On Sunday, July 20th, Cynthetiq and I set about upgrading the TFP to use the latest version of vBulletin. This process took all day, but we're pleased that it is now stable and working to its full potential. I'd like to take a moment to explain the new features that are available to you so that you can make full use of them immediately.
1.
Blogs - Blogs are similar to journals, except they are executed in a more competent fashion and they are intended to be more public. Blogs are your own personal space to broadcast your views on the world and your life. Its important to state that because we are starting to crack down on forum posts that do not stimulate open-ended discussion.
2.
Albums - You now have your own space to upload images to share with other members of the forum. You can arrange the pictures in albums for better organization. You can add comments to your friends pictures.
3.
Social Groups - One little problem that I've always run into was remembering who are all the NYC TFPers. This is just one thing that social groups will allow me to clean up. All the NYC crew members can now join my social group and they wont be left out of the next big NYC meetup. Of course you can use social groups for other things, and they can be public or private. You can even moderate requests to join your group. Each group has its own discussion forum and picture album.
4.
vBSEO - You might notice that the URLs to all of the forums and threads have changed. This is due to a nifty little add-on that we're utilizing. It makes the forum more friendly to search engines. The end result will be that TFP will show up higher on search engines. This isn't really a feature that you can make use of, but I figured you might be interested in knowing why the URLs are all different.
5.
Auto Media Embedder - When you post a link to a YouTube video, or any other video site that allows embedding, the forum software will automatically embed the video into your post.
6.
Thread Tags - Tags are used to categorize content so that you can easily find posts on similar subjects. Everyone has the ability to add tags to a thread. I strongly suggest that you all participate in the tagging of the threads you participate in. By clicking on a tag link, you will be shown a list of all threads with similar tags. I think the Titty Board users will appreciate this feature a lot. We have a mod running that will automatically tag threads, but it is not too intelligent. To get the most out of this, use descriptive thread titles.
7.
Trackbacks - If you link to a website or a blog in your post, you can send them a trackback. This will put a link to your thread or blog in THEIR blog. The result is more visitors and better search engine ranking. You have to make use of these features to get their full benefit though.
8.
Robust Profiles - Your user profiles look different, don't they? Now you have the ability to add other users as friends and to leave comments in their profiles. You can customize the colors used in your profile, too. Just another means to stay connected to everyone.
9.
Social Bookmarking - Now, you have the ability to easily add any thread or blog to your social bookmarking platform of choice. You can Digg a thread in just a few clicks. You can add a thread to del.icio.us. There will be more to come. I like this feature because, once again, it will generate more traffic to the site.
10.
Mobile Device Browsing - If you visit the TFP on a cell phone, you will be automatically switched to a simplified style for faster and more straightforward forum browsing.
I hope you guys enjoy and make full use of all the new features. Please report any bugs in the
Bug Reports Thread.
I also wanted to make one note about the Journals. The author of the original Journals mod has not updated his work in a LONG time. This means that the latest update to the forum structure has rendered parts of the Journals completely useless. Namely, everything except the ability to VIEW them. We are looking into methods of updating the software to work with the new version of vBulletin, but don't let this stop you from participating. I strongly suggest using the blog feature. Even though you cannot (currently) make them private, they have far more features and generally work better.
Have fun!