405th Ownership Change, Site Move and Updates - ALL PLEASE READ!

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Art Andrews

Community Owner
Community Staff
OMG!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE 405th?!?

First off, let’s back up a bit…

Hi, my name is Art and I recently acquired the 405th from Adam Grumbo. Many of you might already know me from therpf.com, thedentedhelmet.com, and thehunterslair.com. If you don’t know me already, I run a website management company (Movie Prop Sites, LLC) that specifically focuses on managing communities like the 405th.

With that in mind, let’s just get the unpleasant stuff out of the way first. With this transition, you are going to see change… a LOT of change. No one likes change, but without change we cannot grow and improve. You are already witnessing the first of that change now. If you are reading this, you are reading it from an all-new, much more powerful server, as we have moved the 405th onto our own platform. We have also updated the site software to the latest version (not vB 5… everyone knows how bad that is), and we have also made some minimal changes to the structure of the forums and made a couple of forum name tweaks. Again, while I know it is uncomfortable, this and more change will be coming down the road. Please be patient with us because once we come out on the other side of it, things will be a lot better.

Now that we have explained the unpleasant part, let’s talk about the good things. First, I believe this is an amazing community and we are very excited to be able to serve you. We think there is a lot of potential here and over the next year or so, we plan to try some new and interesting things… some of which many of you have wanted, and probably a few things you haven’t even thought of! We don’t want to spill all the beans just yet, but we see a fun future for the community!

I am sure you have questions and possibly concerns, so instead of me prattling on, let me know what is on your mind and I’ll try to answer to the best of my ability.
 
Welcome to the greatest Halo based prop building community, Art. I'm looking forward to seeing some changes. I think it's a bit overdue for an overhaul (both functionality and aesthetically.) Hopefully relocating the site to a more capable server will fix a lot of connection issues as well as a huge performance bump.
 
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Thank you! We will eventually get to the aesthetic changes, but right now, we are working on a massive backlog of infrastructure issues, including over 200k spam accounts!!!!
 
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Actually already a major improvement. My Wife and I have both been unable to even get onto the site now for several weeks. So already winning with that change.
 
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Actually already a major improvement. My Wife and I have both been unable to even get onto the site now for several weeks. So already winning with that change.

Glad to hear it. Hopefully, for those who have been able to get on the site (many were locked out, myself included), you will also notice a pretty big speed improvement.
 
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Art, this is wonderful news. You have done a fantastic job with TheRPF and the Dented Helmet. I can't wait to see what you do here. Previously there had a been a great lack of updates and communication from the owners/management of the 405th. Going months if not years without hearing from the "The People in charge." I have no doubt you will be much more attentive and help this community live up to its full potential.
 
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This is good news guys, as I have been recruiting new members for such a long time now I always felt my hard work on spreading the word on the 405th was a lost cause. Im really looking forward to seeing how things turn out because I know all too well that sometimes.....change is for the better. This will give the community a revamp and hopefully fuel the beast which is known as the 405th and really push us to a different level than we were.
 
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I see that you have a style change for mobile. thanks as I am normally here on my phones internet, that should make it easier for me. are you guys planning on making an actual 405th mobile app. if you do, count my vote in for it. thanks
 
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With that in mind, let’s just get the unpleasant stuff out of the way first. With this transition, you are going to see change… a LOT of change. No one likes change, but without change we cannot grow and improve. You are already witnessing the first of that change now. If you are reading this, you are reading it from an all-new, much more powerful server, as we have moved the 405th onto our own platform. We have also updated the site software to the latest version (not vB 5… everyone knows how bad that is), and we have also made some minimal changes to the structure of the forums and made a couple of forum name tweaks. Again, while I know it is uncomfortable, this and more change will be coming down the road. Please be patient with us because once we come out on the other side of it, things will be a lot better.

Now that we have explained the unpleasant part, let’s talk about the good things. First, I believe this is an amazing community and we are very excited to be able to serve you. We think there is a lot of potential here and over the next year or so, we plan to try some new and interesting things… some of which many of you have wanted, and probably a few things you haven’t even thought of! We don’t want to spill all the beans just yet, but we see a fun future for the community!

I am sure you have questions and possibly concerns, so instead of me prattling on, let me know what is on your mind and I’ll try to answer to the best of my ability.
I remember when we were on vB5. It was awful. I think I was unofficial Lead Bug Finder for a while.
Name changes... well I guess the Noob board is no more.
Looking forward to see what the new features will be.

We will eventually get to the aesthetic changes, but right now, we are working on a massive backlog of infrastructure issues, including over 200k spam accounts!!!!
That...that is a lot of spam accounts.

Also, will there be somewhere for general feedback on the changes, whatever they are, as they are implemented? Just so members can have an opportunity to share thoughts/opinions/suggestions - somewhere we can provide ConCrit/Input on where the forum is headed.
Quick list:
-Will we ever have formatting tags for things like [highlight] or
? [color] and [font] seem to have vanished as well, and broken some of my nice formatting.
-Dark theme? (UI/color style that a lot of the older members will remember. ~pre 2010?)
-Database integration/assimilation?
-Can we make the Facebook integration a bit...less? It already bothers me. Maybe have a [Share] drop-down panel or something, and hide it there. It just doesn't quite fit the current style/layout the way it is.

Trying to be helpful,
MS7
 
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This is great news. If we could clean out the old tuts that the links/images are broken with more updated ones would be fantastic.

