Notes from our Fearless Leader

New and Upcoming Changes to the Site
by Rivka

As you’ve most likely noticed by now, the menu bar on the left-hand column of the site is completely changed. This was done because the former menu structure was too long, and too difficult to navigate. We were also running into the problem of wanting to add more items to it, and not having any room to do so! We hope that the new navigation menu is more intuitive, and easier to navigate, as well as having links to every possible part of the site.

For those of you for whom the little pop-ups are annoying or difficult to use, keep in mind that the top-level links work as well, and will take you to a sub-page with all the links that the pop-ups contain. M also recently changed all of the links at the top of the themes to reflect the more important or heavily used parts of the site, so don’t forget about using those as well to navigate the site. If you have any suggestions or comments about the new navigation changes, feel free to PM me or post in the Announcements Forum.

The Council will be switching over to a new chat software in the near future. For those of you who have used the chat in the past and had to deal with some rather obnoxious trolls, this new chat will hopefully relieve your mind, as it will make dealing with problem-makers much easier for the mods. It doesn’t have all the features that our old one had, unfortunately, such as actions or bold text. It does have some other fun features, though, including smilies, colored text, and some cool private chat functions such as ignoring other users (perfect for those people that you don’t like who keep pestering you with annoying private chat requests). Keep an eye out for the announcement of the switchover to the new chat, which should occur within the next week. Thanks to everyone who donated so generously towards the new chat program — we couldn’t have done it without your help!

Finally, the Council will soon be announcing the addition of Realms to the site. The admins are still hammering out the details, but basically, people will be able to sign up for the Realm of their choice that most fits their personality or that interests them the most. Every Realm will be helmed by an admin, with two members assisting them. Each Realm will have their own private forum, charter, and activities. If you have any suggestions about how the Realms should be conducted, ideas for activities, or just want to throw out some ideas, please PM me. We welcome any and all suggestions, and will take them all under consideration.