Site Updates and Rescheduled Downtime

[Dylan Torngate]

Hello Shadow Fleet!

Over the past few weeks, the site techs have been collecting improvements and new features to implement on the site. Some of these had been scheduled to go live during our planned December first downtime that had been postponed.

Consultation with the forum software developers and mod-makers and work on our end allowed several of these fixes to go live today. Here are the change notes:

Security:
+ Added Password Strength Meter to registration
+ Issued Craig a new Phaser
- Removed SMF Version Number from bottom of board
+ Added lockout threshold for repeated login attempts
+ Added warning emails for repeated login attempts
* Updated several mods
- Decommissioned Craig's old Phaser
* Updated anti-spam filters
* Lots of Bugfixes

Layout:
* Changed "Birthday" date from text-based to dropdown menu
- Removed the words "Topic:" from topic views
- Removed indicators of "hot topics" from left side of topic lists
* Fixed several typos
+Added the ability to see if your PM has been read- Unread PM's appear with the recipient bolded in the "sent" tab of your PM box.
+Added new batteries to bug zapper
+ Added a Back to Top button to the bottom of pages
* Smooth Flow doesn't work on Firefox
+ Added Logout prompt

Posting:
+ Added Youtube video embeds
+ Added "Draft" features! Save your posts and work on them later
* Updated how our engine deals with timestamps on posts in the past few hours

Speed:
+ Improved parsing engine for posts to speed up load times
- Removed Hamster from wheel
+ Added Tribble to wheel

I am also here today to announce the rest of the updates will be going live during rescheduled server downtime.

This new date is Friday, December 15th for Twelve to Twenty-Four hours. This is due to a new security update that takes up to twenty-four hours (and as few as six) to propagate throughout the globe. Details on that security update will be given out after the update is in place, for obvious reasons.

The Skype, Discord, Facebook, and Twitter accounts will be monitored as best as possible to answer any questions you may have. If you have any questions now on the subject, feel free to post below and we'll do our best to answer.

If you have any questions or comments on our new updates or changelog, please feel free to leave them below, and check this topic for new updates on timing as we have them.

[Dylan Torngate]

Reminder, Site downtime on Friday.