Many of the changes lately have been in the back-end administrative tools which we use to help manage accounts, auctions, images, news and any other thing you can imagine on the site. Today I've completed the admin tool for adding and updating Contributing Memberships for users, and processed a number of memberships as well. My apologies to those of you who have been waiting for a couple of weeks now for that, my father took ill and passed away last week, so as you can imagine these have been very trying times for me. But all memberships, both new and renewals, have been processed and we're up to speed!
We have removed the old Contact Info page from linkage on the system and replaced links to it with link to the User Profile page which contains Contact Info, Profile Info, Feedback and other user information in one convenient place. Also on the User Profile page you can find a list of User Interactions links which allow you to work with the user. Currently you can Blacklist a user (from bids/comments on your auctions) and our members will also see a "Watch" link which does not presently do anything useful (new membership feature that's coming soon). We will also be adding a messaging system and a Send Message link will appear there soon!
True "Global Blacklist" is now supported and active on the site! Believe it or not, this hasn't really been a huge priority in the 11 years we've been running now, but as we add more social networking features we wanted to see to it that this was in place before it was necessary. To Blacklist a user from bidding or commenting on your auctions (and in the future your Store Items, Forum Threads and Private Messages) you must go to their User Profile page and click the Blacklist link in the User Interaction section. You can Un-Blacklist the user anytime through the same method (the Blacklist link changes to Un-Blacklist after you've blacklisted a user).
So What's Next? High on my list of things to get done right now is an Automated Ad Banner Submission system such that users can just upload their banner and fill out a simple form, then send payment and we simply login to our admin interface, review and approve the ad to get it rotating. This system would also show all available slots for the current month and months ahead, plus allow users to choose exactly which months to show the banner for. After that we'd like to get an Auction Archive system working so folks can review auctions which have been archived, and also allow sellers and bidders to remove auctions which they no longer wish to see from their My Selling and My Bidding pages prior to archival.
Beyond that we are still sitting on a large set of features which are at varying states of progress. We still have a developer whose sole task right now is forums, who is working on a revolutionary new method of storing and serving forums threads. We'd still like to expand out into Storefronts for users to sell static items at a fixed price, we'd still like to get the Commission System up and running, and we're still contemplating a Want Ads and/or Reverse Auction system. As always, we love to hear from users and if you have any feature requests or ideas on how we can improve the FurBuy experience, please let us know!
Finally, a brief word that we are still in great need of financial support from our users. You can help support us by either becoming a Contributing Member, purchasing Ad Banner space (if not for you, then maybe for a friend!), directly contributing to our mission via Paypal, or just spreading the word about FurBuy and our services.
Thanks again everyone for your continued support, and don't ever hesitate to send us your questions, thoughts or ideas!
