-- Official Announcements! --

[Melooon]

** Alerts and Mentions **

You'll find a new bell icon near the top of your screen! This is the alerts bell and it will ring when you get alerts! If you want to get alerted about new posts on a board or thread, click the notify button at the top of the thread! You can also change your alert settings to suit your needs!

We also have a new mentions system! Just do @name as you'd normally expect and you can mention someone 

That is all, carry on! (Be sure to clear your cache to make sure things work!)

(Also in case you missed it, we now have a minecraft server tooooooooo *magic mc link*)

[Melooon]

New Theme! - Newspaper

Hi, I am pleased to announce there is a new forum theme available! You can find it in your look-layout section.

The Newspaper theme is a slightly more modern look for the forum, its mainly aimed at people who want to enjoy discussions but don't like all the over the top text styles etc - The main focus here is readability and clarity.

It also features automatic dark mode switching based on your browser preferences! Enjoy!

[Melooon]

MelonLand 98 and Images

Just a quick note to let people know you'll find a new theme called MelonLand 98 - This is the main forum theme, but super stripped down for better compatibility with low-end computers! If you use a low-end computer let me know if it improves your experience or if there's anything it could do better!

ALSO the forum now has image caching and optimization! You should not notice any big difference; images may load faster across the site and take up less bandwidth! However, Im mentioning it so you know to be on the lookout for bugs; if you have any image-loading bugs this week be sure to report them!

ALOS ALSO Hope you have a good St Patricks day - or successfully hide from it like I do 

also also also thank you to everyone who donated recently - there were a few of you 

[Melooon]

Wiki Updates!

The wiki homepage has been reorganised a bit and I also updated it to the latest version! There are now separate sections for info pages, MelonLand pages and guides!

Feel free to go and make some edits!

[Melooon]

Forum Updates

Hi all; some general updates on the forum! Iv recently reorganised the boards a little and added two new boards:

• Site Resources - This is a board for posting resources you make or provide that people can use on their sites!
• Games Gallery - This is a special gallery for posting interactive artworks such as games or adventure sites!

Changes to forum signups:
For the last week or two Iv been testing a new signup system - people are no longer instantly added to the forum when they sign up; instead, they must provide a short private bio and are then manually approved. While sometimes it feels a little like playing Papers Please, I think this system has been working well So we will be keeping it - this has also allowed me to remove captchas for new members and remove most new member limits!

New Moderation System:
@shevek has been helping me plan a new Moderation system that I've been slowly testing over the last week or so. @shevek will also be acting as a moderator; although I hope to add a few more in the very near future! As some of you may have known we paused the moderation program last month, so this is the first step of reimagining it!

Key changes:
* Staff ranks have been removed from profiles - you'll no longer see any Administrator label or Moderator label next to names - this is to make it less intimidating for people to interact with a staff member and help them feel less isolated.

* ALL moderation posts will now be clearly labelled like this: no moderation interactions will happen outside of moderation labels.

⚑ Moderators Note ⚑

Hello this is a moderation note! You should pay special attention to this note because its very important, also melon is hella cool and very pro

My aim is to have more moderators with a wider variation in their tasks, but with less heavy issues to deal with (Not that we have many  ). Moderator roles will be more focused on topic management and community building. Moderators won't be able to delete topics or posts, and they wont be able to issue bans - but they will be able to hide or lock topics, move topics and pass off more serious issues to me to deal with.

The goal is basically to make moderation a constructive task, rather than a rule enforcement task - while also giving me some space to step back and give more people greater agency to guide the forum. It's still a very WIP concept and I don't think you'll notice any big changes, but I wanted to let everyone know the plan!

Also for the sake of transparency; moderators will be listed on the wiki so you can check that list if you are ever curious!

Forum Theme Updates:

Some of you might remember Ice's excellent analysis of the forum design; I listed a few changes that I thought would be good here; Im gonna be working on some of those over the next few weeks!

