A brief opening post...

[Richard]

Greetings,

For those who don't know me, my name is Richard. I was one of the two founders of this wonderful forum (Jansen being the other). I try my best to be a “community” person (laid back), but my announcements will always be semi-formal. I am taking over from Nathan's previous role.

A probable question on every staffs and possibly even members mind; are there going to be any immediate staff changes? No. I would like to get to know the community again and get involved before I make any decisions relating to staff adjustments.

Our vision:
“...this site is here to create a safe, friendly environment for its users. We hope to accomplish that goal through innovation and open-minded ideals. We hope you will help us accomplish this goal.”- Jansen, 2006

My top priority, throughout this month is to get to know everyone a little better and get involved in the community, and secondly have a spring clean (even though it's not spring). This includes rules, stuck threads, forums, and user titles.

To Nathan: Your a great guy, and a great admin! You will be remembered.

I apologize for getting into rules and updates so fast, but we have a few 'minor' adjustments to the forums you should know about;

Reputation
From this moment on, if you get banned your reputation will be set to 0 (reset). If your unbanned, your old reputation will not be restored (pending confirmation). The starting point (new members) for reputation is now 0, by default.

Signatures
Although we're not too strict on signature size (*cough* Ian) we ask you to keep it to a minimum (it will make things faster). Advertising is not permitted in signatures (without direct permission from myself, Jansen or Matt). If you do advertise in your signature, without our permission your signature rights will be permanently removed (it will be disabled for your username).

Word filters
The only word filters we have is blocking URLs (links) to several competitors. I must stress having this is a privilege, please don't abuse it.

Guaranteed update polls
Yep, we're stealing this idea from Runescape. I must admit, it's a great idea. I'm going to have regular polls for guaranteed updates.

Maintenance
We're going to be performing several 1-hour maintenance periods on the forums over the next several days. Post counts, reputation, and several other records will be re-calculated. Please, don't worry if it goes down (or up)! Saying this, I do apologize if staff's reputation reduces significantly – the updates calculate it by who's given you reputation (all modifications to reputation will most likely be removed).

Birthdays
Do you guys mind if we remove the birthdays from the bottom of the board? This is purely to improve performance, but it's up to you guys.

Feedback
I want to increase the emphasis of this feature. And encourage everyone to use it!

I will have a public MSN address available within the next week. I do not MM, don't fall for impostors!

Sincerely,
Richard

[Count Gubsington]

/Coup d'état

[Woody]

Awesome I guess I have your private MSN if you don't have a "public" one. Updates look good and these content polls should be interesting at the very least.

Aw no more birthdays how will people know I was born on April Fools day then :P. Not a big deal either way.

[Amit]

Thanks for the intro Richard, guess I will get to know you better.

[Dharok1337]

Congradulations richard

I would like the birthdays to remain down there though.

[Resident]

So let me ask you, what, if anything, do you plan to do about the IRC?

[Webster]

It all sounds fairly new and exciting; I like the idea of reputation being reset after a ban. Hopefully everyone will get to know each other and in particularly yourself, Richard, a lot better than before .

[Drag0nSlay3r]

Sounds great! The birthday thing I never check do I don't mind.

Sounds good, Perhaps you should also clear the highscores on the arcade for banned members.

[Zac]

Thanks for the new info Richard! its greatly appreciated.