Hello everyone,

I am currently planning a big reconstruction of the forums. This reconstruction will include the cleanup of forums, merging, adding, and deleting forums, some new smilies, possibly a new skin for the site (although I'm not promissing anything in that department), and there is also the possibility of a new site logo. (I may also try to find some extra little things to throw in). So what does all this have to do with you?

Well for one thing, the site will go through some downtime, so make sure you have a safe place to wait out the time period. I reccomend going over to ST, CSGF, SC4unlimited, or Simcityville, these are all great sites where there is plenty to do, which will help keep you away from here for the time period. Also during the cleanup phase, a lot of dead topics will be cleared out, mostly in the Forum Games, Community Activities, and General Discussion, however all forums will be browsed for dead topics. The removal of these topics will also decrease everyone's post counts, (maybe somebody will be able to catch up to Cheeseguy afterwards )

I still have to set a date for all this to take place, I'm aware that ST is also going to be switching to a new version ST 7.0 on February 21 so I assure you it will be sometime after that. I have a rough schedule of how I'm going to go through this process which you will find below:

Phase 1: Cleanup
Phase 2: Forums
Phase 3: Fixing things not covered in Phase 1 or 2

I will update this thread on the specific date and time for all this to take place. If there are any suggestions, comments, questions, or concerns please feel free to post them right hear in this thread. I would love to hear any opinions on this

-mayorm

If ya'll want I have a site which has no traffic we could use as a hideout...

likewise feel free to come here while ST is switching to thier new version. Also Guitarman, what site?

Thanks for the heads up

i'm the only member but I'd like to try to have the next simmania:

SC4 united
sc4united.darkbb.com

Thanks for the info mayorm...

Also will, I don't quite understand what you mean, but I don't think there is a reason to totally delete simmania and start all over again if that is what you are getting at... just a forum reconstruction is all this site could go for imo, (and all it needs really)

Well, reconstructing it might involve a lot of changes that would look plain awkward until they were finished. That's why you would want to close the site for a period.

I'm kind-of taking a risk reconstructing my site with it open, but so far things seem to be OK. There are a couple of weird things going on, but nothing too strange and that's a good sign. Sc4unlimited will remain open for the construction and people are welcome to come if they'd like.

As another note, I'd also suggest simcityville.forummotion.com (Cheeseguy's site) to go to. It's a better community than my site, and to me, it looks like the perfect mix of the good qualities of Simmania and the good qualities of CSGf, so it's definitely worth checking out.

Guitarmansuperstar: I heard that you had an SC4 fansite site. Can I get a link to it please?

that was it up there but its sc4united.darkbb.com unless you were talking about the failed second version of the AUS website.

Cheeseguy: um??? not sure where you quite got that from, no I was referencing my site, it only has one member, me. I hope to turn it into the "next simmania," like Joey Logano was supposed to be the next Jeff Gordon or Arod is the next Babe Ruth I guess. Never as good as the original though...

edit: oh, sorry, forgot to say i was responding to mayorm, sorry

Guitarmansuperstar: Thanks for the link. I joined under the same username I have here, but now when I try to post, it tells me that my account is inactive. I did click the activation link through the email I got... Is there anything that is set or something? The problem seems to have solved itself.

I did actually post there. I hope the site takes off.

Oh ok I see now Will ty for that....

But ya you are taking a slight risk redoing an entire site without taking it offline. Also one thing I like about forumotion is it isn't easy to mess up the site so there isn't much to worry about as far as messing something up goes.

However on my site, this is just one of my habits, I like to take the site offline for everything, and when I don't, OCD kicks in and I freak out about destroying it sometimes

strange blakesterville but thank you Its got an AIN like CJ thing but for a non union site.

Cheeseguy: your welcome, my bad

OCD actually doesn't strike me with the destroying the site thing. Actually, it doesn't strike me enough. I take big risks there at SC4U, but I am very nervous here at Simmania. If I mess up my site, that's my problem. If I mess up Simmania, I've ruined someone else's work, so I try to be extra careful here.

I wouldn't say that is to the point of obsessive compulsive disorder (yes, I have it, but it doesn't hit me in this way, which is a good thing, ). It's just me being cautious, you know? The OCD has actually been much much better lately, though.

