Welcome to the new OC.Net

[Fr. George]

Good evening everyone! Welcome back to the new-and-improved OC.net, hosted now using the XenForo platform (versus our former SMF platform).

You'll notice that there are lots of differences in how this platform feels compared to the older one, and there are some similarities.

I encourage you to "kick the tires" on the various systems - notifications (click the bell icon near the top-right, then choose "Preferences"), "Conversations" (the new version of private messages), and more.

I'm sure there are some parts of the older SMF that you may prefer better than the new XenForo stuff. I'm sympathetic - nothing here is perfect. But if you encounter genuine usability issues or glitches, feel free to start a Conversation with both @Anastasios and myself.

Oh: And thank you for your patience. This is new for everyone - members, Moderators, GMs, and Administrators - and so we appreciate your understanding as we all figure things out. We may need to adjust the layout, rules, etc. as we adapt our 16-year-old forum with 1.6-ish million posts to its new home.

Thank you for your prayers for us moving forward! Wishing you a blessed evening,

Your servant in His vineyard,

+ Fr. George
Forum Administrator

 

[Fr. George]

Hey folks - looks like changing names is an Admin-only function on XF.

Start a conversation with both Anastasios and myself, and we'll go through the requests in the evening (Eastern US time).

Open-ended period for changing usernames is 30 days, and then we'll go back to the older system of needing to petition and justify those changes.

Thank you for your patience!

 

[JTLoganville]

Posted on the "user name" discussion that I am experience waaaay too much latency in tying replies despite (FINALLY!) being on an Xfinity broadband connection.

It almost feels like typing into Google docs....or being back on Hughesnet.

 

[Anastasios]

Thanks, @JTLoganville for the datapoint. While I am not experiencing it myself, we are taking all feedback seriously. I will try to access the forum from a VPN or some other setup to see if I can replicate your experience, as well as looking at the server logs when I get a chance.

 

[noahzarc1]

I like the new look! It appears we have to reload our avatar, which is no big issue. Job well done by the mod team.

 

[Anastasios]

For some reason, some of the avatars carried over, while others did not. We had to make a decision of how much work to do versus how long to keep the site down. We decided to go with bringing it up today, even though some improvements are still ongoing.

As far as the look of the site, I personally enjoy this default "look," but I do intend to add back some of the Orthodox graphics we had on the old forum software.

 

[Luke]

This is confusing as all get out.

 

[Anastasios]

This is confusing as all get out.

I hear you. It's very different. Unfortunately, the old system software was just not being supported and developed well enough to keep using it. I mean, it's 2020, and their software was not mobile-ready without massive hacks I will miss the look, feel, and user experience of the old forum, but they forced our hand on this one.

Please give it some time, and let it "sink in." There are a lot more features than the old software. We will all just have to get used to them. It will take time...even for me!

 

[noahzarc1]

Thanks, @JTLoganville for the datapoint. While I am not experiencing it myself, we are taking all feedback seriously. I will try to access the forum from a VPN or some other setup to see if I can replicate your experience, as well as looking at the server logs when I get a chance.

I accidentally hit "reply" on this post and did not want to reply. However, I see no option to back out of replying. If I go back to the main page or get off the page entirely, when I come back to this thread the reply is at the bottom. So how does one close out not replying once "reply" is hit? Everything else seems pretty user friendly.

 

[Anastasios]

I accidentally hit "reply" on this post and did not want to reply. However, I see no option to back out of replying. If I go back to the main page or get off the page entirely, when I come back to this thread the reply is at the bottom. So how does one close out not replying once "reply" is hit? Everything else seems pretty user friendly.

It's a trick we implemented to make sure posting volume goes up.

Just kidding!

Will add to the tracker.

 

[Jude1:3]

The new forum looks great.

 

[Kirkburn]

How will warnings and moderation work here? Is there a percent system like there was on the old forum?

 

[Fr. George]

How will warnings and moderation work here? Is there a percent system like there was on the old forum?

The warning system now is a bit more sophisticated than the old SMF system (or the old old SMF system, for those who were members of the forum 10+ years ago).

Warnings can be accompanied by points. Unlike the old system (which decreased points by 1 per day or week on a regular interval), the new system will keep the points on until a point determined by the warning moderator (which could be as short as 1 day later, or as long as a number months; the system allows for warning points to stay on for years).

When a user reaches 100 points, they'll enter "Warned" status; 200 points for "Post Moderation;" 300 points for "Muted;" and 400+ will trigger a banning discussion. Can't really commit to a fixed number of points for a particular infraction, as circumstances can vary widely (i.e. repeat behavior, some actions are more flagrant than others, etc.) or a particular duration.

 

[LizaSymonenko]

I love the new and improved OCNet.

