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New Forum - Features worth checking out, tips and tricks


misteraven

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Hello everyone and welcome to the new 12ozProphet Forum. Almost hard to call it a forum since it has so many features that extend well beyond the typical forum system most people know. In any case, I'm pretty pumped about this and see it as a huge step forward.

 

As most of you guys know, the 12ozProphet Forum was launched back in 1999 making it almost 20 years old. It's had its up and down, has evolved through many iterations over the years and though the "dark years" of the forum technically ended with the launch of the last forum, this one was developed and launched to help make the 12ozProphet Forum a more compelling option to social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook (read this thread for the full story on why we're starting to turn away from social media).

 

Anyhow, I figured I'd start this thread to help introduce you guys to a lot of the new stuff on here and as a place for you guys to ask questions or share some trick or feature that you cam up on and are pumped on.

 

To start off, here's a few really cool new sections (features):

 

12ozProphet Groups: https://forum.12ozprophet.com/groups/

The Groups section is basically a clone of Reddit / Subreddit. Any member can decide to start their own group by submitting a request using the "Start A Group" button in the top right. You can choose to have a totally public (open) group, semi-private (read only) or totally private (closed) group. The person that starts it owns their group and can decide how its setup. You get to create your own moderators, decide on topics and essentially do whatever you want including making it invisible and approving join requests and booting members.

 

12ozProphet Spotlights: https://forum.12ozprophet.com/ourpicks/

This is what we consider to be the "Best of 12ozProphet". Right now there is only a couple threads I highlighted, but over time, myself and the mods will add the most classic forum threads on 12oz to this section. Feel free to DM suggestions, but essentially this section is for the new jacks and lurkers to be able to jump straight into the good shit, before exploring the forum at large.

 

12ozProphet Hall of Fame: https://forum.12ozprophet.com/mvp/

I'm kind of psyched about this section actually. Far beyond just being a leaderboard of who has the most posts, this actually tallies members based upon their involvement on the forum. You'll note on each post (bottom right), a button that allows you to "react" to that post. Far better than "likes" or the old "props" thing we had on the old forum, this has a wider range of options. Each option in the reactions has a positive or negative point value and the new forum tracks all that with weekly winners being added to the MVP list in the Hall of Fame. I'm planning to run a weekly contest once the dust settles and will announce prizes ranging from free 12ozProphet product, to shop discounts, stickers or VIP access to weekly winners.

 

Also, you can see what threads are bumping as it also tracks "reactions" to the posts within each individual thread and then ranks them accordingly.

 

Activity Streams: https://forum.12ozprophet.com/discover/ and https://forum.12ozprophet.com/discover/followed-content/

This section is really cool as well... This is essentially a method for you to track all that's happening on the boards. It's completely customizable to how and what you want, but the Activity Stream allows you to see all activity for the people and threads you follow. It shows you all the comments, reactions, new posts, etc in chronological order, giving you a complete overview of everything you're likely most interested in, while also serving as a quick link to jump straight into the threads you're following. Super freakin handy once you get a feel for it. And again, it can be fully customized (just use the green circle with the check mark near the top to set the customized feed as your default).

 

12ozProphet Support: https://forum.12ozprophet.com/support/

Not especially sexy, but super convenient for you guys and for the people on the support end to be able to handle questions and help with utmost organization and efficiency. It's essentially a Help Desk / Ticketing system and makes it far better to be able to track what's happening when someone asks fro help compared to monitoring an email inbox. In any case, it's my way of trying to make amends for all the times (during the dark age especially) where people needed help and instead got ignored.

 

Staff List: https://forum.12ozprophet.com/staff/

Again, not especially sexy, but an easy way to see who's helping moderate things and reach out directly to one of them. Not so much a feature as it's just an easy way of getting a hold of someone that can answer a question or help out with something. Again, it's my way of trying to ensure that things are being handled when something comes up.

 

Anyhow, start by checking out the links above. Feel free to ask questions, provide feedback or drop whatever new feature or trick you come across that's worth sharing. Likewise, if you rather Message me directly about a question, concern or feedback, either click my profile photo and hit the "Message" button or hit the envelope icon at the top right of the page and send me a message.

 

I'll follow up with some more info in a few.

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Sort of in line with this thread topic, but wanted to try and encourage you all - especially you OG members - to please take a minute and upload a custom profile and cover photo. This new forum system generates a semi custom profile image (avatar), but its way freakin cooler to see people take a second to tweak their own. Likewise, the member profile section is way more built out and interesting (not to mention useful), and also allows you to tweak it out with your own custom cover photo (header). So hit your profile and click on the corresponding profile or cover photo button to upload your own. Maybe a little later we'll start a thread spotlighting user profiles and run a giveaway or something for the best one. In any case, here's how mine looks at the moment...

 

 

Screen Shot 2018-06-28 at 2.19.28 PM.png

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By now a bunch of you have probably caught on to the new notifications system.

