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- Oct 8, 2012
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- www.autoflower.org
Good morning everyone!
Well we've officially completed our server hardware upgrade and our migration to our new data center! The new hardware that runs the site is incredibly faster than our original box (which was some of the same hardware that ran AFN when we first started!) We're also on a faster, more stable connection to boot!
This was the first step in our upgrade process for the forum. Now that the hardware upgrade and move is done, we're going to start developing out a version of the forum on the latest versions of the same software we currently use to run it. I've actually been testing out the latest version now for several weeks, and it is NIGHT and DAY faster, more responsive, and allows us a ton more options to help run the site, make things manageable for you all, and keeps things updated and modern.
We're working on implementing upgraded/revised aspects of most things on the site.
We have a new "blogging" software for grow journals that should make grow journals almost a TREAT to read (no more sorting through 500 pages of comments to find the 1 update every couple of pages!)
We have a new review system that will make reviews easy to read, easy to write.
We have a new video system we're working on to let those with YouTube/Vimeo accounts post their vids in a gallery setting.
We have a new live chat room system that allows for live, instant text chatting.
We're looking at higher limits for image file sizes in general on the forum, and even higher limits for your Media Gallery albums (including larger storage too.)
We're looking to implement a "wiki" style information page, that will allow us to choose community curators to help with the information and a system that would allow anyone in the community to submit potential updates, corrections, or even to challenge anything that may be considered wrong, opinion, or misinformation (pretty excited about this, it's a "everyone put your hands in on this one" kind of project.)
We're also taking a hard look at creating a more fluid navigation experience. A lot of the new software really "cleans up" up and adds polish to the look and feel of things, so I really think the site in general is going to run much faster and be way more enjoyable to get around and do things on.
The tentative goal is to start working on the development for this in the next month.
In other rather major news, we're also launching a new sister site to AFN called High of the Tiger (HOTT.) We've watched now for almost 4 years our product testing and grow battle format grow from a small infant into full blown teenager (complete with smelly socks, eating all the food out of the fridge then leaving the fridge door open, and the attitude lol.) We asked several growers feedback on how they felt about these aspects of the site, the feedback was almost staggering in the consistency of "we like it, but it seems like it's overtaking the site anymore." So our solution was to simply shift that part of the concept over, giving it it's own dedicated space that's built specifically around that idea and concept.
AFN will remain emphasized on cultivation education for home/small-scale growing and the social aspect of cannabis, and High of the Tiger will be emphasized on competitive grow battles and our product testing program.
We won't see vendor forums go away on AFN necessarily, but the shift and focus of the battles and testing will be redirected to the sister-site. You won't see threads/forums on "how to grow" or "what's wrong with my plant" on the competitive site, and conversely we're pushing so you don't have to look at all the competitive stuff in the side bar here when you're looking for answers or just documenting in a casual grow journal.
That keeps AFN about the grow, and that pushes the competition and testing to HOTT for the show.
The new site is hosted on it's own separate box and at a separate data center location. This also give us an extra layer of protection if we ever run into issues with one site going down (or the other site going down,) plus both sites will be on the same version of the forum software, so the experience will be VERY, VERY similar between the two sites (both in look and feel, just not in content.)
It's also in total development right now, we're building things out, testing out features, removing some things, etc. We'll be live with it for testing out journals and battles likely within a week or two!
So awesome and new things on the way! We hope these are all positive changes (we think they will be, we literally compiled dozens of pages of feedback from members from various things we've asked about and we're looking at what's feasible, what's not, and what we can do to make this a better place to hang out and journal and grow.)
Thanks everyone!
Well we've officially completed our server hardware upgrade and our migration to our new data center! The new hardware that runs the site is incredibly faster than our original box (which was some of the same hardware that ran AFN when we first started!) We're also on a faster, more stable connection to boot!
This was the first step in our upgrade process for the forum. Now that the hardware upgrade and move is done, we're going to start developing out a version of the forum on the latest versions of the same software we currently use to run it. I've actually been testing out the latest version now for several weeks, and it is NIGHT and DAY faster, more responsive, and allows us a ton more options to help run the site, make things manageable for you all, and keeps things updated and modern.
We're working on implementing upgraded/revised aspects of most things on the site.
We have a new "blogging" software for grow journals that should make grow journals almost a TREAT to read (no more sorting through 500 pages of comments to find the 1 update every couple of pages!)
We have a new review system that will make reviews easy to read, easy to write.
We have a new video system we're working on to let those with YouTube/Vimeo accounts post their vids in a gallery setting.
We have a new live chat room system that allows for live, instant text chatting.
We're looking at higher limits for image file sizes in general on the forum, and even higher limits for your Media Gallery albums (including larger storage too.)
We're looking to implement a "wiki" style information page, that will allow us to choose community curators to help with the information and a system that would allow anyone in the community to submit potential updates, corrections, or even to challenge anything that may be considered wrong, opinion, or misinformation (pretty excited about this, it's a "everyone put your hands in on this one" kind of project.)
We're also taking a hard look at creating a more fluid navigation experience. A lot of the new software really "cleans up" up and adds polish to the look and feel of things, so I really think the site in general is going to run much faster and be way more enjoyable to get around and do things on.
The tentative goal is to start working on the development for this in the next month.
In other rather major news, we're also launching a new sister site to AFN called High of the Tiger (HOTT.) We've watched now for almost 4 years our product testing and grow battle format grow from a small infant into full blown teenager (complete with smelly socks, eating all the food out of the fridge then leaving the fridge door open, and the attitude lol.) We asked several growers feedback on how they felt about these aspects of the site, the feedback was almost staggering in the consistency of "we like it, but it seems like it's overtaking the site anymore." So our solution was to simply shift that part of the concept over, giving it it's own dedicated space that's built specifically around that idea and concept.
AFN will remain emphasized on cultivation education for home/small-scale growing and the social aspect of cannabis, and High of the Tiger will be emphasized on competitive grow battles and our product testing program.
We won't see vendor forums go away on AFN necessarily, but the shift and focus of the battles and testing will be redirected to the sister-site. You won't see threads/forums on "how to grow" or "what's wrong with my plant" on the competitive site, and conversely we're pushing so you don't have to look at all the competitive stuff in the side bar here when you're looking for answers or just documenting in a casual grow journal.
That keeps AFN about the grow, and that pushes the competition and testing to HOTT for the show.
The new site is hosted on it's own separate box and at a separate data center location. This also give us an extra layer of protection if we ever run into issues with one site going down (or the other site going down,) plus both sites will be on the same version of the forum software, so the experience will be VERY, VERY similar between the two sites (both in look and feel, just not in content.)
It's also in total development right now, we're building things out, testing out features, removing some things, etc. We'll be live with it for testing out journals and battles likely within a week or two!
So awesome and new things on the way! We hope these are all positive changes (we think they will be, we literally compiled dozens of pages of feedback from members from various things we've asked about and we're looking at what's feasible, what's not, and what we can do to make this a better place to hang out and journal and grow.)
Thanks everyone!
probably got the pieces in my libraries written already from other projects 
News!
