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SFN 2008-2009 Newsletter


Sayonara

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Welcome to the SFN Newsletter for 2008-2009!

 

This is a new feature that we are running for new and old members alike. The aim is to take a look back at the past year and all the changes and notable events that occurred in it.

 

 

Contents:

 

  • Traffic and Usage
  • New Staff Members
  • User Awards
  • Recent Forum Changes
  • Upcoming Changes
  • Forgotten Features

 

 

Traffic and Usage:

 

All stats run from January 1st 2008 to December 31st 2008.

 

We gained on average a steady 350 new members each month up until August, with a sudden leap to 450 in September which was the record month for the past year.

 

The level of member activity has remained between about 90 and 130 unique members online each day all year.

 

There is no real pattern to the rate at which new threads were posted. The peak months were June, September, and December with about 630 new threads each. The slowest month was January, with only 438 threads created.

 

Likewise, there is no obvious pattern to overall posting activity. June had the record number of new posts with 7335, and November was the slowest month with just 5058. In December things picked up again and this month came second overall with 6748 new posts being created.

 

In June we exceeded 400,000 posts!

 

YT2095 retains his crown as SFN's most profligate poster, with 13,927 posts at the time of writing.

 

The most used forum is General Discussion, and the Official "Introduce Yourself" Thread is the most viewed and most read discussion with 1,284 replies and a whopping 57,852 views.

 

The top five referrers are Klaynos, YT2095, antimatter, Sayonara³ and the tree.

 

The top five recipients of reputation points are D H, iNow, mooeypoo, swansont, and YT2095, who each have over 400 rep points at the time of writing. Keep it up guys!

 

 

New Staff Members

 

As part of recent changes to the way that the staff manage the forums, we have been on a bit of a recruitment drive and as a result several new members of staff have been appointed. These are:

 

  • Bignose (Resident Expert),
  • CharonY (Resident Expert),
  • D H (Resident Expert),
  • hermanntrude (Resident Expert),
  • Klaynos (Moderator and Resident Expert),
  • lucaspa (Moderator),
  • mooeypoo (Moderator),
  • Ophiolite (Moderator),
  • Sisyphus (Moderator).

 

 

User Awards

 

The results from the annual user awards came in in June:

  • Most Helpful Member: Klaynos
  • Most Improved Member: Klaynos
  • Most Enjoyable Member: AzurePhoenix (Second year in a row)
  • Best Debater: Sisyphus
  • Most Interesting Member: AzurePhoenix (Second year in a row)
  • Most Knowledgable Member: Severian

 

 

Recent Forum Changes

 

The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed many new features being enabled on the forums over the past few months; many of them over the festive holidays. These are:

 

"Similar Threads" list

When you view a thread, the forum automatically finds threads which it thinks might be related. These are listed at the end of the page, so you can easily find other discussions on similar topics.

 

Off-site Bookmarks

Bookmark links for sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, and Google have been added to the bottom of most thread pages.

 

New Forum: "The Sandbox"

The Sandbox is a whole new forum where you can post any old gibberish while you test out forum functions and code. This is primarily for people who are new to VBulletin-style forums, but there is no reason why established members cannot use it to try out new features as we add them, BB code they have not attempted to use before (such as table layouts), or complex code such as Latex maths formatting.

 

The Sandbox is also now the new home for staff threads which explain how to use certain features, such as...

 

Tags

Tags are metadata which you can add to threads to help the forum and search engines categorise the content. This makes the threads easier for living users to find. See the tagging guide to learn how to use them properly.

 

"Merged Posts" Revamp

The way that the forum merges consecutive posts by the same user has been modified to make it easier for members to spot posts which have been glued together. See this thread for details, and to vote on whether or not you think it is an improvement.

 

Politics Forum Restriction

The Politics forum has always been a hotbed of debate, and to prevent threads from being hijacked by one hit wonders or hit-and-run posters a restriction has been placed on it. You must have 30 posts or more and you must also have been a member for more than ten days to post there. Once you reach both of these levels the permissions to post in Politics are automatically added to your account.

 

Facebook Page

SFN created a Facebook page, so you can now show your support by becoming a fan of SFN.

 

New Style

For those who don't like the default look of the forums, Cap'n Refsmmat has devised a new experimental style.

 

User Blogs and new Front Page

Back in February we enabled User Blogs, which is basically exactly what it sounds like: free blogs for SFN users. We also launched the new front page, which integrates a blog feed, recent posts, and some stats.

 

New Server

In July we moved to a new server, kindly hosted by Dave. The new box is more secure and much faster, and almost never goes down or develops problems.

 

Ground-Up Tutorials

In March we launched the Ground-Up Tutorial threads, or "GUTs" as we like to call them. They are still a work in progress, and you can read the launch thread for more information.

 

SFN Spy

The nifty SFN Spy tool was installed in January.

 

 

Upcoming Changes

 

We are currently planning a couple of new features, one of which is a "Picks" forum where the best of the best content will be showcased on a month-by-month basis.

 

There will also be a major announcement about SFN later this year, so watch this space!

 

 

Forgotten Features

 

Every once in a while it is good to remind people about features they may be missing out on:

 

Thread Rating

If you particularly enjoy or detest a thread, don't forget that you can give it a rating of 1 to 5 stars by using the thread tools just above the first post on any thread view page. Star ratings are visible to other members in the forum view, and they are a good indicator of whether a thread is going to be a worthwhile read or hilariously bad.

 

The FAQ

The link to the FAQ disappeared from the menu bar some time ago when YT2095 left the staffroom door open overnight, but the FAQ itself is still there. It explains many of the features of SFN and is worth a read.

 

BB Code Index

The BB code (Bulletin Board code) used on SFN is listed and explained on this thread here. It may explain a thing or two that you weren't quite sure how to achieve!

Edited by Sayonara³
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