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Welcome to the new Snow Japan Forums. (What's new?) [Updated 7th Sept]

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Welcome to the new Snow Japan Forums

 

If you have been using the Snow Japan Forums for any length of time you might have been quite surprised to come here and see them all looking so different. Welcome to the new more powerful forums.

 

We have been looking to upgrade the forums for quite a while now but waited until the time was right and until we found what we feel is the best setup available.

 

There is a lot of new functionality in these new Forums and it will probably take a while to get used to everything. But it shouldn't take too long before everyone gets used to the new setup, and we hope that once you get used to them you'll find them to be a big improvement on the previous version we were using.

 

We suggest having a play round with everything and checking out all the options that are now available to you. Although we have been setting them up and using these Forums for a while, there will still be changes and adjustments to be made over the coming weeks as many people start to use them..... please bear with us as we also get used to them in a real-world situation!

 

If you are already a member of the Snow Japan Forums, you should be able to login using your previous username and password. Click here to go to the login page.

 

---------------------------------

 

To help you out, below are just some of the new things that we can do on these Forums:

 

Specify multiple recipients of PMs.

Up to 5 members can now participate in a single private topic. Tracking to see who has or has not read a post within a private topic is also possible.

 

Up to 200 PMs:

There is now space for up to 200 Private Messages for each member.

 

Rate Topics:

You can now rate individual topics (as well as rate members).

 

Shout Box & Calendar:

The new shout box and calendar on the right hand side of the page - once you are logged in you are able to turn those off if you do not want them on your screen (see below). See below for our Shout Box policy. We have plans for the Calendar in the run up to next season - more on that at a later date.

 

Please note that the "Shout Box" will be turned off overnight (Japan time) and also during long periods when there are no Moderators around. When the Shout Box is turned off, it will not be visible on the page.

 

Display changes - right hand side column:

The whole look of the Forums has changed (as you have probably noticed). When you are registered and logged in to the Forums you are able to turn off the right hand side column if you want to. Turning it off will mean an increase the size of the main middle display, and so might be the preferred settings for some smaller screen settings.

 

Watch Lists:

You can now 'watch' forums, topics or individual users to keep track of them. Watched items appear in the "My Watch Lists" area of "My Stuff" so you can quickly check on any new content within your watched items.

 

Page views:

You can now see how many page views each thread has had.

 

Moods:

You can now specify your current mood while browsing the forums. Your current mood will be displayed next to all of your posts while you are online. There is also an Online and Offline tag on your information.

 

The original SJ Graemlins are available on the main Reply forms and are also available using the original shortcuts that you might be used to.

 

YouTube and Google vids:

You can now insert YouTube and Google videos within threads.

 

To post a YouTube video, post the videoIC between the following:

......

To post a Google video, post the following:

[googlevideo] ...... [/googlevideo]

 

* where videoID is the ID for the video you want to post - make sure it is ONLY the ID, not the full URL of the video.

 

Posting messages:

When you post a message you now have options to specify different fonts, different font sizes and font colors etc as well as a few other additions. You can also make the text box bigger or smaller on your screen.

 

Editing messages:

When you edit one of your messages, you can now specify the reason for the edit which will appear on the page.

 

Ignoring other members:

You are now able to "ignore" other members, effectively "banning" them from your experience - the content of any of their posts will not appear when you view threads. (This is useful if you find a particular member to be annoying and do not wish to see their comments!)

 

Improved search:

The search on the new Forums should be giving you better results.

 

Larger font set:

You are now able to change the size of the display fonts on the Forums. Go to "My Stuff" then "My Preferences" and choose "snowjapan-largerfonts" in the preferred stylesheet option.

 

 

 

A few FAQs

A number of people have been testing the Forums for us - thank you! - and below are some of the main things we have been asked. We will update this list as necessary. If you are experiencing any difficulties, please email us at editor@snowjapan.com.

 

Where are the Instant Graemlins on the Quick Reply form?

They have gone, sorry. But they are there on the main Reply form (which is linked to from every single post) and on that Reply form there is increased functionality (see above). If you use the code for the graemlins you can still post them on the Quick Reply form. eg the colon and right bracket for a normal smiley.

