Minor News/Updates to CreateBlog. Options

[*mona lisa*]

This thread has been created to let members know of any smaller changes, updates, server problems or anything of importance. If you disagree with anything please make a thread in our Feedback forum and discuss it there.

Please do not post in this thread or your post will be deleted. This will make it easier for others to read without any disturbances. Moderators can bump this topic by posting any relevant information at proper times.

Thank you!


To start off, some recent news on createBog include the following:

• Moderators have the ability to provide a reason when rejecting layouts.
• The topics in Cars, Sports, and Current Events forums previously located under Interests have all been moved to the Lounge.

[*mona lisa*]

Since not many people may have noticed, I'll say it here. Several members have asked exactly what cB's standards are for accepting layouts. This has been posted in every design forum. Please take the time to consider these general tips.

As well, please use some of these as guidelines to submitting graphics.

Good

• Clean and uncluttered design
• Readable text and hyperlinks
• Pleasant and suitable color scheme
• Clear theme
• Originality
• Reasonable loading time
• Balance between graphics and text
• Easy navigation
• Fair size and quality of image(s)

Bad

• Poor organization
• Overuse of scripts
• Poor quality images
• Jocked images/layout
• Misaligned elements
• Inappropriate/offensive theme
• Use of sTiCkY cAps
• Broken images
• Tacky text or image effects
• Too bright or busy background image
• Use of sliced images (5 is enough)
• Use of ad remover

Desired but not required

• Cross browser compatibility (mainly IE and Firefox)

[*mona lisa*]

Anyone posting obscene content will be warned. Any offensive or obscene pictures used as avatars or signatures will be removed. If you see anyone doing this, please feel free to PM an Admin or Head Staff to have them removed. Thank you.

[*mona lisa*]

Three new tools have been added/updated to Xanga Tools. The Xanga/Myspace layout code sniffer will allow you to get the codes of any Xanga or Myspace layout. The source encoder and source decoder will work for any site, including Xanga! Enjoy!


Created and provided by the awesome micron. =)

[*mona lisa*]

Posts made in Feedback now add to your post count and Posts Per Day.

[*mona lisa*]

Posts made in the general Blogger/LiveJournal/MySpace/Xanga/Website forums add to your post count and PPD. Meaning if you offer criticism on layouts through the forum, your post count will be upped.

[*mzkandi*]

A Current Events News forum has been added under Interests in the Community Center.


I added the link. =)

This post has been edited by mona lisa: Aug 15 2006, 03:19 PM

[*mona lisa*]

The controversy and piracy rules in the Community Guidelines have been tweaked and a jocking rule has been added. Note that although the guidelines are subject to change, you are still to follow them so please read over them carefully. Sadly, the controversy rule has been neglected but no longer will be.

[*mona lisa*]

Four new forums have been made: Contests, Blogger Requests, Livejournal Requests, and Website Requests.

[*mona lisa*]

The ___ of the Year contests for 2006 are up and running. It will be a month before the votes are counted, i.e. the deadline for all contests is February 25, 2007. Happy voting and good luck to all participants!

Blogger of the Year
Livejournal of the Year
MySpace of the Year
Website of the Year
Xanga of the Year

[*mzkandi*]

The official bylaws are up and running. For further details please check out the Community Guidelines.

[*mona lisa*]

Recently, design staff have been reducing clutter in the Resource Center in order to help members. Please use the Common Fonts, Common Brushes, Big Book of Resources, and the Moderator's Guide to Critiquing Graphics to your advantage.

Thank you to all those who contributed.

[*mzkandi*]

Now that cB's bylaws have been been officially written up the forum has been discontinued. From now on all issues concerning cB shall be taken up in the Feedback forum. I would like to thank everyone who participated as bylaw mods and those who offered their feedback. Without your dedication and patience with this project none of this would have been possible.

[*Duchess_of_Dork*]

As of now, the forums are as is. Meaning, the graphics forum has been merged into the Designers' Cafe'.

There's some feedback going on regarding that. :]

[micron]

-posts on cb4 pages (submissions + sudomains) now count towards your post count.
-drag and drop in best friend works now after clicking next/prev page.

[micron]

-confirmation popup before deleting comments
-added more cities and countries

[micron]

-wink page is now up

[micron]

-photo pages are up
-submitting stock photos / smilies work now
-you no longer need to "setup blog" to have your blog working

[micron]

-fixed blog / photo / comment totals
-added new mini profile module for blog + photo pages
-using username instead of location for browse friends, entries, and photos

[micron]

-added recent entries + photos to your profiles
-removed class .subprofile for mini profile (blog + photos)

[micron]

ill add the topsite again sometime in the future but at this time we dont have it...


--

i fixed the layout code grabber. works for hi5 and myspace. please keep in mind that you should only use this tool for educational purposes. you may grab codes once every 5 min.

[micron]

-tracker now supports friendster
-preview now works for layouts (submit layout preview button)

[micron]

^ submissions stats were added since cb4.


some new stuff
-added friendster and hi5 support forums (resource center -> support center)
-upgraded forum software to latest version

[micron]

-clicking on the usernames on the forums will now go to the subdomain profile, not the forum profile (dubbed subprofile). to get to the subprofile, youll have to find a post made by that user and click on the username -> view subprofile.

nvm, ill do this later. there seems to be a lot of invalid usernames or usernames that dont match their display names.

