2025 Forum Revamp

[Milieva]

It's difficult to believe that this forum is 19 years old this year. In the last two decades, I have made very few changes to the features I set up when I very first created the forum on an impulse, so it was more than time for a proper refresh.

Here is a list of what I have changed and why:

Created a custom registration agreement and added a privacy policy
For basically the entire life of this forum, we have been rolling on under the default SMF registration agreement. This is not necessarily compliant with the various internet laws that have come into place since I chose to install SMF on psynos.net in 2006.

The Rules
Like the registration agreement, this forum has also run on several barely altered versions of the same rules I roughly sketched out in the very first week of this forum's life. This week, I have completely rewritten the rules to make them more clear and to cover the new requirements for social platforms.

2-Factor Authentication
Now, I cannot take credit for this change, but I feel like it is worth mentioning. The newest SMF update brought with it the option to set up 2FA using an authenticator app. This can be set up in account settings.

New Themes
One of the most obvious changes to the forum is the removal of the original theme. It was out of date and did not work with the newest version of SMF.

All of the new themes are responsives, so the forum is now more easily accessible on mobile devices. And both Boru (the default theme) and NameX have easy to toggle dark/light modes.

If you still want the dark vibes with multiple accent colour options like the original theme, you can choose the NameX theme in the Look and Layout section of your account settings.

Category & Board names
Anyone who joined the forum before this month would know that the title of the various sections of the board were titles of the various image songs. I had chosen to do this because the forum's entire layout was inspired by a Witch Hunter Robin forum that I was frequenting at the time, and that forum had labeled all the sections with episode titles. While this worked well enough, the unclear section names were confusing to some.

All boards and categories are now clearly labeled with their topics and the descriptions have also been updated for clarity. Any topics that no longer fit within their board have been moved to a more appropriate location.

Mature Fanart
Because of new regulations that assume children will join despite breaking the rules by lying about their age, I am locking NSFW fanart behind a moderated age-gate. While I do not believe that beautifully drawn naked bodies count under the pornography rules, I am not taking chances.

Private Messaging has been disabled
This choice is related to the same regulations that led to age-gating nude fanart. I do not believe that any of the long-term members of this forum would be inappropriate with underage members that may join in the future, but even as the administrator, I cannot see others' private messages unless they have been reported for moderation.

With the future release of a new anime that could potentially lead to an influx of new members, I felt it safest to just remove that vector for potential abuse for the time being.

Changed the post-count membergroups
Previously, your post count changed your member group to be one of the various Cephiran titles that had been put in an order based on my own preferences. I have since decreased the post-count groups by two and have changed the names of them to steps to reach Cephiran citizenship.

The new post-count based groups:

• Tourist
• New Arrival
• Visa Applicant
• Visa Holder
• Permanent Resident
• Cephiran Citizen

For those who liked having the titles, there are now optional member groups that can show up with your avatar above your post-count based rank. These are the translations of the Cephiran titles and can be found in your account settings in the Primary Membergroup dropdown menu.

The new optional membergroups:

• Illusionist
• Mage
• Priest
• Smith
• Summoner
• Swordsman

This is not a completely comprehensive list, but it is the changes long-time members will most likely notice.