The software update previously given notice about here has now begun.
EDIT: And we’re back up. Clear your brower’s cache, restart it and go to Soulreaper.net and you should see the forum again.
Archive for the ‘behind the scene’ Category
Update in motion
Monday, September 8th, 2008Changes coming to the forum
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008During the forthcoming 6-7 days, Soulreaper.net will be updated to a new version of the software we’re running, and also our forum will have a new look.
The update will mean that there will be some downtime when the forum will not be accessible, and there may be some tweaking when the forum is back up. Thus, we ask for your patience during this time.
Another thing we hope you have not missed is the image hosting-service called “ImageReap“. The site enables you to create your own personal galleries, and you choose if you want your images to be publically viewable or not. ImageReap also comes complete with easy to copy/paste links for both regular sites, forums and social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook etc.
Take care everyone! 
We have two new Senior Moderators
Wednesday, July 4th, 2007I didn’t mention this on the site before, but a while back “Eniotna” and “Reyna” took the step up from being moderators to Senior Moderators. This promotion means that they have more authority on the forums, they can for example ban users from accessing Soulreaper.net if that now would be needed.
In any case; keep up the good work guys! You are a big part of the site being such a friendly place!
Soulreaper.net now supports Open SPF
Sunday, February 11th, 2007We have implemented Open SPF for the domain Soulreaper.net, which means that every email that goes out from the mail-server belonging to us gets a tag on it which says “mailed-by: soulreaper.net” and you should also see “Received-SPF: pass” if you look at the mail-header. This example is valid if you’re using Gmail. You should be able to see the same header-information in any mail-provider that checks SPF-records for incoming email.
If you use Hotmail and previously were seeing the notification-emails go into the spam-folder you’ll probably see more emails being directed to the inbox as the mail-servers at Hotmail can see that it is really “us” sending the emails and no-one else. (Hotmail and some other mail-providers think that anyone sending over a certain number of emails per day or even per hour without a SPF-record is a potential spammer, thus all emails go into the spam-folder without asking.)
In other words, adding a SPF-record means a higher reliability for all email originating from the site reaching you.
If you’re interested in reading up on the Open SPF-standard you can check the project’s webpage @ http://www.openspf.org.
Open SPF stands for “Open Sender Policy Framework”.
Server-move complete and tested
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007The main site has now moved to a new server with a new Internet Service Provider, which is located at another physical location than the previous ISP.
This move took place around new years eve, but I decided to not post anything regarding the server-migration until it was complete and the new setup was deemed stable, which it is now.
The good aspect of the move is that we now are located on a more robust network with multiple and redundant Gigabit-connections to the Internet.
A description of the network looks something like this:
Internal Network
- Redundant carrier class Juniper routers
- Redundant Cisco 6509 (SUP720) distribution switches
- Cisco 2950/2960 series aggregation/customer layer switches
- 100% fiber internal backbone
- 100% network uptime SLA
Backbone Carriers
- Level(3) – Direct 2x GigE (2000mbit/sec)
- Savvis – Direct GigE (1000mbit/sec)
- AT&T – Direct GigE (1000mbit/sec)
- nLayer – Direct 2x GigE (2000mbit/sec)
- PCCW Global – Direct 3x GigE (3000mbit/sec)
- TeliaSonera – Direct 3x GigE (3000mbit/sec)
- Peering – Direct GigE (1000mbit/sec)
In other words: Good shit!
A negative aspect of the move is that after mentioned move we have seen an increase in traffic, which in it’s turn means that we need to invest in more hardware in order to be able to serve you the pages and material as fast as they should be served to you.
There will be more posted regarding how you can help out the site. As we believe in organic growth, anyone who decides to help will get something in return; you could call it a win-win situation.
Anywho, I hope that you’ll enjoy this new server and the increased stability and network-speed.
What the administrator&the staff behind the site do – here’s the brutal truth
Saturday, November 18th, 2006So, I’ve been getting quite a few questions on what I and the whole team behind the site are doing and now I’m seizing the opportunity to tell you about what happens behind the scenes of Soulreaper.net! 
First off I’m sorry to say that you are becoming disappointed now, as there are no juicy behind the scenes activities. The moderator-team does have some discussions on matters regarding the site, but these are mostly about site-improvements, criticism (positive/negative) and purely technical matters.
The moderators’ job is to keep the site clean and move/close topics and posts as the moderators see appropriate. The first level moderators’ job is also to notify the senior moderator / administrator about users (read: spambots) that needs to be banned, and then, if necessary, the IP-addresses will be denied access to the site by the administrator. I also disable usernames that I know are spambots of different kinds, as there are ways to detect this before they even cause any damage.
What the administrator also does, beside keeping this site clean from vermin is to do all the coding necessary to add new features and keeping the server ticking as it should.
Another important aspect to this site is that we have certain methodologies in place which protects all members against spam coming through the site (including private messages) as well as protecting the members’ personal information to always be safe and not leave the realms of this site. The later includes IP and email-addresses.
I hope that this post explained quite a few things regarding the daily upkeep of all our’s Soulreaper.net.
Cheerio!