals) who look after the forums from day to day. They have the authority to edit or delete posts and lock, unlock, move, delete and split topics in the forum they moderate. Generally, moderators are present to prevent users from going off-topic or posting abusive or offensive material.
The guys I've asked (and who've agreed) to help me are: DirtyDave, German_EPA, housil, jfko6, and MCIera. These are guys who I've known for a while on the forums, who are pretty heavy posters, and who I've had dealings with outside of the forums. I know we have a lot of other long-time and heavy-posting members here so please don't take offense if you didn't get asked to help here. This is a new thing for the forums and once we get the kinks worked out and see how the new setup works, we'll consider adding new Moderators as the forums grow.
Topic moving
One thing that I will be asking for help with is organizing all the old posts into the new categories. All the reviews need to be moved into the Reviews folders, the videos into the Videos folder, etc. I've set up a special permissions category that will let select users move any post into the right folder. If you'd be interested in helping out with this, please send me an email or PM. Preference is going to be given to the members who've been around here the longest and who are well-know contributors. Thanks in advance to anyone who volunteers!
That's it for now - welcome to the new forums!
