[Calderyon]

We're making some changes to Digital Spy's forums

Here's everything you need to know.

As you may already know, we're about to start work to upgrade the Digital Spy forums.

This is the first time since our entertainment community began 16 years ago that we're moving to a completely new platform – and it's no small task. After all, we've got over 600,000 users and over 84 million posts to move.

As dedicated Digital Spy forum members are aware, the system we're currently using hasn't held up as well as we would have hoped. The age of software and the sheer size of the forums have held us back – but no longer.

What's happening?

While the forums are being moved to a new platform, they will be read-only from 10.30am on Wednesday, December 14 while all of your threads, posts, messages and accounts are migrated. We expect this will take up to 72 hours.


Here are some of the things you can expect...

New design: The forums will be getting a new lick of paint and our current emoji (including fan favourite cat-dog Cat) will be retired and replaced with new models. You will also finally be able to embed certain media and social posts, such as YouTube videos.

Search: We'll be gaining an advanced search on the forums, too. You will once again be able to search through users, posts and threads.

Notifications: Any time someone replies to your thread or mentions you, a notification will pop up on your screen.

Reactions: You will be able to react to any post: like, dislike, laugh... maybe even cry if you're in the Politics forum?

Draft posts save: All posts created will now periodically save as a draft, so there is no more risk of losing long posts.

Time-out time: The new forum has a points-based warning system which means a temporary time-out rather than permanent bans for smaller offences.

Ban amnesty: In 16 years, we have amassed over 16,000 banned accounts. Starting now, we are going to be reviewing anyone who chooses to appeal their ban again. Those wishing to appeal should email forum@digitalspy.co.uk with the title 'Ban Amnesty'. Be sure to include your forum username when messaging!

There are several new functions and ideas that we have and when we flesh them out a little more, we will of course announce them in a similar way. You can find out more in detail at the forums right here.

We know this is a lot of change and that we haven't always got it right. We ask that you will be patient with us, both before and after the migration, while we try and iron things out. We expect that some things will not be correct immediately, but hope things will go as smoothly as possible.

Thanks!

Digital Spy forums team

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