Important Changes are coming to your forum

[Tunnel King]

Good day, Terrarians,

The past few months have been busy for Terraria, with updates/releases for Console, Switch and Mobile, as well as more updates coming for all platforms as we head to Journey's End.

We haven't forgotten that Terraria Community Forums needs some love and attention as well, and we've been working behind the scenes to make that so. As we explained with the last major update, while we currently have a stable base for the forum, it will be passing into a non-support mode at the end of this year. Thus, we are taking a big step to upgrade the forum software now so that we have the maximum support and can provide the best experience possible for the community going forward.

We don't have a specific date/time yet for when this will happen, but it will likely require that the forum be unavailable for a time, perhaps for several hours. We will announce well ahead of time when this will occur.

We have scheduled these updates to occur on 26 September 2019 at 9:00am GMT.
The site will be down for several hours starting at that time.​

What won't change?

Change can be hard, and can cause anxiety for some. The basic organization and navigation won't change much, and should still be mostly familiar to people.

• Your account will stay the same,
• Your posted content will still be there,
• Your trophies/titles, likes*, and other things you care about will still be there,
• The 'forum themes' (Overworld/Snow/Crimson etc) will still be there.

Quick summary/description of what will change

NOTE: This will be intentionally brief and short on specifics, we will have detailed guides and information at the time of the update. These are just the highlights, and may not include all new features.

Easier navigation. More options for posting a thread, a floating top navigation bar as you scroll down, 'back to top' buttons.

Better profile posting. Instead of having to master BB Codes to insert images and formatting, the Rich Text Editor will be available for statuses, profile posts, AND profile comments.

• The "character" limit for all three will be 420 characters (currently, a status post is limited to 140). This is a hard limit imposed by the software and cannot be changed easily. There also won't be a character countdown indicator, as that will not work reliably with Rich Text.
• All of the normal posting features from threads will now be available, including spoilers. (No, you won't be able to go over the character limit by using spoilers.)
  
• There will no longer be a separate button to comment on a profile post; there will be an obvious place to start a comment right below the post/previous comment. (No more telling new folks "comment button to the right".)
• You will still be able to use BB Codes if you prefer that.

Some new rich text/bbcode formatting. Inline spoilers, inline code, more formats supported for code blocks, more media site options (example: embed a SoundCloud player into your post )

*"Likes" are evolving into "Reactions". Instead of just one choice for reacting to a post, you will now have 6 options:

Like (default choice, adds +1 to reaction score):

Love (adds +1 to reaction score):

Haha (adds +1 to reaction score):

Wow (adds +1 to reaction score):

Sad (does not contribute to reaction score):

Angry (does not contribute to reaction score):

• You still may only have one reaction to a post, but you can change or remove it later,
• Your personal "like" total will now be your "reaction score" and should be unchanged from before the update,
  
• Any previous rules/policies about abusing likes ("likebombing" to artificially inflate/reduce a person's reaction score or to annoy someone with alert spam, begging for reactions) will apply to reactions and still be in force.

Bookmarks! This is a new integrated feature for saving links to forum threads/posts that you want to refer back to later. Much like bookmarks in your browser, but just for your favorite TCF content, along with features to organize them with labels.

Better organization for your conversations (PMs). If your inbox is stuffed with conversations (like me), there will be nifty new options for labeling and even auto-sorting them by content/participants. Also an auto-responder feature if you're going to be away for a while.

Improved support for mobile devices. The new look of the forum will be completely responsive on mobile devices now. It will be easier to navigate, use menus, and see what you want to see. It will look more like an "app" than ever before.

• Use emojis in your posts, just like in text and other apps.
• Push notifications for alerts (for some devices/browsers). A frequently requested feature we haven't been able to provide before now. You can customise your alerts to send push notifications to your device, if it supports that. Please note: we do not know at this point exactly how this works or why it only works with certain device/browser combinations. We understand that Apple mobile devices in particular are not supported due to restrictions imposed by Apple.

Thread tagging. This is in the current version, but disabled. We hope to be able to find a way to put this to good use going forward.



Well, that's all for now. We'll keep you all informed of when you can expect to see these new features and when we will be doing the forum maintenance.

 

[Jetstreme ∞]

Excellent news!! Considering the 5 year anniversary of the forums (wow, where did my time go?!) is right around the corner, this is pretty good timing. The standout piece of news, here, though:

​

• The "character" limit for all three will be 420 characters (currently, a status post is limited to 140).
• There will no longer be a separate button to comment on a profile post; there will be an obvious place to start a comment right below the post/previous comment. (No more telling new folks "comment button to the right".)

