Announcements

[Zarniwoop]

Topic to keep you informed on important issues regarding Big Bang Burger Bar.

[Zarniwoop]

Hi Gang,

To help me know who you are, as the default for this forum software was to use aliases only, I have added a mod which allows me to add additional fields in the user profiles. So I have added a field for your "Real Name". I would appreciate it if you could fill this in only you and myself will see it. It's just helpful for me to place faces with names (for those I have met in RL)

To add the missing details:

• Click on the "Profile" option on the menu above
• Then click on "Forum Profile Information" using the menu on the left.
• Finally scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will see the "Real Name" field to fill in then when done click "Change Profile"

Thankyou.
Zarniwoop

[Zarniwoop]

Ok Gang,

Forum rebuilt with updated mods and the repeating event mod removed as this caused errors and was not really used.

New features added:
Topic Ratings (Currently in the Board Game Reviews and Sand Pit for testing)
Added extra registration security to hopefully stop the recent robot spamming attempts.

[Zarniwoop]

New Feature Added Spoiler Tag. When you post messages you will see there is a new button for adding a spoiler tag. Anything in between the tags will be put into a black box and the text will only be revealed when you hover your mouse over the box.

Usefull for people like me who do not want to have plot twists etc spoilt by people talking about it before I get to see it myself

[Zarniwoop]

SMF 2.0 RC1 has been released today.

I will be building an offline test site with this version with a view to eventually move the main forum over to this version.
We will lose some of the mods currently used and I will have to re-theme the forum as the current theme does not yet have a V2.0 compatible version.

I will let you know what functionallity we gain/lose over the next few weeks and I will keep an eye out for mods that we can use on the new version.

I will let everyone know when I make the switch, but it will not be until the gold release as I believe there will be some significant changes made to theme handling for that version.

I hope this will help improve the operation of this site and Look forward to your continued support in 2009.

Regards,

Zarniwoop and the BBBB team.

[Zarniwoop]

Hi All,

Crazyfrog has agreed to permanently join the ranks of Administrator for the Big Bang Burger Bar.

So if you have any admin requests then please now direct them to both myself and Crazyfrog. We will be happy to try and resolve any issues or requests you may have.

Thankyou.

[Zarniwoop]

Updated Forum to Latest Patch 1.1.12

As Always if you spot any issues please PM myself or Crazyfrog.

[Zarniwoop]

Security Update to 1.1.13 Applied.

*WARNING*

We, as well as Facebook and other Forum sites are being hit by Spambots trying brute force login attempts using scanned usernames from public available areas.

I am trying to get on top of this following advice from SMF forum members who have suggested work arounds. I have added a large number of IP addresses to be denied using the .htaccess file, I will try and update this as things go on. We are getting a lot less hits then we were but it is still happening.

Just be wary here and at other sites you use, if I need to make a change in a way you log in or profile details I will either make another announcement here or PM everyone so please ensure your email address here is up to date.

Thanks

Zarniwoop.

[Zarniwoop]

Mod applied that seems to have stopped this current round of attacks.

Best advice though is to ensure your passwords here and on other sites are strong, ie do not contain dictionary or common words that are easy to break.

[Zarniwoop]

Updated Forum to Latest Patch 1.1.14

As Always if you spot any issues please PM myself or Crazyfrog.

[Zarniwoop]

Updated Forum to Latest Patch 1.1.15

As Always if you spot any issues please PM myself or Crazyfrog.

[Zarniwoop]

Hi Gang,

I added a field for "BoardGameGeek" a while ago, this can be used to add a link to your BGG ID or Collection but I guess the BGG ID makes more sense.

If you use the following format:

[url = http://boardgamegeek.com/user/Oridyne]Oridyne[ /url]

NOTE:
You will need to replace "Oridyne" with your BGG Username
Also remove any spaces from the codes for it to work (I have to place them in so it will show them rather than act on them)

To add the missing details:

• Click on the "Profile" option on the menu above
• Then click on "Forum Profile Information" using the menu on the left.
• Finally scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will see the "BoardGameGeek" field to fill in then when done click "Change Profile"

Thankyou.
Zarniwoop

[Zarniwoop]

Hi Gang,

New Mod added today that lets me (as admin) set a board to have its child boards hidden on the front page. They are still there and when you enter the parent board you see its children,

I thought it might be a nice way to tidy up up the front page a bit more, I have started by hiding the children from the archived boards in the cellar and a few boards elsehere that have been underused.
I was debating whether or not to hide the "Roleplaying" child boards?
 (Please post any comments in the general chit chat area)

[Zarniwoop]

Hi Gang,

A few updates on recent activity on BBBB:

We have had a sudden influx of spamming accounts, though we are not alone in this it seems to be a fresh attack across the internet. I have been Banning the culprit IP's / Emails etc and deleting the accounts. In order to reduce the impact on the main site I have implemented new users have to be approved by an admin before they can access the forums. Once things die down a bit I will revert to the normal registration process.

The Fantasy Flight RSS feed had broken, so I passed it through an RSS cleaner site but that caused issues with double posts and the posts it did make had the content repeated within the message. I have now reverted it back to the normal Site RSS feed and things should go back to normal.

The Calendar sync mod has broken so we are no longer syncing with the Google Calendar for the site, this is due to a change at Google where they have deprecated a legacy connection method. I would appreciate if anyone adds just calendar entries (ie ones not linked to a message thread) to pm me the details so I can manually add them to the Google Calendar.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused by any of these issues and I will be looking at solutions or workarounds for these as we go forward.

[Zarniwoop]

The server hosting BBBB and Raiders of the Game Cupboard will be physically relocated Thur 3rd Nov:

This downtime is due to begin at 20:00 hours on Thursday November 3rd and restoration of services by 09:00 hours on Friday November 4th.
If there are any developments or changes to this then I will post updates on the @BBBBForum twitter account as well as other locations like Boardgamegeek or one of the Facebook groups.

I am expecting things to be smooth but you can never tell.