Brother Tyler

Another minor follow-up... + THE BOLTER & CHAINSWORD + forum was turned into a club. What this means is that + THE BOLTER & CHAINSWORD + club was created and that within that club the following features are available: discussion topics just like in the Forums ("Topics") a category for Blogs ("Blogs") a Gallery category for creating albums and images related to the Legio ("Images") a Downloads category for your Legio files ("Files") All topics that were in the old forum have been moved into the club forum, all albums/images that were in the Gallery category have been moved into the club category, and all files that were in the Downloads category have been moved into the club category. Unfortunately, while we can move most content around between features, we can't do that with blogs. There was only one blog in the Blogs category, however, and that one belonged to me, so I moved it into the Adeptus Astartes category. The old forum and the Gallery, Blogs, and Downloads categories have all been deleted. The new club appears in the exact same location as the forum did, and you can also access it from the main Clubs page. And big fans of the Legio can follow the club to receive a notification whenever new content is submitted therein. By creating a club for this purpose, all content related to the Legio can be located within (and accessed from) that club. In this way, members who want to see Legio content don't have to manually bounce around between the main features. Instead, you can just open the club and it's all there (minus my blog, but I may recreate it in the club later). Another side benefit, and the real impetus behind doing this, is that the club takes up less vertical space on the site's main page, decreasing your vertical scrolling. It's only a little bit, but it's a small quality of life improvement. The one downside to this is that the icon for the club doesn't fade/disappear even if you've read all the content therein. So small gain with the vertical scrolling, small loss with the non-fading icon, big gain with the aggregation of all related content in one area. It's worth noting that all imagery I've used for the club was created by @BLOODSAINT. He is the one who created the Bolter and Chainsword [website] in the first place and it was under his stewardship that the Legio B&C was created. His fantastic artwork created the whole atmosphere of the site and, though we've also included fantastic artwork from @madscuzzy and others, I felt it only right to use the seminal artwork for the community's mascot. The Legio's resident mad prophet, @Atticus Rage, is the actual club creator (but don't irritate him or Very Bad Things might happen). It's a public club and anyone can participate therein, so you don't need to join the club and be a member to see/do anything.

I recommend against deleting images. I also recommend against directly pasting images into posts unless those discussions are temporary in nature and serve no enduring purpose. When you directly paste an image into a post, it is uploaded into a temporary folder. That folder is emptied after a period of time (1 year?). So any images that are directly posted into content will disappear, removing important context. This is fine for things like news/rumor topics where the discussion will become moot once the product is released (or the rumor proves false). In more enduring hobby discussions, however, especially things like project logs and battle reports, images serve an important function in conveying information. I think it's especially important to preserve images of members' hobby participation (i.e., miniature assembly/painting, battle reports). There may be images such as memes and similar which don't really serve an enduring purpose, so deleting those aren't really an issue. Ultimately, despite my personal recommendations, it's entirely up to you - you are free to delete any of the images that you've uploaded.

I think this is another result of the problems described here, though I'll have to defer to @WrathOfTheLion for that.

Minor follow-up... The Latest Club Activity and Recent Blog Comments blocks have been moved from the sidebar to below the forums (but above the other blocks that appear there - Who's Online, Member Statistics, and Forum Statistics). The goal of this change is to make the height of the main content relatively equal to the height of the blocks that appear in the sidebar. The height of both areas will vary. The main content may be affected by the colored site announcements, the number of lines in the Thought for the Day block, the amount of content in each of the Recent Blog Comments, and the number of members currently online; and the sidebar will be affected by the number of upcoming events, the length of blog entry titles, the length of topic titles, the length of recent article titles, the length of recent file titles, the length of album titles, and the length of member names (in the Recent Achievements block). So there will almost always be some difference between the height of each, but they should be close. It's also important to note that anyone viewing the site on a mobile device sees the sidebar blocks below the content that appears in the main area, so this change won't affect them except that some blocks now appear higher than they were before. In this, I had to balance which of the higher priority blocks appeared higher, understanding that there would inevitably be some variation between the highest priority blocks depending on how someone viewed the site. We may make further tweaks here, so this is somewhat experimental at this point.

I've hidden several posts and edited another that quoted one of those hidden posts. It's eminently possible to disagree with each other without being disrespectful.

And on that note, we'll lock this. There are plenty of other current/recent discussions about areas where hobbyists have concerns about the game(s) supported here. We don't need to be knocking external sites and people who aren't here to defend themselves.

