Hey all:
Welcome! If you're reading this, I'm glad you made it back!
There's a lot to say here and no TDLR; so buckle up for the new expansion and the patch notes...
What happened?
In the middle of May, it was eventually apparent that the forums were in the middle of getting hacked. It became a data breach, and data was exposed. We have a public obligation to let you know this happened and we're very sorry. If you have a tendency to reuse your passwords and you've used one here in the past, we urge you to change them in your other accounts outside of AP and advise using a password manager to generate and store new complicated passwords. We're striving on having this not happen again.
After a couple grueling months, we return with a brand new look. Thank you for your patience. Since everything's new, there's sure to be a lot of bumps to smooth out, so the team and I would be happy to work with y'all to get to a good place.
Without further ado...
Welcome to 4.0!
- We've moved on from vBulletin and have migrated to NodeBB. vBulletin is a very traditional software, but there were more negatives than positives on using it or similar equivalents in the long term. If you already miss the old vBulletin, we'd love to hear what you liked so we can work towards improving your experience here.
- We're now finally rocking the https in the url, and much newer versions of software powering the server. There should be redirections in place, so old links should safely bring you here. If you spot any frustrating issues, feel free to post here.
- The url apforums.net may eventually be retired in the future. For now, it will take you to its home at forums.arlongpark.net so I advise you to update any bookmarks now.
- Please tell anyone out of the loop to come and visit! We're back online!
Logging in
- All passwords were wiped out for security reasons, so you are required to reset your password. This requires you to trigger a password reset email, but we've noticed that a lot of users have invalid addresses associated with their accounts. In this case, please do not create a new user account. Get in contact with one of the admins on Discord and we'll work with you.
Alternative log-in methods for Returning Members
SSO is an identification method that lets you log in to applications using one set of credentials. For example, if you have a Discord or a Gmail account, you can tell the forums that you're the real-deal instead of using a separate password for the forums. Instead of storing a different password on the forums, you're storing a token that proves you're the owner of your account.
On top of that, you have the option to enable 2FA. All these options are viewable in your account details. Let us know if you need any help with setting this up.
We currently support the following:
- Gmail
- Discord
To deter abuse and circumventing, new registrants still need to register by regular means.
If there's something else that would work better for you, we can see if we can work on adding it in as an option.
My username got changed!?
- Some users, like those whose namesake is of the popular Fire Fist Ace line, will realize that their username may have been renamed. Because names with symbols have been treated differently or ignored, they may have conflicted with their non-symbol counterparts and got a number tagged on. For example, if there was a Fire-Fist Ace and a Fire Fist Ace, the latter one got renamed. We're sorry if this has happened to you, so if it has then we're willing to do a one-time rename. Please either post here once you gained access, send me a message here, or get in contact on Discord.
Can I claim an abandoned username that has 0 posts?
- It depends on the circumstances, but we're willing to review it so it wouldn't hurt to bring it up. There's a bigger chance if it looks like a squatter that did nothing but register the name.
- We may decide to do a general cleanup of these kinds of empty abandoned accounts in the future.
Verified Status
- All users who carried over are marked "Verified" which grants them normal user privileges regardless of email validity. New registrants from here on can view account-required subforums like the Manga Spoilers, but won't be able to post or use any basic features until they validate their email addresses.
Where are the other themes? THIS ONE UGLY AND TOO BRIGHT
- This current theme is inspired by the old Retro Park and is considered the new default theme. I apologize for not having a dark version at the current moment. There are plans to have a Night Mode, so I hope you'll be able to bear with us until then.
- Popular themes from the past will be re-created, but they will take time as there isn't an easy way to study them anymore. If you have screenshots saved, please post them; they'll be a great help.
- New themes and color schemes will be made in the future! There's a plan but feel free to use the Suggestions board to give ideas.
- If you don't like anything, I am sorry
Posting
- Posts no longer use the old traditional BB Code. This was the code that was used to format your posts, like [b]Bolded Text[/b] or [i]Italicized Text[/i] -- you may have never had to deal with it. Now we're using Markdown which, with paired with live previewing, should hopefully improve your posting experience.
