Change Log: behind the scenes at BHW

Chapter 1, Section 1, Rule 6, Point 3 has been added in to clarify our stance on cross-selling in approved BSTs.

Zwielicht said:

Cross-selling, even to other approved BSTs, is not permitted anywhere in their marketplace sales threads.

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This clarification has been added in to help keep what's being advertised in a sales thread clear to customers.

Rules of the Joint Venture subforum have been updated to include that investments of any sort, whether the OP is offering to invest or asking for an investment, are not permitted.

We're currently experiencing some issues with deliverability to Yahoo domains for about 10% of our email traffic (we fully check out on their recent changes https://senders.yahooinc.com/best-practices/ ) if you're waiting for 2FA's please use your back-up codes.
Email notifications please be patient - we expect them to flood in within the next 24 hours.
In both cases please whitelist us for faster delivery https://senders.yahooinc.com/best-practices/

Diamond Damien said:

We're currently experiencing some issues with deliverability to Yahoo domains for about 10% of our email traffic (we fully check out on their recent changes https://senders.yahooinc.com/best-practices/ ) if you're waiting for 2FA's please use your back-up codes.
Email notifications please be patient - we expect them to flood in within the next 24 hours.
In both cases please whitelist us for faster delivery https://senders.yahooinc.com/best-practices/

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All email issues with Yahoo have now been resolved and mail is once again delivering as usual.

Updates to marketplace spam management have been implemented to our existing algo, removing the impact of spam / low value posts on the marketplace.
Marketplace merchants will still receive notifications about posts on their threads however the global visibility of those posts will be significantly reduced.

We've made a change in the mandatory required information for every sales thread - now it's required to provide a "How to purchase" ("Call to action") section in addition to the refund policy, description of the service, pricing, off-forum contact details, and TAT (if applicable).

This change aims to help all the members understand how they can purchase any Marketplace listed service without contacting the seller first (unless the seller explicitly requested it).

The change is detailed in Chapter 1: General Rule; Section 2 - 2.4: Call to action / "How to Purchase" section

We have an exciting announcement to make about BHW's themes.

That's right! The dark theme and light theme for BHW will be fully updated soon.

These improved themes not only have some much-requested updates, but also improve the functionality and usability of the forum.

More details will be posted in the forum suggestions and feedback section early next week.

The new Dark and Light styles are now live. Your account will automatically be ported to the relevant style - for more on how to pick your theme please visit https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/how-to-view-the-white-bhw-theme.1042232/
Please keep all comments about this change in the dedicated thread here https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/announcement-introducing-the-new-bhw.1585112/

Since my last post here, we've expanded our marketplace algorithm to take in additional data points that impact some low-value posts on the marketplace that frequently reached the homepage and devalued our user experience. As these posts were of little interest to anyone other than the marketplace thread owner and the member posting, we removed some of the less relevant post types from the homepage feed. The adjustment allows the member to post and the merchant to interact with the member without filling up the homepage with erroneous posts. We’re now analyzing hundreds of data points across the system to decide on post-bumps. This creates a large data set that informs our decisions when tuning our algorithm. This data is anonymously collected and processed.

As with all algorithm changes, there will be some false positives, but we're happy to say we've removed over 6,000 low-value posts on marketplace threads from appearing on the homepage in just two weeks, leaving those engaged posts with higher visibility. We will continue tuning the algorithm to reduce these false positives while delivering a better user experience to over six million four hundred thousand unique forum readers (GA Stats) visiting the forum each year.

We completed the rollout of the new forum styles. and myriad changes that go on the backend to achieve these.

Platform bugs and security patches have also been applied, keeping the forum stable.

There's an upcoming update that I'm excited to shared with all of you.

So, you know that problem where it says "Jr. VIP" twice on a member's profile?


We've decided that we're going to resolve this by using the user title ladder for all non-staff usergroups.




Since we'll be making the user title ladder more prominent across the forum, we're also going to be looking the possibility of adding new titles based on post count and maybe even reaction score. After this goes live, keep an eye out for any polls about new user titles here in the forum suggestions and feedback section.

Zwielicht said:

There's an upcoming update that I'm excited to shared with all of you.

So, you know that problem where it says "Jr. VIP" twice on a member's profile?

We've decided that we're going to resolve this by using the user title ladder for all non-staff usergroups.

Since we'll be making the user title ladder more prominent across the forum, we're also going to be looking the possibility of adding new titles based on post count and maybe even reaction score. After this goes live, keep an eye out for any polls about new user titles here in the forum suggestions and feedback section.

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On July 24th, we set this live.

As always, if there are any issues, please let us know.

We have two new updates that went live today.

Badges For Jr. Executive VIPs & Executive VIPs.
Executive VIPs and Jr. Executive VIPs now have badges to show their ranks on BHW. This was done to make it clearer as to what the username (box?) colour represents since we're now using the user title ladder for all non-staff members.

Premium Members now also have proper badges instead of plain text badges (you're welcome).

