Forums Changelog and Feedback

[Archaic]

2022-11-15
Bulbagarden is currently in the process of doing some major backend upgrades ahead of the release of Scarlet and Violet. Part 1 of upgrades for the server that our forums run on is now complete. The forums will be locked again within the next 24 hours for us to complete this process. You may notice some errors on the forums until then, however you should still be able to post as normal.

2022-11-16
We were not able to fully complete the process today. The forums have been unlocked again while our technical people get some sleep, but will be locked again tomorrow.

 

[Archaic]

2022-12-06 to 2022-12-07
After a few aborted starts in the past week, we had a roughly 26 hours long period of maintenance (with a brief period roughly 8 hours in where the forums were temporarily unlocked) as we worked to resolve a number of technical glitches that had arisen on the forums shortly ahead of the release of Scarlet and Violet. As part of this proccess (and continuing some of the major backend upgrades we had planned and had been unable to fully complete prior to the launch of Scarlet and Violet), the forums database server was replaced with a new upgraded model, and a number of forum addons were also updated.

While this maintenance was mostly about fixing back end issues and, there were also small number of front end changes:

• Improvements and fixes to the handling of embedded content from Facebook, Spotify, and Tumblr.
• It is now possible to embed posts from Mastodon. Currently, only embeds from the mastodon.social instance (where we have our official Bulbagarden Mastodon account) are supported, however we expect more to be supported in future.
• Other minor bug-fixes and optimizations have been implemented to improve loading times.

 

[Archaic]

2022-12-14
An update to our Christmas theme has been launched and has been set as the default theme. If you're currently on a different theme, you can select Christmas 2022 from your options or the style chooser.
This update brings a selection of template updates and fixes from the Mysterious Garden style that was introduced earlier this year.

More styles will be receiving some of these touchups in the coming weeks, though there are no plans at this point to swap all of the old styles to the double column layout. As an example of these changes, Hover Text should now be properly readable on the Year of the Dog style.

Some time in January, I will be resuming work on restoring some of the most demanded classic styles of yesteryear.

 

[Enzap]

2023-01-22
You can now select your Favorite Generation 9 Pokémon under Account Details. Favorite Paldean Form will hopefully be added some time in the near future.

 

[Archaic]

2023-04-04
A fairly large update for the forums today. We're continuing to work on a variety of things, including updates to existing forums styles as well as more brand new styles (hope you all enjoyed Grimergarden for April Fools!), however work on a number of these has been delayed due to other more time-sensitive concerns.

Here's the front-end relevant changes from today's update.

• Backend software has been upgraded to Xenforo 2.2.11.
• Improved support for a variety of social media embeds.
  • We can now support embedding toots from Mastodon instances other than mastodon.social. We will be enabling these on a case-by-case basis for specific instances, on request. If you have a particular instance you would like to see enabled for embeds, please post the instance here together with a link to an example toot/account that you're looking to embed.
  • Support added for YouTube Live URLs and TikTok's new share links.
  • Tumblr URLs starting with www. or at. should now work properly.
• Improvements with the alerts system to address a number of bugs and issues with how these were displayed, including issues with alerts being improperly labelled as read/unread.
• Push notifications has been restored for iOS devices with running version 16.4+.
• Improvements to the Badge system to resolve a number of errors, including a problem where badges were not displaying in the proper order.
• On receiving a thread ban, any posts previously made in the thread by that user will display with a special thread ban banner label. Users who have been thread banned will also not be able to modify existing posts in threads.
• Various other changes and bug-fixes applied to account security.
• Other minor bug-fixes and optimizations have been implemented to improve loading times.

 

[Archaic]

2023-04-15

• Due to Twitter API changes, it's no longer possible to register or log-in to a Bulbagarden Forums account using a Twitter account. This functionality may return in future, but it's not likely to be any time soon.
• We have now enabled registration and log-in using Twitch and Tumblr accounts.

 

[Archaic]

2023-04-18

• Added the ability to find embeddable URLs in given page. This feature is accessible through the "Insert Media" dialog when posting a message. It adds two options (unchecked by default) that allows you to look for embeddable URLs if the one you submit does not match any active media site. For example, if you try to submit a t.co (Twitter's URL shortener) link to a YouTube video it will not be recognized by default, but if you check "Use the canonical URL" then it will be recognized as a YouTube URL.
• Updates to various add-ons with bug-fixes and optimizations which should improve general loading times and stability.

 

[Archaic]

2023-05-16

• Updates to various add-ons with bug-fixes and optimizations which should greatly improve general loading times and stability.
  • TLDR; One of the addon updates from the last update introduced a new bug which was slowing the forums down. That addon has now fixed its issue, so the problems we've had for the past little bit should now be resolved.

 

[Archaic]

2023-07-04

• Backend software has been upgraded to Xenforo 2.2.13.
• Progressive Web App enhancements
  • Full iOS PWA compatibility with push notification support has been enabled. Simply log in through the Progressive Web App and enable push notifications in your preferences
  • Additional gesture based controlls, including pull down to refresh, and a floating back button
• The Twitter widget has been disabled, due to Twitter's new rate limits for users making the widget totally useless for displaying anything.
• Replacing the Twitter widget, we now have a widget displaying our Mastodon account. This account is primarily only showing News currently, however with the way Twitter has been going, you can expect the normal content that was being posted on the Bulbagarden and Bulbapedia Twitter accounts to be coming over to here as well in the near future.
• Updates to various add-ons with bug-fixes and optimizations which should improve general loading times and stability.

