Changes made to Retromags!

[Phillyman]

I have been making a TON of changes around the site, keep yourself informed by checking in this thread from time to time

[Phillyman]

FORUMS

I have changed the Front Page News section to "Breaking News". I also changed the way it worked, it use to be that anyone could post in that section...and then a Moderator had to approve the post. Now ONLY Moderators, Team Members and Myself can post to that section (no approval needed). Everyone else can still reply to topics that have been started.

I ran two SQL hacks in the past few days. The first hack was to change the "Notify Me By Email When I Get A PM". This is set to False by default, Members can turn it back off if they so desire. The second hack was to change the "Notify Me By Email When Someone Replies To Me". This again was set to False by default, Members have the ability to turn this feature back off if they so wish.

DOWNLOADS

I have changed who can upload files to the Download Manager. It used to be that only Team Members and Staff could upload magazines. I have now made it so that everyone but Newcomers can upload a file. When a Member uploads a file, it will need to be approved by a Moderator. Anyone who is a Team Member or Staff will have the ability to bypass the approval.

[Phillyman]

I just went through the countless settings in the backend and straightened out some permissions....

Everyone

Should be able to submit a magazine/guide to our Download Manager!

Should be able to REPLY to EXISTING topics in our Advertisement Sections

Should be able to VIEW all Gallery Categories

Should be able to DOWNLOAD any attachments in Posts

Members and Above

Should be able to comment on Files

Should be able to comment on Magazine Covers in the Gallery

Should be able to submit new Advertisements in the Gallery

Should be able to Give Reputation Points

Team Members

Should be able to submit new Advertisements OR Magazine Covers to all Gallery Categories

Should be able to submit new magazines/guides to the Download Manager and Bypass Moderation

If you notice anything that I may have overlooked, feel free to ask me.

[KiwiArcader]

How about the ability for Team Members or Super Teamies to move images from their personal gallery over to a magazine gallery?

Take the STart magazine as an example. I created images in my personal gallery until the STart section was eventually created & now they need to be shifted over there. But I have no ability to do so which is a pain in the ass.

And what about the ability to delete images or directories in our personal gallery area?

[Phillyman]

How about the ability for Team Members or Super Teamies to move images from their personal gallery over to a magazine gallery?

Take the STart magazine as an example. I created images in my personal gallery until the STart section was eventually created & now they need to be shifted over there. But I have no ability to do so which is a pain in the ass.

And what about the ability to delete images or directories in our personal gallery area?

Yeah, its basically an all or nothing issue. Either I give a Group the ability to move/delete all images EVERYWHERE.....or no where.

Believe me I am suggestion features left and right over at the developers website, if they don't implement them....then I will hire a modder to write some custom code for our site.

[KiwiArcader]

Hmm ... with the current system is seems like Teamies can do some things, admins can do others but not some that Teamies can do which makes it messy as it requires multiple people to combine to get the job done.

It seems we need another type of user .... a TeamAdmin dude .... like a Predalien ... LOL ...

[Phillyman]

Hmm ... with the current system is seems like Teamies can do some things, admins can do others but not some that Teamies can do which makes it messy as it requires multiple people to combine to get the job done.

It seems we need another type of user .... a TeamAdmin dude .... like a Predalien ... LOL ...

And that may be a better way to go in the long run. I may have to create another permission set to overcome some limitations in the software. With that being said, I do have to prioritize at this point. I removed out "fluff" groups from the backend of Retromags for organizational reasons. Now that we are down to the bare minimum groups, I need to set all the permissions correctly.....after that is done....we can add back any nessecary groups to ease processes.

One of the other issues with creating a "TeamAdmin" position, is the ability to pick members who are going to be active and stick around. Not knocking anyone on this board, but I have to find people with the following characteristics to be leaders....

Honest

Trustworthy

Mature

Enthusiastic

Motivated

It does no good to promote 10 people, and only have a few of them actually active on the board....and the rest are title jockeys.

I am combing through massive amounts of settings in the backend, trying to get things organized....bear with me

[KiwiArcader]

Totally understandable ... was just making a comment given the issue's I've had getting content shifted around recently. So thought I'd do it myself to save annoying you & E-Day only to hit brick walls. Most people probably wouldn't hit them or even see them .... I'm special I guess ... LOL

[Phillyman]

Totally understandable ... was just making a comment given the issue's I've had getting content shifted around recently. So thought I'd do it myself to save annoying you & E-Day only to hit brick walls. Most people probably wouldn't hit them or even see them .... I'm special I guess ... LOL

Yup, I appriciate any ideas you guys have. Anything that makes processes easier for you....usually does for me also. Its one of the reasons that I opened up Magazine/Guide submissions to EVERYONE today. Now anyone can scan a magazine, throw the Retromags Thank You page into the pdf/cbr.....upload to Rapidshare and create a link in our Download Manager. This will cut down on the head scratching for new members, and then all that needs to be done is a Moderator or Team Member can approve the file.

