Smogon 2024 Upgrade Thread - Data/Mechanics Research

Smogon has now added Linkedin to the Share button at the bottom of the page and has put it above even Reddit, along with a Link button at the end. This may be major for professional cross-posting presences. Let us know if there are any other cool mechanics changes worth noting in this new generation.

Before upgrade:
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After upgrade:
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EDIT: The link button was already there and it just didn't load yet. I have updated my example image and my Linkedin post with this information.
 
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New BBcode​

I believe this horizontal line is new, or at least it isn't mentioned on the BBcode help page and I could not find them used before today. You can find it under the last 3 dots icon that says "more options".
[HR][/HR]

Comparing the state of the BBcode help page page to a month ago, we can see a few visible changes.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/help/bb-codes/
https://web.archive.org/web/20240802131609/https://www.smogon.com/forums/help/bb-codes/

Headings!!!​

The headings BBcode seems to be new, visible under the paragraph format button. You can click on the link icon next to them to jump around or link directly to a heading!!! Try it out: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...ad-data-mechanics-research.3750983/#-headings
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Font size seems to take priority over a heading, but they still take up the same vertical space and count as a link.

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Media
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Comparing the Media tag before and after, we can see that Metacafe was removed, TikTok support was added, and Smogon added a custom x to embed x.com urls, but then Xenforo also replaced base Twitter with X and didn't move it in alphabetical order, so now we have 2 Xs here.
 

More unofficial patch notes:​


Alerts now have a button to mark them as unread/read.
Profile pictures show a green icon in the center (desktop) or bottom right (mobile) if a user is online.
All instances of "conversation" have become "direct message".
The background blurs much more when opening the reactions of a post.
Clicking an image in a post with multiple images allows you to start a slideshow of them (I honestly do not know if this was already a feature)
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You can now directly upload image files to profile posts, whereas before you could only embed a link to an image.
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The mobile posting menu now has a font selector, even though the fonts still don't visibly show differently than the default in mobile posts as I noted in my wingdings thread.
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Multiple image attachments in a post are arranged in horizontal tiles that you need to scroll through instead of vertical rows. There is also a new option where you can select multiple at once to insert or delete (at the bottom right).
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While the similar threads mechanic has been largely noticed by now, there is also a list of trending threads on the homepage that seems more algorithmic.
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Cold Storage is the only forum with a count of threads and messages on the homepage, which was not there before. Also the footer is different which I assume is just default Xenforo stuff (RSS is still there).

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Also you can put images in inline spoilers and they blur, which I feel like is something I would have tried and used more if it was possible, but I do not have a reference to check if it actually worked before. But they also expand if you click on them which is weird.
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Smogon has now added Linkedin to the Share button at the bottom of the page and has put it above even Reddit, along with a Link button at the end. This may be major for professional cross-posting presences. Let us know if there are any other cool mechanics changes worth noting in this new generation.

Before upgrade:
View attachment 668191
After upgrade:
View attachment 668178

EDIT: The link button was already there and it just didn't load yet. I have updated my example image and my Linkedin post with this information.
surely my 1300 in gen 9 uu is what gets me a job
 
where is my goddamn spooky mode??
 
We really got Smogon 2 before GTA 6​
I think this is really more like Smogon 4 of even just the Xenforo era I know of from pre-2.0, 2.0 in like 2017-2018, 2.1 in 2019 (the reactions/circle avatar update), and now 2.3, but I could be wrong.​

Quotes​

I feel like quotes have been nerfed in this editor just as a personal preference. They show up in full formatting rather than BBcode, and now you can't directly change the author or fully delete the quote all at once because just deleting before the quote box still leaves the inner text, and it doesn't feel right the way it lets you edit the text inside the quote. Also it doesn't really reflect what a real quote looks like until you preview it.
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ok this one is a gamechanger tbf. Sijih cow imgs comeing your way...​

New Theory of Reaction Tiebreaker​

tl;dr NEW (POST-UPDATE) reactions with tied react counts should consistently prioritize the leftmost/lowest ID reaction in order. Also linking to posts will embed themselves now because of course they do.

So my previous reaction tiebreaker theory was generally based on user age, yet was inconsistent when multiple users were involved in a tie. However I quickly noticed that this is no longer consistent even for 1-user ties, as we see BIG ASHLEY's Like leading over my Wow, yet my Wow also beats BIG ASHLEY's Sad in this very thread.
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In general I considered the pattern that react priority was now simply determined based on the internal order of Like/Love/Haha/Wow/Sad/Angry, but I found a few counterexamples, though it was also worth considering that past posts may have retained their order or there was still an element of randomness to it.

