UO 2.0 HAS BEGUN!

[UOmoderators]

Spread the word, kids. The best place on the internet is back in business.

And the two biggest issues that have plagued us are now resolved:

Gaze your eyes upon the return to the dark theme. And let me tell you, that was a pain in the ass. There's only like one style available in the PHP database that didn't suck, but the layout was dumb as hell. So I had to modify it. But PHP is fucking weird and the author of the style absolutely sucks at file/element naming and organization in general; there were 19 separate CSS files and 89 different HTML files to sift through in order to rearrange the layout into a presentable form and I'm just using Windows notepad to do it. It took all day and as you can see, there's still some work to do here and there, but it's good enough for now. Eventually those misaligned boxes and other random things are going to fit together nicely. In the meantime: BE ADVISED THE SITE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION AND USERS MAY GET LOGGED OUT. THE SITE MAY OCCASIONALLY GO OFFLINE TEMPORARILY AS WE SHAKE THE BUGS OUT. Don't freak out, give it 10 minutes and it'll probably be back up.

The second order of business was fixing the posting of images. This has ALWAYS been the NUMBER ONE issue that people faced when using this forum and probably caused many new people to give up and leave. But that's done now. The max size has increased to 2MB and the attachments are now full post-width. For larger images, the plan is to hopefully get the site to automatically resize images that are too large instead of just erroring out and making you resize manually. This all means NO MORE THIRD PARTY IMAGE HOSTING NEEDED... At least until the server gets filled up and we break the site because it ran out of space... So yeah, remind me to check on the storage capacity..

WHAT'S NEXT??

Not much really. I want to be absolutely clear on this: Underground Ozarks will continue in the same fashion as it always had, only now it will be more user friendly, regularly updated and more secure.

SPAM: We're going to be adding some better spam filters and other things to keep the bots out. This is the next functional change to come down the pipeline.

Updates: There's a PHP update ready to be installed on the back end. This will cause brief downtime and will be scheduled sometime in the near-ish future. This is up next after the new spam filter.

Security: We're looking into implementing HTTPS and other steps to increase security and hopefully this will be rolled out as soon as the above update are completed.

Mobile App: We're looking into working with Tapatalk for a more mobile friendly version of the site. But UO 2.0 already works pretty well on mobile so this is not a priority. Until then, please report functional/formatting issues on mobile to the Website Issues subforum.

Moderation: The rebirth of UO will not affect the moderation team. UO has always been pretty open and has moderated itself very minimally and as a result has avoided the drama/bullshit that some forums have been plagued by. We'd like to keep it that way.

Access levels: There will be more active management of public vs private subforums. But this is the part where things get tricky. People get impatient and butthurt easily because they're fucking babies apparently. This results in drama. We don't want drama. But we also don't want taggers and other assholes all up in our spots. Just be aware that new people have access to the public side only until enough of us trust them to be granted access to the private side. The granting or removal of access will be voted on, it's not one person behind the curtain deciding who's in and who's not. If you're cool, you're voted in. If you suck, then well it sucks to suck, I guess.

Longevity: UO is here to stay, baby. The forum itself appears to be 100% functional now and that's the important part. Please report any functional issues to the Website Issues subforum. WE KNOW the forum layout is a little wonky right now and it'll be fixed eventually: see the first paragraph up top.

Advertisements: Just kidding. This forum will never have ads. BUT don't be surprised if you see a little donate button in one of those little menu boxes in the main forum. By finally allowing image hosting RIGHT HERE, we're going to need more server space and that will cost more. We ain't broke asses but we're not amazon either so if you want to ensure the longevity of this great site, toss some change in our hat.

STUFF THAT"S BROKEN (basically all the stuff on the main page)

The ancient gallery: on the front page is broken and is probably not going to be fixed. We'll look into it, but it's probably a lost cause.

The UO Blog(s): Definitely going to try to get WR's blog fixed because that's got some good stuff. The other guys haven't been on here in ages and we probably don't need to spend time fixing their blogs as a result. IDK. We'll see.

The main (front) page in general: Definitely due for a facelift. Might go away completely. The location list hearkens back to a more innocent time when UE was a fringe hobby and we shared locations freely. Times have changed and people are assholes and kids are dumb. As such, there is no plan to have any such location database here. There are TONS of locations which are public knowledge and which are discussed in the public forum here so new people can easily find something to start out on. Furthermore, the locations all link to broken galleries that might not be fixable. And that's pretty much all the main page had going for it. The sweet nostalgia of that early 2000's webring technology and its associated usefulness is sadly defunct. So there's no sense in having a main page full of broken galleries and links to things that no longer exist.

[slow_walker]

Fantastic stuff. Thanks for the work and the update

[Nicotti]

A thought on the locations list. You could potentially do like a Top 5 locations for Springfield/St L/ KC or something and then link it to the forum thread. Or instead of top 5, one's that are asked about a lot like the Mississippi Intake Towers or Jordan Valley Tunnel. Then the new peep wouldn't have to search for the topic through all the info in the forum. Could even potentially have a Favorites Lost section with pics and forum links to places demoed, such as Armor.