Boom head shot!

[KiwiArcader]

And while I agree the changes are indeed good I have the sneaking suspicion that it won't actually do much to change the situation with regard to submissions here. I hate to say it but most people are more than happy to expend the minimal effort required to download files but the effort involved in scanning a 100-200 page magazine is an altogether different kettle of fish and most simply wont go there. In fact, my majour concern would now be people disregarding our rules and simply uploading other peoples work without the permission of the original scanner. The last thing we need is having to determine where the scan came from and also whether it is sub-standard or not.

Still .... if a few more people do get involved and contribute it may help reduce the burn out levels felt around here lately what with getting everything up and running again etc while at the same time trying to scan and make new content available ...

[Phillyman]

And while I agree the changes are indeed good I have the sneaking suspicion that it won't actually do much to change the situation with regard to submissions here. I hate to say it but most people are more than happy to expend the minimal effort required to download files but the effort involved in scanning a 100-200 page magazine is an altogether different kettle of fish and most simply wont go there. In fact, my majour concern would now be people disregarding our rules and simply uploading other peoples work without the permission of the original scanner. The last thing we need is having to determine where the scan came from and also whether it is sub-standard or not.

Still .... if a few more people do get involved and contribute it may help reduce the burn out levels felt around here lately what with getting everything up and running again etc while at the same time trying to scan and make new content available ...

Agreed, but many people were confused by our old practices. While I have allowed Newcomers and Members to submit entries to our Download Manager......A Team Member or Moderator will still need to approve it before it is viewable to the public. I am in talks with a PHP coder right now about writing a small script that will automatically promote members who just had their first file approved. At the current time, my attention is devoted to organization and structure of this site. You are going to see many help files and videos going up in the following weeks, I will be combing through all the settings, and then after everything is cool.....I am going back to scanning myself.

I think today I changed maybe 50 or so settings in the back end, hoping to have all the settings done by Friday.

[Phillyman]

Got the quote back from the modder, gonna cost me $20 to have this site auto promote members. Basically Newcomers and Members will be able to submit files.....and when a Team Member or Moderator approves that file....the submitting member should be automatically promoted to Team Member.

Next up will be giving you guys the ability to change the File Ownership

[E-Day]

Anyone viewing the Portal page as a guest will now see A Note to Publishers and Content Owners message.

[E-Day]

For my 1500th post, I am presenting new Thank you Pages and Missing Pages.

www.retromags.com/downloads/thankyoupages.zip

Download them and replace the old ones you were using with these ones.

[Mister Zero]

Looks great! Cheers on the new logo!

[E-Day]

Thanks!

[E-Day]

The main navigation menu has been re-organized and condensed. They now also include drop-down menus.

Any suggestions for better categorization and organization are welcome!

[Vladi]

I love the recent changes

[E-Day]

There is now a link under the Downloads menu directly to CDisplay.

I have also split the Feedback and Help threads into different topics, and will start moving posts to the appropriate one.

[E-Day]

The Premium Members group no longer exists since there is no premium on the site anymore. Premium Members are now Members. Both groups had almost identical permissions and access to things on the site, so no one has lost any sort of access. The Premium Members thread is gone, and it's contents merged with the Team Members Hideout.

[E-Day]

I have added a link to KiwiArcader's site, oldgamemags.com, under Downloads in the drop-down navigation menu.

[E-Day]

Some of you may have noticed the link in the top menu to the Arcade. It's been up for a bit, but a bit buggy. It's less buggy now, and now has 35 games installed and another 770 on a flash drive still to be installed.

The scores will save in some games (Bang Adventure), but not in others (Bombay Taxi 2). No idea why; it might be a compatibility issue between the game and the arcade application; it might get fixed one day, but no promises. Worse comes to worse, you can always add your score in the comments tag for the game.

[Data]

I like to see the arcade back. I do wish the scores would be saved so my efforts will be noticed. When you say you have a flash drive full of games I tend to think you could put up any game.

Are these Flash or Java based games? If so where can I find information on them?

[Areala]

I've not had any problems so far with games not accepting my scores. Maybe I'm just lucky in playing the ones that offer that feature though, I dunno.

*huggles*

Areala

[E-Day]

I like to see the arcade back. I do wish the scores would be saved so my efforts will be noticed. When you say you have a flash drive full of games I tend to think you could put up any game.

Are these Flash or Java based games? If so where can I find information on them?

Almost all are flash-based. There are a few java-based ones, but most of the time those will not install. Scores for most of the games seem to save. It seems like the old games for an old version of the arcade software won't save, and most of those will be under Classics. There is nothing that can be done about that except removing those games.