Here is a message from Darth Neo over at the forum:
Hi everybody,
This weekend StarWarsArchives is making a new start. Over the past 1.5 years I have been getting a lot of comments on the site, most of them very positive, but also negative ones about the functionality of the website.
I agree with most of the negative comments and I have been working to sort out the bugs and make the site more user-friendly.
As a result I am making a fresh start for the site with the earlier promised higher resolution images in the galleries and higher resolution video's (including the ones from the ESB documentary).
It has bugged me in the past that not many serious people would come to the forums. It also seemed that it was not very clear that there was a forum for StarWarsArchives. In the new layout there is more room to promote the forum (and its sister forum for other classics). I will close the regular registration for the forums this weekend because it has given me too many headaches with all the spam and bogus registrations and people that get left out unintentionally. Instead I will invite people to send me an email with a requested username to get access to the forums. At least now I know that the registrations will be genuine and I won't waste time to filter out the spam and other bogus registrations by hand. Of course all members are free to invite others to do the same (the more the merrier).
There are also people who have a problem with the whole Flash thing. I personally love Flash and will stick to it, but I have tried to get as much usability into it as possible. In my mind the website is an experience (yes, including my selections of music) rather that just taking and taking whatever content is in there. I have tried to get a new form of gallery where you can search through all the images that are in it but that is not possible for now. It is possible to do that in Flash but the PHP functions are not supported with my provider. I would have to change to a more expensive provider and that is not an option right now. I have checked the new website for usage on more platforms, but I do hope the people will contact me if they run into problems instead of bitching about the site on other forums. If I don't know there a problem I won't be able to fix it.
What has bugged me a lot in the past personally is the scattered ways my news is presented (ticker on the main site, a blog and the updates on the forum). I have made a whole new xml news system that is set up on the main site. The ticker and the blog will be deleted. I will continue to post images in the forum but the main website will become the place for news regarding finds and updates.
I also intend to delete the special contributor’s forums. These were intended to share special images between the serious collectors and keep them from the hands of the leechers and to get people to share more to become a contributor on the forum. Since both goals have not been successful I see no reason to keep the special forums (any objections please let me know).
And now for the big one this weekend:
ALL CONTENT FROM THE MAIN SITE WILL BE DELETED..............
I have a few options, to painstakingly change the low-res content into high-res content or to start fresh. Since it also was my intention to better divide and subdivide the galleries I think the best option is to start fresh (I have too much sorting out as it is). All content will return in the future but will be unavailable as of this weekend. If you haven't saved stuff you really want you should do so before the weekend.
Since the focus of StarWarsArchives has shifted over the past year from the main site to the forums it is also my intention to post most special rare images to the main site and keep them there. The site has been my baby and I want to keep my focus there. Of course I won't allow others to take those images from the main site and post them in the forums.
I guess that's about it. Feel free to comment (positively of negatively :-) )
Expect some big surprises for the re-introduction of StarWarsArchives :-)
Cheers,
Darth Neo