MeetFighters News

Hello everyone,

I have some small updates that, put together, warrant a news post.

First, there is a new Photo Management page that is similar to the old one, but hopefully faster and more intuitive. You can simply drag your photos around to put them in your profile or your gallery. Saving is automatic. I wouldn't say it's perfect, but a big step up from the clumsy old interface.

Second, beta testing of the new Message Center continues. It still lacks a lot of features, including automatic updates and localization, but it is largely functional. Enjoy it. :)

Additionally, I have added a "Report member" button to profile pages. It's for reporting Terms of Service violations, so please don't mistake it for a "teacher billy was mean to me" button. I hope it won't be needed too often!

I've done some other small fixes, speed optimizations and minor enhancements. If you look closely, you might notice. :)

Your humble servant,
Admin

Quick summary: Please check your gallery and the new profile fields to make sure they fit your preferences.

There's a bunch of new features coming out this week!

New Profile Options

• Tracker/2015-01-18: You can specify the gender of the person you are looking for (male, female or both).

• Tracker/2015-03-16: You can also indicate your sexual orientation (straight, bisexual or gay). There used to be similar checkboxes under "Interests" ("I'm gay", "I'm straight", ..), but these were somewhat confusing. Some members checked all three of them, just to cover all the bases. Well now the bases are much more straightforward to cover. :)

• "Pool wrestling" and "Oil wrestling" are no longer under wrestling styles. They have been moved to Interests instead. It makes more sense: these are neither olympic sports nor broad categories.

• The Interests have been organized into some broad categories. There's also bunch of new interests, please check them if you fancy them:
  • "Practicing techniques" (replacing "Practicing holds")
  • "Competing (tournaments)"
  • "Only interested in stand-up fighting"
  • "Not interested in stand-up fighting"
  • "Karate"
  • "Taekwondo"
  • "Capoeira"
  • "Ninjutsu"
  • "Stakes"

Update on the Galleries

As discussed here, new galleries are coming. Starting a month from now it will be possible to put your erotic photos into your gallery. The system has automatically placed photos that were uploaded as visible but later moderated as erotic into your gallery. If that is not what you want, you can move them back into your private folder. You have until the end of April to do so, should be plenty of time. (Photos that were uploaded as private will remain private.)

This means that photo classification is a little different now: "Erotic content" and "Private only" categories are now separate. It should be easy enough to get used to for those who help with classification. Speaking of which, photo classification has been rewritten to be more smartphone friendly. Try it, see if you like it any better than before!

Android App

The alpha test of the MeetFighters mobile app has started! Read more about it here.

Other changes and new features

• Tracker/2013-03-12: You can now see a list of profiles that you have visited. The list is accessible on the "Who has seen my profile?" page.

• We have moved to a new Content Delivery network called KeyCDN. The previous one (CloudFlare) was cheaper and provided some very nice features. Unfortunately their implementation of HTTPS (secure HTTP) was incompatible with Google Chrome running on older Microsoft operating systems, leaving some members unable to connect. My attempts at working around the problem have been unsuccessful, so a switch to a new provider has become necessary. KeyCDN's HTTPS implementation does not cause similar problems.
  
  The unfortunate fact is that HTTPS is a necessity on the modern internet. We can no longer rely on HTTP when sending passwords or other potentially sensitive information. MeetFighters is dedicated to protecting our membership from snooping and other forms of attacks.

Admin out.

Hi everyone,

Chrome Error

In the past few days, members visiting with Google Chrome browser were reporting a site certificate error. My research on the topic (meaning I googled the error code) revealed that this is a bug in the Chrome browser that only manifests on operating systems that were not upgraded recently and cannot handle the ECDSA certificates that are used by CloudFlare, our content delivery network. Unfortunately fixing this is beyond the scope of this site, so for now I have re-enabled insecure http connections.

If you are still experiencing a problem with your Chrome browser, please clear your browser cache. You can do that by going to Settings -> Show advanced settings -> Clear browsing data, select "the beginning of time" from the dropdown menu and check "Cached images and files".

XXX Gallery Votes Are In

Two weeks ago I asked questions regarding XXX galleries. The votes are in, and the results are quite interesting. I read lots of interesting and insightful comments on the topic. Big thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion!

As always, I calculated both the "raw" vote percentages and the "weighted" vote percentages (weighted meaning that votes are multiplied by the number of past opponents a person has).

The twist here is that XXX photos "win" the majority of the votes, but "lose" the majority of the weighted votes.

• People with fewer past opponents crave XXX photos more.
• People with more past opponents are less interested in XXX galleries.
• There are fewer interested in posting their XXX photos than those who would keep their privates... private.