We are truly entering the golden age

 

[sharkman0101]

Always nice seeing the forum software get a facelift. Can't wait to see how it plays out!

 

[Laluzi]

Not a fan of the reactions, especially the negative ones. Angry in particular seems like it'll just get used as a dislike button.

I've always felt subcategories of likes were redundant, but I can deal with them. Less so with those last two. Their proper use, reacting to other people's stories and experiences, seems more the realm of 'post an actual comment instead of a preset face that can easily be misinterpreted.'

 

[Jerion 'Wyverntamer' Kràl]

Love (adds +1 to reaction score):

If only I could already give this one, you'd have the first love reaction, TK!

Not a fan of the reactions, especially the negative ones. Angry in particular seems like it'll just get used as a dislike button.

I've always felt subcategories of likes were redundant, but I can deal with them. Less so with those last two. Their proper use, reacting to other people's stories and experiences, seems more the realm of 'post an actual comment instead of a preset face that can easily be misinterpreted.'

Laluzi, I agree about the negative ones, but the positive ones can give some more nuance, for example, giving someone a 'love' (or hug) reaction to support them when they share bad news. That is better than liking a bad news post.

 

[Tunnel King]

Not a fan of the reactions, especially the negative ones. Angry in particular seems like it'll just get used as a dislike button.

I've always felt subcategories of likes were redundant, but I can deal with them. Less so with those last two. Their proper use, reacting to other people's stories and experiences, seems more the realm of 'post an actual comment instead of a preset face that can easily be misinterpreted.'

We're not going to have negative reactions (as in ones that decrease likes/reaction score).

If people start playing games with them, then we'll just make all the scores 0 and be done with it. The reactions will just be visual and have no effect.


----

Another "upgrade" I forgot to mention - we'll now be able to show ALL the birthdays, not just the first 12 alphabetically.

 

[Jerion 'Wyverntamer' Kràl]

Another "upgrade" I forgot to mention - we'll now be able to show ALL the birthdays, not just the first 12 alphabetically.

Another thing to send a 'love' reaction to! I always disliked it, since I always miss the birthdays of people I actually want to congratulate, this'll be great to remember them.

 

[Laluzi]

We're not going to have negative reactions (as in ones that decrease likes/reaction score).

If people start playing games with them, then we'll just make all the scores 0 and be done with it. The reactions will just be visual and have no effect.

That's not really my concern. I know they have no numerical value, but from experiences on similar forums and just forum behavior in general, I expect people to use the angry face to quickly and wordlessly disapprove of things they think are wrong or stupid. It's easier and more visceral than explaining why you disagree with something, and lets you stay relatively uninvolved - the author of the post has to call you out from relative anonymity instead of responding to something you said.

The sad face is a lot less abusable because its context is less universally applicable, and I think it has more uses that don't involve upsetting someone else anyway.

As long as this concern has been noted and the team understands the potential abuses, I can live with it.

Laluzi, I agree about the negative ones, but the positive ones can give some more nuance, for example, giving someone a 'love' (or hug) reaction to support them when they share bad news. That is better than liking a bad news post.

Yeah. More I think of it, you're pretty right on that one - it's awkward to like somebody's post about a personal tragedy (or even just a post on how they accidentally logged off after they dropped their Rod of Discord), but expanded reactions lets you less ambiguously support someone.

 

[Grumpy Squid]

That's not really my concern. I know they have no numerical value, but from experiences on similar forums and just forum behavior in general, I expect people to use the angry face to quickly and wordlessly disapprove of things they think are wrong or stupid. It's easier and more visceral than explaining why you disagree with something, and lets you stay relatively uninvolved - the author of the post has to call you out from relative anonymity instead of responding to something you said.

The sad face is a lot less abusable because its context is less universally applicable, and I think it has more uses that don't involve upsetting someone else anyway.

As long as this concern has been noted and the team understands the potential abuses, I can live with it

I'm not so sure I agree with that particular perspective of it. The way I see it, someone has every right to disagree with something and choose how they show disaprectiation of said content within the confines of the rules. If someone doesn't like something, but they don't want to get into an argument or debate about the subject, I see no harm in a user reacting with an angry or sad face and then moving on.

. Yeah. More I think of it, you're pretty right on that one - it's awkward to like somebody's post about a personal tragedy (or even just a post on how they accidentally logged off after they dropped their Rod of Discord), but expanded reactions lets you less ambiguously support someone.