 

Where are the Member Ratings?

Unfortunately, we were not able to bring that information across into the new Forum setup. The functionality is there though, so you can vote for members once more.

 

Why do I suddenly have lots of Private Messages that I previously deleted?

The reason that some Private Messages might have reappeared is because the recipient of the Private Message had not deleted it - so it was brought into the new Forums setup. You can go in to My Stuff > My Messages to delete any unwanted messages.

 

Why are the "post view" numbers starting as the same as the number of replies?

Although in reality lots of threads had literally hundreds of thousands of page views, the previous version of the Forums did not keep records of those "view" statistics for each thread. So in these new Forums the "view" numbers all start by default as the number of posts in a thread.

 

Isn't that Shout Box just inviting trouble?

We hope not. But we intend to be quite strict about what is acceptable on the Shout Box --- pretty much the same as the rules for the main forums, but we will be enforcing it more:

 

- no flames

- no swearing

- no insults

- no ads

- no links (unless they are Snow Japan links)

 

Please read the Shout Box policy thread for more info (link above the Shout Box).

 

What do the numbers in "Replies" column mean?

The number of replies for each thread is shown on the main Forum pages. If you are logged in, you will also see some red numbers in brackets. Those red numbers represent the number of new posts that have been posted in each thread since your last visit to the Forums.

 

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  • SnowJapan Admin
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Snow Japan Forums Bookmarks

 

To people who have previously bookmarked the Snow Japan Forums:

 

We recommend that you delete your previous bookmark, delete your history/cookie/cache and then come back to the following address:

 

http://www.snowjapanforums.com/ubbthreads.php

 

That is also the best direct address to bookmark.

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A few more changes:

 

- the thread subjects are now in bold to make them stand out a bit more

 

- there default number of topics and subjects on a page is now set at 20 (rather than the initial 10 when things were imported)

 

Let us know if there are any other things. We will continue to keep on adjusting things now that the Forums are online and out there.

 

Thanks

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scouser

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Still a lot to find out I'm sure but it all looks tops.

 

Shame we have to drop the instant graemlins on quick reply, but I'm sure we'll get used to that soon enough. Lots of the new additions look very useful.

 

Well done on another great job.

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Markie

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In the previous format, when we looked at the "Active" threads of the previous 24 hours, besides the topic headings, we could get a sneak look at the first couple of lines of the content. Now we can't. I miss this feature. Can we bring it back?

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No problem.

Actually, I just noticed that when you place the mouse pointer on the topic heading, "the sneak preview" appears as a pop-up. So that's almost as good as what I wanted.

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rach

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Been having a play around with it all.

Great work, really.

You know I really love the way they keep on making things better on this site. Is this officially an 07/08 update then? ;\)

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Note to everyone who is about to register:

 

Please note that it is now required that you verify your email address before we can approve your registration. On registering you should receive an email with a link in it. Click on that link to verify your address. Once that is done we can then do what we have to do to approve it.

 

We currently have 3 registrations waiting to be approved, but need those emails to be verified first. They also need to be verified within 24 hours, otherwise the registration will be automatically deleted.

 

This email verification and the new randomly generated images on the registration screen are security features that we have added to keep spammers and, er, machines off the forums.

 

\:\)

 

Thanks

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 Originally Posted By: the snowboarding vicar
Otsukaresan!

??? I know there is a "Otsukaresama". Can you really say "otsukaresan"?
Not trying to be a wise-guy...really asking if this is a proper J-expression.
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 Originally Posted By: rach
Been having a play around with it all.
Great work, really.
You know I really love the way they keep on making things better on this site. Is this officially an 07/08 update then? ;\)


Sorry rach, missed this one. Still need a bit more recharging.

This is most definitely one of the major 07/08 updates \:\)

There are a few reasons why we didn't wait until the normal "October updates" period. We wanted to get it online and working sooner rather than later:

a) so that any problems could be fixed up in time
B) so that everyone has a lot of time to get used to them and all the features
c) because we couldn't wait!!

cool.gif
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