Chaos

Um, I understand your frustration. You can contribute to it! There is literally so much to do; if it is not there and you want it to be, you can add it! I would agree many character articles need expansion. We have a very small set of regular editors... So I would encourage you to contribute and try not to get too frustrated in general. There are over two thousand articles. Stuff needs to be added. It will always be a work in progress, and we'd love any help you can give. Regarding tense, FeatherWriter persuaded us that encyclopedic standard is to use, I think she called it "universal present". But history should be in past tense.

Actually the server maintenance message is: The Lord Ruler is currently holding the UNNNNNLIMITED POWER of the Well of Ascension, so the world needs to go into maintenance mode so he can do his work. (Don't worry, he probably won't break much)

I'm the only one allowed to cackle villainously here. Also:

You're all fired

Actually I only meant the IB software, and on the moderator front I was referring to the other posts on page 1 about bad moderators. I have no idea about anything of the IB forums except that I really hate that layout and software. I should have made that more clear.

This and all the other posts in this thread make me so happy I could nearly cry. A very long time ago, I ran other forums, when I was like 13. I didn't create it, but I did become an admin. Later there had been drama, and so there was a spinoff of that site of the people who didn't like the root admin, but liked everyone else. Then there were spinoffs of that too. I learned a lot of things moderating stuff on those boards. I left those forums when I went to college (but they weren't active anymore anyway), and I spent most my time on Timewaster's Guide, where Brandon's forums were then. And let me tell you, if you told me that I'd be the web admin for Brandon's official forums back then, I never would have believed you. Anyway, I met Mi'ch, and later, I met Josh when those two got together. Mi'ch wanted to create a fansite, and though I was busy, I told her that I would do it if I was the forum god. Then I became the sysadmin--which by the way, still terrifies me. That turned out to be the perfect time to create a fansite, because Brandon's fans, unsurprisingly, are remarkably cogent and considerate people. Now we are larger than TWG ever was. It's honestly mind-boggling. I can't take credit for 17th Shard's success, though. You see, the key thing I realized about running a forum is that the admins can never be what keeps the site alive. Sure, we do stuff, but you all are the ones posting so frequently. I used to have the highest post count (and rep!) other than Brandon, but I am not sad that I no longer am. The days where my posts were literally a high percentage of the posts on the forum are long gone, and this is the best thing. 17th Shard is a vibrant community that is run by you, you amazing people. That's what is going to keep this site alive where all the other forums I ran had failed. (Of course, Brandon having a lot of books to come helps too.) When I read about those other forums, I want to murder someone, and that Infinity Blade forum makes me want to stab my eyes out. (I've grown very particular in my desires out of forum software, and IPB thankfully has basically all of it.) Those moderators? Ugh. I hope that we will always be as open as we are now. I'm not going anywhere, nor is any of the staff (hell, on the wiki we make sure we plan a long time in advance, like how will this scheme work in a decade. We aren't going anywhere). Our job is not some powertrip community with like twenty active members, like some of the old forums I ran were. We are here to serve you, and to keep this a place where all Brandon fans are welcome and love going to. I hope we are doing well. If we aren't, bug us. Sure there are some rules, which we try to keep up to date as possible, but it basically comes down to not being a jerk, and if someone is doing that, then Report them and we will deal with it. One thing I'd like to do is try and keep moderator action obvious so people aren't like "hey why did this seemingly reasonable person get banned?" But, it's a tough balance, since you don't want to give jerks a forum to be jerks, and if people do get better--which has happened in our disciplining!--it's better if the talks happened in private, so others don't turn things into a witch hunt. Then there's times where you need to keep information confidential, too. It's hard to balance all of those needs with the basic desire to keep you updated. It's a conversation with you all, at the end of the day. We want to make things better for you. I often ask Peter and Team Sanderson what they'd like out of us, and you can bet your butt if they wanted something done, we'd probably do it. This is all a service we do to you and the community. We volunteer our time, and actually lose money. We're doing this for you all. This was long and rambly, but I hope you enjoy yourself here for a very long time to come. Come to us any time if something is not right, like a member not acting as they should. We'll make it right. P.S. I saw a post saying "I can't believe there are no sig restrictions!" With an enhanced mobile version (coming in the next update) that shows signatures, there will probably be a lot more stringent restrictions on those. But just know that it is only because I want the mobile site to be as awesome as possible. It's hard for me to tell exactly what rules will be good until we port it over--there's only so much I can really see from an empty test board. Just wanted to make you guys aware! P.P.S. I read Eragon in high school and it gave me motivation to write. I liked Eldest too, at the time. But I discovered Brandon after that, and I distinctly remember reading Book 3 of that and it being a boring slog. Then Hero of Ages came out the next month, and I was reminded how books should be. I never bothered to read Inheritance; I had much better things

That is up to them if they wish to do so. You can contact the active mods if you like. I am too busy, and honestly, I think a lot of them are as well. But I cannot speak to what they want so they might.

If you can persuade a moderator for something like that, maybe, but it is a lot of work to keep such things up to date. Just look how hard it is to keep the Ultimate List of Questions up to date.

Try a 100x100 image? Does that not work? I'm not quite sure why this would be.

It's mostly because the Blog module is pretty crappy. I haven't investigated if it is better in the new version. That and lack of use is why it is not emphasized.

A little outdated I think, but was totally complete a bit ago: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Southern_Peoples_of_Scadrial(wrote by yours truly)

THAT IS THE BEST IMAGE

Not a worry!

Not to be sassy, but It's eric [at] 17thshard.com See, on the forum description

Yes, it will! Hopefully it doesn't suck, but it should give you a notification, which you could set to email you or not.

Very interesting! Nicely done.

That explains why you are here all the time How could I compete? I'm not technically in college anymore. ...I'm just a college professor now. Totally different

It's not an issue for us. Thank you, though.

Have him email me, as per the description of this forum. His account is probably just flipping the spam service.

Thanks for explaining. The new mobile version will be better. I'm sorry there won't be a dark theme, though (more skins means more work, again). Tapatalk integration won't be a thing due to the popups telling people to get it.

Sorry, you will need to wait until the site update for that.

Click Start New Topic and there are poll options on the right hand side of the screen.

I was Brandon all along!!

Not at all, thank you for letting me know.

I deleted my post to talk to someone and resolve this. I've fixed the main terribleness, but apparently I need to make it a priority to make the Feruchemy page suck less. The Hybrid metals are now labeled with that quote about two physical quadrants.