So we have a new powerlevel: Content Moderator.

Their role is basically to maintain games, categories, themes, etc, to improve their overall quality across the site.

To start off, we've taken on @werster and @authorblues. Welcome dudes!

Made a few changes to the theme editor over the past day, and I've added a few options to give you more costumisation. Changes include:

• Background "fit to screen" setting, makes an image fill the entire window so it won't repeat at the sides
• Background position options
• Background repeat options
• All of the above for Foreground, too
• Foreground is now a little more hidden, in the hopes that it only gets used by people who know what they're doing
• Modern-looking file browse fields
• The scrolling mechanism has been changed to make backgrounds and foregrounds scroll much more smoothly

In addition, a lot of the default themes have been cleaned up / improved. The three time-dependent themes are also back - they change depending on your local time - try out the Milk theme, it's beautiful in the evening.

Let me know if you find any bugs :)

we HD now boys

High quality uploads are now supported on the following files:

• Theme logo • Game favicon • 1st place trophy • 2nd place trophy • 3rd place trophy • 4th place trophy • User picture • Custom user icon

If you reupload them, they'll look crisp on mobile / retina displays, like this:

Also, game cover images were being stored in HD since the beginning, so they're all looking sharper already!

And if the username you want is already used by an inactive account (that is, hasn't been online in 6 months and has 0 runs), you can take their username (they'll just get an underscore added to their name).

We're working on a new system to let you browse the site in a number of different languages.

A lot of people offered to help out with translating, so we now have a team working on all these languages:

I've given donators early access to the feature. There's still a lot to be done, so there's no need to report missing words :)

If you can offer to translate any other languages, especially Chinese or Portuguese (European and Brazilian), please reply here and let us know why you'd be good at it.

Thanks folks! (Y)

All moderators have been removed, and replaced with zenix. He seems to be the only one who's neutral, and everyone agrees with.

It'll be up to him to maintain categories, and add any new mods.

As head mod, all decisions must go through him.

Hope this keeps everyone happy for now.

I have a bad habit of just posting my updates on my Twitter; I should be posting here for those who don't follow me.

We now have a user list!

Feel free to post any feedback you may have, or suggestions for extra lists.

All moderators except Sleepwalker92 have been removed. He seems to be the only one who's neutral, and everyone agrees with.

It'll be up to him to maintain categories, and add any new mods.

As head mod, all decisions must go through him.

Hope this keeps everyone happy for now.

I spent the past few months completely redoing the site's layout to be mobile-compatible, and a bit more modern in general.

There are probably plenty of bugs left to be fixed, so please let me know here!

Anyway, hope you guys like it.

Should we allow the levels to be completed in any order, rather than just linear?

It would make it easier for the runner to route levels (finish one level with a cape, and then go straight to a level where they need a cape), and would be a bit more entertaining for the viewer.

Let me know what you guys think.

Dear speedfriends, at some point later today, we will have Google ads on the site. Now don't worry, because:

• They'll be hidden if you're logged in • The text-based ones will blend in with the colour theme • They're be as relevant as possible • They don't pop up or anything

Revenue would go towards:

• Covering site costs (like a new server, and bandwidth) • Repaying the high cost of the domain name

We expect it to be proportional to the level of effort that has been and continues to be put into the site, and will result in better performance, as well as more time dedicated to developing the site.

We know that many of you will be using an adblocker anyway, but if you could consider whitelisting the site, we would really appreciate it.

Thank you all for understanding <3

We want to get a News article system set up, and we're looking for a volunteer to write some good quality articles. The candidate should ideally be:

• A native English speaker (other languages will be available at a later point) • Good at spelling, grammar and punctuation • Able to express themselves well • Interested in (and up-to-date with) various speedgames and events

It's basic, really. If you're interested, please give a link to any sample article you've written before. If you know anybody else who might be interested, please refer them here :)

So to celebrate having hit a milestone of 1,000,000 pageviews in January alone, I'd like to publish some statistics.

