Omnimaga

Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on March 24, 2011, 01:35:31 am

Title: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 24, 2011, 01:35:31 am
First of all, Omnimaga has recently passed the 130000 posts mark, more than 120000 of which are located outside the Randomness section. Activity on the forums (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=stats), after a 2 months-long lull at the start of Winter, returned to the level it was at in October and November and we are definitively heading towards our 6th month in a row with at least 10000 messages. If we include the old Omnimaga forums that we used on Invisionfree, with our current 134313 messages and our current average of close to 400 posts per day, Omnimaga will most likely reach a total of 200000 posts soon!

But more importantly, there have been plenty of website updates tonight, including OmnomIRC, but also the Casio section and other miscellaneous site and forum updates:


-First of all, what many people have been waiting for a while happened: OmnomIRC is back up. However, the minimum post count restriction was increased from 20 to 40 and the rules (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=2) page has been added to the links above the chat, along with a link to the larger chat view (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=9#Omnom), which is going to be removed from the site navigation bar. Also, we would like to encourage users to use the forums instead of the chat if they need help during busy periods (or when no one on IRC can help them), as their question might be easily missed otherwise.

-Secondly, the minimum post count requirement to upload calculator games and development tools in the downloads section (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=downloads;cat=44) has been decreased from 100 to 40. Remember that we do a certain quality control in the user-contributed downloads section, though, which means that short menu-based/MUD-like games, guessing games and extremely-early-stages programs will not be accepted.

-For the Arcade (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=arcade), the post count requirement was recently decreased from 50 to 20. The link to it also got moved to the Miscellaneous (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=ezportal;sa=page;p=7) page and will be removed from the navigation bar.

-A section devoted to Casio calculators has been added (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=166.0) on the forums. The PRIZM hacking discussion (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=146.0) was moved inside and an additional sub-forum (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=167.0) was added below for Casio help and older models discussion. Game project showcases still goes in the same section (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=5.0) as TI ones, though.

-The calculator game walkthroughs board (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=78.0) was moved inside the TI calculator programming and support (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=99.0) section.

-A direct link to the Notable Calculator Games and Tools section (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=articles;cat=10) was added to the Miscellaneous section. Other awards (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=articles;cat=2) are still available through the page.

-The downloads rating system was disabled, as it was not used enough to reflect the quality of each file, not to mention the system had sorting bugs (a 3-star file with 3 votes was considered higher-rated than a 5-star file with 1 vote, because the system did not divide the total to form an average).

-And finally, I will only perform administrative tasks on a volunteer basis from now on (although this was the case for over a month, now). This means that IRC and site issues should be directed to Eeems, Builderboy, Hot_Dog and Ztrumpet (preferably all at once). I still welcome news suggestions via PM, though, if regular members got any. This also means that such rush of updates could take a week to occur, like it could take months.


That's it for the updates for tonight. Hopefully there will be more soon. As always, our goal is to provide a friendly calculator game and development discussion community, so if you are willing to contribute to it, we encourage you to register (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=register) and ]post on the forums (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=forum). Staff (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=12.0) and regular members (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=5.0) got plenty of interesting projects in the works (some of which are featured (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=58.0)) and releases that you can provide feedback, criticism and suggestions on, and we will gladly welcome your own contributions too! People will also be happy to help you if you need calculator help (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=99.0) of any kind and we also got plenty of non-calculator-related sections (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=forum#1) as well!
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: Juju on March 24, 2011, 01:47:56 am
Yay OmnomIRC is back! I finally can chat from school again :P

And hope the new OmnomIRC restriction will help.
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 24, 2011, 01:52:02 am
Yeah I hope, same for the channel. New members should remember my last paragraph which is also part of the rules and the front page. After all, what if the friendly atmosphere was what keeps calc programming activity and the posting rate so high here?
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on March 24, 2011, 03:54:53 am
This is all great to hear. Yeehaa.
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: Jim Bauwens on March 24, 2011, 05:50:50 am
Very nice updates :)
Good work of DJ_O and the admins  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: m1ac4 on March 24, 2011, 07:21:50 am
It's nice to see some more development on the Casio side as well.  Thanks!
Edit: The Casio Prizm discussion link on the main page still links to the Casio Prizm Hacking discussion page.  Can someone link it to the Casio Calculator Programming and News board directly?
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: ralphdspam on March 24, 2011, 10:08:43 am
:) Omnom is back!

Thanks DJ and everyone else for making the changes.  I hope the changes will be effective. :)
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: Deep Toaster on March 24, 2011, 10:48:53 am
130K posts? You didn't mention we passed 133700? D:

Changes sound great though :)
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: Munchor on March 24, 2011, 11:00:36 am
OmnomIRC is back, yayz! Nice to see the other updates and >130K posts too.
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 24, 2011, 04:41:28 pm
130K posts? You didn't mention we passed 133700? D:

Changes sound great though :)
Well the news about 130K was supposed to be posted separately a few days ago but I had no admin powers to do so. D:

ALso another change is that download ratings were removed. Almost every file were rated 4-5 stars and we got a certain quality control applied on newer files and the RPG section. Some files are less good but most people were rating them 4-5 stars anyway, not to mention the rating system had some weird quirks such as a a 3 star average file with 5 votes topping a 5 star average file with 2 votes due to scores being added together rather than divided in average afterward.
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 24, 2011, 11:24:22 pm
By the way the reason why there are no updates being done on the front page, such as in the discussion links, is because the front page blocks will most likely be changed quite a lot in the near future anyway. The team will be replaced with just a link to a page about the Omni and COT team, maybe some history and some text will become smaller in the discussions links, probably.
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: yunhua98 on March 24, 2011, 11:26:12 pm
I think like two days ago, the top posters showed the top 15 posters for some reason, but now it only show 10 again, was that an "experimental update"?
Title: Re: 130K posts, IRC & site updates & new Casio boards
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 24, 2011, 11:27:36 pm
Yeah, for odd reasons, somebody changed it while I had no admin rights. He probably wanted more people to show up there, but I didn't like how large the column became.