 

[colours]

2023-07-30

The following profiles fields have been removed due to the options in them being either defunct or not really used anymore:

• Origin
• Battle.net
• Oculus
• Epic Games
• Second Life
• Guilded.gg
• Pokegym
• Pokemon Online
• Facebook Gaming
• Nintendo Network ID

The following profile field options have been added:

• Pokemon Sleep Friend Code
• Pokemon Masters EX Friend Code

 

[colours]

2023-08-03

A Clarification on "Intersite Drama"

We'd like to issue a clarification on a longstanding rule that we've long had regarding Intersite Drama. Some may have perceive this as a blanket "don't say negative things about other websites" rule, but this is not the case. Intersite Drama only exists to cover scenarios in which personal drama were to be brought over to Bulbagarden from other sites, or in scenarios in which specific users are mentioned in a negative fashion. In other words, keep personal drama regarding other sites away, but constructive criticism of other websites are fair game, provided they lead to healthy discussion.

 

[Archaic]

2023-08-25

Embed links for posts on TikTok are no longer functional, due to behaviour on TikTok's end that was leading to degraded forum performance for all users. Specifically, the Bytespider bot (from TikTok's parent company Bytedance) was sending an insane amount of requests to the site per second, with a growth rate to requests that outstripped our cloud servers ability to ramp up and deal with the load. Effectively, Bytespider was DDoSing us.

The Bytespider is now being explicitly blocked for us by Cloudflare, and we should see an immediate improvement in forums performance, and potentially on Bulbapedia as well.

UPDATE: We've also blocked the Aspiegel PetalBot (a bot for the search engine owned by Huawei), which was exhibiting similar characteristics to the Bytespider. More bots may get blocked in the near future for the same reason.

 

[Okido]

2023-08-26

We've added a large handful of new smilies/emotes to the post editor, doubling the amount that we had before.
Try them out when you get the chance!

 

[Sheep]

2023-08-27

For clarity, an additional bullet point on the buying and selling of goods or services has been added to the Disruptive Post rule.

Keep posts relevant to the thread or a post within it, and avoid making posts that disrupt the flow of conversation. This includes but is not limited to:

• Offering goods or services in exchange for payment, including donations, or virtual currency

 

[Archaic]

2023-09-25

Due to continuing issues with the addon we used to add this functionality, the function for users to self-delete themselves has been removed.

Users who require an account deletion for whatever reason can contact the staff via this link. Please be aware that we reserve the right to not delete accounts when there are legitimate moderation needs for retaining the account (e.g. warning histories).

 

[Sheep]

2023-09-26

We've added an updated clarification on advertising to our global rules. See the update in bold below:

6. Avoid making disruptive or irrelevant posts (Disruptive Post) [3 points, 3 months]
Keep posts relevant to the thread or a post within it, and avoid making posts that disrupt the flow of conversation. This includes but is not limited to:

• Continuing to discuss something after a moderator asked it be dropped
• Repeatedly posting the same arguments within a thread(s)
• Reposting content just to get it higher on the thread list
• Posting spoilers for recent media not in spoiler tags
• Advertising other websites in threads when it's not related to the topic
• Posting large images (larger than 500x500px) without spoiler tags
• Offering goods or services in exchange for payment, including donations, or virtual currency
• Advertising personal projects outside of your profile, signature, and BulbaBlogs (see the BulbaBlogs rules for more details) (added September 26, 2023)

In tandem with this, we've also rewritten the BulbaBlogs rules to further expand on advertising. If you're a BulbaBlogs regular, or are planning on advertising a project here in the Bulbagarden Forums community, we recommend reading through these updates rules.

Further updates to the Writers' Workshop rules, including their stance on advertising, will be coming in the near future!

 

[lisianthus]

2023-10-17

Some of you may have noticed this earlier, but we sadly recently made the decision to archive our PokéTube section due to inactivity. It was previously located in our General Pokémon area of the forums. Because of this, our Bulbagarden Multimedia section has been moved back to our Welcome Center area, where it was previously located.

However, you can still access any old threads and even create new threads for any PokéTube content, including your own, in our Blogs section! Please make sure to read the Blogs section rules before you post, and please enjoy continuing to discuss any and all Pokémon YouTube/Twitch/etc content there!

Thank you for your understanding!

 

[Okido]

2023-11-12

• The Shippers' Paradise forum has been separated from General Pokémon Discussion, and moved to the main forum list. You can find it in the Pokémon Forums category on the front page.
• A couple of new emotes have been added. Check them out under the Smilies tab in the post editor!

 

[Archaic]

2023-12-18
It seems Brightbot had the bright idea of doing the exact same things TikTok & Bytedance were doing earlier this year, sending an insane amount of requests to the site per second. So far we've kept up with the bots, mainly because we'd been more prepared for more traffic with the launch of the new DLC and the holiday season, but obviously this can't continue. Like with the Bytespider before it, Brightbot is going to be explicitly blocked for us by Cloudflare, and we should see an immediate improvement in forums performance, and potentially on Bulbapedia as well. Users of the Brightbot AI tool on the otherhand are going to see significantly degraded performance. For those users, may I suggest simply browsing us directly, instead of asking questions to an AI tool?

 

[lisianthus]

2023-12-27

A bit more regarding AI things on the forums! We've updated our rules to explicitly ban the usage of any AI content in almost all areas of the forums, especially in our Creative Corner forums — AI-generated media is only allowed to be posted in our BulbaBlogs area as long as it is said to be AI-generated in the post/thread title itself.

Considering how many artists and the like frequent our forums, though, don't expect much of a response at all to any AI stuff — why not learn from our very gifted real artists and writers in The Art Gallery and The Writers' Workshop instead? I think you'll find yourself better off if you try to do it yourself!