Twilight Sparkle ✨

A longstanding tradition of Poniverse has been to give former staff most of the forum perks associated with a subscription as a token of appreciation for their service. This was accomplished by placing all former staff in the "Subscribers" group on MLP Forums.

Over the years, however, the list of MLPF's subscribers grew very long as staff came and went. This had the side effect of making it look like we have about 10 times the financial support we actually do.

In an effort to improve transparency, the subscriber list has been corrected to only list actual subscribers now; former staff continue to be distinguished by being in a new "Retired Staff" group.

For those of you who've thought financially supporting Poniverse, I figured that having a better idea of how much support we already have may affect your decision. To those who already subscribe, thank you - I hope you appreciate this information as well.

The more subscribers we have, the more ambitious we can get with things like picking server hardware, funding community events, and rep'ing our projects at conventions. And you get cool perks like a larger signature and a custom title, too!   If you want to grab a subscription now, they start at $5 USD/month on the forum store.

See this FAQ article: Do members have the ability to delete their own posts and threads?

Forum posts are part of our shared history as a community so you can't remove them yourself by design. The article explains the rationale for this in more depth.

That said, MLPF's staff consider requests to remove individual posts on a case-by-case basis - how to request that and when such a request is likely to be honoured is also detailed in the article.

Thanks for your interest in subscribing, @Lunar Echo!

Once you have a subscription (of any tier), you can cancel it at any time through User Menu > Client Area > Purchases. You'll reach a screen that looks like this:

Once you cancel, the subscription will remain active until the date it was paid through, then expire instead of renewing.

MLP Forums is owned by Poniverse, a fan-run nonprofit organization. We are in no way affiliated with Hasbro - I added a note to the footer clarifying this.

Oh I don't doubt that one bit. I'm sure it's very well written and it certainly has a fanbase of its own, but at this point there's way too much for me to keep up and there's like weeks worth of stuff. As for bookmarking, I assume that that's for Fimfiction, while the official FoE pages don't have that option, if I'm not mistaken.,

I found an .epub version of FoE somewhere and read it in Adobe Digital Editions - I believe it was this one. Digital Editions is a very nice eBook reader. The original fic stands perfectly well on its own if you aren't inclined to read all the other fics based on it.

Once you start reading FoE, you probably won't want to put it down. Don't be so worried about its length.

I may also be biased here but the occasional fanfiction contests that Poniverse runs produce awesome fics about the organization's mascots. Summers of Change is my favourite among those.

There's also fics with chapters that are so long that it takes an hour to read them, and that's why I refuse to read fics like Fallout: Equestria and its sequels/spinoffs.

Please reconsider this - you can always bookmark the exact page you're at in the middle of a chapter. There's a reason that Fallout Equestria has its own sub-fandom - it's a complex, well-told story. No prior knowledge of Fallout is necessary to enjoy it. It might not be a new fic but it'll occupy and entertain you for a while.

Scribbler - it was a pleasure to commission you. The piece came out beautifully and I appreciate that you were able to handle my unusual logistical request. Thank you for being awesome!

There's a detail worth adding to all of the above: a plan existed to bring PonyExpo under the Poniverse umbrella and everyone involved rolled with an assumption that it was going to happen, which is part of why the convention was pre-emptively branded as a Poniverse project. The use of the Poniverse brand is something we'll be more careful about in the future.

That plan changed (with the consent of both organizations, importantly), and this announcement was made to be clear to the community that PonyExpo and Poniverse are going to be independent of each other for the foreseeable future.

Lots has already been said but I wanted to add a link to this FAQ article. The comic in it is relevant to any discussion about freedom of speech, or the lack thereof, on the Internet.

Lastly would be attaching pictures in PM's as you'll need to host them in a separate photo hosting website because you can't upload and attached pics there like posting in the forums. Unless, there's a way or something I'm missing...?

Attachments in PM's are available to subscribers and donors, FYI.

I made my contribution - I hope it helps you guys get your lives on track again. 

