A couple of days ago, I decided to perform an update on our board software. Little did I know, the update was quite unstable. Due to some code restructuring and ongoing renovations in the version of Tinyboard I updated us to, the style switcher is currently broken, and possibly some other things as well. I'm working with STI to fix the problems.

In other news, please welcome NamBread, our newest probationary moderator! If all goes well, she'll be finalized as a full moderation staff member within a week or so. For those who are wondering how they missed the applications, the staff decided to handle things a bit differently this time, using nominations and interviews instead of a public application process. Please remember that only users active in IRC will ever be chosen as moderators.

We may be recruiting additional probationary moderators soon.

For anyone interested, the current revision of the moderator rules and guidelines has been linked in the FAQ.

So here's what happened.

After multiple DDoS attacks directed at our IRC network, of which Uboachan's server was a part, our host asked us to leave.

Eventually, they started asking not so nicely.

We've moved to a VPS until we can afford another expensive top-end server. UboaCraft is down for now as a result, but I have a buddy who has offered to host it, so it may be up soon.

In addition, this server isn't currently hosting IRC. We may keep it that way so we attract less attention, instead getting cheap secondary servers for IRC.

Thanks for being patient through this mess.

P.S. The IRC network is still on the fritz but should hopefully be working properly again within a couple days.

We're back! \o/

At 8:55pm last night, our server came under a DDoS attack. This was most likely directed at the hub of our IRC network, which is hosted on the same server as Uboachan. Our hosting provider overreacted and opted to disconnect the server from the internet for 5 hours to let the DDoS blow over.

At the same time, due to an absurd coincidence, our domain registrar's DNS service was down due to a completely unrelated DDoS attack on their servers the previous day. The combination of their DNS server and our server going down at the same time resulted in a cascade failure of our triple-redundant DNS network, making it impossible to connect to the DatNode IRC network without an IP address.

So basically, Uboachan, all services on the same server, and our DNS were down for 5 hours until just now, making it impossible to connect to Uboachan and difficult to connect to the IRC. The issue is fixed now, but I'm considering moving to another hosting company in the United States.

This week's wildcard topic is CAT PLANET, chosen by Boja as her belated promised reward for winning (being the only participant of) the IRC donation drive a while back.

After several days of community feedback collection and research, including a poll, and a negative impact survey thread on /sugg/, I have decided to overturn the NSFW spoiler rule. NSFW images may now be posted on all boards without spoilers. (Please see exceptions in the rules page.)

Related to the above, please re-read the global rules. There have been recent changes made, especially regarding NSFW content, and certain kinds of NSFW content which are not allowed.

Changed a few things since yesterday.

First, NSFW images are allowed on all boards, but must be spoilered.

Second, Praesul and Writer were appointed as admins. Congratulations.

Third, we've got two new boards! These are on a trial basis and may go away if they aren't very popular. I've added the Toriningen board, and I've also added a WILDCARD board, whose topic changes every week. Let's try to break in the new boards.

I also restructured the categories a bit. Don't get lost!