 

Personally I like the little sound and overlay alert. I also like getting emails, but respect that if you get an email for every comment in every thread you follow that it gets overwhelming, if not annoying. This new forum has a super robust notification system that can be completely customized to your preference. You can turn on / off both notification emails, as well as the forum alerts. Likewise, besides getting an email for each option you chose to receive them for, you can limit how many emails received or consolidate them into a digest that contains all updates. For the digest emails, you can limit it to daily or weekly. That way, you're fully aware of what's happening while also ensuring you only get hit up about the stuff you're actually interested in.

 

Link to your notifications preference: https://forum.12ozprophet.com/notifications/options/

 

 

screencapture-forum-12ozprophet-notifications-options-2018-06-28-16_18_55.png

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New Feature...

 

Reactions:

As mentioned further up, the old "props" system was replaced with the last forum system with a simple "likes" system. This new forum platform put that on steroids by replacing it with "reactions". This allows you to"react" to a post with a broad range of feedback, both positive and negative. Each of the reaction types has a corresponding positive or negative value associated with it. On the backend, we've configured it so that if you reach a certain number of negative points, the system bans you automagically. Likewise, if you manage to earn a certain number of positive points, your reputation level goes up (as seen on your profile). Further to that, the system tracks everyones points on a weekly basis and ranks the top members for that week in the Hall of Fame (along with top ranked content off the forum). Once the dust settles, I plan to start offering contests with free products, shop discounts and VIP upgrades to the members that win MVP for each week.

 

The reaction button is on the bottom right of each comment.

 

I'm sure you guys can already begin to picture how many LOLZ this thing is going to be. You can also see how governing dickheads also becomes a community effort and not just a task for moderators. We can also discuss adding new "reactions" in the future.

 

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And here's what the reaction total per post looks like...

 

reaction-tally.png.5ef88a14cbb89ffa6085c383c4160a50.png

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@DecyferonThanks man. Still working on stuff and truth is the system is indexing data for at least another few days to a week (so some counts are off and search results aren’t entirely accurate until it finishes), but it’s coming along nicely I think. Next step is to optimize speed and stability but need to finish the indexing first. 

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38 minutes ago, One Man Banned said:

I like that when I click log out, it logs me out!

 

In your example above of the reactions it shows who reacted at the bottom.  Is that on a different screen, I don't see it in my view?

 

Interesting... I'll need to test it more with a non-mod / non-admin account, but assumed you guys could all see it. Please post a screen grab, if you don't mind. Going to setup a test member account and also poke around the configuration options.

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By the way, a few people have asked...

 

How to Report or Share a Post: Seems that the import process activated a few dormant spam accounts. Likewise, there's always going to be some asshole that comes along and just trolls people. If you spot a post that you really thing doesn't below, you can easily bring it to the attention of a moderator. It's low key, but basically you just hover over the post in question and you'll notice in the top right are two tools used for that post that are normally dimmed out, but will activate and get brighter once hovered over. The left is obviously the report button. Clicking it will bring up an modal window where you can select the reason you're reporting and if you want, drop a comment. This will alert the entire admin / moderator staff and someone will investigate it. Likewise, we configured a reporting thresh hold so if a certain number of you guys report a post, it'll make it invisible and drop it into a moderation queue for review or removal. In any case, it's helpful if you guys use that feature with all the new spam popping up. We're addressing all of that stuff and should have all those dormant spam accounts rooted out and removed as soon as possible.

 

Obviously the icon button to the right of the report link is the universal "share" icon. Clicking that brings up a modal window where you can get a direct link to the post to share with others.

 

Note that on mobile, you don't have to hover over a post to see these two buttons. Rather, there is a small flag icon and the same share icon plainly visible that you can click.

 

Screen grab of the desktop view below (green is report, magenta is share)

 

 

Screen-Shot-2018-06-29-at-8.32.17-AM.png

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This is killer.

 

The private group thing is probably what I'm most hyped on. It will make it easier to encourage people away from IG and come back here.

 

I'm not sure when I'll have time to truly explore and figure all these features out, but thanks for all the work and the many, many dollars you've thrown at this. When does the next shirt drop?

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@Fist 666I agree, the groups thing is going to be amazing if it picks up. Was planning to start a shooters group with @6PenniesI'd planned to invite you into. Likely private or semi-private and planning to hit up some offline friends to jump into it.

 

Was hoping that maybe @Joker , @dekayfaand @Hua Guofang(I think he was the one into bikes) would start up a Cycling or Mountain Bike Group.

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12ozProphet Profiles: So the last version of the forum had this feature, but it sucked. This new forum has a very robust profile section for each user and as you've all seen, the profile images (avatars) are nice and prominent and a decent enough size that it's worth a little consideration and effort to ensure yours is fresh. (though the color hued initials in the default version are okay, don't be a lame and just leave it).

