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Admin Announcements

Hello all SW Members! ๐Ÿ˜€

Below is a list of our recent improvements to this site since the last announcement:

โ€ข [b]Edit Profile[/b]
Age, Gender & Username [i](you cannot change this limitlessly, use wisely)[/i]
Location
About Me

โ€ข [b]Edit & Delete Posts[/b]
Giving you more control over your Posts/Stories & Comments.

โ€ข [b]Improvements to Stop Spamming[/b]
"Report Abuse" implemented.
Auto-suspend users who receive too many reports in a short period of time.
Posting speed limitations, to prevent spammers from flooding the site.
"Activate Account" to reduce your limitations.

โ€ข [b]Improved Website Layout[/b]
Specifically improvements to the Header Navigation.
Now the Header floats/sticks to the top of your screen, making it much easier for you to get from page to page.

โ€ข [b]Registration Steps / Account Setup[/b]
To help customize and improve your experience on this site.
This will be used for the upcoming content filtering features.


[b]Other improvements:[/b]
- Allow topic owners to see replies from blocked users.
- Hearts notifications.
- Badges for Admins, Moderators & Helpers.
- Allow blocking of users by username.
- Increased Block limit.
- Loads of other improvements in functionality, performance and security.

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[b]Some of the next features to be released will be: [/b]
- Questions & Answers
- Filter homepage feed
- Block all Adults or Minors from accessing your profile and posts
- Restrict access between Minors and profiles with Adult Content
- Text Formatting Tools

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A Common Question on SW: [b]Why is Private Messaging not available yet?[/b]

We have been progressing well with many of the unfinished features, including private messaging; we do expect this feature to become available for use in a soon to come update.

Private messaging is more complex than many other features, such as Hearts, for example.
Many users ask questions like: [i]"Why did we complete Hearts before Messages?"[/i],
yet seem to not realize that these features are completely opposite on the scale of difficulty.

In the same way you wouldn't expect Facebook, Google, Yahoo or Hotmail to build and entire messaging service (or even a single new feature) in just 2-3 days,
it takes us days or weeks of work to build complex features as well [i](also we have businesses/jobs apart from SW)[/i].

We do not simply drag-and-drop features into existence on this site.
Everything is being hand-coded, and rigorous security and performance tests must be done for each feature.

[i](You may have noticed the rarity of Bugs/Errors on this site)[/i]


However, probably [b]the main reason for cautious progression with the Messaging feature, is SAFETY[/b].

We want to be sure that by the time we make private messaging available on our site, minors are protected to the best of our ability from predators;
And ALL members in fact, are well protected from seeing inappropriate content in private messages which they never asked to receive.

We are very much aware of the complaints and instances of inappropriate behavior from certain members on this site.

Although you may not see us always take most swift action on some of these issues, they are definitely factors of concern to us, and we will be working toward making our community on Similar Worlds a safer and better place for all members, one step at a time.

Thank you for your attention and your patience.
Kind regards. ๐Ÿ™‚
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Andrew ยท Admin
Hello all,
Thanks for the many kind compliments! We appreciate you being here. :)

I realize that there may be some unanswered questions posted in this topic, I will try to get around to answering hopefully soon.


As mentioned recently, Private Messages and Photo Uploads are at our top priority to release next. We are aiming to have these completed before this weekend is over.

However, many security features and algorithms need to be put in place before PM and Photo sharing are available.

We've spent most of yesterday and will continue into today, working on algorithms and formulas for improved safety of our members, especially the minors.
These improvements will be released soon in the coming days.

It may sometimes appear as though we are slowing down our working rate, but that's not really the case.
Now we at a point where we have to deal with very complex portions of this site.

At the moment, all content on this site is public; but in the transition into private conversation, many risks begin to open up.

For security alone, there are hundreds of factors that need to be taken into consideration, and many different scenarios that could take place here, which we must be aware of and make preparations for in advance.

We also want to give members the ability to better control who can contact them directly, visit their profile or even see their posts.

So, the bulk of the delay isn't solely due to the complexity of the private messaging system, but probably more to the need for advanced Security, Privacy and Control for members.

Thanks again for your patience.