Evan Reiter Share Posted July 19, 2015 The Project Vector Team is proud to present the new Boston Virtual ARTCC community forums. Merging the two forum databases was identified as an early priority of the Project Vector Team. Now, all members of the new community have the ability to interact in one place. As of today, we are also beginning to ask members to identify themselves using first and last names. Members from both communities selected the first and last name as the most effective, friendly, and welcoming way of identifying themselves. While a BVA Username will still be required to login to the website, the FSX server, and FlightDeskLite, members can connect to TeamSpeak and the forums using the new format. Long term, BVA Usernames will be phased out in favor of a 'First Name Last Name' identification system. Content from both forums has been merged together into this common location. All of the content from both forums has been migrated into these forums. During the conversion process, it is possible that some parts of some posts (e.g., formatting, certain characters) may have been modified slightly. However, it appears everything has made it across okay. Note that over the next few days, forum moderators will be moving and editing major 'sticky' topics to more appropriate locations, but the general structure of the forums will not change. Members will notice changes to the layout of the forums, and that some boards have been consolidated. If you are having trouble finding something, please let us know and we'll help identify the new location. We would like to ask all users to do the following before starting to use the new forums: [*]Edit your profile. Feel free to upload an avatar, and edit your signature. If you had been using a BVA forum signature, you can keep or remove it. Please note that the online/offline status has been disabled as it was based on FlightDesk data. [*]Edit your account settings. The 'Name' field should show your first and last name. Initials and/or usernames will no longer be used on the forums. Also, feel free to add in a secret question. New Features & Updates When logging in to the forums, you can use either your username or email address and chosen password. During the login, you have the option to "Always stay logged in": There is a new board called Public Discussion. This board is available to both members and non-members, to allow those who aren't part of the community to post questions or comments. Posts made by non-members require approval; members are free to post without restrictions. Outside of that one board, all of the others are restricted to members only, and are only visible with a login. Most of the board features will seem familiar. To start a new topic, first select the board you would like to post under. Then, click the "New Topic" icon. Once you have completed the post, click "Post" for it to appear. To send a private message to a member of the forums, click "My Messages", then click "Send a message": The message can be sent to the display name (first name and last name) of the desired recipient(s). A list of potential matches appears as you start typing, and selecting the matching member addresses the private message to that user: For air traffic controllers, all of the existing training-related boards have been migrated. For now, controllers certified by Boston Virtual ATC can request training and post results in the "BVA Training Requests" and "BVA ATC Mentor Log" threads. The "ZBW Student Availability" and calendar are also on the forums. As the new training structure/process is defined, these elements of the forums will be combined in the next few weeks. Evan Reiter Community Director Administration Team Link to comment