My interpretation of the results is:

• The results are close enough that there is no consensus on XXX galleries.
• The picture is further blurred by the fact that there is a basic difference of opinion between "highly active" and "low activity" members. The difference is so pronounced that the weighted result is the exact opposite of the unweighted result.

My decision is: XXX galleries are coming, but they are not going to be a Core Site Feature. This means two things: first, XXX galleries will be configurable: anyone will be able to turn them off in their Site Settings. Second, similar to videos, XXX galleries will be restricted to donors and members with 10 or more past opponents. The intention is not to draw on people who just want some porn and not really interested in Meeting Fighters. Since porn is already in great abundance on the internet, it would follow that such tourists would look for their sugar elsewhere.

Over the course of the next few weeks I will introduce some updates to the Photo Management page that will allow people to select their XXX photos for publishing. Shock photos and copyrighted photos will not be sharable. I am also considering adding gallery folders to the mix. We'll see how it goes.

Mobile App Timeline

I have an update on the timeline for the MeetFighters mobile app.

We'll start with an "alpha release" on the 5th of April in the form of a downloadable Android package. This will be distributed to site members willing to do some testing and giving us useful feedback. Based on your feedback, the first Android release will follow on the 19th of April. An iOS version of the app is in the planning stage with no release schedule yet.

That's all for this week! Feedback is welcome.
Admin

It's been a while since the last site news. Let's see what's been happening!

FightPedia

I am looking for FightPedia editors! FightPedia is a "wiki" for MeetFighters, concentrating on topics related to combat sports and the site itself. I consider it an experiment in collaborative editing. Let's see how it goes! For now, it is completely empty except for some placeholder pages. It's up to YOU (as in, every member of this site) to make it something great.

If you want to contribute and shape FightPedia, please drop a comment below. Do explain what it is that you want to add or change.

FightPedia is available for preview here.

Mobile App

Work has began on a MeetFighters Mobile App targeting the Android and iOS platforms. The app itself is in very early stages of development, largely in a pre-alpha, proof-of-concept state. I expect to see a first release sometime around mid-April. More information will be coming early April.

We are not yet ready for an alpha test, but post a comment if you have ideas for mobile app features.

New Messaging Page

I am working on a new messaging code, something cleaner and more streamlined than what we have now. There is a beta version for the adventurous here. It has most basic features in place, but lacks that certain spit and polish.

Check it out if you dare! :)

XXX Gallery

I am considering the option of posting photos that are not family friendly in profile galleries. There is obviously some demand for this sort of attraction. On the other hand, there is a risk that too much sugar could attract folk who are not interested in fighting.

Before I commit to this, I want to ask Your opinion on the matter!

Would you like to see XXX photos in profile galleries?

Would you post your XXX photos in your profile gallery?

Miscellaneous

Behind the scenes, a lot of improvements went into the site code:

• New photo and video upload code that leverages new features in web browsers.
• Lots of code cleanup and optimization.
• Reinstated the CloudFlare CDN for faster page load times globally.
• The number of unread messages is shown in the page title. You can see when you have new messages with a glance at your browser's tab bar!
• Some usability enhancements for the Help and Support page.
• The search results and user list have expandable parts for accessing the dialog, sending a new message, etc.
• Your private notes can be sorted by country.
• The dialog page is broken into multiple pages if you have exchanged over 100 messages with someone. It's not unheard of...

Wow, has it really been 6 years? (Yes it has.)

Where are we now?

• Over 9000 members! (9258 at the time of writing.)
• Over 43,000 photos!
• Over 250 videos!

I think this is pretty cool for a site that is a hobby project of a few dedicated people. Big thanks to supporters, translators, donors and everyone who helped spread the word.

Special thanks goes to:

• ikf, our longest-standing site supporter. Your help and advice is invaluable and I thank you for all the assistance and encouragement!
• toughwrestler, who amassed 300 past opponents in his 6 years with us. Wow. That's one new guy every week.
• wrestler2000, the guy who donated most to the site. Thank you! Those servers didn't commission themselves...
• MCRLON23UK, our resident fake profile detector.
• ladron fr and tapout, our most active translators, keeping up site's polyglot mojo alive.
• And all my other helpers and supporters. You know who you are. I love you guys :D

There are some new features to celebrate the occasion:

• You can toggle all favorite notifications quickly. So if you dislike those birthday notifications, you can now get rid of them in about 5 seconds.
• Your past opponents were split into three groups: those waiting for your confirmation, those that were not confirmed by the other party and the fully confirmed ones. This should make the list easier to take in!
• You can indicate that you don't want to receive XXX photos in your messages.
• There is a direct link to your outbox on the left of the page.
• The message list is easier to use on smart phones.

New ideas are welcome!