Traffic • Pageviews:

• By country:

• Busiest time of day: 21:00 UTC • Quietest time of day: 09:00 UTC

Timeline • 2013-12-08: Conceived the idea for the site, from a conversation with RWhiteGoose • 2013-12-09: Development began • 2014-03-25: Grand opening; GTA was the first to join, with Lighnat0r becoming admin • 2014-08-14: Bought the speedrun.com domain (for $3,500 ._.') • 2014-08-15: Renamed the site from SpeedRunRecords to speedrun.com • 2014-09-16: Talks began with SpeedRunsLive • 2014-11-13: SpeedRunsLive pledged their support, with Kirkq becoming admin • 2015-01-22: Established collaborative coding, with SgtKabukiman undertaking security

Records • Games: 1,987 • Series: 282 • Runs: 23,551

Users • Total: 4,084 • Moderators (of at least one game): 1,056 (of whom 800 are Super moderators) • Full moderators: 5 • Administrators: 4 • Users online each day: ~900 • New users per day

Thanks for being a part of it (y)

So I'm going back home to Ireland in two months (not for good, though), and we're gonna have a wee meetup in Dublin in March. It'll be a general hanging out sort of thing. Everyone's welcome.

The usual suspects are already in, but people from other countries like UK, Netherlands and Germany have expressed interest in coming too, so I'd like to get a better idea of who's in, what dates most people would be available.

I was thinking around Fri 6th - Sun 8th; how does that suit most people? Or do you have any other preference?

I'll be updating the timing system soon-ish (about #3 on my priority list), and I want to check that everything is covered.

This is mainly directed at moderators (FYI: 763 users moderate at least one game). In order to make sure that the site supports the timing method each game needs, there'll be a fair amount of customisation options. A lot more dynamic than it is now, basically.

So, there are three timing fields:

• Real time • In-game time • Time without loads

Here's what's planned:

• Any or all of the above fields will be usable • Any of the above fields can be selected as the default view • Leaderboards will be sortable by any of the above fields • Different fields will be usable for full-game leaderboards and individual level leaderboards • Different fields will be usable for different categories • Each timing field can select times broken down into minutes, seconds, decaseconds, centiseconds, or milliseconds • 4-player support

If I've forgotten anything, or you have any further requests for this, here's the place to tell me.

If you take a quick look at Edit profile, you'll notice you can now select just Australia, Canada, UK and USA without having to pick a region.

The regions themselves now appear in a separate menu when you pick one of the above. This allowed me to add regions for a lot more countries without cluttering up the main menu, so I've added all the regions for the Netherlands, Japan (of course), and as requested one for Sweden.

I'm not going to do the whole world because that would be insane, but if you want me to add the regions for your country, just request it here and I'll see if I have time. They must have flags.

Games: • Games by series are now ordered by year of release • An option was added to games to hide Emulator runs by default • An option was added to leaderboards to hide runs without a video • An option was added to games to disable moderation from the series above it • An option was added to profiles to hide obsolete runs (and improved by Lighnat0r to only show the option if there are obsolete runs). • The link to ROM hacks is now hidden to non-mods if there are no ROM hacks • Fixed a name duplication glitch wherein a mod would show up twice if s/he's a mod of a game and the series above it. • When a user signs up, all existing runs in their name are tied to them automatically • Better messages now appear on profiles and leaderboards if there are no runs submitted • Game covers can now be any ratio you want; not just DVD size - example

Layout: • Drop shadows have been added to all boxes and tables (thanks for the suggestion, CryZe) • Leaderboards now have alternating row colours (thanks for the suggestion, CryZe) • I've done a HTML cleanup, but there may have been a few tables still without a background that I missed - if you see any, please inform me • Edit theme now says Add theme if it doesn't exist • The number of options available in Edit theme has been reduced. The others are now generated automatically based on Box • The navigation bar now has its own colour, independent of the Box colour • Edit theme now has a colour picker so you can see what colour you're choosing • The logos on a few themes have been improved • The ESA 2015 HYPE theme has been added. On this (and other lighter themes), username colours are inverted. • A new default theme has been created, and the old one is now available under Mint (as always, go to Settings to change theme)

Other: • THE PROBLEM WITH MIDDLE CLICK OPENING THINGS TWICE HAS BEEN FIXED

What's next? Alternative languages. Prepare yourselves, the Japanese are coming.