Forums Update - Chat, TOS and more

    DukeofRealms

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    Greetings Astronauts!

    Firstly I’d like to thank you all for continuing to support StarMade and StarMadeDock! Over the past few months the StarMadeDock Staff, @resba (our wonderful forum administrator), @wedtm and I, have been preparing massive changes to the service that will help to improve the overall community experience. It’s been a very long road getting these changes implemented, so we hope that you all will love them as much as we do!


    New Chat System


    Since launch we have been working on improving the chat system to better serve our user base. Unfortunately, upon launching the new site we were not able to deliver the system we wanted and had to quickly scrape together a temporary system. While this new chat system that has been implemented is by no means the final product, we hope that it will be something that everyone can utilize happily!


    This new chat system, powered by ArrowChat, is integrated directly with your StarMade Registry account (through the forums), which is the account you use to login to StarMade Registry and will effectively be replacing our Esper-based IRC chat solution, as the main form of communication.

    Our channels on EsperNet will still be maintained, and will continue to be our official IRC channels. We encourage users to still use IRC, the inbuilt chat system is just another way to communicate with users.

    This system allows for users to communicate with each other directly from the site by utilizing public chat rooms and private messages, similar to the old StarMade site.


    The only limitation of the system at this time is that users are only allowed to be active in one chat room at a time. To help alleviate this, users connecting to new rooms will be able to see a partial backlog of messages before they enter so they can jump into the conversation. The limitation of one chat room at a time is not the fault of us; rather, it’s the limitation of the software. In the next version of ArrowChat, this feature will be added, until then we will have to wait.


    The moderation and management of the chat system will be handled solely by the staff of StarMadeDock.net, rather than being hosted on an external third party like our IRC-based solution. In doing this, we can have control over the rules and regulations of the service without needing to get into the guidelines of the third party service. However, should an incident occur where a user is banned from the chat the ban will not automatically propagate over to the forums.


    To get started, use the chat bar located at the bottom of any page on StarMadeDock.net once you have logged in! (If you don’t see the chat and are logged in, you may need to log out, then log back in to see it.)


    Guides to utilizing the new system will be available in the coming weeks.


    If you encounter any issues or bugs with the new system please don’t hesitate to submit a bug report in the Site Support/Suggestions Forum (link)!


    Updates to the Terms of Service, Rules and Guidelines


    As we have added a new chat system and continued to grow as a community, we have gone through a major overhaul of our Terms Of Service document, merging together all of our guideline documents into one cohesive set of rules and terms that users are expected to abide by.


    We have merged, added, and changed many previous guidelines and rules to better fit and accurately explain what is expected not only of the users of this service, but also the administration and moderation of this service. As there are many changes to the overall verbage and clauses that we all must abide by, I highly recommend you re-read the stipulations if you haven’t already agreed to them: http://starmadedock.net/help/terms


    That being said, with the new updates to the terms of service the staff at StarMadeDock will be taking a non-retroactive approach to moderation of old content. Old content that is reported via the report system shall be addressed using the new ruleset. We will not be actively scouring the forums for old content that does not abide by the new rules. To report content, use the “Report” button located at the bottom of each post. We encourage all users to review their content to make sure that they are in-line with our terms and rules for the service.


    A lot of changes have taken place, and they are all thanks to the feedback and support we have gotten from the StarMadeDock Community as a whole. I’d like to thank you all once again for sticking with us as we continue to improve our service!


    If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the new systems and updates please don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below! We would love to hear from you!

    The chat is still a work in progress for the next few weeks, we will be customising the design to fit the site and changing a few things.


    Good Luck Out There!

    - Duke, on behalf of the StarMade Dock Administration Team

    This post was intended to be posted by @resba , circumstances have arisen that have lead me to post this update. Thanks rebsa for writing this all those months ago!
     
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    • Arrrty
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    I don't quite understand what rule 14 is meant to say. I don't have a particular concern, and would guess that it's just saying to post large (3 lines?) off-site and link it, but I think it could use some better clarification.

    14. Pastebin logs, code snippets, anything longer than 3 lines!
     
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    what ever i try to access the new chat icons that appear at the bottom of the page it always results in the page crashing. do we need to download some sort of plugin or anything?

    Edit: ok im able to access it with internet explorer jsut fine, but my opera web broswer crashes with the chat, strange.

    Edit2: ok i solved my own problem, looks like i was missing an update for opera. :)
     
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    Lancake

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    I know that you're still working on it but will there be a way to have the chat room full screen? Like what we used to have when you clicked on the chat tab (http://star-made.org/chat/index). Atm the IRC chat is still used for that but it would be nice if we could choose between the IRC and Site chat.

    I like the chat you made but I still dislike the popping up system, I would really like some option to have it on separate tab ^^
     
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    Can we have some kind of image resize for embedded images? I hate having a 25000x350000 image fill up my screen. Maybe cap it to wallpaper-size?
     
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    No IRC/XMPP support? Lolnope. *stays on esper*

    I know that you're still working on it but will there be a way to have the chat room full screen? Like what we used to have when you clicked on the chat tab (http://star-made.org/chat/index). Atm the IRC chat is still used for that but it would be nice if we could choose between the IRC and Site chat.

    I like the chat you made but I still dislike the popping up system, I would really like some option to have it on separate tab ^^
    When I click on that "Popout chat room" button, it fills the entire tab.
     

    Reilly Reese

    #1 Top Forum Poster & Raiben Jackpot Winner
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    Yo @DukeofRealms the chat won't update itself. It's playing the noise but won't show new posts.

    Also it's not uniform between different pages. IE I have two pages one page is more recent while the other one still thinks 20 minute ago posts are latest.
     

    Lancake

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    No IRC/XMPP support? Lolnope. *stays on esper*


    When I click on that "Popout chat room" button, it fills the entire tab.
    Thank you! Haven't noticed that button, way better now.
     
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    Will there be an API for the chat so one can make own clients?
    Or will there be a bot to put messages from esper to the on-site chat and vice-versa?
     
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    I found a message from January 2013 on the ArrowChat forums from a developer that they were working on XMPP support, without naming an ETA. Don't know what has become of it, it doesn't seem like the system does support it yet.