May the Lord bless this Forum, all who post and read it, and may it be successful in growing the vineyard of the Lord.

 

[montalo]

It appears that my old name reverts prior to the change that I had back a while ago.

No issues on my end, and I'll add the note as I did before and just keep it.

 

[Anastasios]

It appears that my old name reverts prior to the change that I had back a while ago.

No issues on my end, and I'll add the note as I did before and just keep it.

Send a private message to Fr. George and myself and we will change it to what you want.

Same applies to anyone else over the next 30 days who needs to change their username to what was displayed on the old forum.

 

[Ainnir]

For some reason, some of the avatars carried over, while others did not.

My old one wouldn’t fit, so I’m sure that’s why mine disappeared.

 

[Arachne]

Are there maximum and/or minimum dimensions for avatar images? I automatically size mine to 150x200 because that's the limit at my other SMF haunts, so size was not the issue with mine.

 

[Kirkburn]

I just want to say thank you to Fr. George and Anastasios for all their work in moving the forum to its new software. It'll take some time for me to get used to the new layout and how things work but I love the changes overall!

 

[montalo]

Send a private message to Fr. George and myself and we will change it to what you want.

Same applies to anyone else over the next 30 days who needs to change their username to what was displayed on the old forum.

Am I free to do nothing and keep the reverted name? Honestly wanted to get rid of TheMathematician handle anyways?

 

[Anastasios]

Am I free to do nothing and keep the reverted name? Honestly wanted to get rid of TheMathematician handle anyways?

Yes.

 

[Anastasios]

The more tech-savvy among you will note that links that quote other posts from the old software were converted, but if you see a link that someone copy/pasted that references the old SMF links, they are not forwarding for the most part, but rather go to the forum's index page.

Someone wrote a PHP script to convert SMF links to XenForo, but for some reason, it is only working for the forum top levels (like the old index.php?board=5 or what not). It is not working for posts or threads.

I am working on the script tonight to find the problem. If that doesn't work, I will try htaccess mod rewrites.

 

[Sethrak]

Looks better good job```

 

[Asteriktos]

Yes it does look very nice and thankful for the work people have been putting in

 

[Dominika]

Finally, we've entered well the XXI century. Hope it makes the forum more vivid than last months

 

[RobS]

I expected the worst but I'm impressed, things seem to have migrated over smoothly. Well done. Good job to everyone involved.

I hope XenForo's search function is better than SMF. Searching on SMF would sometimes omit results that should be there.

Thanks for the efforts on the board update.

 

[Ainnir]

I've had trouble searching already, but I'm sure it's something that can be fixed.

 

[RaphaCam]

I'm as confused as I'm happy!

 

[trevor72694]

I'm loving the new platform, much easier to deal with on my Android! *****

 

[Fr. George]

Am I free to do nothing and keep the reverted name? Honestly wanted to get rid of TheMathematician handle anyways?

This is within your freedom.

 

[LizaSymonenko]

I love the new format!!!

Everything looks so shiny and new!

 

[Asteriktos]

The more tech-savvy among you will note that links that quote other posts from the old software were converted, but if you see a link that someone copy/pasted that references the old SMF links, they are not forwarding for the most part, but rather go to the forum's index page.

Someone wrote a PHP script to convert SMF links to XenForo, but for some reason, it is only working for the forum top levels (like the old index.php?board=5 or what not). It is not working for posts or threads.

I am working on the script tonight to find the problem. If that doesn't work, I will try htaccess mod rewrites.

Yeah, just experienced this. I used google to find what I was looking for, but I assume that approach for digging up old threads would go away eventually. Hopefully a fix can be easily found!

 

[RobS]

In a multi-page thread, is there a way to view all the posts in a single page?

 

[Mor Ephrem]

(...the system allows for warning points to stay on for years).

Oh yeah...

 

[Fr. George]

In a multi-page thread, is there a way to view all the posts in a single page?

Let me look into that. This was a nice feature in the old system.

 

[Kirkburn]

I have seen people post on others' profile walls. How do I enable that option (to be able to post) on my account?

 

[mikeforjesus]

Thankyou for the welcome

I had a dream before the new layout that the old layout was still there and it said under my name in one of my posts in red user has been banned but many of my prophetic dreams tend to have false facts such as black lives matters is about black Jews and it is mentioned in revelations which I saw a verse there that is not mentioned in the bible when I woke up.

 

[PorphyriosK]

The upgrade is extremely well done and very much appreciated. Thanks to all for your hard work

 

[noahzarc1]

Just curious, in some of the sub-forums I am seeing threads that were started in 2007/2008 and last commented on in 2014 or 2015 still showing at the top. Even after adjusting the filters, they still come up 2 or 3 from the top. Is there a reason for that?

 

[Ainnir]

Are they stickied threads?