User Rewards• A new system of user rewards has been added to the site.
• User rewards are split into two types: earned and assigned. Earned rewards are automatically added to your profile nightly, and are worth points that get added into your lifetime score (but
not your monthly score). Assigned titles are given to you by administrators or forum moderators, and have no point value. Assigned titles have solid, dark borders.
• Rewards are also split into colors: gold rewards are earned from overall site statistics (or assigned by a moderator). Silver rewards are forum-specific.
• A special set of "level" rewards has also been added, based on your lifetime score. Like assigned rewards, these are not worth points.
• Not every site in the Four Light Network necessarily uses every earned rewards. Site owners choose which rewards to allow, how many points they are worth, and what they look like. Forum editors (see below) can turn certain rewards off for a given forum, or change their appearance.
• You can see how many points a reward is worth, how it is earned, when it was earned, and what reward series it is from by hovering over the reward with your mouse.
• Your active rewards are displayed in your user profile. When viewing your own profile, you can also see your "inactive" rewards. Rewards can become inactive if they are lost (as is the case for periodic rewards, such as "most reviews written in the last month") or if they are overwritten by a more prestigious reward (such as "25 forum posts" vs. "10 forum posts"). You still earn points from rewards when they are inactive.
• After earning rewards, they will be displayed (along with the total points earned) on your splash page. This list will remain for one hour after first viewing. Previously earned rewards that were lost and re-earned are not shown. Rewards that are new but inactive (such as if you earn two rewards of the same type simultaneously) are also not shown, though their score is included in your point total.
• In addition to providing points and being displayed on your user profile, rewards can be used as special markers for your forum posts. (In the future, they may also be added elsewhere.)
• By default, the system will prefer assigned rewards first, or if you don't have any, your most prestigious rewards to show on your forum posts. However, you may change this setting in your user preferences page, choosing which reward to display for each forum, as well as choosing a site default. You may choose not to show any rewards if you wish (though they will still appear on your user profile page.)
• If you choose a reward that you later use, the system will default to a different reward automatically. If you choose a reward that is overwritten, it will switch to the new reward instead.
• In the future, rewards may have additional perks, such as new site features, beyond their current point value. They could even apply to currently existing rewards, so try to earn as many as you can.
General Network Changes• "Mark all read" buttons now mark comments as well as reviews or blogs.
• The site title at the top of each page is now a link to the site home page.
• The "new message" popup's "view" link now resets the message list to show your newest messages.
• New content messages on the sidebar now go directly to a search for that new content (with the exception of "new blog comments" and similar links)
• The "owner" user level has been added to the site. Owners have admin rights, plus they can edit site options, assign moderators, and determine the titles, availability, and point values of site rewards.
• Each site can now have an admin-set number of rows on the splash page. Most have remained at 2, but iLOLing now has three.
• The "editor" forum access level has been added. Editors have moderator rights, plus they can change default forum rights, assign moderators, and control the titles and availability of forum rewards on their forum.
• Forum moderators and editors can no longer edit the access levels of admins, owners, or superusers.
• Site admins and owners can now add the "Front Page" tag to a user blog, which will cause that blog to be displayed on the front page (after leaderboards) for 36 hours. Only the most recent "front page" blog will be shown if more than one is posted in a 36-hour period.
• Fixed a bug where you could submit an invalid "other user" when suggesting a quote.
• Fixed a bug where ignored threads would still show the "ignore this thread" link.
• Specifically ignored threads will no longer appear on the "Active Threads" list.
