Site Changelog and Current Site Projects

It has been awhile since I’ve been on this page.

Things haven’t changed. I intend to remain as transparent as possible with these changes.

Since much of what I wanted was six years ago, I’m re-evaluating them and seeing what kind progress has been made to WordPress in terms of these “wants.”

I will continue to update the changelogs, as always. With a new one up today.

I will also create a list of changes that are forthcoming and will provide more information with each one. Perhaps, if there’s an interest in it, I can even stream some of this work once Extra Life is over.


Current Projects

Email Verification System

Status: Plugin selected and installed. Still needs to be configured.

Details: At the start of October, the host of my site contacted me that a number of bots had started using Kiseki Crack as a vector to spam users, by registering an account with someone’s email and the details of the spam in the registration information.

As a result, new account registration has temporarily been shut down and a new email verification system is being setup to make it so that you don’t have any user input for the registration process until after your email has been verified.

The plugin has been selected and installed. It just needs to be configured.


Custom Login Page

Status: Working out the plans still.

Details: Along with the new email verification content, I’ve decided that the site deserves its own login page.


New Fonts!

Status: Fonts selected.

Details: To run align with the design aesthetic of the Daybreak series, I’ll be switching the title of this site from using Albersthal Typewrite to Pulpo Rust.

The font will also be installed so that it can be used as live text on the site.

This will require new header images. Which leads us to the next item.


Additional Rotating Banners

Status: In planning.

Details: It’s been awhile since the banners have been updated. We need to make sure that all of the series is represented in them. This will be done along with the top item, since new banners need to be made anyway.


Modify the Home Landing Page

Status: In planning.

Details: I’ve seen that the status page looks like crap when loaded on mobile. As a result, this needs to be modified in a more mobile friendly way, without disrupting the desktop experience of the site.


Site News Feed

Status: In planning.

Details: A means to provide news on the site without disrupting the flow of theories when browsing. This will require an adjustment to the category system.


Top Navigation Modifications

Status: In planning.

Details: Make the topnav more mobile friendly and create a dropdown at the ‘view theories by titles’ to get readers to the theories they want faster. The home page item on the navigation will also change to make navigation, as a whole, easier.


Posts by Author

Status: In planning.

Details: Regular contributors rejoice! I plan to make it possible for people to view all of the posts by an author and maybe even be recommended other theories by them on one of their pages as well.

This was one of the updates I wanted to make back in 2018, and just… real world got in the way.


Contributor Profiles

Status: In planning.

Details: Allow contributors to have the ability to create a profile within their own admin page. This will allow their info to be shown at the bottom of one of their posts and allow more interaction with them and the community regardless of location via social, discord, or on the site.


Notifications Regarding Submitted Posts

Status: In planning.

Details: If a submitted post goes live, the contributor should be given the opportunity to receive an email notification that their submission is now live. This was another one of the original items I wanted added to this site back in 2018.


Completed Projects

Contributor User Role

Status: COMPLETED.

Details: In order to separate contributors from registered users, anyone who has submitted a theory will have their role changed to ‘Contributor.’ There are now special permissions set to this, only to ensure that issues like with the user issue and bot registration will have smoother clean up processes.

The role has been made and users are slowly being migrated over to it while I clear out the user list.


Changelog

10/28/2024
  • New user registration has been temporarily turned off to mitigate a bot infestation of the site.
  • ‘Contributor’ User Role created. Migration of users who have submitted theories has begun.
  • The process of clearing old unused user accounts has begun.
  • Email verification system has been installed and configuration has begun. This is an ongoing process. You may see CAPTCHA messages pop up.
  • The domain has been set into ‘under attack mode’ via CloudFlare to try and mitigate a wave of brute force attacks that have been deployed by a number of bots against the site. This will eventually be removed once the bots have been disincentivized.
7/23/2018
  • 17 new headers have been added to the rotating header setup.
  • Investigation begun on the site’s commenting issue.
5/25/2018
  • Privacy Policy written and added to the main menu.
  • Plugin Audit in process to clean up plugins. Updates to that will be listed here when complete.
  • Completing GDPR compliance for the site.
11/16/2017
  • Twenty Fourteen theme updated to 2.1
  • Two plugins updated.
  • WordPress updated to 4.9.
  • Installed WP to Twitter for Social Sharing Integration
  • Customized and setup @KisekiCrack on twitter.
11/9/2017
User Submitted Posts had also broken editor access to files. I was able to confirm that this has been fixed. The project listed above has been completed and tested.
11/3/2017
An update broke the User Submitted Posts plugin on the site that added new options and features to the plugin. These new features were ’empty’ for settings and needed to be set, as the error was caused by it unexpectedly finding nothing in these new fields.

