Forums Changelog and Feedback

[BlueBraviaryGirl]

Can you add Walking Wake to favorite Gen. 9 Pokémon please? And Iron Leaves?

 

[colours]

Can you add Walking Wake to favorite Gen. 9 Pokémon please? And Iron Leaves?

this is done!

 

[Archaic]

2023-04-04
A fairly large update for the forums today. We're continuing to work on a variety of things, including updates to existing forums styles as well as more brand new styles (hope you all enjoyed Grimergarden for April Fools!), however work on a number of these has been delayed due to other more time-sensitive concerns.

Here's the front-end relevant changes from today's update.

• Backend software has been upgraded to Xenforo 2.2.11.
• Improved support for a variety of social media embeds.
  • We can now support embedding toots from Mastodon instances other than mastodon.social. We will be enabling these on a case-by-case basis for specific instances, on request. If you have a particular instance you would like to see enabled for embeds, please post the instance here together with a link to an example toot/account that you're looking to embed.
  • Support added for YouTube Live URLs and TikTok's new share links.
  • Tumblr URLs starting with www. or at. should now work properly.
• Improvements with the alerts system to address a number of bugs and issues with how these were displayed, including issues with alerts being improperly labelled as read/unread.
• Push notifications has been restored for iOS devices with running version 16.4+.
• Improvements to the Badge system to resolve a number of errors, including a problem where badges were not displaying in the proper order.
• On receiving a thread ban, any posts previously made in the thread by that user will display with a special thread ban banner label. Users who have been thread banned will also not be able to modify existing posts in threads.
• Various other changes and bug-fixes applied to account security.
• Other minor bug-fixes and optimizations have been implemented to improve loading times.

 

[Archaic]

2023-04-15

• Due to Twitter API changes, it's no longer possible to register or log-in to a Bulbagarden Forums account using a Twitter account. This functionality may return in future, but it's not likely to be any time soon.
• We have now enabled registration and log-in using Twitch and Tumblr accounts.

 

[Palamon]

2023-04-15

• Due to Twitter API changes, it's no longer possible to register or log-in to a Bulbagarden Forums account using a Twitter account. This functionality may return in future, but it's not likely to be any time soon.
• We have now enabled registration and log-in using Twitch and Tumblr accounts.

Does this mean people who made an account through Twitter can't log in anymore?

I made an account through normal means, I'm just curious what this means for them.

 

[lisianthus]

Does this mean people who made an account through Twitter can't log in anymore?

I made an account through normal means, I'm just curious what this means for them.

Essentially yes, so we want those who're affected by it to contact us to get things fixed and set them up with a different way to log in! (you can do that here, even if you're not logged in!)

 

[Archaic]

2023-04-18

• Added the ability to find embeddable URLs in given page. This feature is accessible through the "Insert Media" dialog when posting a message. It adds two options (unchecked by default) that allows you to look for embeddable URLs if the one you submit does not match any active media site. For example, if you try to submit a t.co (Twitter's URL shortener) link to a YouTube video it will not be recognized by default, but if you check "Use the canonical URL" then it will be recognized as a YouTube URL.
• Updates to various add-ons with bug-fixes and optimizations which should improve general loading times and stability.

 

[Blanc]

I feel like I'm losing my mind, but the forum feels slower than usual. Am I the only one on this? I don't think it's my ISP. Thank you in advance for hearing me out!

 

[Greninjaman]

I feel like I'm losing my mind, but the forum feels slower than usual. Am I the only one on this? I don't think it's my ISP. Thank you in advance for hearing me out!

I noticed myself.

 

[lisianthus]

I feel like I'm losing my mind, but the forum feels slower than usual. Am I the only one on this? I don't think it's my ISP. Thank you in advance for hearing me out!

Yeah, it was an issue that a lot of staff were facing as well (who collectively thought it was their own ISPs as well LOL). We just pushed an update out to the forums, and it's been much, much faster for me as well, I hope that's the case for everyone else?

(Thank you very very much for bringing this up!♡)

 

[Archaic]

2023-05-16

• Updates to various add-ons with bug-fixes and optimizations which should greatly improve general loading times and stability.
  • TLDR; One of the addon updates from the last update introduced a new bug which was slowing the forums down. That addon has now fixed its issue, so the problems we've had for the past little bit should now be resolved.

 

[Archaic]

2023-07-04

• Backend software has been upgraded to Xenforo 2.2.13.
• Progressive Web App enhancements
  • Full iOS PWA compatibility with push notification support has been enabled. Simply log in through the Progressive Web App and enable push notifications in your preferences
  • Additional gesture based controlls, including pull down to refresh, and a floating back button
• The Twitter widget has been disabled, due to Twitter's new rate limits for users making the widget totally useless for displaying anything.
• Replacing the Twitter widget, we now have a widget displaying our Mastodon account. This account is primarily only showing News currently, however with the way Twitter has been going, you can expect the normal content that was being posted on the Bulbagarden and Bulbapedia Twitter accounts to be coming over to here as well in the near future.
• Updates to various add-ons with bug-fixes and optimizations which should improve general loading times and stability.

