We've taken the opportunity to strip a lot of the cruft out and focus on the main things that people use on the site. Here's a summary of the changes:
Exclusive GJ forum, Classifieds restrictions
There are more controls over who can post where. Although anyone can read the Classifieds, posting is limited to GJs.
There is also a completely separate GJ category where only GJs can view or post. This is the place for anything you want hidden from lurkers.
The cost of a GJ for NEW subscribers will be £15 per year. Existing GJs can stay on the £10 plan provided their subscription doesn't lapse. Lifetime GJs will of course continue to have that access.
Moderation
To clamp down on the spam we have introduced a better moderation system. New users will have their first few posts held in a moderation queue, and need to have each explicitly approved by a mod before it will appear on the site.
Watch list
If you post in a thread, it will be automatically added to your Watch list. The Watch list gives you quick access to the threads you are most interested in, without having to dig around in the different categories to find them. You can manually add (and remove) individual threads from the list by clicking the Watch (or Stop Watching) button whilst viewing the thread.
By default, you will receive a daily digest email of threads you are watching that have been updated, you can switch this to immediate or no notifications at all.
Embeds
The new board is designed to make it easier than ever to embed stuff from elsewhere around the web, without having to mess around with BBCode. If you want to display an image in a post, just drop the link straight in to the page, no need to use \[img\] tags. If the image is hosted on a supported service, you can drop in a link to the page on which it appears, and it will all be nicely formatted with a link through to the original.
Same goes for YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify - just drop the link to the video or whatever and the embeds will automatically be coded for you.
This means that you can no longer do a manual embed, so if you are trying to copy anything with HTML code and paste it in, it won't work. Just use the page URL instead.
Supported services include all the common image sharing platforms: Flickr, Imgur, Photobucket, SmugMug plus Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Spotify etc etc. We will publish (and continue to add to) a full list.
BBCode
Lets face it, BBCode is rubbish and we'd like to ditch it. However, we need it for quotes and stuff so for the time being it's going to stay. We have minimal editing controls for bold and italic on the post editor at the moment, but these may go.
Private messages
The private message system has changed to be less like an email system and more like mobile messaging. You have one single page of conversation with any given user, with your messages threaded on the page, newest ones at the top. Old messages are imported, but may look a bit weird, to begin with, if you have a lot of embedded quotes.
There are options for email notifications on PMs, by default they are set to daily digest.
Misc stuff
Animated GIFs for avatars don't work at the moment. Sorry.
The page layout will become a bit more mobile friendly once we've bedded it down.
Coming soon
There are a few things we need to sort - Search is the main one, and decent mobile views as well - but we wanted to get the site out there. With the site on a totally new platform, we should be able to add new features a lot quicker than in the past.
I know you won't be shy with your feedback, and we will do what we can to plug the functionality gaps as quickly as possible. Thanks to you all for your continued support of the site, hope you enjoy the new stuff!
Exclusive GJ forum, Classifieds restrictions
There are more controls over who can post where. Although anyone can read the Classifieds, posting is limited to GJs.
There is also a completely separate GJ category where only GJs can view or post. This is the place for anything you want hidden from lurkers.
The cost of a GJ for NEW subscribers will be £15 per year. Existing GJs can stay on the £10 plan provided their subscription doesn't lapse. Lifetime GJs will of course continue to have that access.
Moderation
To clamp down on the spam we have introduced a better moderation system. New users will have their first few posts held in a moderation queue, and need to have each explicitly approved by a mod before it will appear on the site.
Watch list
If you post in a thread, it will be automatically added to your Watch list. The Watch list gives you quick access to the threads you are most interested in, without having to dig around in the different categories to find them. You can manually add (and remove) individual threads from the list by clicking the Watch (or Stop Watching) button whilst viewing the thread.
By default, you will receive a daily digest email of threads you are watching that have been updated, you can switch this to immediate or no notifications at all.
Embeds
The new board is designed to make it easier than ever to embed stuff from elsewhere around the web, without having to mess around with BBCode. If you want to display an image in a post, just drop the link straight in to the page, no need to use \[img\] tags. If the image is hosted on a supported service, you can drop in a link to the page on which it appears, and it will all be nicely formatted with a link through to the original.
Same goes for YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify - just drop the link to the video or whatever and the embeds will automatically be coded for you.
This means that you can no longer do a manual embed, so if you are trying to copy anything with HTML code and paste it in, it won't work. Just use the page URL instead.
Supported services include all the common image sharing platforms: Flickr, Imgur, Photobucket, SmugMug plus Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Spotify etc etc. We will publish (and continue to add to) a full list.
BBCode
Lets face it, BBCode is rubbish and we'd like to ditch it. However, we need it for quotes and stuff so for the time being it's going to stay. We have minimal editing controls for bold and italic on the post editor at the moment, but these may go.
Private messages
The private message system has changed to be less like an email system and more like mobile messaging. You have one single page of conversation with any given user, with your messages threaded on the page, newest ones at the top. Old messages are imported, but may look a bit weird, to begin with, if you have a lot of embedded quotes.
There are options for email notifications on PMs, by default they are set to daily digest.
Misc stuff
Animated GIFs for avatars don't work at the moment. Sorry.
The page layout will become a bit more mobile friendly once we've bedded it down.
Coming soon
There are a few things we need to sort - Search is the main one, and decent mobile views as well - but we wanted to get the site out there. With the site on a totally new platform, we should be able to add new features a lot quicker than in the past.
I know you won't be shy with your feedback, and we will do what we can to plug the functionality gaps as quickly as possible. Thanks to you all for your continued support of the site, hope you enjoy the new stuff!
