Forum/Union Updates

[Peter]

AIN Update

Below are a couple of updates on changes to the forum, going-ons, new features and such. Organization is one of the issues with the forum structure. So to tidy a couple of things up, here are some of the changes.

Spaces

Spaces 2.0 just got a little cooler. We've got a new look to the banner, and if you notice, the style/format of the posts are different from the rest of the site. Why? The awesome forum gods gave us blogs! Check it out now!

News Portal

The news system has been a major issue in terms of organization. Prior to the changes, there were three news forums: Global Announcements, AINTv and Newspapers. But now, they have been combined in one huge forum, while still retaining their separation.

Member Services

AIN Exchange and Workshop are now in one huge forum named Member Services as well.

AIN Sports

AIN Games is now inside the AIN Sports forum.

Random Topics

Random topics has been moved to the General Discussion forum.

AIN Summit

The summit date has been changed and moved to Wednesday September 9 to allow for more discussion time.

Site Banner

This week, I will be looking for four new pictures of countries around AIN and the best four will be featured in the header banner of the AIN Site. If you have any pictures that you would like to be featured, please post them below! Thanks!

[Peter]

Forum Organization

As of today, the site homepage just got a whole lot more organized and smaller. Don't worry, nothing got deleted, instead, similar subforums were combined in main subforums such as the Ambassador Center, Events Portal, City Notebooks, Sports Center and Member Services.

Office Elections

The job positions for heads of education/infrastructure, health/safety, foreign affairs and economy will be up for grabs. We will go more in depth with the details of the election during the summit. But please do think about whether you are interested in being head of one of these departments!

[Thomas]

AIN Update

I decided to move this thread to here, so that all of the new forum updates will be posted here rather than in the monthly CN threads.

Admissions Manager

As some of you may know, Singapore has a censorship programme that we believe may be the reason that both Aranho and now Kevin cannot fully use their administrative powers. Following months of attempts by Kevin and myself to find a way around this, we have decided that it's best for Kevin to take a position that he can actually fulfill. So I'm pleased to announce that Kevin is our very first Admissions Manager! He will now take over the running of the Admissions Desk, and will post the checklists, open the polls and move threads to the approved/declined forums. Since this is a role admins did before anyway, it doesn't need to go through the Assembly and Senate. If this goes well, I may consider appointing other "Managers" as well, rather than having full-on administrators in the future.

AIN Games Forum

Some of you may have noticed that the naming system for the AIN Games area has changed, so that it's clearer for people to see when and where the previous AIN Games were held.

Meetings

Over the next couple of weeks I'm hoping to finalise a meeting reform and get the meetings back up and running again.
http://www.aoin.eu/meeting-room-f219/meeting-reform-t3663.htm#39620

Union Banner

Jo is still working on the new banner, so we are going to carry on using the October one into November, until the new banner is completed.

As always, comments are welcome on the changes to the Union.

[Blakeway4]

Changes are fine with me

[Thomas]

As you will all have noticed, we now have a new banner. It's not the exact one we had planned, but due to technical difficulties we've had to go for the second option. If you wish to have your country featured on the new banner, then PM or Skype me a clear, unedited and uncropped image, preferably a close zoom image as well - overviews don't really work.

[Thomas]

AIN Update

New Union Flag and Logo

After the vote on the new flag and logo was accepted, we now officially have a new flag and logo for the Alliance. Please use this in future advertising of the site, and we are working on a new emoticon for the union.

Banner

After a few minor technical hiccups overnight, the new banner is online and working. I will be adding more nations to it over the coming days, so if you wish to be part of the banner PM me with a plain, unedited image of your nation - preferably a close-up of a city.

Forum Buttons

You will have already noticed that we have new forum buttons. This is because the dove on the buttons was out of date, so we made some new ones. They could change again if people don't like them.

As always, comments are welcome on the changes to the Union.

[MiguelLeal]

Amazing work Thomas!

[Sky Guy]

great work team! :cheers:

[Luug]

Although not a member yet, I say job well done! But I must also add that the forum buttons could use another colour to tell when there are new posts, instead of another shade of blue.

[Jo]

true it is a bit confusing it needs to be a more contrasting colour

[Forsma]

Yeah, I like the old icon for it.

[Thomas]

Subject and Category icons changed.

[Luug]

[Blakeway4]

I like this, great initiative Thomas!

[Forsma]

I like the new icon, great work Thomas!

[Thomas]

Thank you all. As you may have noticed, with the addition of several new Asian nations and a decision to drop Africa from the list, I have decided to add an Asia section - which I'm sure will prove popular with our resident Canadian.

If we do get an African nation joining, then I will probably add it to Europe.

[Thomas]

Observers Area

Following the new Constitution being partly ratified, we now have an observers area under the Featured nation. Duwamish and Insulo can now post their threads in that area.

Sports Forum

The Sports Forum has now been revamped. All leagues from other websites - Simtropolis, SimSports and the AIFF - have been archived. The Sports area is now exclusively for AIN leagues, and is now known as the AIN Sports Leagues forum. The Union Games have been moved to the AGF forum in the Ministries area.

[Thomas]

Observers

The Confederacy of Free Regions has had a vote today on Observer status in other unions, and has now banned its members from being observers in other unions. Therefore the Republic of Insulo and Duwamish are no longer observers of the Alliance of Independent Nations, but will remain in the AIN Games until the end of the tournament unless the relevant authors request to be removed.
Relations with the COFR remain unchanged.

[Kevin]

Meh. They're *expletive deleted* anyway

[Forsma]

Thats not a good thing. :GG:

[Thomas]

Discussion Forum Renovation

This evening I've made a major change to the Discussion Forum - it's now called the Social Lounge and is home to the Arrivals and Departures forum, the Forum Games area, Holidays around the union and General Discussions, which is home to all the old threads from the Discussion Forum, and the Random forum has also gone. This gives us more room for threads that don't fit anywhere else and makes the Discussion Forum less higgledy-piggledy.

Union Information Centre

With the Social Lounge being created, the UIC has taken more of the inactive forums from Discussions. The Union Archives and Calendar have moved here, as well as this forum, the Forum Developments area.

Also, the Economy and Trades Minister and myself have been discussing a revamp for that department which will hopefully reduce the bureaucracy in that forum to increase role play.

[Blakeway4]

Random forum is gone? Thanks god, that was so useless.

[Thomas]

Random forum is gone - instead it's General Discussions, so it doesn't have to be completely random to talk about it now.

[Thomas]

POAP (Posts on a page)

I'm thinking of changing the number of posts shown on each thread. Currently it's twelve, but that's quite an uncoordinated number and I've never really had an explanation as to why we have it on twelve. So I'm considering either 10 posts on each page, or 15. Obviously ten means pages are shorter and more compact, and it's easier to work out whether there's a new page of posts, but there'd be more pages in all threads. 15 posts means pages are longer and are more likely to become congested, especially in CN's with picture updates, but there'd be less pages.

What do you guys think?

[Forsma]

I think its better to use 15.

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