- Users may now @ someone in your posts, and if that user has the option turned on, they will be notified.
- Posts can now receive emoji reactions, so please act responsibly with them. There are plans to have custom One Piece reactions in the future.
- Previously subscribed threads were not carried over, so you will have to "rewatch" your threads.
- If you highlight a piece of text on a post, you can get an option to Quote that text in a new post.
- There are many other cool features not mentioned here that you will discover on your own.
Tags
- Tags were carried over, but likewise with post reactions, we'd like you to use them responsibly as they can be very helpful for organizing subtopics.
Spoiler Text
Surround your text with three colons and a new line like below:
Doing so will generate this:
Pagination vs. Infinite Scroll
- Update! Traditional Pagination is on by default.
- You can enable Infinite Scroll by changing the option in your profile.
- For Infinite Scroll, use the arrows on the bottom right of your screen to quickly navigate.
Customizing your profile
- Avatars have to be manually re-uploaded. I only did this for about 700 users, so if you have an avatar coming in, it means I uploaded it for you. If you find yourself missing one, it wasn't personal! I may still have a copy of it so if you want to see if I can restore it, please post and I'll try to get to it, otherwise go ahead and upload a new one.
- Upload a new banner to your user profile! The limit is about 2MB. Hover over the banner to see icons with options to upload and adjust it. I believe this is not possible to do for mobile users.
- User messages which were left on your profile in the old forums were not carried over.
- Friend/Ignore lists were not carried over. The feature has been replaced with "Follow" and "Block" respectfully.
Where's my signature?
- Signatures felt very intrusive while skimming through posts so I have made the decision to globally disable them while viewing posts. They may still be edited in your profile. We may consider creating a way to allow users to toggle signatures in posts in the future.
Where are custom titles?
- These were unfortunately not transferred over. In the future when the option is available again, they will need to be re-entered.
Upvotes, Reputation, and Bounties
- User Reputation increases when certain activities occur on the forums. We do not condone any behavior that involves using this number or system against others in a toxic manner.
- You cannot upvote your own posts. If you find yourself being harassed by others over upvotes, please report them to the moderation team.
- User bounties are visible in your profile and are influenced by various aspects of your activity on the forums. There are currently no rewards, and it's unknown what kind of consequences there are to having a bounty...
- If we find that users are abusing this in an effort to increase their internet points, we'll have no problem enacting an appropriate action on individuals, or at worst disable entirely.
Usergroups and Badges
- Crimin Star ranks from usergroups have now been replaced with badges.
- The red/purple stars and its group no longer exist.
- Blue star Envoys from the past remain.
- Future Plan: Badges tied to a reward system, like forum events, contributions, or even donations. They'll be announced at a later time.
Private Messages
- These have become Direct Messages. It's essentially like a chatroom now.
Tapatalk
- This is no longer installed in favor of a responsive design. If you notice issues, please post about it with as much details as possible and we'll do our best to address it.
"Untitled" threads
- For whatever reason, some really old threads in 2005 may be called Untitled. We don't have the people resources to manually restore them.
Polls
- Old poll data was unfortunately not carried over.
Other Things
Will we still get the false DMCA claims that traditionally took down AP?
- There is still potential for that, but we hope we're in a better place than before to address them in time.
Maintenance schedule
- From time to time, the forums will need to be updated. The forums will be down momentarily while this happens. This will likely happen more often at the beginning until things stabilize.
Data import stats for nerds
121702/121714users (-12)52030/53051private messages (-1021)44252/44440topics (-188)4018441/4018654posts (-213)
Pretty much all the users who didn't make it were ones that were made up of symbols. While theses are very minor numbers in the grand scheme of things, they did belong to someone so I do apologize for the loss.
New ideas?
- Post in the Suggestions board! Let the upvotes shine light on good ideas.
Any bugs? Questions?
- Please post here or get in contact on Discord! You may privately do so as well. It can be a bit of an adjustment compared to before, so it's okay to have questions.