All of the banner images were deleted (my only guess as to why they were showing up is that they were cached). More importantly, some of the BBCodes no longer work, especially the tables and captions. At some point, I'll probably create new templates that members can copy, paste, and modify. With the formatting tools/buttons, however, as well as things like the BBCode Guide (many BBCodes will continue to work until Invision decides to stop supporting them), the Paint Color Hexadecimal Codes (still incomplete especially with the Tone range coming out), an article about Understanding HEX Codes, and an announcement about some buttons that were added to the formatting toolbar*, it's much easier for members to create attractively formatted articles. * I wasn't able to get the h1-h6 buttons added, but I think Invision has included them in the 5.0 software that we'll be updating to later this year. * I really need to create a tutorial to help people use the headers, especially with images.

While there are a lot of things that might be done, aside from the possibility of pulling the Heretic Astartes out into their own category, this is all we're likely to do for now in terms of restructuring. We need time to (a) let the dust settle, and (b) see how things work before we consider another round of changes. There are a few things that we've put on the back burner, but those require some preparations elsewhere to be supportable.

By now, you’ve probably noticed that we did a little restructuring to reduce the vertical scrolling. We observed that the restructuring we implemented last year forced a lot more vertical scrolling for those members who focus on the (sub)forums for the (sub)factions since those categories were moved to the bottom of the site (even though we reduced the overall number of (sub)forums in that restructuring). There was a purpose behind that change, and that hasn't changed, but we still want to reduce scrolling where possible. To do this, we changed the forum hierarchy so that many forums that used to be top-level are now one level lower, becoming subforums under a top-level forum. Here’s a summary of the changes: The ++ GUESTS, ADVERTISERS, AND LOGGED OUT MEMBERS ++ and ++ WELCOME TO THE BOLTER & CHAINSWORD ++ categories (you can’t see the first category unless you are either an administrator or are logged out/not a member, and you can’t see the second category unless you are either an administrator or a Frater Novus) have been merged into a single category, with all of the “forums” (actually, they’re links to topics that appear in the + ABOUT THE COMMUNITY + and + BOLTER AND CHAINSWORD 101 + forums) becoming subforums under a new + IMPORTANT INFORMATION + forum. The “forum” links in the ++ SITE FEATURES ++ category are now subforums under a new + SITE FEATURES + forum. The tutorials for each of these features will be moved from the + BOLTER AND CHAINSWORD 101 + forum into this new forum. The + EPIC SCALE HORUS HERESY GAMES +, + KILL TEAM +, + NECROMUNDA +, and + ROLEPLAYING GAMES + forums have become subforums under the + OTHER GAMES + forum. The + ADEPTUS ASTARTES / LOYALIST LEGIONES ASTARTES + forum and its subforums have been pulled out of the ++ IMPERIUM ++ category and now form their own ++ ADEPTUS ASTARTES ++ category above the ++ IMPERIUM ++ category. The + ADEPTA SORORITAS AND THE ECCLESIARCHY +, + ADEPTUS MECHANICUS / MECHANICUM +, + ASTRA MILITARUM / IMPERIALIS AUXILIA +, + IMPERIAL KNIGHTS +, and + TALONS OF THE EMPEROR + forums are now subforums under + THE IMPERIUM OF MANKIND + forum. The + CHAOS DAEMONS / DAEMONS OF THE RUINSTORM +, + CHAOS KNIGHTS +, and + HERETIC ASTARTES / TRAITOR LEGIONES ASTARTES + forums are now subforums under the + REALM OF CHAOS + forum. A new + XENOS + forum has been created in the ++ XENOS ++ category and all the other forums in that category are now subforums under the new forum. All the ~ Albums & Images and ~ Blogs “subforums” (actually, they’re links to the corresponding (sub)categories within the Blogs and Gallery features) have been shortened to simply Albums & Images and Blogs. The net result of all these changes is that there is far less vertical scrolling. In the vast majority of cases, forums that appeared on the front pages are still visible on (and accessible from) the front page. However, any subforums beneath those (now) subforums are not visible. This affects the traitor legions who have their own codices (Death Guard, Emperor’s Children, Thousand Sons, and World Eaters). We may adjust that portion of the change if we determine that it is adverse to those subfactions. Regarding the (new) + XENOS + forum, that now provides a place where members can discuss all the other xenos species that populate(d) the galaxy. This includes the Megarachnids, Enslavers, Rangda, Zoats, etc. We’ll be moving discussions about those xenos species from where they are currently found and into this forum, but you are welcome to report any such topic to speed the process up.