Prefixes For The FRC Section
We've added prefixes for the FRC section. This allows you to filter the threads based on whether or not the FRC (free review copy) is available. Also, a new chapter was added in the FRC Rules that shows how to use the FRC prefixes.

Here's a quick preview of the FRC prefixes:

Since implementing the MP algo, we no longer need the 72 hours promotional bump rule (discounts, coupons, CTAs, etc).
Now, we only have the 24h bump rule as mentioned in the Marketplace Rules - Chapter 1, Section 4. This should clear out any confusion around tread bumping - what and when

Here's what the updated rules state:

Zwielicht said:

Section 4: Thread Bumping Guidelines
You can respond to any of your customer queries as often as you'd like and even post updates to your sales thread regarding any service updates. Our marketplace bumping system means that any post you make within a 24-hour window will not appear on the homepage aka "bump" your sales thread, but will appear in your thread. This allows you to engage with customers and potential buyers in your sales thread whilst also conforming with the BHW marketplace bumping rules. This is an update for October 2020 and now part of the core marketplace functionality.

To check how long you'd have to wait before your next post bumps the sales thread, please check the 24-hour timer above the post editor:

Note: Your next post will bump the sales thread if you don't see the 24-hour timer.

Update (September 4th, 2024):

Feel free to include promotions, coupons, discounts, advertisements, or calls to action (CTAs) in your bump post. Please note that the sales thread will only be bumped once every 24 hours, no more than that.

For "thank you" types of posts, please use the React button. If you want to address multiple customers or questions in your sales thread, combine the responses in one post using the multi-quote feature.

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We are performing a hardware refresh over the next few weeks, which may result in about 45 minutes of total downtime.
We will inform you of the exact time and dates of any interruptions to regular service in advance.
This will result in a slightly faster BHW experience for all.

ICQ has been removed from your profile account details.
The service was closed in June 2024, and it doesn't look like it will make a comeback.

Hardware update day.
As previously mentioned, we'll be running the final push on our hardware upgrade today, which will result in about 45 minutes of planned downtime around 6 a.m. EST today.

Diamond Damien said:

We are performing a hardware refresh over the next few weeks, which may result in about 45 minutes of total downtime.
We will inform you of the exact time and dates of any interruptions to regular service in advance.
This will result in a slightly faster BHW experience for all.

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UPDATE -
We're back up on our new tin. While we tune our new hardware, there may be up to 15 minutes of downtime over the next seven days.

On Monday October 14, 2024, we'll be updating the website. We expect that there will only be 30 minutes to 1 hour of downtime.

Alongside some backend and minor design changes to streamline the site, this update brings along some much requested features from the community, such as the ability to search your conversations.

As we announced on Saturday, the new update has finished rolling out.

Curious about the changes? Keep reading.

'Conversations' Are Now 'Direct Messages'

Yes, Xenforo decided to changes 'conversations' to 'direct messages'. This is more in-line with what's consistent across other social media platforms, so we've decided to stick with it here on Black Hat World.

Direct Messages Are Now Searchable

This has been a much-requested feature for a long time now, but you can now search your direct messages. No, we don't just mean that old search functionality where you could only search for the username of a member involved in a direct message, we mean an actual search function where you can look for keywords.

For instructions on how to search your inbox, please visit our newbie guide thread titled, "How to: find direct messages in your inbox".

New 'Like' Reaction Design

Many of you may have noticed that the 'like' reaction has changed. The old one was too Facebook-ish, so this new one brings us more in line with the design standards of a modern forum.

It's not just the 'like' reaction that's changed, either. The 'haha' reaction was updated since BHW is now using a modern emoji pack for its reactions.

Design Updates

Aside from the new 'like' emoji, there are some minor design changes across the site, mostly to the icons used here on BHW. If you look closely, you'll notice that the new icons are more streamlined and don't appear as "bold", which gave the rest of the site a bulky appearance in places.

You'll notice there are some changes to the text boxes across the site as well to make them appear more modern. More notably, that old fade-in effect is now gone.View attachment 384622

Security Fixes
Security on BHW is important to all of us, so with this new update brings along some patches for potential security vulnerabilities on Xenforo.

Site Speed Improvements
Upgrading to the latest version of Xenforo has also brought along some site speed improvements, which many of you have likely noticed by now.

Moderation Tool Changes
This latest version of Xenforo has also brought along some shiny new tools for our moderators and administrators, allowing us to more effectively moderate the forum and help keep the community safe.

Bug Fixes
The wonderful BHW team spent countless hours ensuring that any bugs that would've appeared due to this update have been identified and fixed across the dark theme, light theme, and the mobile version of the website.

Of course, if anything was missed, please let us know by posting a forum suggestions and feedback thread or by submitting a support ticket using support.blackhatworld.com.

On Wednesday November 20, 2024, we'll be updating the website. This planned update will be going on between 8:30AM to 10AM BST.

This is an updated to the latest version of Xenforo. Expect some security updates and other improvements that we're cover in more detail on Wednesday.