GP Newsletter 9 (August 23, 2021) - It's... Been A While, Huh

[ShinxDaSphinx]

Hey everyone! Shinx here with the first newsletter in a year and a half. It’s been a while and a lot has happened, so let’s do our best to try and catch up with a brief newsletter. I’ll be covering the many major events since the last Newsletter. I’m trying my best to live up to the high standards of the old Newsletters, so feel free to submit any feedback you have.

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New Forum Moderators

The activity in the community has grown since the last newsletter, and additional help was required in helping moderate the many new posts, discussions, and developments in our forums.
This was a big step into keeping our site more tidy, organized, and an overall better place to be.
A recruitment form was set with two slots each for both the Fire Emblem Heroes and Fate/Grand Order Subcategories, and we’re proud to see so many of you stepped up, but The official announcement can be found here. Again, thank you all for applying and doing your part in keeping us a place to be proud of.

New Moderators:

Fire Emblem Heroes:

• @Umbriel
• @ShinxDaSphinx

Fate/Grand Order:

• @ArtificialSky
• @smoothbrains

Also, for those of you looking to help out yourselves, a new Leader application process is in the works!

Forum & Site Updates and Changes

For a while, the site was running an out-of-date version of Discourse, the forum software, do to extraneous circumstances. However, we are proud to announce that the site is now up to date and functional! While some of the changes might have been drastic and the first few days jarring, it has stabilized now into what I hope we can agree is a much better version. Thank you to @smoothbrains for keeping us up to date! For a full list of changes and improvements, check out the Forum QoL Updates section below.

Forum QoL Updates

• Minimum post length reduced from 5 to 1.
  • Should be easier to send emoji as responses now.
• Quote to Highlight is back.
  • Should be much easier to quote that blackmail you’ve had bookmarked.
• The game icons are back and the FEH one is updated.
  • For those of you that it bothered, you can sleep easy now
• New Do Not Disturb Setting to keep that zen no-notifications feel
  • Perfect if you want to check certain things but don’t need any additional distractions.
• Easier post link copying
  • Now there’s a button for it.
• Adding tags on mobile should be much easier
  • I don’t think anyone liked playing “Click the Pixel”
• Editing subcategories should be much easier
  • Add that Fluff subcategory, it’s basically the whole forum now
• Image Uploading has been optimized for speed
  • Less waiting around, more memeing

For any tech issues, questions, and feedback, please contact our wonderful tech admin @smoothbrains here

The Defender Badge

In the long time since we had our last newsletter, we’ve seen a lot of ups and downs within our little community, but those of us on the mod team agree that one shining constant through it all has been @cinnamon_cheshire and are proud to present her with the Defender Badge!

In case you didn’t know, the Defender Badge is one that our moderation team typically reserves for people who go above and beyond in having a positive impact in our little community here. Rin put it well in this way:

@Rin

We made the Defender badge to reward people who have been great by helping others in need and defusing situations before they escalate. A prime example of someone who isn’t a moderator but we trust greatly to do the right thing. Because the badge is situational, you’ll be able to earn it multiple times. You’ll also get a shout-out on the upcoming newsletter after you receive the Defender badge.

The Defender badge differs from T4 in that the Defender badge is a reward for situations when a user steps up for the community. The Defender badge is awarded by showing excellence in a situation.

(You can read more about it here)

For those familiar with Chessie, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, but as one of the most positive users here and an excellent conflict mediator, we would just like to recognize her for her work in improving our forum by presenting this badge to her. You’ve been making this place better, and we couldn’t have done it without you.

Did You Know?

Personalize your profile a little!

You can select your favorite badges to display on your profile user card by going to User > Badges and clicking the small star icon on any of the badges.

Go out there and show off your Poster – Tier 5!

Proud of something you achieved or did? You can also set a topic as your featured topic on your User Card by going to User > Preferences > Profile and selecting your Featured Topic at the bottom.
Show off your achievements, they’re something to be proud of after all!

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That’s all for now,

– Shinx

[Tac_Tacc]

Oh niiiice, loads of changes

Also gratz @cinnamon_cheshire! Never knew you got the title but you 100% deserve it

[Tac_Tacc]

Also random thing the Ghost interface looks pretty interesting highlighted posts are yellow within the margins

[Arcana]

I’m on the Drac Theme rn and I noticed your own messages in PMs are highlighted in Blue, not sure if that applies to the other themes or not

Also congrats to Chessie for getting the Defender Badge, it’d be criminal if you hadn’t gotten it after this long

[valkyrieStar23]

Am I the only one who still uses the Default theme tho with the light color scheme instead of dark ?

Anyways, this is my first newsletter in GP. Good to know that this thing exists in here…

Keep up the good work !

[Umbriel]

@ShinxDaSphinx

New Moderators:

Fire Emblem Heroes:

• @Umbriel

Woah what :0

I’m at a loss for words thank youuu

naw fr first newsletter in a while and it turned out great

glad I can actually be around for these

So glad we ain’t running on that rust bucket version of discourse anymore

And congrats to cinnamon_cheshire for that new defender badge

[ShinxDaSphinx]

@Umbriel

@ShinxDaSphinx

New Moderators:

Fire Emblem Heroes:

• @Umbriel

Woah what :0

I’m at a loss for words thank youuu

I’ll be revoking that now

[NpcLucario]

Congrats chessie!

You rock and you are definitely the most deserving person I can think of to earn defender, you’re super kind and helpful and always willing to help resolve any situation that comes up. I’m grateful for all you’ve done for this place and for me since I’ve met you here. You are always a bright spot when I visit here.

[Tac_Tacc]

@Arcana

I noticed your own messages in PMs are highlighted in Blue, not sure if that applies to the other themes or not

For Ghost themes it’s the same ye

[valkyrieStar23]

@Arcana

Also congrats to Chessie for getting the Defender Badge, it’d be criminal if you hadn’t gotten it after this long

Oops, forgot about that in my previous post
Congrats @cinnamon_cheshire for the defender badge, who knows what would happen to some of us if you weren’t around

[Umbriel]

I got logged out and I’m blaming you >:(

[ShinxDaSphinx]

[FutabaBestGirl]

@ShinxDaSphinx

Minimum post length reduced from 5 to 1.

reduce it to 0 so i don’t have to do < this shit>

[FutabaBestGirl]

can’t wait to apply to become a revue starlight mod
there are like 5 topics there and i’ve been active in all of them besides the one thread that’s actually about the game

[FutabaBestGirl]

yo @Tac_Tacc you’re back???
based

[ShinxDaSphinx]

Also a bit of news on future Newsletters:

Expect these perhaps monthly to bimonthly, although I’m lazy I kinda need content to write one of these so it might take a bit longer?

[NpcLucario]

You want content?

[ShinxDaSphinx]

Me banning you isn’t considered newsworthy

[Arcana]

Try seeing if you can strip Umbi of Mod Powers

That could make headlines

[LeiCiel]

‘Been a while’ is quite the understatement.

@ShinxDaSphinx

The game icons are back

Is this only applied to the “Smooth testing stuff” theme? Cause the game icons aren’t there on the Dracula theme.

Also, the site seems a bit laggy now. Things lag while I’m typing and when scrolling down sometimes the posts don’t load and I see a large blank space.