 

To access a profile, you click the person's profile image (avatar) or their user name anywhere you see it on the forum. To access your own, you do the same or yopu can use the short cut in the top right of the browser (assuming you're logged in). That takes you to the profile. From there you can see that person's "wall" where you can drop public messages to them, their stats (including content count, registration date and their last activity), search all content posted by them, reputation levels, and whatever other personal profile info they decide to fill out. Two of the most prominent aspects of the profile page is the cover photo (header graphic) and the profile image (avatar), which sort of represents you in many different areas of the board.

 

You can easily customize or edit those two graphics. The cover photo even allows animated GIFS, which can be super cool or super annoying, but hey... It's your profile page so represent yourself how you feel is best. 

 

To edit Profile Photo: On you profile page, click the little photo icon in the bottom left of the profile photo as seen in the neon yellow in the graphic below.

 

To edit Cover Photo: On you profile page, click the cover photo button in the top right of the profile photo (just below "Mark forum read" as seen in the neon green in the graphic below.

 

Again, its not necessary to change these but doing so elevates you from New Jack 12oz N00bz to actually looking like a regular. Plus we all know how a good username and good profile photo (avatar) can elevate you from nobody to overnight forum legend status (props to @teen_014.jpg for the best 12oz username in Oontz history)

 

 

nyc-skyline-2.png

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You know the kid can't screen shot, but I finally learned how for you.  Thanks 12oz!

Here's one of my posts.  The report button doesn't appear next to the share.  I know it's my own post, but other people's posts display the same.   It also doesn't show the reactions as it does above- can't see the who for me or others.

Screen Shot 2018-06-29 at 8.54.15 PM.png

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How To Post Images / Files: So this is a questions we've gotten a lot over the years. With this new forum system, it's dumb easy. We currently allow Members 500MB of attachments space and VIP Members unlimited attachment space (more later on how to get into VIP or DM me). It's slightly different on desktop versus mobile, but both support posting attachments. Note that attachments can be pretty much anytime of file (PDF, .xls, .doc, etc), but usually its an image (.jpg, .png, .gif etc).

 

Mobile uploads are fine straight off your smart phone camera, but for desktop and regular DSLR camera or high resolution photos, I would strong suggest optimizing your image so its crisp and a decent image dimension and file size. You can use Adobe Photoshop on desktop, which is the de facto standard for like 20 years (it's not cheap), or a free quality online image editor like https://pixlr.com/editor/. Either way, ideally your image is somewhere around 1800 - 3000px on its longest side. For .jpg files a usual compression of about 85 is pretty ideal, but overall you want each image no larger than 1mb - 1.5mb (1024kB - 2048kB) or it's really makes page loads pretty slow.

 

Desktop Attachments: The desktop version of the 12ozProphet Forum supports drag and drop image uploads. You literally just find your image on your computer and click-drag it to the darker grey portion at the bottom of the reply field where you normally post your comment (at the bottom of every thread). It's easy to find after you click on the respond field and literally has a paperclip icon and says, "Drag files here to attach, or choose files...". Obviously, you can also click the "choose files" link and navigate to your file and attach it that way as well. Image of how that looks is attached below.

 

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Mobile Attachments: Alternatively, if you're on mobile, its just as easy. Plus you can also attach photos as you take them or select any photos that are on your smart phones photo library (Yes, iPhone, Android and any other smart phone type with a camera and web access is supported). Again, you just click the "Reply to this topic" field at the bottom of every thread where you normally post comments and then click the "Click to chose files" link that is at the bottom of that reply field. Your phone will prompt you to either take a photo or chose an image from your photo library, and then will upload it accordingly as a post. Super freakin simple.

 

And for the record... You should always disable tagging your smart phone photos with GPS data, but we've configured our system to strip all meta data with the single exception of the "orientation meta data". This simply allows the 12ozProphet Forum to orient your photo the way it was intended (either landscape or portrait). All other identifying data is stripped from your image.

 

Here are a few photos that show that process on iPhone, but its essentially the same on all smart phones.

 

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So after giving this a few days, I came to the conclusion that the range of expression in the post "reactions" was lacking (bottom right of all posts).

 

Henceforth, I bring you LOL and FuckBoi...

 

Those add positive and negative reputation points respectively.

 

Enjoy!

 

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Alright this is an easy (dumb) one, but...

 

Emojis in Comments: The new 12ozProphet Forum supports the full range of Emoji's / Mobile Glyphcons, not to be confused with the aforementioned "reactions". Its not quite as easy as bringing up an emoji keyboard, but also not too much harder. You simply click the smiley face button in the editor when commenting. That'll bring up all the emojis (full range). You can then filter by skin type (cause, we at 12ozProphet are sensitive to the needs and inclusion of the global community) and also by category, so you can jump straight to it. Likewise, there's also a recently used section at the very top because, we all know that like cable television... There may be hundreds of options, but it really all comes down to a handful that are actually worthwhile.

 

Enjoy!

 

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