If someone really really wants to attack the site, there's not much I can do. There's a multitude of ways to go at a site. If disabling the add on does nothing, then there's bigger flaws in Xenforo than I can fix. I kept it offline for a reason, that being Taigachat is made by one person and a patch doesn't guarantee the issues is fixed. I wanted to wait and see. I worked all day and fell asleep at the PC while doing the upgrade. I appreciate your help. You need to remember that you are a lot more connected to the internet than I am. You need to remember that we get no compensation whatsoever. I do the best I can with the time I have, with the volunteers we have. For long years it's only been myself; lots of people offer help, but they vanish when they get frustrated or feel undercompensated. We have moderators who are not administrators, I can't just get one of them to update the os and back up the database. The only person who knows anything LAMP is retro, and he lives on the other side of the world from me. Given that situation, we aim for slow and stable. No flashy mods or features, just consistent moderation of content, and consistently impartial staff (which is incredibly hard to achieve). A code of law, which is hard to achieve in the anonymous environment of the internet. Work here is endless. It's like building a never ending wall. I have a lot of people who show up and will lay 1000 bricks insanely fast, but then they vanish forever. Meanwhile, the slower, dedicated workers chug along a few bricks at a time; but they are always there. Sure the 1000 bricks at once was spectacular, but the slow, dedicated worker has laid 100,000 bricks by the time the next person shows up who wants to put up 1000 bricks in an instant and vanish. I have to strive for better response, I am always trying to do better. As life goes by, you become more and more burdened. I will often not get to my email until midnight, and the site gets nearly 200 emails a day plus 20 PMs, daily. Each one of those people sees their email as very important, and urgently wants a response. All I can do is try to do what I can. As you said, people have other interests of their own. Almost always in the end the only person to be counted on is myself. I alone sitting there installing, updating, reading all the support requests, paying the bills on time. For ten years I've been doing this. I've gotten older. I've been given responsibilities I cannot run away from. I have health problems I don't talk about because it only causes ridicule and gains no sympathy. In the end no one really cares about me, they care about the site and content. I've come to accept that, even though it's a fruit more bitter than sweet. Thank you for your help, I am sorry you were offended because I did not respond fast enough to meet your satisfaction.
Don't let it get to you. We all appreciate what you have done with the site. In the end, some of us need to realize that we are still just talking about games here (yes, I'm generalizing; don't forget about the community and all that...).
No one said run an IRC server, there are many already around. There are ones with channel services and nick services - which make banning just as effective as banning via IP on a website (not very). Obviously pick an IRC server that meets the needs of requiring registered nicks and gives you channel registration etc. Not just wild west servers.
Always remember that I'm not that far away from you if you truly need another hand for something. I think you're still located in the general tri state area anyway, and I'm always willing to learn something new to help out. Honestly, out of all of the staff, and many of the regulars, you and I are probably the closest at this point.
You have a point there, It's just sometimes the PHP files can cause the issues. Just look at vBulletin.com they got totally screwed last week. (Which I suggest changing your password if you reuse them here.) That is true. His addons are normally pretty stable just that week he messed up a little. Didn't know that, Sorry. Understandable, I would suggest maybe putting adsense up for your guests but be removed for members? With the traffic you get I am sure you could get around $50 a month maybe more from those ads. I'm really sorry for coming off as a total dick, I just get frustrated when I see sites with so much potential going down hill. I understand you're busy etc that's why I originaly spent time with retro making that blue theme. Depending on your hardware setup I think maybe Virtualmin would better suit your needs, It's free and has a full GUI panel and you can setup backups to auto run at a set time from daily to weekly or monthly. At most you would need to login once a month to run updates to the server as they don't always run. As for your responses, again I understand you're busy and I am sorry again for coming off like a dick, I just don't do well with people not responding. I will reply to your PM in a few, I need to grab the chat settings from my site. Like I said before, If you need help please message. I know you don't know me or trust me but I am always willing to help out.
is there any way to make usernames in chat more distinct from what you write? Hard to see who is talking
I don't know everyone's avatar It's just the test for their name is the same as the font and everything for what they write. Maybe have alternating or custom colors for usernames in chat? Or even underline and bold them.. I don't know
I have no problem with how it is right now, but I wouldn't mind a slight bold. Don't underline though that'd be annoying.