A Long September
Date: Tuesday September 30, 2003 at 13:08
Topic: News

Hiya everyone,

First of all, I hope that everyone had a great summer and are readjusting to school/work well. With that said, let’s jump straight into the news since there is quite a bit to talk about today.

Updates
The main update is registration is locked down permanently. There have been too many new accounts created just to spam the boards. There has also been a spate of multiple accounts made to try and manipulate the ratings on the site. In order to get an account at AI now, you will have to apply for a token. You will be required to answer a few simple questions and you will be evaluated before an account will be given. I’m sorry for the inconvenience but it’s the only way I can keep an eye on the new members and protect you from potential spammers. Existing members will soon be able to create tokens for their friends, more details to come.

In the forums you will find a little ‘Quick Reply’ box at the bottom of threads. If you don’t care about making the reply all ‘pretty’ (or you already know the bbcode/smilies) then just type your reply in there and submit.

Plagiarism Report
I’ve made every attempt to be nice regarding plagiarism. I have given people a chance to remove questionable stories and on submission I have made it so you have to validate that a story is your own work to avoid later embarrassment. Plagiarism is a serious offence. Not only are you fooling your readers, you are taking credit for someone else’s hard work. This obviously still doesn’t mean anything to some people. So for the first time I will be reporting a transgression publicly.

September’s plagiarist is Pixxie_Delight. Her story ‘Prince Charming’ was copied from Judith McNaught’s ‘Something Wonderful’. This story will be removed shortly and her account has been disabled as per submission guidelines.

Miscellaneous
The site will be closed for about an hour around midnight (GMT) Sept. 30 to test the new server. After that you will be able to access the site from both the .com and .net addresses. Over the next month the .com will forward to the .net as a backup/failsafe until I am happy with the new server.

If you go to the ‘Top Stories’ in October you will see two new categories, ‘Popular Stories’ and ‘Recommended Stories’. These will be compiled monthly from stories that are read the most and recommended the most respectively.

Story ratings will also be back finally after too long an absence. Hopefully this formula will be almost tamper proof.

A reminder to all the people who are interested in entering the Christmas Story Competition, you have until midnight on Oct 31st to enter. That gives you one month. After that no more entries will be accepted, no exceptions. Check out the competition details at the site for more details.

That’s all for now.

Aria







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