Dec 14, 2024 1 year ago
Keith
gets around
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Eradication

the shoutbox is a legendary subeta institution—it’s been part of the site since practically day one. we shut it down a few years ago bc the legacy codebase was, frankly, a trash fire, and running live chat on it was… let’s just say ā€œa challenge.ā€ but guess what? IT’S BACK. better than ever, powered by our shiny new live thread functionality.

let’s take a little stroll down memory lane. did you know one of the first customizations on subeta was shoutbox backgrounds? back in the day, if you wanted one, you didn’t buy it or unlock it. no, you had to be friends with me to get one. šŸ˜Ž

(look at all these OG shoutbox backgrounds—pure chaos. mine are BAD) you can click this link and change the sb_keith.gif to any of these to see them. they're.... very of their time

the shoutbox was more than just a chat; it was a cultural moment. drama started there, ended there, and sometimes just looped infinitely. this was back when everyone was online all the time, so no tiny slight went unexamined. if someone so much as typoed, the shoutbox would light up. iconic.

sadly, i don’t have exact records of when the shoutbox first launched. our archives only go back to 2010 bc of a massive code meltdown that basically wiped everything before that.

(this is the ā€œfirstā€ commit for subeta—anything earlier is lost to time and bad coding practices. rip.)

but even in 2014, the shoutbox was still evolving:

(fun fact: frozen users were once able to use the shoutbox. not on purpose šŸ’€)

now, here’s the plan: i’m testing live threads as the new shoutbox format. why? bc it’s so much better—actual forum posts with history, easy moderation, and you can view it outside the tiny sidebar. plus, in a few days hopefully, i’ll add a widget for a more familiar vibe. welcome to shoutbox 2.0. šŸ˜

šŸ’– ✨ šŸ¤—

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May 21, 2026 (43 seconds ago)
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Angelica

congrats Owl, that's literally a lifetime

May 21, 2026 (47 seconds ago)
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Keith

i promise that shop search fix is still going out, the deployments are backed up from 9:04 😭

May 21, 2026 (1 minute ago)
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Bliss

It was hot and humid here for 4 days and now we're plunged into freezing temps

May 21, 2026 (2 minutes ago)
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Owl

You've earned the Longtime Member achievement!

(I don't usually look at my dahsboard, but I just hit 19 years I guess! Time flies, haha.)

May 21, 2026 (2 minutes ago)
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Rude

It was 90 degrees and then rained. I should have known better. We're at 96% humidity so the air is basically water right now.

May 21, 2026 (4 minutes ago)
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DruidHeart

I thought about doing that same thing earlier Rude, but I already can't stand how humid it is in here and it isn't even that bad T~T

May 21, 2026 (6 minutes ago)
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Bliss

Yeah. It hasn't been on the site for 10 years or more? Idk, but i do remember it when I first joined 20 years ago

May 21, 2026 (6 minutes ago)
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Rude

I turned the AC off and opened the windows thinking 60F would feel great. Now I'm just hot, moist, and grumpy.

May 21, 2026 (6 minutes ago)
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Damon

It cooled down here. Rude, sending cooler weather your way! Hopefully?!

May 21, 2026 (6 minutes ago)
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Keith

it was gone for awhile and then it was on kumos, and now it's back on legacy šŸ˜…

May 21, 2026 (7 minutes ago)
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DruidHeart

Rude, I'll be joining you 😭

May 21, 2026 (7 minutes ago)
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Owl

Rude, I'm with you, lmfao.

May 21, 2026 (8 minutes ago)
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Angelica

has the auction system been gone for long? I don't remember it :0 cool

May 21, 2026 (8 minutes ago)
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Rude

Whoever made it humid here, I'm coming for you. ;-;

May 21, 2026 (9 minutes ago)
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Chinchilla

Ooo~ Sounds intriguing!

May 21, 2026 (9 minutes ago)
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Owl

That sounds pretty cool! c:

I do miss auctions.

May 21, 2026 (10 minutes ago)
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Khaleyda

Oh how cool! I dig

May 21, 2026 (11 minutes ago)
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Keith

anyway

šŸ‘Øā€āš–ļø Auctions come back to legacy Subeta! (news post / changelog incoming)

With a fun new feature - The Vault Curator which will take up to 5 vault items off your hands and make it easy to sell in the auction house (5 cap just to not flood things immediately, I might raise this!) and it sets the price for you (this is the item price / user shop code i needed updated!)

