A Slow Month
For a number of reasons, this month has been a little slow for the site. I've been many things this month, busy IRL, busy at Work and most annoyingly, ill for the past two weeks. Work has still continued on some things, this blog post will update you on those things as well as discuss other things.
This will be a bit of a short one this month.
Software update
I have updated the front and back end of the forum to the latest release of the Flarum software, this should give some performance improvements as well as bug fixes. There are some small features as well like 'You can now mention tags in posts', although these may not be noticed based on our current posting habits.
Terms of use
We've had terms of use and a privacy policy for some time. They have not really been forced upon users to read until today. This is partly my fault. I have set it up and added extensions so that when creating an account, users will have to tick the confirmation box, as is standard with most sites. Please make me aware if you have any issues with this functionality, either on the site itself or externally
lumeinshin@mail.aviaryafoot.org for email
lumeinshin@pleroma.skyshanty.xyz on the fediverse
lumeinshin@chat.skyshanty.xyz on XMPP
SheepishPatio on Reddit (I dont really use it but I understand some of the other accounts are quite niche)
I have updated the terms of service and privacy policy to contain many of the things that most forums include, this is done primarily to cover my ass legally, and also to reassert some of the posting requirements and my rights as an admin. I have been told by people that I can be a bit too hesitant to wield the janny powers, so this is somewhat an attempt to set the boundaries properly. My behaviour will not perceptively change but I may be a bit quicker at actioning things and refer to the ToS/PP more often.
Email
There will be an email going out to users at the time of this release in order to both inform you of the terms of use changes, but also as a little hello. This will not become a frequent thing but I figured I should mention it. If I make any other adjustments or changes I will include that in the email too
Since users are not required to use a 100% legitimate email at time of signup, some will not receive the email as there is nobody to receive it. Also due to the setup of the email not being 100% perfect, a couple of mail providers will auto flag it as spam.
Ads
As before, I have been running 4chan banner ads, these are probably the best 'bang for the buck' ads and I think the userbase filters over here nicely (most of the time lol).
I have also been running google search ads in order to reach a slightly broader audience. They are a fairly good value for money so i shall continue to use them.
I am also looking at other sites that run self serve ads to advertise with.
Friendly sites
This is just to reaffirm what I said last month, also since I havent quite decided on what my plan is:
I would like to extend our little corner of the internet somewhat. For the most part, most of the other alt-sites that I use are primarily image-board type ones, which tend to have a somewhat different culture. I am not sure about just adding sites willy nilly to the list, however i'd like to hear any suggestions if anyone has any. I have done similar via other threads before but always worth asking again. I am unsure how I will signal it or link to them, maybe just a section on the site and on the right side bar under the donation links. (desktop)
Thanks
Thank you for reading this months update for SheepishPatio. I hope that you continue to use and enjoy the site. Feel free to let me know if there are any suggestions, issues and ideas you would like to offer.
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Forum page archive (old ToS and PP)
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