The Michelle Kwan Forum - News And Information

Due to Michelle’s announcement of not competing in the coming year, in addition to the lower number of people visiting the forum in the past few months, we have decided to save costs by moving from a dedicated server to a VPS (what we started off with). I am positive this will be able to accommodate the users, and should hopefully be able to cope when Michelle skates at some of the exhibitions. We will be doing this move in the next couple of weeks.

This will also free up some reserves to renew our vbulletin license to upgrade to 3.6.1 (which includes bug fixes for 3.6.0). I have yet to put in our google ads again.

If anyone has suggestions what the forum could do to liven up the atmosphere, comments would be greatly welcomed.

I will be upgrading the forum from vbulletin version 3.5.0 to 3.6.0 and due to this, will have to close down the forum for I hope at most a couple hours. For the improvements to be seen in 3.6.0, please look at the post below. Thanks

Many have probably noticed the change in the banner when you enter MKF. All of you probably know that summer is over. I actually wanted to create this banner a long time ago, but only was able to start it a few weeks ago and finally get it up. So yes, I realize summer is almost over, but I still wanted a happy summer theme, so even if it only lasts until mid September, it will still have been up!

Also, I’m taking this opportunity to notify everyone that we are going to upgrade to vbulletin 3.6.0 in the next couple of weeks (starting next week). There are MANY changes in the new release (as noted below), some which are of great improvement. However, there may be a few glitches here and there, so please be patient during this time. Many thanks!

Part of an e-mail received from vbulletin:

—————- WHAT’S NEW IN 3.6.0? —————-

Many customers have been keeping track of the new features that have been added to 3.6 via the vBulletin Community Forums, but for those who have not, this is a brief summary of what’s new:

* Multi-Quote
* Linked Quotes
* Mark Forums Read With AJAX
* New Buddy / Ignore List Editor
* Options Backup And Restore
* Private Message Preview In Notification Emails
* Auto-Resize Oversized Image Attachments
* ‘Reason For Editing’ On Quick Edit
* Unique Unsubscribe Link In Emails
* Plugin Manager Sorted By Product
* Save Search Preferences With AJAX
* Infraction System (Warning system)
* Default Sorting Option Per Forum
* Rate Threads With AJAX
* IP Resolution With AJAX
* Improved Proxy Support In Session Handling
* More AJAX Auto-Completion
* Paid Subscription Permissions
* Show Threads Or Posts From Quick Search Popup
* Phrase Types Identified By Field Name Only
* LastPostID Column In User, Thread And Forum Tables
* Extensive Signature Permissions
* Uploadable Signature Image System
* Improved Image Verification (Captcha)
* Enforced Required Profile Fields
* ‘Find Updated Phrases’ System
* Pop-Up List Of Attachments In A Thread
* Validation Of Admin Options
* Product Dependencies Support
* Paid Subscription Logging And Statistics
* APC Support For Datastore
* Description Field For Scheduled Tasks
* RSS Poster Robot allows import of RSS feeds into forums
* Latest version check and product URL for products
* Receive private messages from Buddies only option
* Show private forum option per forum
* Give reputation using AJAX
* Error prevention in upgrades
* Option to disable scheduled tasks
* Parsed signature storage for performance boost
* CRON tasks, profile fields, subs, holidays now phrased
* Option to sort forums by thread creation time
* Super moderator permissions
* Welcome private message at registration
* WYSIWYG front-end editing for announcements
* Plugin execution order control
* Flexible username validation
* Private message quota warning system
* Private message admin quota override ability
* Plain-text BBcode parser
* Cache of syndication data (external.php) for improved speed
* Email logging for diagnostics
* Improved performance in datastore failure handling
* Instant view of deleted / ignored posts using AJAX
* Centralized area to view posts awaiting moderation / deleted
* Admin help, scheduled tasks, FAQ now include product support
* CCBill support for paid subscriptions
* Attachment permissions per usergroup
* List posts / threads selected for inline moderation
* Full BCC support in private messages
* Podcasting support
* Atomic flood checking
* Image verification (Captcha) for guest posting
* Thumbnail display options - border / dimensions etc.
* Copy posts using inline moderation
* Announcements show when viewing new posts
* New built-in option types
* Resume paused attachment downloads
* Better webserver logging for POST requests
* Automatically remove thread redirects after set time
* Announcement DataManager
* Persistent D.O.B cookie for COPPA
* Improved master / slave database support
* Improved RSS syndication system
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I apologize for whatever slowness people may be encountering with the forum currently. The load is fairly heavy and many people are creating connections to our database which causes the forum to slow down with many queries. (Which is why this page loads so much faster without all those SQL connections)

I am trying to find a way in making everything less server intensive. Please be patient in this very critical time. =) I will post news here the minute I receive it.

If that confuses any of you, it’s just moved to a new directory. We felt that it would be best in case there were any problems related to our SQL database that we could post here, or any news that people might miss such as Michelle’s post. We feel a quick overview or the announcements seemed to be ignored or missed by many, and this would be a more easy way for us to spread important news related to the forum may it be a new contest, perks for members, board updates, etc. Also, if anyone have any questions to the specific news being reported, members can simply leave a comment.

We know that people will still link to the forum directly, but several people in the past have asked for a more convenient method of how to contact Michelle and we figure a blog-like front page entry to the forum might be helpful for such information, including the link to our FAQ, our chat area, and whatever information we may find helpful to users in the coming months.

We are certainly open to and welcome suggestions on whatever else you might like to see on the front page. You may leave comments for us here.

The new link is http://mkforum.net/forum/. It’s sporting a new default look, “earthy” and “warm” tones for our Michelle. However, not all buttons are updated yet, which is why they are still in the holiday look