[Snoopy]

I use notepad++ for editing stylesheets and html, much more efficient and less likely to look like spaghetti when you open them. Also, look into the Stop Forum Spam plugin in; its what we use at KCUE and it works well. Love the black theme too! Let me know if there is anything I can do to help <3

[UOmoderators]

Yeah I go back and forth with notepad ++ because the whole tabbed experience gets real fucking confusing after a while, for me at least. I'd rather it open in separate windows so I can side by side easier. There may be a way to do that, but I generally get what I need done with regular notepad most of the time despite the nicer layout of ++.

So.. editing a PHP forum just to make simple changes is one of the worst experiences one can have. I finally got it looking better and I'm going to leave it alone for a while. The only thing weird that bugs me currently is the login: there's a tiny "power button" style icon in the top right, or the usual login field at the bottom of the page. Gonna change that eventually, but HOLY FUCK that's enough CSS/HTML/PHP editing for me for a while. Gonna let it ride like this for a bit.

[mindwaave]

This phpBB be stylin' Shame that such dank darkness was a pain to conjure, though. Thanks for slogging thru the PHP!

NO MORE THIRD PARTY IMAGE HOSTING NEEDED

The photos thread looks so much better with your changes to the embedded photo widths, too

Underground Ozarks will continue in the same fashion as it always had, only now it will be more user friendly, regularly updated and more secure.

Longevity: UO is here to stay, baby. The forum itself appears to be 100% functional now and that's the important part.

A thought on the locations list. You could potentially do like a Top 5 locations for Springfield/St L/ KC or something and then link it to the forum thread. Or instead of top 5, one's that are asked about a lot like the Mississippi Intake Towers or Jordan Valley Tunnel. Then the new peep wouldn't have to search for the topic through all the info in the forum. Could even potentially have a Favorites Lost section with pics and forum links to places demoed, such as Armor.

I like your idea of a Graveyard/Museum/Hall of Glory page for demolished places. Top 5 per city is also a good idea, and could be as simple as a stickied post per board with links to existing threads for each major place-of-interest.

Stop Forum Spam plugin in; its what we use at KCUE and it works well.

Thanks for sharing this and vouching for it! I'd seen a few options online but have no experience. What do you think about integrating something old like this?

notepad++

+1, used to outright replace the MS notepad.exe binary with ++.exe on my old Windows builds, but I like Visual Studio Code for editing PowerShell and other scripts/files these days...

[Chris]

Great news, the new version looks great! Here's to another 20 years!

[VoidSherpa]

Hey, KC explorer checking in from our little forum. Been waiting for this place to get resurrected to make an account. Glad it's back from the dead!

[UOmoderators]

Just a quick update: user profile flair or "badges" are coming. Note the "test" rabbit head under this profile on the left side.

We'll make a thread asking for badge suggestions etc soon. Still have to figure out/design/steal the actual images used for the badges.

Priority is still to implement anti-spam and HTTPS, this was just a "quick" low hanging fruit that I got distracted with in the meantime.

[mindwaave]

Custom UO flair badges would be awesome!

[UOmoderators]

HTTPS is now enabled on the forum. Not working on the main UO home/index page yet for some reason.

Also took care of two user name change requests.

Still digging into the rest of the stuff.

[UOmoderators]

I've got the forum spam plugin activated now. I'm not entirely sure what effects it may have on things at this point. Will do some testing. In the meantime,

IF ANYONE HAS ISSUES SIGNING IN OR RESETTING PASSWORDS, ETC: Use the Contact Admin button at the bottom of the forum page that looks like an email icon. I'll make a new thread regarding "Helpful Stuff for Noobs and Others" and check over the FAQ and make sure things are all up to date there. For now, just "contact the admin" through that form if you have issues.

So yeah. We can mark security and Spam off the ol' to-do list now!

• Next up on the itinerary is getting the "private" forum stuff sorted out. Need to figure out who needs access to what and get that all set up. That's going to take some time because it's tedious work. Please be patient.

• Going to put a lot of thought into the main home/index page and what that should look like going forward or if it should even exist. Still plan to get WR's blog back up.

• And eventually the PHP updates will happen too. But I'll leave that alone for now... 'cause I hate working with PHP.

[mindwaave]

Awesome - spam begone! These are some excellent modernizations, hooray for LetsEncrypt!

• And eventually the PHP updates will happen too. But I'll leave that alone for now... 'cause I hate working with PHP.

Is there a way to backup/restore the whole phpbb server before updating?

[Chubz]

it's great to see you guys still putting love into this website. the internet as a whole has neglected "legacy forums" over the last decade and i enjoy being able to come here and still get the experience I've always enjoyed, even if i don't explore as much as I once did.

cheers fellas

[UOmoderators]

it's great to see you guys still putting love into this website. the internet as a whole has neglected "legacy forums" over the last decade and i enjoy being able to come here and still get the experience I've always enjoyed, even if i don't explore as much as I once did.

cheers fellas

Hell yeah man. Too much good stuff here to just let it die off.

Speaking of which, I got HTTPS working on the main home/index pages today. Still need to decide the fate of those pages,but the site is entirely served as HTTPS now.

Also, testing out a new banner/logo. I like what KC urbex is doing with theirs: they take submissions from users and vote on the banner.

Gonna tackle permissions and stuff next.