Mercury is one of our own - while many of you on MLPF might not know her, she has been running Ponyville Live! and helping out within Poniverse for about a full year now. Without her work, there would have been a lot less pony radio to enjoy in 2016, among other things.

Mercury has given so much to the community, the least we can do is give a little back when the life bus hits. I realize that December is a time when all kinds of causes are seeking your money; this is one that's really close to home for Poniverse. Consider skipping your morning coffee today and help out a fellow fan in need.

Woo! Glad to see that Poni Secret Santa will be a thing this year. I've signed up and I hope lots of others do as well!

Thanks for organizing this, @AppleDashPoni!

@@tberty, I'm guessing you ran into this error while trying to log into your Poniverse account? There was a misconfiguration there that allowed poniverse.net's certificate to expire, which @AppleDashPoni and I just corrected. Are you still getting it?

If yes, please reply with the following info:

• your browser and the version of it you're using
• the URL you experience the error on

If not, I'd appreciate if you can let us know that, too.

My two cents: If you don't like the political threads, just stay out. Noboby is really saying you MUST post in them.

The ability to stay out of threads you don't like doesn't necessarily mean there's nothing to gain by moderating them, making them less prominent, or banning them. There's a reason NSFW content is blanket-banned on MLPF instead of being permitted and left for uninterested users to ignore. Proactive moderation is part of MLPF's DNA.

Running into content you don't like will negatively shape your perception of MLP Forums, and there are plenty of online communities which blanket-ban politics due to the heat and discomfort such topics tend to generate.

In lieu of blanket bans, the Debate Pit and Life Advice areas were both created as a means to separate threads that are controversial, intensely negative, or otherwise not what most users expect to find when coming here to talk ponies. Maybe Debate Pit could be renamed to "Debates & Politics" to make it a better home for the threads @@EmeraldStar04 is concerned about.

FYI - This thread was about a server migration from many months ago, not the one that happened over the course of the last few weeks. The most recent one was mostly communicated on Twitter.

Hi NCMares! How long does it take you to produce an art piece now compared to when you started drawing ponies? I imagine it gets faster (easier?) after doing it for a while but by how much?

Editing your login name is unfortunately not possible at this time. It's not visible to anyone but yourself, though - I suggest using a password manager like LastPass to remember it for you so you never need to type it again.

@@Mortar, does this happen when you disable all of your browser's extensions and/or load MLP Forums in an incognito window? I'm using Chrome 52.0.2743.82 on macOS and it works fine for me, but I also use very few browser extensions.

I have a number of changes to share with you today, the biggest of which is that Poniverse - the organization that operates MLP Forums, Pony.fm, Ponyville Live!, and a bunch of other projects - is becoming a nonprofit organization!

Wait a moment - what does that mean?!

I've been the sole owner of Poniverse since its inception. Turning it into a nonprofit organization means that Poniverse will no longer have an ultimate ruler, so to speak; instead, it'll be led by a chairpony and controlled by a board of directors who are accountable to the staff and community in a new way. The by-laws that set out all the details will be public information and we'll have directors with specific duties like record-keeping, financials, technology, etc.

It's a fundamental change in how our organization is run - one that ensures that Poniverse can last as least as long as the pony fandom does - or in other words, beyond any one person's desire to continue running it. At the same time, it's a way of making official, in a legally recognized way, what Poniverse has always been about: organizing and supporting pony fans in building amazing online communities.

Pixel has been scaling Mt. Paperwork for months to make this happen. Art by SFyr.

New leadership is inbound!

Speaking of change, I'm proud to announce that Simon will be Poniverse's new chair! Simon first joined MLP Forums two and a half years ago, and has served on staff as a Moderator, Forum Team Leader, and Head of Public Relations. He knows how to see all sides of an argument, created our beloved Q&A series, built Poniverse's art and public relations teams, herded cats to represent our projects at various pony conventions, and can execute grand visions like nobody's business. I have full confidence that Poniverse has a bright future ahead under his leadership.  

