The new forum design will simplify administration for Xenite.Org administrators and will expand the content offerings of the boards. Most of the FAQ documents associated with the current message boards have recently been updated with new posting guidelines and in a couple of cases specific information about the topics of the boards.

Increasing abuse of the message board system by people attempting to recruit new members of illegal online pyramid schemes (where you send $1.00 to each of six people and then spam message boards and news groups in an effort to entice even more people to send you money) has forced Xenite.Org to introduce special posting filters. Filters have also been added for certain kinds of referral programs which encourage people to recruit a pyramid like organization so they can earn commisssions.

The new forum software will use these and other filters as required. The filters detect the purpose of a message and refuse to post it, displaying instead an explanation of why the messages are not being posted (they are considered to be abusive by Xenite.Org). People who insist on posting these kinds of messages are tracked down through Xenite.Org's detailed server logs. We consistently file complaints against abusers with their Internet service providers.

Because of time constraints and the complexity of moving the large user community to new discussion forums, new features will be implemented in stages. Eventually people will have the option of registering with the system. Registered visitors will be able to edit and delete their own messages and to upload files to special libraries associated with each forum.

Changes have recently been made to the existing message boards to test a new HTML structure to see how compatible the proposed underlying code structure is with posting scripts. Tests have indicated an increase in speed for the updates which are required in index files. Slow updates and high traffic have often resulted in corrupted message board indexes in recent months. An examination of the current software, free scripts downloaded from the Internet, revealed that the software was not taking high traffic situations into consideration.

Coupled with the fact that archiving of messages has become increasingly frequent, Xenite.Org has made the decision to replace the current outdated message board system. A survey of existing solutions combined with input from our user community convinced us there is currently nothing on the market which will meet our needs. So we have decided to write our own message board software. The early phases of implementation will be functional but not necessarily competitive in terms of features.

Visitors are encouraged to post comments about the new forum design on any of our current message boards, or to send email to Michael.

Andromeda Message Board

Andre Norton Message Board

Farscape Message Board

H.P. Lovecraft Message Board

The Lost World Message Board

The White Council: Discussion and FAQs for fans of Tolkien andthe Inklings

Xena Online Resources Message Board