Site Update

[MSG Commander]

I'm making some changes to the site to make it easier to maintain and also easier to prevent spam (and easier to spot spammers right away and deal with them, rather than let spam go undetected on parts of the site most of us don't frequent).

First, to deter spammers:

I'm shutting down the blog, and the Facebook-like profile "updates." Spammers figured out how to post all kinds of stuff in blog comments and in status updates and, well, the blog was kind of dead in the water already, anyway...

Unfortunately to shut down the status updates we also will lose the "Friends" feature, and the @mention capability. (They're all tied into the same basic components of BuddyPress and I don't know how to isolate the parts of that code that would keep just @mentions, so the easiest solution is to lose that functionality as well.)

All that @mention ever does anyway is to send an email to that user alerting them that their name was mentioned, so if you want to get a user's attention going forward, just send them a PM. I know it's not as convenient but it's the best all-around solution I have at the moment.

Also to make things easier to maintain...

I've eliminated the "completed games" section of user profiles (where you could check off which Kemco games you've finished.) I'm also eliminating that "Activity" feed and the corresponding activity page. (But we will still have the "Latest Discussion" list on the homepage.)

So, going forward, we now have the "Games" pages and the Forum. Each main "Game" page will still have the user reviews, and all existing walkthrough pages are staying. And since the forum is the most active part of the site - I'm leaving it as is.

Anyway I just wanted to let you all know what's going on.