 

[colours]

2023-07-30

The following profiles fields have been removed due to the options in them being either defunct or not really used anymore:

• Origin
• Battle.net
• Oculus
• Epic Games
• Second Life
• Guilded.gg
• Pokegym
• Pokemon Online
• Facebook Gaming
• Nintendo Network ID

The following profile field options have been added:

• Pokemon Sleep Friend Code
• Pokemon Masters EX Friend Code

 

[colours]

2023-08-03

A Clarification on "Intersite Drama"

We'd like to issue a clarification on a longstanding rule that we've long had regarding Intersite Drama. Some may have perceive this as a blanket "don't say negative things about other websites" rule, but this is not the case. Intersite Drama only exists to cover scenarios in which personal drama were to be brought over to Bulbagarden from other sites, or in scenarios in which specific users are mentioned in a negative fashion. In other words, keep personal drama regarding other sites away, but constructive criticism of other websites are fair game, provided they lead to healthy discussion.

 

[Archaic]

2023-08-25

Embed links for posts on TikTok are no longer functional, due to behaviour on TikTok's end that was leading to degraded forum performance for all users. Specifically, the Bytespider bot (from TikTok's parent company Bytedance) was sending an insane amount of requests to the site per second, with a growth rate to requests that outstripped our cloud servers ability to ramp up and deal with the load. Effectively, Bytespider was DDoSing us.

The Bytespider is now being explicitly blocked for us by Cloudflare, and we should see an immediate improvement in forums performance, and potentially on Bulbapedia as well.

UPDATE: We've also blocked the Aspiegel PetalBot (a bot for the search engine owned by Huawei), which was exhibiting similar characteristics to the Bytespider. More bots may get blocked in the near future for the same reason.

 

[Okido]

2023-08-26

We've added a large handful of new smilies/emotes to the post editor, doubling the amount that we had before.
Try them out when you get the chance!

 

[Sheep]

2023-08-27

For clarity, an additional bullet point on the buying and selling of goods or services has been added to the Disruptive Post rule.

Keep posts relevant to the thread or a post within it, and avoid making posts that disrupt the flow of conversation. This includes but is not limited to:

• Offering goods or services in exchange for payment, including donations, or virtual currency

 

[Greninjaman]

2023-08-25

Embed links for posts on TikTok are no longer functional, due to behaviour on TikTok's end that was leading to degraded forum performance for all users. Specifically, the Bytespider bot (from TikTok's parent company Bytedance) was sending an insane amount of requests to the site per second, with a growth rate to requests that outstripped our cloud servers ability to ramp up and deal with the load. Effectively, Bytespider was DDoSing us.

The Bytespider is now being explicitly blocked for us by Cloudflare, and we should see an immediate improvement in forums performance, and potentially on Bulbapedia as well.

UPDATE: We've also blocked the Aspiegel PetalBot (a bot for the search engine owned by Huawei), which was exhibiting similar characteristics to the Bytespider. More bots may get blocked in the near future for the same reason.

I did notice for a few days or so that the site was very sluggish. That will explain it.

 

[Archaic]

2023-09-25

Due to continuing issues with the addon we used to add this functionality, the function for users to self-delete themselves has been removed.

Users who require an account deletion for whatever reason can contact the staff via this link. Please be aware that we reserve the right to not delete accounts when there are legitimate moderation needs for retaining the account (e.g. warning histories).

 

[Sheep]

2023-09-26

We've added an updated clarification on advertising to our global rules. See the update in bold below:

6. Avoid making disruptive or irrelevant posts (Disruptive Post) [3 points, 3 months]
Keep posts relevant to the thread or a post within it, and avoid making posts that disrupt the flow of conversation. This includes but is not limited to:

• Continuing to discuss something after a moderator asked it be dropped
• Repeatedly posting the same arguments within a thread(s)
• Reposting content just to get it higher on the thread list
• Posting spoilers for recent media not in spoiler tags
• Advertising other websites in threads when it's not related to the topic
• Posting large images (larger than 500x500px) without spoiler tags
• Offering goods or services in exchange for payment, including donations, or virtual currency
• Advertising personal projects outside of your profile, signature, and BulbaBlogs (see the BulbaBlogs rules for more details) (added September 26, 2023)

In tandem with this, we've also rewritten the BulbaBlogs rules to further expand on advertising. If you're a BulbaBlogs regular, or are planning on advertising a project here in the Bulbagarden Forums community, we recommend reading through these updates rules.

Further updates to the Writers' Workshop rules, including their stance on advertising, will be coming in the near future!