Onto bigger and better things!
 
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The Site is already looking so much better than it has had in the past year! hope to see more crazy updates :D
 
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YES! Thank you for applying the updates and getting my IP unblocked. One quick question, I believe that it was the use of the search function that caused my IP to get flagged as a spam account and I am trepidatious to try it again. I fear I will again get blocked. Any chance anyone could tell me whether the search is a-okay to use now?

Thanks.
 
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Awesome! Can someone please bring us a like button for posts? :D

Agreed Rusty!!


On that note, Art, welcome! I do indeed welcome this exciting news! With the work that you have done with the 2 groups that I follow, TDH and The RPF, I look forward to what you will be able to accomplish here. Thank you for the announcement!

-Matt
 
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I have a few questions myself that may be pertinent:

First and foremost, what does this change mean for the ownership of the 405th? Who actually holds the reins to the 405th as a 'brand name'?

Secondly: I realise that the forum structure has altered and that further, potentially significant alterations are in the works. Does this mean that the restructuring will bring about a consolidation of resources and a streamlining of the forum to make the assets available to the community more accessible and newcomer-friendly?

Third: what does this change mean in terms of an official Charter for the 405th? A Charter for the 405th as a Division trooping at conventions has been in the works for years - does this change in ownership mean that a more official, organised set of guidelines for the Division for members when on deployments is in the works?

Fourth: will this new organisation mean that new staff members will be recruited? Frankly, we're thin on the ground as far as staff go, and having extra hands on deck would go a long way.

Finally: are suggestions and input welcome during this period of change? The forum and the Division have been in need of some re-structuring for a long time now, and certainly the more long-standing and experienced members of the forum and Division may be able to lend valuable insight. Will a Q&A/Suggestions panel be held to glean useful suggestions from the members?

I hope that this change brings about a new era of success to the Division, and I'd like to be on hand to witness it.
 
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I see that you have a style change for mobile. thanks as I am normally here on my phones internet, that should make it easier for me. are you guys planning on making an actual 405th mobile app. if you do, count my vote in for it. thanks

It is unlikely that we will use an app specifically for the 405th (we tried that with thedentedhelmet and honestly... it didn't go well.). What we MIGHT do is add Tapatalk, which is a pretty powerful app that is geared for sites like this.
 
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I came to the 405th after I joined TheDentedHelmet (to which I cannot seem to remember my password....).
There was nothing wrong with TDH, I discovered it looking for Iron Man costumes honestly, but my passion became the 405th. <3

Anyways, I'm glad to see some openness and communication from the new ownership (not that I didn't like the old ownership, I actually missed out on all the dark ages (forum updates/hacks/etc) that the forums had).

Can't wait to see what happens!
 
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I remember when we were on vB5. It was awful. I think I was unofficial Lead Bug Finder for a while.

I feel for you. I was so excited about vB5 but got burned early on with vB4 so we hesitated about upgrading to vB5... and after seeing what happened here and multiple other sites... what a complete train wreck on IB's part. Even now, if you go out to vbulletin's primary site, it is horribly slow and clunky. :(

Name changes... well I guess the Noob board is no more.
Looking forward to see what the new features will be.

Noob forum is still there... just not quite so off-putting in name. ;)

That...that is a lot of spam accounts.

Considering that we can only delete them in batches of 1000... yeah... gonna take a very long time to clean this up. The good thing is, the very first thing we did after moving to the new server was to place 3 new spam blocker components in place, which should really limit new accounts.


Also, will there be somewhere for general feedback on the changes, whatever they are, as they are implemented? Just so members can have an opportunity to share thoughts/opinions/suggestions - somewhere we can provide ConCrit/Input on where the forum is headed.

Sure! Typically, when we make changes we post a notice about them and field comment there. However, since we are doing so much here right at the start, maybe a thread to get input would be good. Keep in mind, some things we will implement, even in the face of criticism because we think they are important, but we are here to serve the community and want to get your input as well.

-Will we ever have formatting tags for things like [highlight] or
? [color] and [font] seem to have vanished as well, and broken some of my nice formatting.
Highlight I have not heard of before. Let me see what it would take to do it. I don't think it is built into vB. Spoiler we can do easily. Color and Font... those are rough ones and we have at least, temporarily disabled them. The reason? While they can be fantastic for formatting, they can also make it impossible to read certain text. As a general rule, we don't use them or enable those tags.

-Dark theme? (UI/color style that a lot of the older members will remember. ~pre 2010?)

Not going to happen. I know a lot of people like dark themes and claim it is easier on the eyes, but we have followed enough research on this subject to know that it isn't... and is actually bad for you as a reader as it causes greater eye fatigue. We will most likely touch up this theme a bit so that it is a little better until we have time to develop a completely new theme from the ground up. Our themes tend to be simple with more of a focus on the content than flash and dazzle, so it won't be a massive departure from what you have now, but should be a bit more nice and clean. We also only do a single theme for a community for the sake of brand consistency.

-Database integration/assimilation?

With?

-Can we make the Facebook integration a bit...less? It already bothers me. Maybe have a [Share] drop-down panel or something, and hide it there. It just doesn't quite fit the current style/layout the way it is.

We will lessen this for sure. We want to embrace social media as much as possible, but at the same time, those links tend to slow the site down and we are very keen on serving pages to you as quickly as possible and with as little clutter as possible.
 
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