That's not the only change in leadership that's happening today - leading this entire organization is a huge commitment, and to that end, Simon is handing off the PR department to writer, plushie maker, and moderator extraordinaire, Nervous Stitch! Stitch is bringing into this new role her candour, positivity, and business skills that we've come to know and love, and will be working closely with the board to spread all that Poniverse has to offer.

As for myself... I'll be a founding board member and will continue in my role as Poniverse's chief techpony.

Cue the personal monologue...

Poniverse is near and dear to me, and it has been helpful to me in social, academic, and professional ways alike; but recruiting community leaders, overseeing six projects at once, managing pony politics, and handling administrative miscellania consume an unreal amount of time and energy. I'm committed to finishing my university degree and making the most of my career opportunities, and wearing seven hats at Poniverse is endangering my ability to do either. At the same time, the pony community deserves to have strong leadership and distribution of responsibilities at the top of an organization that operates many services for it.

The pony community is a ton of fun to be part of and being in a position to organize over 80 people to facilitate communal gathering spots for it was something. I was a wee 16-year-old when I co-founded MLP Forums with Kurtiss - since then, I've graduated from high school, gotten halfway through a computer science degree, and spent a summer programming cars. Through all that time, Poniverse was the side project I came home to day after day, year after year.

It has been an honour to lead Poniverse and play a role in building it (and it is only a role - this whole thing is a heck of a team effort), and I hope to continue being part of this community in my own way moving forward. It has been the ride of my life, an experience I wouldn't trade for the world, but the single best contribution I can make to the community at this point is to give it the tools to keep Poniverse rolling through one generation of fans after another.

Thank you for sharing and supporting my dream. Onwards!

Well, I'm not really a programmer but I had to learn some stuff. And I admit I like programming too.

 

The first language I learned by myself was C. I had fun with some windowed programs but it was ten years ago so I forgot a lot about it. 

 

Recently, I learned in class Python and a bit of HTML/CSS, Javascript and PHP (SQL counts?). I still use Python nowadays and I like it a lot.

 

I'd like to learn Java and C++ for future projects.

There are programmers at all skill levels. If you can write code to bend a computer to your will, you have reason to identify yourself as a programmer.

Got a specific kind of project in mind that you'd find Java or C++ useful for? Personally, I like starting with a project idea and then picking a language for it.

Took me a couple months, but it wasn't finished. I lost the game due to intense computer failure, I'm remaking the game but way better this time considering I know more than I did when I started and I have a good PC now.

 

And that sounds like fun! xD

Backups, backups, backups. I sympathize - I lost one of my earlier attempts at developing a game when a very particular flash drive pulled a Houdini on me. I'm glad the loss didn't completely kill your desire to finish the project, at least.

Hello! I'm doing coop at the moment, but I'll be a professional software engie in April. I've been mostly doing desktop software, but ive also been doing a little web and databases work.

 

I've been coding since I was a kid when I played a game called netbattle. I had a little server of my own where I wrote dumb little scripts using a custom language, I was really proud of this one script that implemented chat channels to the server where only people in the same channel could hear one another's messages. Since then though, I've learned C, C++, C#, Python, JavaScript/NodeJS, PHP and Clojure.

 

My main focus though is the C family and Python, they make for a pretty strong combination. I tried web development on my coop, but I really didn't like some of the weird quirks of PHP and JavaScript also has some really rough bits. The datetime object in JavaScript gave me such a massive headache working with UNIX times...

 

So far other than work, most of my projects have been IRC bots. I really like socket programming in particular. One time, I wrote a custom bot specifically for Twitch plays pokemon where this one jerk kept saying start. I programmed it to say "B" the instant someone said start. Not one of my most advanced works, but I still thought it was neat.

/) for co-ops. Can you share more about what you're doing on your co-op term?