May 21, 2026 (11 minutes ago)
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Bliss

I have no tact. Never have. I try though and I just can't seem to get it

May 21, 2026 (12 minutes ago)
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Keith

wow i thought there was for sure a gavel emoji?

May 21, 2026 (12 minutes ago)
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Keith

now for some fun stuff!!

May 21, 2026 (13 minutes ago)
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Khaleyda

Bliss - someone once told me that honesty without tact is just cruelty. Perhaps something to consider.

May 21, 2026 (13 minutes ago)
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Keith

You did! I'm telling you how i felt hearing it.

May 21, 2026 (13 minutes ago)
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DruidHeart

JFC, and you work with SNAP and medicaid on top of it? You poor soul T~T

May 21, 2026 (14 minutes ago)
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Bliss

I'm confused because I said how I felt

May 21, 2026 (14 minutes ago)
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Chinchilla

Just remember NASA lost a payload because of one letter in their code. Crazy stuff coding is!

May 21, 2026 (14 minutes ago)
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Khaleyda

Keith are you telling us you're NOT coding from your multimillion dollar bunker in Hawaii??

May 21, 2026 (14 minutes ago)
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DruidHeart

I can't imagine trying to replace old code with new ones. The old has been built up over so long that things have gotten...tangled šŸ˜…

May 21, 2026 (15 minutes ago)
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Angelica

I do apologize for the message sounding rude, it wasn't intended but I understand it did anyways.

May 21, 2026 (15 minutes ago)
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Keith

and i totally get the reaction and i'm very guilty of it myself. i understand the power dynamic here and am not trying to shame anyone

and am also doing my best to reset that power dynamic. i'm not getting paid a million dollars to make subeta - this is really my hobby (after my fun day job of working on SNAP and medicaid lol) and the way that i get to keep close to something i really love and so the power balance is really a lot closer to the middle than i think people think it is, haha

May 21, 2026 (15 minutes ago)
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Rude

Yeah, there is a huge difference between, "As a user this isn't very functional so maybe I should give feedback." and "Wow this is shit."

May 21, 2026 (16 minutes ago)
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Khaleyda

Ugh I simply can't imagine how much heavy lifting each implemented change requires

May 21, 2026 (16 minutes ago)
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DruidHeart

Omfg, right, code is soooo persnickety. One space out of place and a whole line is broken, let alone anything relying on that line for reference. (And all I've done is a tiny bit with PowerQuery in Excel!)

May 21, 2026 (16 minutes ago)
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Khaleyda

I think some folks are also more reactive to change than others. Which, as a neurospicy gal myself, I get. But I also keep it in check and remind myself that I can't be a grump about change, shaking my fist at the sky lolol

May 21, 2026 (17 minutes ago)
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Keith

ty ty šŸ™ i really, really, really don't want to say i'm not looking for - critical even!! - feedback, i'm really not.

but the immediate "what have you done, how could you do this, this sucks" is just really hard to immediately action on

May 21, 2026 (17 minutes ago)
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Keith

earlier today when the battle system broke, it was because i updated our database processing system to a more secure version and that broke battle and shop search, two totallllyyyy separate systems that happened to both be using an old old old version of getting item data

May 21, 2026 (18 minutes ago)
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Rude

I assume the people who jump on a new update on anything tech related have never once touched code or managed a community. People need to calm down a little..

May 21, 2026 (18 minutes ago)
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Keith

i would just always assume that something is a bug at first - since we're staying on legacy (which i'm very very happy about!!) i still have to update a lot of code to be able to get us off things like.... for example, yesterday to get buying CSC moved over here, i had to bump up our paypal version from something like 4 to 12, which required updating our admin panel, the other parts of the cash shop, etc, etc

May 21, 2026 (19 minutes ago)
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Keith

ugh that change didn't go out correctly - pushing it again (this has been happenign today, i'm sorry!)

May 21, 2026 (21 minutes ago)
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Keith

(speaking of - item directory changes going out)