Welcome back to the new Big Boards, BB members!

We've been off line for most of May, and the staff has been very busy, as you probably noticed the minute you logged in. The last three weeks have been an intense time of reorganization, streamlining and adding new features--all to make things easier, simpler and more helpful to our members.

Here are some of the things that you will find new or changed in Big Boards 5.07:

• The famous InvisionFree Archives are now "in-house" and reside in their own category. Changes and additions to the Archives include:

1. Skin ratings: a 1-5 star rating will be shown for skins in the skin archive. This rating system is underway, and will be completed sometime in the coming months.
2. Previews and downloads now both in pop-up windows
3. Quick Links now appear in the Archive indexes for easier navigation to the Help Center, search, reporting bad links, and to get archive support.
4. Board Tools resource added to the Archive
5. Search options tutorial added to the Help Center

• New forums: We have a new board information forum: Our News - Your Views, which combines announcements and feedback, and two new community forums. The Water Cooler is the place for general chat, and Admin to Admin is a member-initiated support and ideas forum. We also have established a new Bug Reports forum, where you can tell us what needs fixing anywhere on the board.
• Date stamp: The name of Big Boards has been changed to include the date stamp of this revision, which is also reflected in the logo banner
• New graphics: team icons, pips, legend markers, favicon, updated logo banner, new smilies.
• New posting ranks: See Groups & Ranks page for details.
• New user group designations: Moderators, BB Merit Members & IF Staff: Those previously in one of the BB Contributor groups will find they are now in the BB Merit group. This is an honorary group ranking conferred on those who have been a support to Big Boards in some way, or have retired as BB staff in good standing. A group has also been created to recognize InvisionFree staff.
• Individual Staff pages, new BB History page, and Groups & Ranks page accessed through the submenu About Us tab.
• Forum jump added to submenu drop-down for easier navigation.
• New board guidelines based on the honor system.
• New advertising images: get BB affiliate and signature images through the link in the Home drop-down, where you will also find IRC channel information and the Big Boards tool bar download link.
• Combined Solved Support Index now includes all solved support forum topics for easier searching.

So, tell us what you think about the new Big Boards. Did we deliver on our promise to improve the board? Or did we fail to meet your expectations? With a major change like this, your feedback is vitally important to us--whether complimentary or critical. We are grateful for both.

Its good to be back!

:yes:

I totaly forgot about this.. Its nice to be back. Very nice resources and nice staff.

Welcome Back everyone.

[-Stary-]

Yay!
I needed some help getting some traffic for my site... I'm glad we're back! (Notice how I said, 'we', ::ish mushy:: We're a community so I say 'we') WEEEE!!
Anywho, would you please make it so that your forums don't all open in new windows. I sat for like ten minutes waiting for the page to change until I realized it was already loaded in a new tab...

Well, I was not a lot into this forum before, but the changes are looking good. Good luck with all of this :)

:hi: A big Hi to all who sign in here....we've missed your smiling fingertips!

I like the sound of that "we". Good to see you Midnight...I hope we start seeing the names of lots of people who have been using the archives, but not visiting the board much. We'll look into that window issue...

Diego, good to see you around again. :)


For those that want to quickly see most of the changes without having to search them out, they are reflected in the new dropdown links in the submenu bar. You can look at whatever interests you easily that way.

Glad to see that you are up and running again. And a planned shut down unlike another board that I know of that got wiped by a goofy admin LOL

I am sorry, I joined bigboards just before it went offline for maintenance. I think this board looks pretty good, I feel comfortable here. I hope BB will grow bigger and become one of the most popular forums for proving helps ^_^

Nice

great to be back

Gosh, so many people came right before the update (downtime) Suprised how many are back now. I personaly hope we can get more and more members active at many times of the day.

Welcome back Everyone.

[-Stary-]

(As you may have noticed in this message, It sounds like Im more than a Member on the forum. I could only wish the possibilities and the capabilities that I might have if I was actualy a true Member of this forum (well, actualy a higher standpoint from which I currently am as a Regular member))

:haha: Well, I like to think of that as just a "fresh start".
[could have happened to anybody...we all live in fear of hitting that "wrong button"....]

Hey y'all...if you like to hang out and talk computer stuff with techie types, check out Baldy's site and forum. He needs new members....really bad, since he wiped them all out.

He's a Linux guy, but we won't hold that against him.

Joined :P

Oh, and sorry about your board. Never try and install anything if it doesn't give help on it. :P

*looks out side and sees Helena scrubbing Baldy's car.*
Scrub!!

:thumpsup:

Well.. back to Buisness *pokes Cory* What else is there thats new?

[-Stary-]

(I had to Helena, had to put some funny in this topic :P)

That should be fixed now.

Well Stary, it looks as if Helena did a good job compiling the new features list in my first post. Aside from that, there may be a few modifications or additions that we've made, but all major changes are enlisted in the announcement. I and Helena still have many plans that we plan to put into action... masterminding in our Admin Room. I cannot wait to finish the code previews and skin ratings myself, once we're finished with this we will move onto bigger and even greater tasks. So, stay tuned!

Curse you! I was wanting to see what hidden things you updated before the update (back when I was here in November). But noo.. you just said "modifcations here and there" You had to ruin my fun.. Thanks Cory! *pushes cory away*

I see how it is *goes off into the Water Cooler*

[-Stary-]

*Helena and Cory sit back in our uber-cool Admin strategy room and smile. Because we know what else is coming.*

Y'all are perfectly welcome to start a topic and make suggestions about what you might like to see. :yes:


Oh, and a word to the wise: cursing the admin is discouraged. It just makes more clean-up work for me.

*Helena performs BB admin curse removal ritual*

We would much prefer you threw chocolate. (At least, I would. :) )

Kind of late, since you guys speak a lot, but thanks Helena from welcoming me back. It's good to be back :)

I think you'll like this, Stary. If you don't, please don't curse me again -- Helena's ritual just kicked in!

oh darn, sorry about that. And I was looking at that for awhile. But as like I said. It doesn't show all the HIDDEN updates.. Hidden changes, (that most people wouldn't even look to see)


*un Curses Cory*

Wow bb has came a long way. I was one of the first members here so i know what BB has gone through. I may not post much but I always come here if I need help even though I knew a lot of things about if. Btw I use to work with cory on Zeta Styles.

Oh boy hidden stuff like easter eggs or more like bad things like that one button you never should hit? And if you want me to I can delete folks faster than you can blink LOL Just another of my hidden talents. Oh Oh another of those rascally hidden things again.

Hidden things....hmmmm....we are tweaking stuff all the time. It would be impossible to compile a tweak list that included everything we've done, added, or changed over the past months. But if there is something specific you are curious about, we will be glad to answer those kinds of questions. Does what has come and gone matter, anyway? Does anybody really miss the BB Buddies?

We are alway refining something. It think this reorganization was especially massive though. We tried to eliminate all duplicated services or fuzzy areas of navigation and make everything as simple, compact and streamlined as possible--and still give you more of what you come here for.

It's kind of been like the standard advertising slogan of the car companies--

"For the tenth year IN A ROW---our cars are bigger on the inside and smaller on the outside!"

Very fast also :P I also love how when ever I start a topic, I have to force people to post in it *points Helena into the direction of his topic*

Off-topic: Helena: is that why they always say "Now more Leg room!" and the size of the car is like a WV Beatle? (cut suprisngly the Beatle is very roomy on the inside :P)

[-Stary-]

good job on 5.0.7 Cory

It looks awesome!