Forums Update Changelog for 1/15/16

Hello, everyone.

I've spent the last three days overhauling the forums and rebuilding them from the ground up. I've done this to solve some outstanding technical issues and to attempt to breathe new life back into the forums. Some of you may not fully appreciate the design choices, which is totally okay. Actually, I'd like any feedback to be posted below.

Instead of keep the forums down longer by trying to clean up the changelog, I just posted it as I wrote it. I'll clean it up later if I remember and find the time.

Here's the exhaustive changelog:

1. QuickSearch button removed from search
2. Sidebar is now sticky once again (scrolls with your browser)
3. Icons removed from category nodes
4. Avatars re-introduced to show who last posted
5. Default layout set to rows instead of grid
6. Node stats hidden (messages, thread counts)
7. Postbit Extra Info now collapsed by default, can be expanded
8. Post buttons (Edit, Delete, Report, etc.) now plain links
9. Users can now view deleted threads/posts placeholders
10. Unregistered/Unconfirmed users can no longer view the chat
11. Non-whitelisted users can no longer edit their profile or post on the forums, but they can still use the chat and upload an avatar (this is in part to combat spam)
12. Conversation messages can now be deleted as long as they were posted less than 1 hour ago. This time limit also applies to edits.
13. Non-whitelisted users can start conversations with up to only 5 users. This restriction is lifted for whitelisted users.
14. Non-whitelisted users may only have conversations in their inbox at any given time. This restriction is lifted for whitelisted users.
15. Non-whitelisted users may only have messages in their inbox at any given time. This restriction is lifted for whitelisted users.
16. The following features have also been restricted to whitelisted users only: changing username, create conversation participant groups, setup an auto-responder, create conversation prefixes, create conversation filters, kick participants from started conversations, hide last read date in conversations, rate messages and posts, make oneself invisible on the forums, viewing and searching the chat archive, creating and joining chat rooms (limit to 3 per player), using color text in chat, and uploading attachments to threads or conversations.
17. The maximum printable characters allowed in a signature is now set to 1,All other restrictions have been lifted, however signatures exceeding pixels in height will be collapsed by default and can be expanded via mouse hover (or held tap on touch device).
18. Rating options now only appear on mouse hover
19. Avatars are now square instead of circular
20. The site wiki had been enabled and whitelisted users may edit it
21. The halloween theme has been discontinued due to lack of updates by the designer
22. All ratings have been reset due to inactive members holding the top spots and a glitch that occurred months ago that doubled all likes, increasing the difficulty and unfairness of rating rankings
23. The optimistic rating has been removed.
24. The forum now checks 60 every seconds for alerts/messages instead of every 10 seconds. (This is to reduce load on the machine)
25. Country flags moved from avatar to PostBit (beneath avatar)
26. The chat no longer appears on the bottom of all pages by default (this caused problems in some instances and on mobile, but can be changed in the options)
27. The forum has been re-named to Antares Forums
28. The maximum character count for a chat message has been set to 1,000
29. Chat messages/chat rooms that are older/inactive than/for days will be automatically deleted
30. Conversations will now show the avatar of the conversation starter instead of the last responder when viewed in the inbox
31. Usernames may now only be changed once every 30 days
32. Users can now view the reasons left on a deleted thread/post (if specified)
33. The forum now leverages XCache to improve perfomance
34. The forum now uses Mandrill as it's e-mail handler (to reduce load), because of this emails will no longer contain full message text (for privacy reasons)
35. Users may no longer register accounts with spaces in the name (this caused whitelisting issues)
36. Badges will now automatically feature themselves as they're earned for new users
37. In cases where a custom title is not set and the user has a banner, their standard title will be hidden
38. The footer has been completely removed from the forum (it didn't really serve a purpose)
39. RSS icons have been hidden (did anyone use them, anyway?)
40. Badges has been added to the navbar
41. Levels now require 100 points per level
42. The maximum level is now 10
43. New users recieve points on registration to set them to level 1 (existing users will get this retroactively, as well)
44. Thread prefixes have been remade from scratch.
45. Prefix Essentials addon installed
46. Tag Essentials addon installed
47. It is now possible to delete your account.
48. Usernames of deleted accounts may not be re-used.
49. Implemented an anti-spam mechanism to combat the recent spam wave
50. The Archives have been removed (but saved)
51. Applications added to the navbar (for whitelisting, usually)
52. Staff Applications will now appear at the bottom of the sidebar for those who are eligible (they won't appear in the navbar, to save space)
53. Members added to the navbar
54. User permissions have been re-implemented from scratch
55. Sidebar content has been proxied to prevent mixed content messages in web browsers
56. Staff Online Now and Members Online Now added to the sidebar
57. Colors have been stripped from the navbar
58. New whitelist applicants can now see their application thread and reply to it to discuss it with Staff
59. PostBit now shows optional user fields (steam, origin, etc.)
60. Homepage re-implemented
61. Server Status and Rank moved to homepage
62. Recent Threads added to forums sidebar
63. Creativty Center re-named to Art & Graphics
64. In-character forums have been re-designed to resemble StarNet again.
65. All IC posts active within the last days have been moved to General Discussion in the IC forums. The rest have been ICly archived.
66. Players may now tag their posts. (Useful for StarNet posts providing services)
67. Some default tags have been set. These can be removed prior to posting. Feedback would be nice.
68. Character Journals moved to OOC forums due not being ICly accessible information, unless otherwise noted.
69. Market forum re-added.
70. Black Market forum added. (Don't you dare metagame this.)
71. StarNet News forum created
72. Fixed an innocent error with approving applications that was causing server log buildup
73. Replaced color coded Staff names with chess icons
74. Server Rank in sidebar now updates once per hour instead once per day
75. Players can now post anonymously in StarNet
76. Signing in via Facebook or Twitter is temporarily broken
77. Trophy/level system is incomplete, will continue later