b00mb0x version 8 is now live. Version 7 was only launched three months ago and we like to leave it at least 6 months between site upgrades. Version 7 became painfully slow, up to 45 seconds a comment, and the spam filters were bloated and not working very well. We tried to upgrade the Movable Type software to no avail and had a fair bit of downtime. So we reluctantly went down the route of making a new version

The major changes to the site are to the backend, it now works on WordPress, which is a vast improvement in terms of speed and in anti-spam measures. If the spam gets bad on this version, there are moderation and registration options that will address them. It also has a lot of features that movable type never supported, such as scheduled posting (we can post a mix and not have it appear until a certain time).

We made a few cosmetic changes to the forum too.

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There are a few drawbacks which we’ll eventually address.

1. B00mbl0g still runs on Movable Type. We’ll transfer this to another installation (it can’t go on this installation safely) when there’s more time.
2. Thumbnails need to be created in Movable Type and the code of the post needs to be copied into the WordPress code for now. (Admin)
3. The design is less malleable. The biggest problem here is that we have only one hugely long column to post the navigation and the links. We’ve made it so more mixes are posted at once to even it out visually.
4. The notification list is on hiatus. I’ll send one more notification about the release through Movable Type, but there won’t be a new notification list available until we find a WordPress Plugin for that purpose.
5. The chat is flaky.
6. The RSS feed to the forum was working but isn’t now. RSS feeds for comments and b00mbl0g are fine tho.

So it’s a little bit of a half-assed upgrade, but the pros should out-weigh the cons until we can sort out the remaining niggles. Which won’t be for a while because we’re working on the awards! Let us know if you have any problems using the new site. New mixes will be published tomorrow, thanks for your patience while we sorted the site out.

Happy Halloween!

Update: thumbnail test