As always if you have any questions - you cant reply here because its an announcement thread, but feel free to make a topic in the forum discussion section 

[Melooon]

Mini Update

A newspaper mode quick switch button has been added to the floating tools!

If you click the newspaper you will be switched to newspaper mode and you can click it again to switch back!! If you use newspaper by default, it will switch you to the MelonLand theme.

With this in mind I'll be making some edits to the newspaper theme over time to make it EVEN more reader focused!

[Melooon]

New Moderator and News!

Hello! I'm pleased to announce we have a new Moderator  ! @awhe has been on the forum for a number of months now and always a positive mood spreader and general good vibe creator! I think they will really be able to help out around the forum, so Im super happy and I hope everyone else will be too!

Along those lines Iv also created a new wiki page that lists active and past Forum Staff - since we no longer make that explicitly clear on posts, you can refer to this list if you are unsure! https://wiki.melonland.net/forum_staff

My aim is to slowly expand the staff on the forum over the next coming months; partly because I think its better for the community and the mental health of everyone to have a wider group of people influencing the vibe - but also because Id like to step back a tiny bit myself and focus on my own projects more. So the goal atm is to slowly build the infrastructure to make that possible!

In Other News!

The MelonLand Mastodon Server is being closed; signups are no longer available. It didn't really seem to be what people wanted and there are so many other instances out there that can offer a better experience for people. Im not sure what I'll do with the accounts I run (they may be moved over to a personal server, or stay on the same address) - but their wont be community accounts and the link has been removed from the ML entrance page. If you are still using your account I recommend switching away sooon!

In Other Other News!
I have a big new homepage centric project that I'm starting work on that I think will be SUPERR FROGOGOLIN COOL  (Or maybe it'll be terrible, but hey, life is for living  )

[Melooon]

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A special BBCode for text art has been added thanks to @Okato  To use it just paste your text art inside the new BBCode tag (make sure you're using plain text editor mode)

Code

[tart]Your art goes here[/tart]

Here is a noble moose! ?? I think?? I dunno Im not a text artist, but I'm told this is how it works!

                                            .      //
                                       /) \ |\    //
  VK                             (\\|  || \)u|   |F     /)
                                  \```.FF  \  \  |J   .'/
                               __  `.  `|   \  `-'J .'.'
        ______           __.--'  `-. \_ J    >.   `'.'   .
    _.-'      ""`-------'           `-.`.`. / )>.  /.' .<'
  .'                                   `-._>--' )\ `--''
  F .                                          ('.--'"
 (_/                                            '\
  \                                             'o`.
  |\                                                `.
  J \          |              /      |                \
   L \                       J       (             .  |
   J  \      .               F        _.--'`._  /`. \_)
    F  `.    |                       /        ""   "'
    F   /\   |_          ___|   `-_.'
   /   /  F  J `--.___.-'   F  - /
  /    F  |   L            J    /|
 (_   F   |   L            F  .'||
  L  F    |   |           |  /J  |
  | J     `.  |           | J  | |              ____.---.__
  |_|______ \  L          | F__|_|___.---------'
--'        `-`--`--.___.-'-'---

[Melooon]

@845.54 Swatch Switch Over! @845.60

Hello! As of today the forum will default to universal metric/swatch/beat time! You'll recognise beat time by the @ symbol used before a number like @843.09 - you can learn more about this time format on our very own wiki!

I imagine this will be a learning curve for most people (it certainly has been for me testing it over a few days!) but I think it adds a lot of uniqueness and web hype to the over all vibe, so I encourage you to give it a chance!

If you really dislike it you can switch back to traditional time using the time format in your profile/look layout settings 

(If you have previously set a custom time format you won't see swatch time, you can select the .beat format from your profile time format settings to try it out!)

This is still an experimental forum feature, so please report any bugs or issues you find!

Otherwise, happy time day!!  Also thanks to @virtue for bringing this idea up, I didn't know it was possible until trying! AND @Cobra! for originally introducing beat time to the forum!

[Melooon]

                       Happy New Year! 