This in my mind is the ideal way to use anger and sadness though, but I respect a users right to react to any post however they want.
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Bookmarks are where this updates at though. I've needed this for so long. I have to revisit cases I work with fairly frequently and it will be a lot easier to bookmark and label a case based on the actual issue that needed to be resolved and not have to sort through a thousand threads all named "Terraria crash".

 

[Jetstreme ∞]

If people start playing games with them, then we'll just make all the scores 0 and be done with it

My weekend plans

Yeah, let’s not have a reaction-bomb war like what happened when the forums first came out. That was chaos

 

[NBRI]

I... Have no idea what to say here, other than that I'm worried, as may (or may not) have been mentioned before, that there's going to be problems with these changes.
I mean, I hope not, but it's still possible.

 

[Tunnel King]

I... Have no idea what to say here, other than that I'm worried, as may (or may not) have been mentioned before, that there's going to be problems with these changes.
I mean, I hope not, but it's still possible.

If you're worried about the update breaking things - we're testing it in parallel to make sure it goes smoothly.

If you're worried about new features not being well-received or abused - then all I can say is time will tell.

If we don't upgrade to keep up proper support, then things will start to break around here again.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

Thread tagging is amazing and I sincerely cannot wait to see if/how it gets implemented here. I could ramble on and on about suggestions for potential thread tags! Organization is such a big deal. Especially to a lurker like me.

Super excited to see reactions are coming in as well, super happy that we can put down neutral/upset ones as well.

Shine on you crazy diamonds. I know I lurk so much that I barely have a horse in this race but I'm hyped.

 

[Jetstreme ∞]

If you're worried about the update breaking things - we're testing it in parallel to make sure it goes smoothly.

If you're worried about new features not being well-received or abused - then all I can say is time will tell.

If we don't upgrade to keep up proper support, then things will start to break around here again.

Even if there’s a few issues, I feel like overall the upgrade is going to give this place a very nice facelift and there’s not gonna be anything unresolvable. You guys are good at making decisions

 

[NBRI]

If you're worried about the update breaking things - we're testing it in parallel to make sure it goes smoothly.

If you're worried about new features not being well-received or abused - then all I can say is time will tell.

If we don't upgrade to keep up proper support, then things will start to break around here again.

My concern was that these changes would cause both problems- that they'd allow the rules to be bent, if they don't straight up destroy the TCF. Or worse, Xenforo* would break as a result of these changes.
*Did I spell that right?

 

[Jerion 'Wyverntamer' Kràl]

My concern was that these changes would cause both problems- that they'd allow the rules to be bent, if they don't straight up destroy the TCF. Or worse, Xenforo* would break as a result of these changes.
*Did I spell that right?

Yes you spelt it right.

I know of at least one other forum that uses a multiple type of reaction system (Sufficient Velocity) and that forum isn't broken, so I don't think it'd break TCF. I don't know what rules it'd break, but I think that the TCF staff would keep that all in mind.

 

[Grumpy Squid]

My concern was that these changes would cause both problems- that they'd allow the rules to be bent, if they don't straight up destroy the TCF. Or worse, Xenforo* would break as a result of these changes.
*Did I spell that right?

The only changes that are happening are to the front end forum software and back end of the server. There are no changes happening to rules/guidelines/community structure of TCF.

The only thing that would "break" various features of Xenforo would be not updating the forum and leaving it to become stale for a few years. Like TK mentioned we've been doing a lot of testing in parallel, which means, we know exactly what will and what won't happen the day we update. This process allows us to find and anticipate problems before they happen on our live server.

Having said that, the staff will be watching very closely once the site comes back up after the upgrades are done and we let users back on. So IF there's anything we didn't catch be it a visual bug or otherwise, we'll be able to address it that day.

 

[NBRI]

The only changes that are happening are to the front end forum software and back end of the server. There are no changes happening to rules/guidelines/community structure of TCF.

The only thing that would "break" various features of Xenforo would be not updating the forum and leaving it to become stale for a few years. Like TK mentioned we've been doing a lot of testing in parallel, which means, we know exactly what will and what won't happen the day we update. This process allows us to find and anticipate problems before they happen on our live server.

Having said that, the staff will be watching very closely once the site comes back up after the upgrades are done and we let users back on. So IF there's anything we didn't catch be it a visual bug or otherwise, we'll be able to address it that day.

I'm still a bit nervous about changing, but thank you for easing the bulk of my concern.
One question: Do you have an ETA on this update?

 

[Grumpy Squid]

I'm still a bit nervous about changing, but thank you for easing the bulk of my concern.
One question: Do you have an ETA on this update?

When it's ready

 

[Ordinary Orange]

While you do this, could you please fix “these words were removed because they were either too long, too short, or to common:” it is extremely annoying.