MeetFighters News

Hi everyone,

Just when I thought I had every reason to hate Microsoft, they give me one more. Starting a few days ago, Microsoft started blocking all e-mail messages from our server. That includes activation codes for registering users, message and event notifications, etc.

The block is not aimed at our server specifically, and instead appears to be a blanket block on the entire IP address range. I would like to advise all users with hotmail, msn or live.com addresses to switch to a provider that doesn't disservice you with such idiotic and thoroughly broken spam filtering. Google's mail service has given me the least headaches so far, so I would recommend that.

So... Trial users... Who are they?

It is my new term for people who have just registered here, but they haven't uploaded a photo yet (or they have but their photos are just not good enough). They really get the short end here, don't they? No initiating messages, no sending challenges, no chat, nothing. On top of that, they get messages about photo moderation and how the photos they uploaded are just not gonna cut it here.

How did it all begin? It began two years ago, when I wrote about Providers and Consumers. It was written at a time when people who didn't bother to finish their profiles started to show up en masse, and went straight to the chat annoying regular members. They are the ones who never bother to check out someone's profile and just start asking and endless stream of pointless questions. Granted, back then the site was much more liberal (I didn't even require one to write an introduction at registration time).

After that, the site became a lot more demanding: complete your profile or no chat. Post a photo or no messaging. It made sense, but it also made the site very unfriendly toward new members. In the long run, this unfriendliness has turned away many people who would eventually post their photos and become site regulars, if only they got a better first impression.

So: I am instituting a small change in the site policy: trial users can initiate 5 messages per day. They can still reply to messages without limit. In turn, it is now possible for regular members to block these messages from trial members. Just visit your Administration page.

A related change in site policy is that members with 10 or more past opponents are no longer considered trial members.

Other changes since the last site news:

• The French localization of the site has been updated. Thanks to ladron fr!

• You can now create a bunch of "canned messages" to send (donating members only).

• The Statistics page now treats the USA and Canada as one country (previously each state and province was listed separately). It also shows now the top donating countries. I wrote a separate blog entry about the new insights, like how generous the UK guys are or how few members are from Africa.

• You can now download your private notes in a .zip file. It is also possible to sort your private notes by date.

• Rearranged profile pages to show all the "action buttons" at the top.

• The "who has seen my profile" link is back on the main menu by popular demand.

• Mobile browsers are now automatically detected and presented the compact site view. This can be overridden on the Administration page.

• Defunct fight venues are displayed differently on the list.

• Search results are displayed faster without a page reload.

• For photo moderators, the number of photos to be moderated is displayed more accurately.

• It is now possible to edit your comments for about 10 minutes after posting them.

• The site's RSS feed includes some pretty pictures.

• The site newsletter coloring problem is resolved.

• Your photo thumbnail appears at the top of the screen.

Dear AllFighters,

Yesterday I have moved the site to a new server, hopefully one that will prove faster in those busy hours than the one before. In peek hours, the site typically serves a few hundred pages per minute; and I estimate that the new server will be able to keep up with the present rate of growth for a while.

Unfortunately big changes have a tendency to cause problems. Last night, the automatic update mechanism (the one responsible for security updates) decided to update a software package that I have patched myself for this site. Unfortunately this undid the patch by overwriting it with a newer version! This has caused all kinds of hell breaking loose!

I would like to thank everyone for reporting these problems! I could fix them all very quickly, but your feedback has been useful.

So, the new server seems to be serving pages much quicker. It is the nature of things that the associated monthly costs are higher. If you are happy with the page and can spare the money, please donate! (The site's existence is not at risk if you don't so there's no pressure, I'm just looking to share the costs and motivation.)

Other changes since the news/2012-03-04 March site update:

• There is a new calendar feature available to all users.
• The Help & Support page now shows previous help requests by the same users, providing some context. Also, all supporters can now see the escalated entries.
• Added "Translate" buttons to all comment streams.
• Added an "Unread messages" and "Unreplied messages" views to the messages page.
• Fixed a bug that caused the gallery tab not to display on mobile browsers.
• Date selection on various pages has been improved (with a new date picker widget).
• Fight Venues now show map and location information.
• I can now delete superfluous Fight Venues.
• The "Search" form in the lefthand column looks nicer.
• Lots of small bugfixes and enhancements.

Looks like I've been busy there :)

Dear members,

I have changed the Fight Venues page this week. It is now a bit more wiki-like: any member with three or more past opponents can go and edit the pages there. Hopefully this will provide more up-to-date information, turning this neglected part of the site into something useful.

Also, you can now submit private fight spaces and I added some more facilities (e.g. sauna and massage).

In other news, I am working on a calendar feature. It's coming along nicely.

Smaller changes since the last site news include:

• Translation updates. Members of the translation team will start getting special medals, just like the site supporters. (See green medal on right!)
• A cleaner Bugs and Suggestions page.
• Match Requests now show the date of modification.
• Messages now show links to the messages that this message is in reply to.
• The left column of the site has been reordered to show "Your account" more prominently.
• Miscellaneous fixes.

Hi everyone,

I would like to start with a big thank you to all the people who have helped me run this site. I'm thinking about the guys who have helped translate and are active on the Help and Support page. It takes a big burden off my shoulders and frees me up to improve the site!

So, starting this month, the top 5 supporters get a special medal on their profiles. It looks like a red gem with the AllFighters pictogram on it. (I will also be giving something similar to the localization team soon.) In addition to looking cool, the supporter medal grants all the little perks that donating members get.

Want to become a site supporter? If you are black or brown belt photo moderator, have at least 3 recommendation and willing to help the site, apply with management! :)

In other news:

• I have completed a big performance tuning on the site. It should be considerably snappier in those peak hours.
• E-mail notifications of messages are now limited to at most 1/hour.
• I started purging users who haven't logged in in over a year. This involves deleting their blogs, their profile data and other residuals. The end effect, in addition to freeing up some system resources is that these old profile names are again available and someone else can register them.
• Redesigned the Administration page, grouping all the options in three broad categories. This should make it a bit easier to find what you need. I also removed all these links from the "main" pages in the interest of cleaning up the interface a bit.
• I have split the list on the photo management page into four tabs (profile, private, gallery and unmoderated) to make it the interface a bit easier to understand. I also moved the photo upload form to a separate page.
• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused the unread message count to become negative.
• Lots of behind-the-scenes changes.