OB Downtime

Just in case you haven't seen my announcement at OB today, the site will be going offline sometime shortly.

This is because we are moving OB across to the new server (theO will follow during the week).

In addition to that, we are planning to migrate OB to a new software and that will take some time. When I have more details about this, I will let everyone know.

Please keep following this page for updates as we progress. If you have any questions you can also ask here.

New RPGs!

It's been a little while since I've done an actual forum update on OB World. And as the RPG I'm currently in winds down, I'm interested in looking for something new. Here's just one recommendation for the writers/RPers out there.

Second Sight

This is a brand new RPG by DeLarge, who happens to be a great RPer generally.

Without spoiling the Auditions thread too much, I'll just say that this looks to be a little bit like X-Men, only with a slightly darker sci-fi/thriller tone.

The set-up for the story is great and there's good structure for you to work with. And there are already numerous great sign-ups as well. Highly recommended!

There are a few other new RPGs which look to have potential, but I encourage you to peruse the Auditions forum yourself.

Protecting Your Account

After participating in a staff discussion on this topic recently, I realised that we don't really have any kind of official comment about the need for all users to protect their accounts. Maybe this will eventually be added to the Terms of Service in some form, but regardless it's still worth mentioning.

I always thought it goes without saying that all users should be very careful with their accounts. That is, make sure you never give out your password, don't leave yourself logged-in on a public computer and especially don't try to share accounts between multiple people.

If somebody else logs into your account and does something that violates either the OB Rules or theOtaku's ToS, it's entirely possible that action will be taken against that account (whether outright banning or some other measure).

While there may be some rare cases where we can confirm that somebody else was using your account (and therefore your account may not face a ban), it's often very difficult (usually impossible) to actually determine this.

This is why it's very important to protect your user accounts at all times - in the same way that you would protect your email account or your internet banking account.

As I said earlier in this post, this has always struck me as obvious and therefore I never felt we needed to explicitly mention it - but I understand that it can be very easy for an unintended problem to happen. It's incredibly easy, for instance, to forget to log out if you're at a library or something.

So, whether or not this is something we add to any official rules, I figured it would be worth just reiterating this here.

Birthdays

Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes over the weekend. It still feels weird to know that Adam and I share the exact same birth date. I also know a couple of other people who were born on the same day, month and year as well! I guess there was a mass power shortage 9 months prior to that and our parents had nothing better to do. Ahem.

Pokemon!

We haven't had any Thread of the Week posts in a long time, but maybe I should start those up again. What do you guys think? I figure it might just be a good idea to mention really notable threads as they happen.

If you're a Pokémon fan, I definitely recommend checking out Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Trading, Discussion and SRS BIZNESS. This has kind of become the Pokémon mecca on OtakuBoards lately and I figure there will be a lot of Otakuites around who may not have seen it.