The fields have been set to ensure the site operates normally, and the error message has been cleared.

  • Submitted posts now arrive into the site under ‘Pending’ status. This is to prepare for a contributor email notification system.
  • Emails going out to editors will now have the submittor’s name in the subject.
10-30-2017
  • Purchased and Installed Search and Filter Pro.
  • Tested a few features.
  • Since discovered that plugin is not capable of exclusionary searches- must have misread capabilities elsewhere when playing with the non-pro version.
  • I have reached out to the developer to see about getting a refund for the plugin.
8-17-2017
  • Maintenance Mode removed on esterior.net location.
  • Maintenance Mode activated on sanctuarycrew.com location.
  • Changed the property location in Google Analytics data.
  • Activated Jetpack’s social media commenting system. You can utilize WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, etc to leave comments. You still need to register to the site to submit theories and/or questions.
8-15-2017
  • About esterior.net page added and updated. (Updated to all sites on esterior.net, as well.)
  • New admin post regarding the new site has been posted.
  • Removed the ‘recent comments’ sidebar option.
  • Recent posts is still in place on the sidebar, but Popular Posts has been configured and is ready to replace it after traffic has been recorded for a couple of weeks.
  • WP plugin “Search and Filter” installed and configured to allow viewing by tag only, but not activated on the site. The last step will be to set it up so that it will *exclude* tags in question, thus officially making it effective as the spoiler filter I had planned from the start of the site. However, this last function requires a Pro version of the plugin, and it has been shelved for the time being, until I can afford to purchase the pro version.
  • Minor tweaks to the positioning of the page and width have been made via the site’s CSS.
  • Easy Content Templates has been installed, but not activated, in case there is a need for it in the future.
  • Require Featured Image has been installed and activated. Posts will not be able to be published without a featured image from now on.
  • WordFence is installed and configured to match the security thresholds on Endless History.
  • Ultimate Shortcodes, as used on Endless History, has been installed, as well as its Pro add-ons.
  • footnotes, as used on Endless History, has ben installed and can be used in posts now. Mouseover box still needs to be configured however.
8-14-2017
  • “No Feature Image!” category has been emptied and deleted.
  • Instead of using Contact Form 7, I’ve configured a plugin called USP that allows for user submissions being added directly as drafts.
  • Preparing the ‘new site’ welcome page, but it isn’t completed. This admin post will announce Aliseyun as a new editor for the site, as well.
  • Installing a ‘maintenance mode’ plugin to the sanctuarycrew.com location, which will re-route regular visitors to the esterior.net location when activated.
  • Post and Comment Migration Complete. Yay!
  • Submission Form and Comment Sections Closed on sanctuarycrew.com location.
  • Installing and activating Contact Form 7 on esterior.net location.
  • ‘Related Posts’ functionality added to the site.
  • JetPack issues have been resolved.
  • Activated all the plugins for the site, implemented captcha and Akismet. Activated and configured WordFence.
  • Comment allowance for media has been disabled.
  • NotePress activated, and Editor and up has access to leave notes to individuals on the dashboard.
  • Site has been configured for Google Analytics.
  • Temporary Google Analytics property setup – plan is to move the original Kiseki Crack property to integrate the data at the new location once the site is ready to open.
  • Fourteen Colors activated, so that the menu colors match the rest of the site scheme.
  • wp-jquery-lightbox is active for image display- however, it is extremely out of date. Starting the process to look for a new lightbox plugin to replace it.
  • SSL fully reactivated.
  • Require Featured Image plugin is installed, but not activated. This won’t be activated until we clean up the posts that don’t have featured images.
8-13-2017
  • New location is currently in hold state, regarding plug-ins, for Jetpack support to do work on the current Contact Form settings. This troubleshooting is impacting Endless History, as well.
  • 1/4 of the way complete with post transfers
  • Plan is worked up to switch Kiseki Crack from Jetpack contact form to Contact Form 7, still yet to implement. When it is implemented, details will be added in this section.