EDIT: I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED BUT THIS POST EMBEDDED INTO ITS OWN BOX WHEN I LINKED TO IT. THIS DID NOT APPEAR IN THE PREVIEW. HELP​

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I decided to put my theory to the test on an abandoned post with a single Haha that I found from the similar threads list. As you can see, the results speak for themselves, with Like/Love being placed before Haha and Wow/Sad/Angry being placed afterwards consistently.
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tl;dr NEW (POST-UPDATE) reactions with tied react counts should consistently prioritize the leftmost/lowest ID reaction in order. Also linking to posts will embed themselves now because of course they do.

Inline Image Spoilers​

I found a post with an inline spoiler of an image attachment that had been archived in the Wayback Machine and it did appear to not be blurred. For good measure I archived it again and it appeared blurred correctly in the present, so this is likely not a wayback machine issue. I do remember attempting this in the past and seeing the image not blur as expected, though it would take another click to clear the inline spoiler (that didn't affect visibility) first, so I will officially consider this a new change.

Justified text​

I am also not sure if this is a new change but it is not mentioned on the BBcode page though it is in the toolbar. Just for fun I decided to justify all my text in this post. I did find a post from 2020 asking for justifying text to be added as an option, so I feel like I am justified in counting this as a new addition.

For some reason all my headings have a break after them now.

EDIT: Also new to Xenforo 2.3 is table column width/resizing support in the editor (bug report showing that it was added recently). Thanks to LouisCyphre for noting this.

Here's a table at 5% of its width.
 
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Post Embeds​

So it seems another new update in Xenforo 2.3 is being able to just embed posts by linking them, though this does not show up in preview mode. I guess you could use this as a fancier quote if you want, though it doesn't notify and doesn't really quote any specific text. But it shows some reaction icons at the bottom right at least.
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/embed-your-content-anywhere.217381/

It does seem you can also embed profile posts though.
[EMBED content="profile_post-2234604"]https://www.smogon.com/forums/profile-posts/2234604/[/EMBED] becomes

As far as I can tell, only the content variable matters, but the text inside is used (as a link) if the embed fails to load for whatever reason.

Here are the first and second ever profile posts for fun.

[EMBED content="profile_post-1"]test[/EMBED]
[EMBED content="profile_post-2"]test[/EMBED]



Profile post 3 does not exist, so
[EMBED content="profile_post-3"]test[/EMBED]
becomes

and a proper link just acts as a normal link.

Thread Filtering​

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New filters include "featured threads" and the ability to sort by thread type, discussion or poll. I was fairly certain this was not present and for reference I found some other forums with a xenforo 2020 copyright and they did not have this option.

What is featured content? There is none so far, but you can see its page in the forums menu dropdown.

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new watched icon​

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This bothered me because I kept thinking the bell was a weird lock. I had never seen it before yet I could swear there was a watched icon. I finally remembered that it used to be an eye.

More similar threads

Similar threads seem to also be suggested whenever you create a thread. In other question/answer based sites this might be more convenient, but as is it is mostly unhelpful since most questions are relegated to simple questions threads already. But I guess you can see what might pop up under your thread before you post it.

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EDIT: I believe the similar threads mechanic also considers the contents of the OP in both the source and suggested threads, since searing hot takes brings up DBZ threads, while this one for posting may just take the title as it is inputted.
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Lastly I did not mention it explicitly yet, but Preview is very different now. It's a button in the top right that shows the preview on top of your current typing area, instead of separately below the post like before, so you can't even see your preview at the same time as you write. I'm not a big fan just yet because most of the time the WYSIWYG editor works for that already and it didn't work with the post embeds.

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I also want to point out that Xenforo didn't need to add 2 different expanding menus of options here. There is plenty of unused space in the toolbar for more buttons.

EDIT: Expanded on the differences btwn similar and "already being discussed" threads.
 
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is that it? I would hate for anhay of these superlative changes to be under the rug-swept
I feel like there's always more mechanics to be discovered naturally as more people embrace playing on cart instead of the simulated ways of the old forums. For example I directly ran into an attachment limit of 50 today when making my latest Pokemon Forums digest post.

You have reached the maximum limit for attachment uploads. Please try again later.

Apparently this is a new Xenforo 2.2 mechanic that limits the number of "unassociated" attachments (not tied to a published post) and I did notice I could potentially edit more images in after the post was published if anyone else finds this happening in the future.
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/unable-to-upload-more-than-50-attachments.207619/
 

TIL tumblr embeds are a thing now... AND IT HAS AUTOMATIC VIDEO PLAYBACK?????
hol up... do audio posts work too


edit: naurrr :(

Good finding. On Firefox the first post actually doesn't work but the second works for me, but I get the opposite behaviour on Chrome.

EDIT: Actually now it's the opposite on Firefox so I guess this is just inconsistent.
 
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