Forum Updates - 10th May

[xxMATTGxx]

After waking up early and getting into work talk with Mr. Nvr himself. (Although he did shout at me for being awake :( ) This weeks updates are the following:



New Reputation Blocks
Changes to Rule A2 & A5
Banner Competition
Donator Upgrades
Pointless Posting & Forum Specific Rules Updates
Forum Specific Bans
Usergroup Promotion Upgrades
FAQ Updates

[xxMATTGxx]

New Reputation Blocks

The “Rep Blocks” have been changed to some new modern ones and now they even look good on the dark skin! You can see the changes by the screenshots below:

Old:
http://i40.tinypic.com/33el8j5.png

New:
http://i42.tinypic.com/zk4twx.png

Update: You may need to clear 'cache' to see the new rep blocks.
Thanks to iConz for the suggestion and the reputation blocks.

[xxMATTGxx]

Changes to Rule A2 & A5

With recent confusion over the two rules the following changes have been made.

BEFORE:

A2. Don't avoid the forum filter - This includes using punctuation to separate letters or to manually replace letters with asterisks (e.g. F***ing). AFTER:

A2. Don't avoid the forum filter - This includes using punctuation to separate letters or to manually replace letters with asterisks (e.g. F***ing or LM*AO). BEFORE:

A5. Do not post private details or information – We do not allow you to post private information about yourself due to security concerns. Disclosing any information about another forum user without their consent is also not allowed. This includes
• Private messages
• Reputation comments
• Private conversations (MSN, Habbo, etc.)
• Images / videos of the user or social networking profiles (Bebo, Facebook, etc.)
• Trying to organize real life meet-ups

It is not allowed to give out the personal details (specific address, phone number etc) of anyone, forum user or otherwise.

AFTER:



A5. Do not post private details or information – We do not allow you to post private information about yourself due to security concerns. Disclosing any information about another forum user without their consent is also not allowed. This includes:

* Private messages
* Reputation comments
* Private conversations (MSN, Habbo, etc.)
* Images / videos of the user or social networking profiles (Bebo, Facebook, etc.)
* Trying to organize real life meet-ups
* It is also not allowed to give out the personal details (specific address, phone number etc) of anyone, forum user or otherwise.

You are, however, allowed to post pictures of yourself, although they are NOT allowed in your avatar or signature.

[nvrspk4]

Hey everyone,

So as you will see later today, Q2 (which began a while ago :P) is the Spring Cleaning quarter where we'll be refurbishing Habbox, making changes to the departments and trying to refine everything in time for the summer where we'll more be concentrating on bringing you all the big events, so this is really phase two of the Habbox Improvement push we began with New Year New Habbox.

To go along with the refurbishment, we're looking to replace all the banners. The current ones look fantastic and the graphics team did a great job however its nice to change it up a little bit every now and then!

So we are starting a competition for the redesign of the Classic, Site, Retro Blue, Blue, Pink, Non-Habbo, and Space Skin Banners!

Dimensions for all banners are 730x120. Try to stay with the theme of the skin and get HabboxForum on there, and put For all your Habbo needs on all banners. However, if you wish to come up with a different slogan to put on the non-Habbo banner, you can do that.

You can enter one banner for each skin. Enter by sending a PM with your entries to the Forum God (www.habboxforum.com/member.php?u=33786) with the title of the Banner you are submitting. Please submit one banner in each PM to make things easier on us.

Everyone, including Habbox Staff and Graphics Staff are welcome to enter. If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me a PM. Do not PM questions to the Forum God, he does not deign to read his PMs until judging times (read: we will only be reading entries at the end). If you wish to make a change to a banner you have already submitted, send a new PM with the banner in the title but include UPDATED.

So in short, submissions procedure:

Create a banner that is 730x120
Include HabboxForum and For all your Habbo needs on each banner (different slogan can be made up for non-Habbo skin but not necessary)
Sent it to Forum God
Put the skin the banner is for on the title
Only one entry per person, if you wish to send in one with fixes to mistakes, send a new PM with UPDATED in the title, so if I found I misspelled Habbox in my retro blue banner, the title of my PM would be "Retro Blue Skin UPDATED"


Winning entries for each banner will recieve

SIX MONTHS of Forum VIP and credit in an announcement


Also, anyone who has aspects of their banner (for example, the slogan on non-Habbo banner or a part of your banner that we really liked) used will win one month of VIP and credit for their contribution!


Entries will be accepted for one week and this competition will close on the 18th of May.

Note that each banner is judged as a seperate competition. There will be one winner per banner so in total 7 winners and you can submit one entry per banner. You may win first place for multiple banners.



