This is something I didn't want to ever have to do, but the time has come to admit my limitations and my mistakes. The forum is going to close in November. Here's the main reasons why:
1) While writing is a tool I use to help with my mental health, it is not the only tool I use. At this point keeping the forum alive for the sake of my mental health will end up causing more problems than relieving them. I'm also going to teach at a much larger...
Hi all. I meant to include ways of staying in touch in my last announcement post, but forgot about it due to the craziness of real life.
I'm sure at some point down the road someone will try and revive this type of forum. Or maybe some other story websites exist that I or someone else doesn't know about. Either way, the biggest gripe I had about The Black Van shutting down was how the admin team told us then immediately disabled the website to...
Due to the forum closure and my upcoming busy schedule I have decided to not run contests or community contests. If anyone else wants to run a contest, you are of course free to do so until the forum ends on November 9th.
When you enter a topic and scroll to the top of the page, you will see to the right of the Post Reply button another button with a wrench symbol on it. When you click on it, a drop down menu will show you the options Print view and Print all . Print view is a standard feature of the phpBB forum software. It lets you print all posts displayed on the current page as simple black on white text. The Print all option comes from an extension that...
The Reputation System adds the possibility to rate posts to the base phpBB forum software. Only posts in the story boards can be rated . A user's reputation is the combined reputation of all their posts. A user can rate a post with +1 to +3 points, but their ability to rate posts is limited by their own reputation. The reputation of a story is what classifies it as a Popular Story or a Community Favorite. Each reputation point you earn gives you...
mChat is an extension that adds an integrated chat to the base phpBB forum software. So no seperate account is needed to use the chat. Besides the public rooms that all users can participate in, all users can create private rooms that they can invite other users into. We hope that the chat will especially be helpful for users looking for role play partners.
The RH Topic Tags extension adds to the phpBB base forum software the possibility for the creator of a topic to add tags to their topic. Users can use these tags either indirectly as a guide that helps them decide whether they are interested in a topic or directly by searching for all topics that use a specific tag by clicking on it.
The Post Bookmarks extension adds another feature to the board. At the top right of each post you can see a button with a bookmark symbol on it. If you click on it, the symbol will turn red and a bookmark for that specific post will be created. You can find the post bookmarks also in the User Control Panel. Use post bookmarks to remind yourself where you stopped reading a longer story. Either return to a bookmarked post from your User Control...
The cBB Reactions extension adds the possibility for users to react to posts from a set of predefined emojis to the base phpBB forum software. Just click on the smiley at the bottom right of each post and a menu with the set of reactions should open up that lets you choose a reaction for a post.
These reactions are specifically chosen to fit story feedback, rather than general forum posts.
Drafts are a standard feature of the phpBB forum software. If you write a reply in a topic or create a new topic, you will see a button that says Save Draft left of the Preview button below the text editor window. You can use drafts to save a post that is not yet finished and that you want to continue writing later on. If you have saved a draft, the Load Draft button will appear below text editor window. Click on it, load your draft and continue...
If you type at least the first two letters of a user you would like to mention as @username in one of your posts, a dropdown menu will show that will suggest a list of usernames to you. Choose the user you want to mention from that list. For example @Vela Nanashi . The mentioned username will turn into a link to the wall of the mentioned user. Also, the mentioned user will receive a notification that lets them know who mentioned them where.
Post models is an extension to the base phpBB forum that allows admins to create templates for posts that either all users or only moderators and admins can use. Currently, there are templates for opening posts to stories , new chapters to stories and story collection threads.
Topic Preview is an extension to the base phpBB forum that shows users a glimpse of the opening post of a thread when they hover with their mouse over its title. By default, it shows the first 360 characters of the opening post. We increased that limit to 450. Using the nopreview- BBcode , it can be chosen which part of the opening post specifically will be shown to users.
