Community Update: Editor, Link Previews, Moderation, and Recruit

[UPDATE] Rolling up a significant batch of improvements shipped this session. Most land in the editor and community areas.

Thread creation and editing

• Post Type removed. The old Text / Link / Image selector is gone. Any post can now mix text, links, and images freely. Title is optional and auto-generated from the first line of your body if you skip it.
• Rich media in the editor: drag-and-drop images, paste images from clipboard, a GIF picker powered by Giphy (search + trending), and the full emoji picker (same one private messages use).
• Markdown help is now a modal so clicking the ? no longer loses your in-progress message.
• Images are resizable and deletable with a red × button or Delete/Backspace when selected. Same for video embeds and link-preview cards.
• Reply auto-quotes the first 500 characters of the post you click Reply on, so context follows the conversation.

Link previews (Facebook-style)

• Paste or type any URL and a preview card is auto-generated on save. Title, description, thumbnail — full structured data via the linkpreview.net API.
• YouTube and Vimeo URLs become inline 16:9 video embeds.
• Direct image URLs render as inline images.
• Works in both forum posts and private messages.
• Applies to replies, edits, and new threads.

Forums: categories, moderators, tagging

• Category pages: click a category title on /forums to see all its forums on a dedicated page.
• Moderator lists now render under every forum and category description, clickable to profiles, labeled with Super Mod / Owner / Mod badges.
• Apply to be a Moderator button appears when a forum or category has no mods assigned. Applications PM the sysop and notify the applicant.
• Feature Request tags (in /forums/feature-requests): mods+ can tag threads with Priority (Critical / High / Normal / Low), Type (Bug Fix / Enhancement / New Feature), Effort (Low / Moderate / High / Entire Rework), and Status (Approved / Rejected / Under Consideration / In Testing / Deployed). Setting status to "Deployed to Production" auto-locks the thread.

Messaging

• @everyone / @all broadcasts to every forum-subscriber and thread-subscriber. Gated to mods and higher so it can't be abused.
• Upload Image button on message composers now works — click pops the native file picker directly and inserts the image at the caret.
• GIF picker added to private messages too.

Community growth

• Recruit item added to the More menu. Every member has a personal /join/{code} link that tracks clicks, registrations, and conversion rate. Dashboard includes recent referrals and ready-to-send email templates.

Stats

• /files sidebar now shows per-user + site-wide stats: approved files, total uploads, downloads, storage used (GB), and area count.
• /forums sidebar shows threads, posts, forums, categories, members, online-now; plus per-user threads, posts, karma, replies-received.

Privacy

• Email-shaped usernames (e.g. foo@bar.com) are now displayed as just the local part (foo) in every public view — forum threads, profile links, online list, leaderboards, sidebars. Admin screens and the user's own settings still show the full username.

Bug fixes

• Post content typography tightened: the original post stands out with a primary-accent left border and a distinctive OP badge, and reply post bodies have a subtle left-accent border to make the actual message the visual focus.
• Light theme: button contrast fixed — primary buttons (New Thread, Save Changes, etc.) now render white text on blue, not dark text on blue.
• YouTube embeds are now proper 16:9 thanks to a CSS aspect-ratio fix, and the Content Security Policy allows youtube.com, youtube-nocookie.com, and player.vimeo.com as frame sources.
• C64 game launch: fixed a CSRF double-header bug that broke play action after a prior security improvement.
• Drag-and-drop images no longer post twice (the browser's native contenteditable drop was racing our handler).
• Link preview DB insert no longer crashes silently because of a missing expires_at default.

See you in the threads.

Automated system post — 2026-04-17 10:31:42 CDT