While there are certainly some Chapters that are little more than carbon copies of their predecessors, the variation found within the official Chapters makes it very clear that successors can often be notably distinct from their predecessors. The textbook example is the Mortifactors, one of the Primogenitors, which has developed to incorporate the headhunting culture of their homeworld, Posul, such that they are quite different from both the Ultramarines Legion and most of the other Primogenitors. Another example is the Exorcists, who incorporate an occult theme that is quite different from the other scions of Rogal Dorn. Ultimately, while a Chapter may be influenced by its predecessor (if that predecessor was involved in its initial development), the more important influences are from the Chapter's homeworld and the world(s) from which it draws its recruits. A Chapter bearing the gene-seed of Lion El'Jonson could very easily incorporate cultural influences that are quite different from the European stylings of the Dark Angels Chapter. One whose thematic elements draw upon Ancient Egypt could be fascinating and distinct.

Yes (see the linked tutorial).

That's good to hear. We're still working on fixing the issues I previously described; and we're looking into other things that might help, too. For example, one thing that bogs the system down is working through all the achievements for each and every member. While we pruned a large number of zero-activity members (not new/recent members, just old ones), we are considering reducing the achievement progressions from 20 milestones to something lower (numbers ranging from 8 to 15 - we're going to play around and see what works). Reducing the achievement progressions has cascading effects on rank and discipline, so we're being methodical about that (i.e., it won't be a quick decision/implementation). And we're also looking into a way to reduce the vertical scrolling that members have to do to get around the site. That has been in preparation for a while and you might see that Very SoonTM.

Yes, members can delete their own images.

We are requesting assistance from the members in cleaning up the Gallery. For background about the Gallery and why it is an essential feature supporting the community, see this tutorial. We are looking for your help in three areas: Delete any of your albums that are empty. Consider breaking multi-(sub)faction/subject albums into multiple albums, each focusing on an individual (sub)faction/subject. Ensure that each of your albums is in the correct category. Empty Albums We are looking at ways to clean the database up, and one of the culprits is empty albums. Many members create albums with the intent of populating them with images of their miniatures, but then they don't upload images. These albums then reside on the database, taking up space (a very small amount of space, mind you, but the aggregate adds up). In addition, empty albums waste other members' time when they are poking around in the Gallery to look at images - they click on an album whose name piques their interest and then see that there's nothing there. Deleting empty albums, then, frees up space and frees up members' time. Multi-(sub)Faction/Topic Albums While most members think of their albums solely as a place for them to store images online so they can include them in their posts, there are actually members who enjoy browsing around directly in the Gallery to look at images. Often, their interest is focused on specific (sub)factions. For example, someone might want to look solely at images of the Blood Angels. Another member, meanwhile, might want to look at images of the Adeptus Titanicus game. To that end, the Gallery is organized by categories that allow members to focus on specific (sub)factions, games, and types of content. While it's easy for a member to just upload all their images into a single album, that adversely affects other members' ease of focusing on specific subjects when browsing images. By confining individual albums to individual subjects, you enhance members' browsing experience. Since members can move their images, it's relatively easy to create individual albums for specific subjects and then move images around in their albums. Correct Category As mentioned above, placing an album in the correct category helps members to focus their time on their desired subject matter. If someone wants to look at images of Necrons, they should be able to find those images in the Necrons category (which falls under the Xenos category). When an album is created, it defaults to the Miscellaneous category. While it's very easy to select the appropriate category, many members ignore this step. As a result, (a) the Miscellaneous category is filled with albums that should be in other categories, and (b) people searching for albums/images of specific subjects have to search through both the category for that subject (e.g., Blood Angels, Orks, Adeptus Titanicus) and the Miscellaneous category. And on that note, if you think that the categories need to be adjusted, we are always open to suggestions. We don't want to have too large of a list (which would make things unwieldy), but we definitely want a selection of categories that allows for sufficient granularity and specificity. The + SUGGESTION BOX + is always a good place for this, but you are also free to post your suggestion(s) as replies to this topic (for as long as this topic remains on the front page of this forum). Your assistance is appreciated.

I don't recall any official Chapters whose Chapter badge has been portrayed or described as being similar to the one in question. At this point, I suspect that it was either (a) something they came up with to show a little variety, and/or (b) a clever way to have some Chapter that might someday be called the "Warhammers" or something like that. There is the Hammers of Retribution Chapter, but their Chapter badge is unknown. For now, I would just chalk this up as GW showing without prescribing.