MeetFighters News

Dear members,

First, a collective pat on our backs: the site has passed 7500 members this week. I think that cool enough to mention. There, got that out of my system.

You may have noticed that MeetFighters has moved to a new server, hopefully one that will serve better than the previous one, with fewer 500 errors and strange performance drops. I have confidence that the latest configuration will serve until we have 10.000 members. At the time of writing there are 400 members online, and the server is 95% idle. That is a good sign.

I took the opportunity to upgrade the server's operating system too, which presented certain... challenges in porting some of the software, the chat service being the most difficult. In any case, use the link above to report any problems that you started noticing after the 1st of August. I am fairly confident that we are in good shape.

I would like to announce some changes that I am planning to make now:

• More engaging groups. The idea is to expand on the Interest Group concept, and allow group members to upload photos to group galleries, get an overview of new photos and members, and so forth.
• Certain improvements to the messaging service. This might be simply reverting to the one message per page concept. I'm not sure.
• Number of profile photos, gallery folders. I hope this will allow members to upload more photos while uncluttering the main profile pages.
• Limit blocking and favorites. Only affects a small percentage of members who got a bit too addicted to the "add favorite" button.

That's it for this week!

– Admin

Hi everyone,

I have been making some small changes to the site again. One of which is the removal of the "communicator" (the chat-like thing at the bottom right of the page). It turned out to be largely useless and occasionally confusing to new members. Oh well.

Next on the agenda is a new site design, one that I call "Light Streamlined". It is a variation on the new "Black Streamlined" site design, and it is hopefully easier to read. Try it, you might like it!

Also, if you did try it, let me know what you think about it! Specifically, tell me which design you like better:

Black or White?

That's it for this week, folks!

Summary: Profile names with erotic, fetishist, escort or illegal content or allusion are no longer allowed.

This change in the Terms of Service has been prompted by a noticeable increase in dodgy profile names. The related entry in the Suggestion Box (titled Keywords for username rejection) has a perfect 5.0 score average.

Why are these profile names bad?

I want to keep the site fighting-related. All those profile names detract from the site's original purpose.

How does this affect you?

If your profile name isn't FrotCumEscort or something like that, you are not affected at all.

If you happen to have one of these dodgy names, you are still fine. The new rule is not retroactive, it only affects profiles registered after the 19th of May. However, I would like to respectfully ask you to change your name to something else. You can do so, free of charge, by opening a support request here.

If you see a new profile with a bad profile name, you may report it here. Please only do so for profiles registered after the 19th of May.

Arranging meetings can sometimes take a bit of doing.

You have to find a place that both parties can reach. You have to arrange a time that fits you both. You have to make sure that you are both on the same page on all the particulars. It gets more complicated when more people are attending, and even more so when you have to set up more than one meeting, juggling all the details of each in your head.

Sure, we have the site messages, and you can view your entire dialog with a person.
There is the user calendars that you can maintain and check.
And on the other end of the spectrum are the fighting events that are designed for sending an open invitation to all site members.

Enter the new Meetings Module. It is designed to keep all the information and comments related to a meeting in one place, all the while allowing you to choose a time and place that fits everyone. It is my hope that this new module will make your fight meetings easier to arrange!

Starting a meeting is simple:

• Either go to the meetings page and click the "new meeting" link on the top of the page.
• Or visit one of the member profiles, and choose the "invite to a meeting" option.

In other news: I am still busy collecting feedback on the video service. There is one bug in the code that causes the audio and video to go out of synch sometimes. I hope to track that one down soon.

There's been a number of small changes and fixes:

• There is a new progress bar then you are uploading larger photos or videos.
• It is now possible to disable message notification e-mails, newsletters etc. simply by following a link in such e-mails. (They can be re-enabled any time on the Administration page.
• I am trying to migrate the site to the latest version of Google Maps. (The previous version of the API will be discontinued in May this year.)
• Basque language has been added to the list of languages that you can select.
• Lots of small bugfixes and enhancements.

Hi everyone,

First of all, I have a New Old Idea: MeetFighters T-Shirts. This has been suggested before, but up until now I haven't considered it seriously. Now I do. I have a few designs in mind, here is one draft:

Yes, I know the ❤ (heart) is corny and dated. This is just work in progress, OK?

I'm going to come up with some new ones, this is just a "working draft". I will also make several colors available. Now the new question is:

Would you buy MeetFighters apparel?

Select as many as you want. (Do not combine the "Yes" and "No").

Costs are approximate, I am still looking for a good print-on-demand service. The prices do not include shipping, which could cost between €2 and €8 depending on location and number of items ordered. T-Shirts and hoodies will be printed with a flock printing technology, which guarantees good colors that will not fade after 100 washes.

In other news, the poll on MeetFighters video uploads is now closed and the results are in! The question was:

Would you upload your private videos to MeetFighters?

The weighted percentage represents the individual voters multiplied by the number of their past opponents. (This is the metric that I tend to trust the most.)

Some guys have expressed concern in their comments that the videos would interfere with the operation of the site. I would like to ask them to assume that I can handle the technical challenges associated with videos. At the risk of sounding conceited, I am pointing out the fact that I managed to keep this site together with an increasing feature set, a growing membership and several upgrades over the past 4 years.

I am more concerned with the social ecosystem of meetfighters and how videos would affect our members. One legitimate concern that came to my mind is that the private videos on this site could attract people who are not interested in fighting, just want to watch some vids. (Granted, youtube is a more straightforward alternative for them. Still.)

What I see here is that the majority would like to upload or watch videos. This is cool, and I will start implementing the necessary infrastructure. It is going to take me a while, so do not expect it deployed in a few days! I will also monitor the performance of the video feature closely. If it ends up being too much load on the servers, I might end up scrapping the whole thing. We'll see how it goes!