BTW I might redo the ranks while the site is down. I'll try to keep the easter eggs, though, but expect changes. I really think I can do much better with them. (If you don't know about the easter eggs, they are around 1,000 and 4,000 posts, but not exactly. You'll have to find them yourself. They are within only a couple posts, though)

I added a new rank in there blakesterville, I hope ya don't mind, but by all means please do anything you want to while we're working. Also for the new site logo, I think I'm going to use the original site banner, as my goal is to make it feel more like the old SM with new and better features.

LOL that rank is hilarious! I'll definitely keep that one. (It's the highest rank)

BTW I think that the forums could be kept open for the cleanup. We would probably have to close it for stages 2 and 3, but I think it's probably a good idea to keep it open through step one to keep the forums from being closed for very long.

I may have missed it but when is this supposed to take place?

Well I was planning to do it this week.

This week might be rough for me. From Monday to maybe Thursday, I might not be able to get on as much as usual. I'm pretty sure that unless something unexpected happens, I wont be able to come on Monday. I just wanted to let you know about that.

By the way, the suggested sites didn't have links for them. I thought I would post the links to them to make it easier. (They have domain names after the site name. (eg. Simmania.darkbb.com or simcityville.forummotion.com)

simcityville (Cheeseguys clone of CSGf (OK, maybe not an exact clone, but if you like CSG, you'll probably like his site.)

CSGf (CSGdesign's great site with a confusing URL)

SC4united (Guitarmansuperstar's site, which is just now getting traffic (from me) and could use some new members. )

SC4Unlimited (my new attempt of an SC4 fansite)

And I don't think I need to post a link to Simtropolis, LOL. In case you actually are wondering, it's at Simtropolis.com (LOL) I actually think that Wacky32 found Simmania before ST.

great thinking with the links blakesterville I probably should have posted them too. I still have to set a date and time for all this, but expect it to take place within the next 2 weeks unless something comes up. Don't worry though Blakesterville and myself will keep everyone informed.

I just installed the new ranks early. They are quite different than the original ones. (I stayed up until almost 1:00 AM working on them on paper last night). I kept some of the original ones, but most of them are either new or changed, and just about all of them have been moved around. The new ranks are designed to work for larger sites as well as for smaller ones, so it should be fine now and a complete upgrade should be a long way off.

Things like "Hides from the paparazzi" were kept and expanded, but changed somewhat and moved to higher postcounts. New ones like "Gets tons of email" were added as well. (The idea behind "gets tons of mail" is that people who are popular usually have a lot of stuff to read in their inbox. ) There were some other news ones installed as well. Also, as a note, Cheeseguy is a very common figure in the ranks. That was Mayorm's idea. I don't expect that we'll see too much of it right now because the figures are so high in the ranks, except for one between 900-920 posts.

The easter eggs were not changed. They still exist at 1,000 and 4,000 posts. [EDIT: As of 8/8/2011, the one at 4,000 was moved. It no longer exists at 4,000, but at an unknown location to make things more interesting. ]

I hope that you guys like the new ranks for "Simmania 2.0". (I'm not sure if Mayorm is calling the change that or not, but I don't see why not, personally. )

-blakesterville.

Simmania 2.0 sounds ok with me

cool
But 2.0 to me is a ripoff of ST 7.0

By the way, part of cleaning things up, the MOTM profile fields have been fixed... Some MOTM winners did not have the fields filled out and others did, and that's been fixed. (Sorry MOTM winners) You can now see this from a user's profile as well (it previously only showed up under the avatar) Also, if you look at a user's profile, for those who have won people's choice awards, you can now see which specific awards they have won. No longer do you see

"Peoples choice: - Two awards". If you look at my profile, you now see

"Peoples Choice: - Most welcoming to new members; staff member of the year". Those were the awards that I won. You can see which specific awards all other people's choice winners have won like that as well.

Another change to profile settings that was made was now there is a field for computer specs. This one does not appear under your avatar, but people looking at your profile can see your specs. Users are certainly encouraged to fill it out. I've already filled out mine.

This is part of some of the pre-cleanup stuff that I'm trying to do right now. It's part of the preparation for Simmania 2.0

Not really related to 2.0 but i've added a new league to the website to show how in depth I want people to be able to customize their experience.

I'm working on setting a date for the update, I have been trying to set a date for the past two weeks but I have had some exams that I have needed to study for.

Anytime over the next three weeks will probably work for me to help out with it. As you already know I probably won't be able to be here as much soon, however. BTW is it OK if people post suggestions in this thread?