[*Insurmountable*]

Currently when submitting layouts please upload the images to either tinypic.com or imageshack.us. Photobucket images are having errors on getting uploaded to the server. Hopefully this won't be a long minor issue. If you have any further questions or concerns you can PM a design staff.

[*davinci*]

The Contests subforum that used to be below the Feedback forum has been deleted. It wasn't active and usually, the contest didn't really start and follow through. Existing topics were moved to appropriate forums though so if you're interested in starting one, feel free!

[Insurmountable]

Createblog Support has been added to the support forum

It will be used for
- Tracker questions.
- cB profile questions
- cB support questions.
- Basic forum questions

[Insurmountable]

Have a myspace, livejournal, blogger, or xanga problem? Find your answer! We now have Resolved Topic subforums in each of these support forums for easy searching of your own problem

[Insurmountable]

Advice Abby has come back as Ask Alice, anyone have any relationships problems or need any type of advice feel free to ask her

[superstitious]

Sandbox has been been changed back to its former name, Forum Games.

[micron]

-fixed tracker setup bugs (delete and re-setup to fix trackers)
-grab myspace friendid + top friends id
-added submitted + favorited items in my account

[micron]

-removed 5 min limit for layout code grabber (remember -> educational purposes only!)

[micron]

-made changes to cb template. if you have a custom layout that hides the cb logo, append this to your header html:

CODE

<style type='text/css'>
#logo { display:none; }
</style>

[micron]

-guest can now switch styles on cb4 and forum pages (stored in cookies for guest)

[micron]

-cb4 submission comments page placement moved to be more inline with the rest of the site. now submission comments also include member photos.

[micron]

-createblog leaderboard, found at the bottom of every page.

[micron]

-flood control lowered to 10 sec for cb4 pages
-official members now bypass flood control for cb4 pages
-banned members can no longer post on cb4 pages

[micron]

-fixed instand layout previews (submit form).

[micron]

-updated layouts browsing page (no more drop downs)

[superstitious]

Due to the lack of interest and participation, AskAlice and createsecret are being discontinued.

[superstitious]

Added the following to the Community Guidelines, even though it has been addressed in the Terms of Use for a long time now. Just wanted to give people a head's up.

SHARING ACCOUNTS
When you sign up to become a Member, you are asked to choose a password. You are entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password. You agree not to use the account, username, or password of another Member at any time or to disclose your password to any third party. You agree to notify CreateBlog immediately if you suspect any unauthorized use of your account or access to your password. You are solely responsible for any and all use of your account. This rule is clearly stated in the cB Terms of Use.

If you share an account and that account is associated with a duplicate, banned or otherwise punished account, that shared account is subject to similar punishment, regardless of whether or not the ip is used to register that account.

For anyone who is sharing accounts, please discontinue immediately. We are not going to be liable for accounts that will be banned, disabled or made "duplicate" because their ip's are associated with duplicate or spam accounts.

Please feel free to PM myself or any other staff member should you have questions, concerns or a dispute regarding a specific banned/suspended/duplicate account.

[karmakiller]

Members' Photos can now only be viewed by registered users.

[superstitious]

MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS
Creating multiple accounts without permission is NOT allowed. Depending on the severity of the situation, anyone who is caught doing this will receive punishment, which may include raised warning level, mod preview, disabled posting, or a banned account. All duplicate accounts will immediately be disabled.

SHARING ACCOUNTS
When you sign up to become a Member, you are asked to choose a password. You are entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password. You agree not to use the account, username, or password of another Member at any time or to disclose your password to any third party. You agree to notify CreateBlog immediately if you suspect any unauthorized use of your account or access to your password. You are solely responsible for any and all use of your account. This rule is clearly stated in the cB Terms of Use.

I feel a need to remind people of these rules. If an IP lookup is performed on your username and someone else appears to have been posting with your account, you will receive a raised warn level. If for some reason the warn level was raised in error, please PM one of the administrators to correct the error. Know that we are humans and can make mistakes. However, if ip associated with someone who posts regularly on a different account is found to be using your account, a red flag will be raised.

About duplicate accounts. Just don't. There is no reason why you should be creating a duplicate account. If it's a name issue, wait until you can change your name. If you make a duplicate account, you warn level will be raised in addition to the duplicate account's user group being updated to "Duplicate."

I've 'bumped' these rules out of courtesy.

[superstitious]

Poll topic bumping has been disabled.

(meaning, if you vote in a topic, that topic will not be bumped to the most recent topics)

[superstitious]

QUOTING AND POSTING LARGE IMAGES
Effective 10/17/08, warnings will no longer be given for failing to remove image tags when quoting or failing to thumb large images. That being said, please try to be courteous and not quote an image if the image has been posted on the current page or stretch the forums with large images. Please note that staff members may opt to edit your post to thumb large images and/or remove image tags when posts contain quoted images.

Rule update.

[superstitious]

The old cB FAQs thread has been removed. Please reference the Welcome to Createblog! New Members Guide & FAQs thread.

Any site related questions should be asked in the Createblog Support subforum.