Short Version:
On January 10, 2012 (the 5th anniversary of the BYC re-launch) BYC is upgrading to a better, more feature-rich, more stable platform / software system. All of your login info, posts, topics, images, private messages, etc. will all be transferred to the new system.
Long Version:
Imagine youre part of a small family with two kids. In a year, your family doubles in size, and then doubles again. Now imagine that your family doubles in size EIGHT more times over the course of 5 years! Youd probably be looking for a new house with a ton more room, no? Well, thats what has happened with our family here on BYC! On January 11th, 2007 we re-launched BYC with 100 members. Since then weve doubled in size 10 times:
100, 200, 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200, 6,400, 12,800, 25,600, 51,200 all the way to almost 115,000 members today!
Yes, that's what it looks like when a family of 100 doubles TEN times!
Imagine that the software and servers weve been using to run BYC is our house. Over the past 5 years weve slapped on a ton of additions to our BYC home: a few extra bedrooms, some bathrooms, and even a new 2nd story! Well, weve run out of space to build, so were moving to a new home, but DONT WORRY, we have the worlds best moving company handling everything!
In geek speak: Weve outgrown what our current setup can provide. Were migrating to a much better community software platform on much more robust hardware and weve got some amazing engineers and designers that have been and will be helping with all the data transfers / conversion, and all the software & hardware setup.
We know that change can be hard even really good change. Just like moving into a new house, there are things that may be different and feel a bit odd at first. Im used to a light switch in the kitchen on the left and now it is on the right. The transition may be challenging for some, but super exciting for others. For those that have a hard time with change, the BYC Staff and tons of other members will be here to answer your questions and hold your hand through anything that you might find tricky or challenging.
Also, keep in mind that if you had over 100,000 peeps in your family it would be pretty hard to find a house that was exactly perfect for each person. Weve been working hard for over 5 months to find the perfect house. There will be some slight trade-offs, but overall the hope and expectation is that the new house will have much more room, better features, and provide a better environment in which our family can enjoy one-anothers company.
On one of the walls of my real-life house my wife and I have a plaque: Home is where the heart is! In the same way, BYCs home is where the community is the software may change, but the people remain the same. Were VERY excited for this change that has been many months in the planning and making and look forward to exploring our brand new home with you and settling in!
Below is a list of many of the benefits that youll discover in the new system:
General:
Much better post editor: This means when you bold, it shows bold vs having to use "bbcode". Can do way cooler things with text, videos, images, tables, etc.
MOBILE! - Integration with Tapatalk reading, posting, & adding images into the forum threads (not available in sandbox). No Tapatalk mobile PM support yet.
New ability to search within individual topics and individual threads
Save and bookmark search results
Better "mark-as-read" functionality
Subscriptions: manage all your email subscriptions to be: "Immediate" "daily" "weekly" or "site only" (meaning no email notifications, but you can still be "subscribed")
Mobile - phone browser options with Tapatalk
Subscribe to entire categories, forums, sections, etc. For example, you can subscribe to get notifications any time a new topic is posted in the "Raising Baby Chicks" section
Members can leave comments on your pages (articles)
Subscribe to articles & member pages: Want to know when you friend updates their BYC page? Want to know when someone comments on your page? You can subscribe to it
Real-time updated "Activity Feed"
Members can set other users to "ignore" status
Mouseover on topics. While browsing the forum topic list, hovering over a topic gives a preview of the post without having to click on it.
Member Pages / Articles: Can be owned by one or multiple, or all can edit. Revision history so if a mistake is made we can "go back" to a previous version.
When sending PMs, searching, etc. there is an auto complete to the username as you start to type the username
Sort topics in each forum section by number of replies or number of views
Click the number of reviews on a topic (in the topic list) to see how many times different people have posted
Built in Spell-Check (to use your browser's spell-check, see here)
BYC Member Pages: Now one, multiple, or all members can collaborate on creating pages. There is also a page / article rrevision history, so if you make a mistake you can revert back to a previous version at any time.
On the homepage see who posted the most times, the most active threads, etc. for the last day, past 7 days, 30 days, and all time!
Multi Quote ability
Ability to post Vimeo videos
Can "thumbs-up" (similar to "Like") forum posts
All members can create "Polls"
Pictures / Galleries / Albums
UNLIMITED storage space for all members!
Uploading and inserting pictures is way easier
Pictures can be organized into multiple albums and moved between albums
Users can upload multiple pictures at once into their albums.
Pictures can be uploaded any size without being forced to resize
Private Messages / PMs:
UNLIMITED PM storage space for all members!
PM's can be sent to a group of people and the individuals in the group can reply to everyone else.
PM's can be sent to a group of people and set as individual - like a blind copy
PM conversations are kept in one thread vs. many individual PMs
Auto complete when typing recipient.
Here is a screenshot of what the new BYC Homepage will look like:
(Click for larger)
Here is a screenshot of what a forum thread / topic will look like:
(Click for larger)
Check out this screenshot for all kinds of navigation goodness:
We're VERY excited (and a little nervous) about this huge change. We ask for your help in being patient with us as we work out any bugs and kinks in the new system. Again, we know change isn't easy, but our staff and other members will be right here to help you if you have any questions or problems at all!
We'll be posting more information, video tutorials, FAQs, etc. to help make the process as smooth as possible.
Thanks to everybody for your support!
Ok, here is a tour of the new BYC to whet your appetite!
You can watch it at youtube in HD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlEodju54GQ
...or a bit smaller below:
