Sorry for the downtime/errors due to the update! We didn't have the issues on our test server and didn't anticipate it. We're still having some errors and are working on those.
##User Flairs
Moderators now have the option to enable user flair in circles. Unfortunately, this feature seems to be buggy at the moment and moderators should know that before enabling it.
There are two options in the circle settings panel for user flairs, and they seem like they should do different things, but they currently seem to do the same thing. If you turn on either option, users will be able to write-in their own flair AND pick from the list of flairs moderators make, if you make a list of flair options. You can't currently stop people from writing in their own flairs if you turn on either option. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.
Even if mods don't select either option to turn on user flairs, moderators can still manually add flairs to users from the User Flair Settings page, and those will show up. Mod teams might want to make sure they are on the same page about user flair before adding any, because flairs that have been added (by mods or users) can't be toggled off, they have to be individually manually removed if you want to get rid of them.
The Sitewide Rules obviously apply to flairs, as well as any circle rules in the specific circle.
##Post Flairs (and New User Flairs) Can Now Contain Emojis and Special Characters
Before, post flairs didn't allow for apostrophes, quotes, other punctuation, or emojis; now these can be used.
There is still a 25 character limit for user flairs and post flairs - is this too short?
##Image Rotation Fix
Previously, sometimes when people uploaded images, the image got flipped sideways or possibly upside down. This is because we remove all the metadata from images, which is important since metadata can reveal a great deal of personal information on the poster.* However, most of the time when you rotate a photo, it changes a bit of metadata to save that rotation information. We were deleting that information. We now delete all metadata except for that bit. We can't fix the sideways images that have already been uploaded, but images shouldn't be rotated going forward.
*Seriously, it's terrifying how much metadata on photographs from your phone reveal. They can have your exact location as coordinates, your time zone, what kind of phone you used; metadata can also have your name. Many websites and chat services automatically delete most metadata on photos – we do, imgur does, Discord does. But it's worth being careful and checking that you won't be doxed by uploading a photo somewhere else. Emailing a photo, for instance, will send someone all the metadata on the photo. You can find websites and software for removing metadata from your files.
No worries and thank you for the update. Was scared that the 503 errors meant we were getting DDOSed. So relieved that's not the case.
We have pretty good protection from DDOSing. We prepared for that before we launched.
Thank you so much for all the work you do and have done to make this site possible, safe and stable. It is hugely appreciated!
Thanks for the update!
So how do we tell which circles have user flairs enabled? I clicked around but each circle I've been to so far just tells me my flair is my username.
I don't think any mods have enabled adding it yet, but if any do they can post about it.
Relieved the 503 errors weren't a sign of something malicious! I definitely felt a bit lost without ovarit to scroll through with my morning coffee ☕☀️
Wow, I didn't know y'all were deleting the metadata on our uploaded pics. You ladies rock! Thank you!