PHP and JavaScript aren't representative of everything there is to web development. Both of these languages have their insane parts (I'm with you on the JS date object...) but PHP, at least, is relatively avoidable if you don't want to go near it. That said, there are libraries and frameworks in both languages that go a long way in encouraging "good" code. I hold Laravel, combined with PHP 7, in especially high regard; Pony.fm's entire backend is built with it.

Simple programs can be insanely useful. I like PHP and Python for hacking out simplistic procedural scripts that are too complex to fit in a "nice" Bash script but not complex enough to warrant having anything other than an interpreter installed.

The vast majority of my own programming knowledge comes from building and maintaining stuff from Poniverse (it came with a healthy dose of "devops", too). I'm studying computer science in university right now, interspersed with co-op terms. So far, I've had a term as a full-stack developer, one as a data engineer, and now one in which I help program cars. I like it as a career path but programming pony projects has also been incredibly fun and rewarding.

@@AstroFX,

I'm Poniverse's chief techpony. I'm happy to answer any specific questions you have about Poniverse's security but will also provide some general information in this post.

First, a disclaimer: no one can promise perfect security. An element of unpredictability exists in any system humans are involved with.

There's always room to improve but I like to think that we take reasonable steps to protect information that Poniverse is entrusted with, particularly considering this entire organization is a massive hobby project for all involved.

• The vast majority of our servers can only be accessed through our internal VPN.
• We block all ports by default in our firewall and only open/forward the ones we need.
• Access to the VPN and to individual servers is given to staff on a need-to-have basis.
• We outsource payment card processing to Stripe and PayPal, both PCI-compliant payment processors. If you're making payments to Poniverse, your credit card number never touches our servers.
• Our sysadmins use tools to manage all of Poniverse's servers at once, which limits our chances of a server getting compromised because no one remembered to update that old password on it.
• We won't reveal your email address, IP address, or other private information to third parties without your consent unless we're reporting criminal activity to law enforcement.
  • To be clear, Poniverse's partners are third parties. The various conventions that have their forums here do not have access to Poniverse's records of your email and IP addresses.
• We don't mess around with your password.
  • Our central login portal at Poniverse.net is the only site that you ever have to enter your Poniverse password into. All sites that use Poniverse logins use something called OAuth 2.0 to avoid ever touching your password. This vastly limits the number of ways that a hacker could intercept your password.
  • Your password is hashed with bcrypt, a modern algorithm that the security community approves for this purpose. It is not possible for us to retrieve your actual password from the version of it that we store.
  • The login portal uses HSTS.
• Most of Poniverse's sites use a modern HTTPS setup to encrypt traffic between you and Poniverse. Note that MLP Forums and Pony.fm are served entirely over HTTPS.

I hope that sheds a little light on things. Let me know if you have further questions.

Check out my Pony.fm favourites list - lots of pony tunes I'm fond of there, but I'll draw special attention to these two:

https://pony.fm/tracks/1183-helping-twilight-win-the-crown-delta-brony-remix

https://pony.fm/tracks/21232-the-friendship-express-feat-meelz

Payments go through either Stripe or PayPal (Stripe is used for direct card payments).

PayPal does have a means of getting their exchange rate in an automated way, which we could use if/when this feature is implemented - I imagine that will give you a good idea of how much it'll actually cost you.

You mean showing an equivalent local price even when the official price (and the charge sent to your card) is in USD?

While that's difficult to achieve with our current billing system, I'd find that useful for when we upgrade/replace it (which will eventually happen).

@@Mentis Soliloquy, I'm responsible for Poniverse's finances, so...

I understand the issue - I'm Canadian myself and always have to watch out for what currency every website is charging in. The reality is that, unless we introduce region-specific pricing (which I don't see happening), something has to serve as a common measure of value for all MLPF users.

We picked the USD for that because it's the local currency for ~70% of our users. The rest of us, when dealing with money here, have to consider how much USD is worth in our local currencies and do what we can to get the best conversion rates for it. To that end, I recommend researching the methods I listed in my last post - having a cheap way of getting USD is useful not only here, but all over the Internet.