Virginia Tech Olympic Sports Frozen Post

Message:

SportsWar is pleased to introduce an updated version of our message board system, with enhanced features, more efficient posting, new user rankings, and a completely reformatted mobile display.

Rather than describe all the changes, updates and additions, we'll let you walk through the boards and discover everything. Be on the lookout for the following, changes, some large, some small:

Collapsible/expandable threads: When you're viewing a board, click the Collapse Threads/Expand Threads button to collapse and expand all the threads on the board. To expand or collapse an individual thread, click the icon or the little arrow to the left of the first post in the thread.

"New" indication: Posts that are new since the last time you loaded the board will have a yellow "new" indication. Note that reloading the board will remove all the "new" indications.

Enhanced user profiles: Click someone's username inside a post to view their user profile. To see your own and edit it, select "More -- Edit Profile" from the menu at the top of the board.

Updated and improved "What's New?" display: Never tried "What's New?" before? Click it and take a look.

Updated and improved Search function: Search posts on one board, or across all boards.

Searchable, sortable members list: Select "More -- Member List" from the menu to view a list of board members, and to sort it by join date, number of posts, and rank.

Points, User Ranking, and Star Ratings: Each member of the community now has points, a user ranking based on those points, and a star rating. Rather than us explaining it here, select "More -- Our Rankings Explained" to find out how everything works.

Updated and improved mobile (phone) display: We have completely revamped our phone display, making it easier (we think) to read our boards on a mobile device. If you find you don't like the new format (we think you will) … just turn your phone sideways, and it will display in the regular (PC and tablet) format!

Other minor changes: We have moved the Submit button closer to the Message area of the post, making it easier to post on PC, tablet, and phone; when you click or touch the subject line when responding to a post, it wipes out the existing subject line, saving you the trouble of having to delete it; we have moved and enhanced the Report Abuse button, to make reporting questionable posts easier; … and a bunch of other stuff!

Please try the updated board system out, ask questions if you have any, and report any bugs you find, as well. (We did our best, but bugs are pesky creatures. A few always sneak through.)

Comments about User Rankings, Voting, Etc.

We suspect that the new user rankings feature -- based on upvotes and downvotes that have been accumulated since we added the Plus-Minus feature about a year or two ago -- is going to draw the most attention and discussion.

Here are some notes about that:

1.) Please read "Our Rankings Explained" before asking any questions.

You can find this in the "More" (three-bar icon to the right) menu selection at the top of the board.

Note that we have never provided guidance on how to use the upvotes and downvotes … but in "Our Rankings Explained," we do finally provide guidance on how to use the power of the votes. Please read it.

2.) Note that if your points (see the link above for what this means) are zero or negative, you will no longer be able to vote on others' posts.

Exception: You can vote if you're a paid subscriber to the site (if the site contains a subscription component -- not all SportsWar sites do).

Why do this? The biggest reason is to prevent rival "lurker" fans from other sites from trashing the voting totals on your home site. SportsWar has VT and UVa sites that cross-populate, and Colorado-Colorado State sites that cross-populate. Visiting rival lurkers can now no longer pop over and downvote a bunch of posts.

But if you're a lurker who has never posted on your home site, and thus you have zero points, you won't be able to vote (unless you're a paid subscriber). The solution is easy: post! Introduce yourself, contribute something, and you'll get a few upvotes and will be able to vote.

If you're a poster who has accumulated a negative balance and thus can't vote … sorry about that. Many of our most productive posters and valued community members actually have a negative balance, because they're not afraid to bring up tough topics or take a contrarian view. If you're a subscriber, this is not a problem, and you should be able to vote, despite your negative points. If you're not a subscriber but a frequent poster who just happens to get a bunch of downvotes and thus has negative points, email us and ask for us to grant you voting privileges. We'll review your account and make a decision.

3.) Afraid of downvotes? Don't be.

Don't sweat the downvotes. Not everyone is going to agree with you, and as a matter of fact, at times a majority may disagree with you. As long as you're a respectful poster and a good community member, you won't be in any danger of getting booted off the boards. Only the most egregious posters will be kicked off the boards.

4.) Don't like the ranking system? (Harumph!) Then ignore it.

This is pretty simple. Just keep posting, and keep being you, and don't pay any attention to it. Some will enjoy it, some won't.

5.) We're learning as we go along too, so please be patient.

We have done our best to make a smart, flexible system here, but one can never know exactly what's going to happen once things are launched. There are unintended consequences and unknown bugs in everything, so please be patient as this new system gets settled in, everyone gets acclimated to it, and we tweak and tune.