- Joined
- Nov 14, 2012
Featured on Apr 24, 2025 by Null: Updating the Kiwi Farms: Featured posts, harmony, and a future paid for with physical checks. (Poll added)
You've probably noticed I've been more active than normal in the last few weeks updating stuff. The last bit of maintenance I just did was to upgrade the Feature system, the first upgrade it has received in over 4 years.
The feature system and post highlight system are both custom mods. I've blended them together.
I've also made some miscellaneous changes this week. These changes are designed to reduce infighting. There is a lot of very petty activity going on with senior users of the site and I don't appreciate it. A lot of people were concerned about the number of new users from 4chan, but I am spending much, much more time dealing with users who have been here for 5 years causing each other problems.
I have found a way to make money for the Kiwi Farms. In the next week, I hope to release a way to streamline sending in physical checks to our PO Box for perks. This is how the process will work:
It should not matter where you're sending it from, as long as you can get a check issued in USD.
This system completely bypasses payment processor bottlenecks. Banks are required under federal law to deposit checks.
Your perks for doing this will be:
Over the last few years, since our license was revoked by XenForo, I have wanted to rewrite the forum software. However, this is not happening, especially if we're not making money, and if we're going to make money on the site I might as well actually update the site. Once I'm happy with how the site's actually running I'll start spending more time in the rewrite.
Let me know if there's any issues.
The feature system and post highlight system are both custom mods. I've blended them together.
- The highlight system picks 5 posts every 5 pages to make highlights. This is unchanged. They are green.
- Globally featured posts are now automatically made highlights. They are never counted towards the 5 automatically highlighted posts. They are red.
- Postmarks now exist. Mods can select posts to be postmarked. These are not featured, but are always made a highlight, and are not counted towards the 5 automatic highlights. They are blue.
- You can now hover over a ribbon on the post to see who highlighted the post and when.
- The "Next Highlight" button has been changed to "Highlight >>" and there is also a "<<" to go to the last highlight if one exists. If there's no next post, it displays as "<< Highlight".
- The Prev/Next highlight buttons now also appear at the bottom of the thread.
- There are more fine-tune controls in the backend, for a purpose described later.
I've also made some miscellaneous changes this week. These changes are designed to reduce infighting. There is a lot of very petty activity going on with senior users of the site and I don't appreciate it. A lot of people were concerned about the number of new users from 4chan, but I am spending much, much more time dealing with users who have been here for 5 years causing each other problems.
- Profile privacy was deliberately broken more than 10 years ago, and I have deliberately broken it every time it unbroke. Today, I restored it. You can now control who can see or post on your profile.
- Stinkditch was decoupled from the Lolcow Salon and made a regular on-topic Lolcow board. Salon mods are still mods there, but bans for shitting up the girl boards no longer bans you from tranny threads. This has been done to decrease friction with the Salon, while allowing the Salon mods to continue to keep the Salon a good experience for female users who have been ~40% of the community population for 10+ years.
- In Dec/Jan I took mod applications. @Thé au lait is the first mod I've enlisted from the applications. She's in the Lolcow Salon.
I have found a way to make money for the Kiwi Farms. In the next week, I hope to release a way to streamline sending in physical checks to our PO Box for perks. This is how the process will work:
- (WHEN THIS IS READY, you would ...)
- Go to your profile to get a billpay id (different from your user id).
- Go to your real-world bank account and set up a bill pay to send a $40* check to our PO Box. It will ask you for an account number; you supply your billpay id.
- Set it up to automatically go out each month.
- When the check arrives, our mail guy will scan your check directly into a bank-controlled leased Remote Deposit Capture (RDC) machine for high-check volume businesses.
- The billpay id will be scanned off each check and the payment will be applied by an API I'm writing.
- You get perks.
It should not matter where you're sending it from, as long as you can get a check issued in USD.
This system completely bypasses payment processor bottlenecks. Banks are required under federal law to deposit checks.
Your perks for doing this will be:
- Special flashy decorations, optional.
- Access to a board for status reports, and
- Once a month, you can feature any post on the site at your sole discretion for 24 hours. These posts will be distinguished from staff features both on the front page and the post itself. I will tinker with this to reduce limits up and down depending on how it's used or abused.
Over the last few years, since our license was revoked by XenForo, I have wanted to rewrite the forum software. However, this is not happening, especially if we're not making money, and if we're going to make money on the site I might as well actually update the site. Once I'm happy with how the site's actually running I'll start spending more time in the rewrite.
Let me know if there's any issues.
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Highlight THIS, nigger admin. 