Habbox reserves the right to recomission the banner design to the graphics department should management feel that none of the entries are suitable for the Forum Banner, in which case the best banner will be awarded the prize and recognition however their banner will not be used. By submitting your entry you allow Habbox to use or modify your submission with due credit. All rights reserved.

[nvrspk4]

Hey,

After some discussion with a member of the Habbo Team after an email was circulated about a response from a member of Support Staff on Habbo that implied that fansites could now give out VIP features so long as they weren't advertized, we were informed that Donators could be given aesthetic features. When I asked about several features, I was informed that avatars, signatures, and usertitles would be acceptable.

So as of this announcement, donators can have:

Avatars size 150x150
Signatures size 700x300
Custom Usertitles (user edited, admin HTML coded usertitles are not available as of right now but this may change in the future

Enjoy!

[xxMATTGxx]

Welcome to the Forum.

I have created a thread "About This Forum" basically explaining what that forum is about and how users should reply. This will then prevent any pointless posting with just "Welcome". This will ONLY be enforced for those who do this repeatedly just for their post count. So if you have been doing that, then it's time to stop. The thread content can be seen below or you can actually go to it by clicking here. (http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?p=5789893#post5789893)


About: Welcome To Habbox Forum


Welcome To Habbox Forum; is where new members can introduce themselves to the forum for the first time, or maybe they are coming back after a long period of being away!. People take time to write about themselves, so at least give them the courtesy of showing some interest. Because we have had a problem with pointless posting, so try and say something in addition to "Welcome to the forum". Whether it is a nice comment or some friendly advice!

We won't enforce it for a few posts, only if we see that users are constantly replying with "Welcome" many times over again with nothing more added.


Graphic Rules:
I have changed a rule slightly by adding more to Rule Number 1#. Which you can see below or to see the full rules for that section then click here. (http://www.habboxforum.com/announcement.php?a=240) This will hopefully tackle the amount of pointless posting.

Updated Rule:

1. If you are not going to give constructive criticism, don't post at all - Do not reply to alteration posts with things like: bad. If you think somebody's alt is bad then tell him or her how to improve it and actually help. If you are going to post, then post CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM or at least comment about the actual graphic. If you shall not do this, then action will be taken by one of the Moderators or Super Moderators.

Credit: Buttons and other members for pitching in. :)

[Nixt]

Spam Bans

After in-depth discussions between the Forum Management team we have decided to introduce 'Spam Bans' as a result of the recent outbreak of consistent rule breaking, particularly arguing and bullying, in the Spam Forum.

The process under which a 'Spam Ban' will be issued is as follows:


A (Super) Moderator recommends a member be issued a 'Spam Ban';
The (Assistant) Forum Manager reviews the member and feeds back to a Super Moderator whether a ban should or should not be issued;
The (Assistant) Forum Manager issues a 'Spam Ban' for a period between 1 - 7 days;
The member who the ban has been issued to will be unable to see or use the Spam Forum for the duration of the ban.
The idea is that we restrict members from the areas where they cause the most problems as well as still allowing them to participate in a positive way around other areas of the Forum.

Avoiding this type of ban either through account sharing / making a new account will result in the secondary account being permanently banned. This bans will be issued sparingly but strategically, so those issued with a spam ban will be watched carefully during their ban to assure they are not using other accounts to avoid it.

[nvrspk4]

A little bit later, due to the need for sleep, but it kept you guys interested!

We promised a while ago that we would be upgrading some of the usergroup permissions now that VIP was not a paid service and we could not give out all the features with donator, so we have upgraded some of the star rank privileges accordingly:


Arcade

Silver Members - Have 5 plays per day
Gold Members - Can play in the arcade
Ruby Members - Can play in the arcade and start tournaments
Sapphire Members - Can play in the arcade and start tournaments
Emerald Members - Can play in the arcade and start tournaments
Platinum Members - Can play in the arcade and start tournaments

Mass PM Options

Bronze Members - Can now PM 2 recipients
Silver Members - Can now PM 3 recipients
Gold Members - Can now PM 4 recipients
Ruby Members - Can now PM 5 recipients
Sapphire Members - Can now PM 6 recipients
Emerald Members - Can now PM 8 recipients
Platinum Members - Can now PM 10 recipients

Please note that bronze, silver, and gold Habbox Staff members can still PM five simultaneous recipients for internal reasons, Ruby remains the same and sapphire, emerald, and platinum staff members have been upgraded.


Viewing Who Left You Reputation

Emerald Members - Can now view who left them reputation
Platinum Members - Can now view who left them reputation



Enjoy! The FAQs will be updated tomorrow to reflect these changes and to add a new section about donators.