Hi hi, I think its now 2024 for everyone so its officially the new year  Also woah I'm surprised this forum still exists, Im not sure I planned this far out when it was started! At any rate 2023 was a year! It had good things and bad things but here we are and the future is ours so if you want 2024 to be cool you can do it and you can make it cool and I will too! 


For the new year we have a bit of a staff refresh! Many thanks to @shevek and awhe who have stepped down; you both had a big impact and really helped through some difficult days; the forum will always be here for you 

As for welcomes! We have a new team for the new year! @ThunderPerfectWitchcraft @Cobra! and @j will be assisting with moderation and community events! (I'm sure you already know thunder's game contests!). (Latest staff are always listed here)

The SurfClub has grown a lot this year, so its refresh time has been reduced to 2 hours to take pressure off the servers! I'm also working on a new easy-browse feature that I think will help people explore it now that it's quite large!

I plan to dedicate a little more time to game design this year, so expect many threads on this subject since Im gonna drag you all along with me  But of course Im always open to suggestions and people making the forum their own so u b u? (Is ubu a thing people say??)

Whatever! Ummmm here's a song, seeee ya! 

Urban Cookie Collective - The Key, The Secret (Glamourously Developed Mix)

[Melooon]

UPDATES!

I have some small updates to report!

• You can now Ignore boards ~ if you find some boards too spammy you can ignore them! Check the forum guide for info!
• Everyone Site rooms are now listed on posts above your other links! (These links default to ur forum name as your room, if you already made a room with a different name, that's fine, but you might wanna copy it to your new room!)
• People who support Melon projects on Ko-Fi now get little icons next to their names; I tried my best to import old donations, but if you used a different email on Ko-Fi and the forum you may not have your icon! PM me and I can fix it for you!
• The Blue/Dreamy theme has had many fixes this week and should be much nicer to use!
• The HA emote has gone on holiday and is taking a break, you can still HA, but you'll have to figure out how!!
• We have a new big greetings topic/link for new members!
• I had a jam tart for lunch and it was very nice!

That's all the news; please report to your nearest post to continue forum-ing at your leisure

[Melooon]

  Mobile Support 

Helloooo; the forum now has much better mobile support! If you access the forum on your phone it should auto load  Not all features are supported but most of the key ones are. You can configure your phone to "Request the Moble/Desktop Site" in order to bypass the mobile theme; you can also access the theme on your laptop with this link.

Also if anyone is interested in creating a Dark CSS mod for the theme that would be totally cool! Then I can add an auto dark mode switch!

[Melooon]

Small Update!

The forum now defaults to not include the "Fun & Forum Games" board in the Recent Posts stream since it tends to clog up the stream. If you would like to alter this you can change it on your Ignored Boards settings!

Also sorry to that one person who had the greeting board ignored! I accidentally wiped your selection so you'll need to re-select it 

[Melooon]

Privacy Policy Update

The Privacy Notice has been updated! (Im legally obliged to say that!) I cut it down to a much shorter and more readable document (we were just using a generic template policy before) - I also modified it so that everyone receives EU level data rights no matter where you live. You can see the updated policy here: https://wiki.melonland.net/melonland_privacy_policy

[Melooon]

Forever Engine Update 

Today all ML sites switched over to a pet project of mine called the forever engine! This is a plan to combat one of the great scourges of forum culture DEAD IMAGES ~ normally as forums age, the images people link of them get deleted from the web and threads stop making sense anymore - this hit us pretty badly with the great Discord blocking of.. err.. sometime in 2023? ANYWAY, NEVER AGAIN!

You may have already noticed that images posted on the forum are proxied through our image server which also resizes and caches them so they load faster ~ that image cache is now a full image archive, meaning even if the original image is deleted, it will still render on melonland sites! This also applies to Everyone site images!

In theory this means the forum can remain an intact community artwork for as long as it exists, without data decay and without the ravages of a changing web 

Its still pretty experimental though, so please keep an eye out for issues with images, slow loading, and other image related bugs that may manifest from the shadows