Announcement: Repairs and improvements are underway

Hello all!

I’m so pleased to announce some positive news for Briar Press. After several starts and stops, we now have a small team in place that is actively working to identify and repair longstanding issues that members have been experiencing with the website.

First among these is unreliable email. We know that many members never receive an email when they register on Briar Press or reset their passwords. Others send inquiries about classified ads or business listings that are never received. We’ve already made changes to our email configuration that should improve this situation and reduce the number of messages that go missing.

Second, we have replaced our search engine with an integrated Google Search feature. The original, built-in search engine was often slow, did not always index new content on the site, and was responsible at times for causing the site to crash. Integrating Google Search should improve overall site performance as well as your search results. Also, you can now run an image search inside Briar Press for the first time.

Third, we are testing a spam-management platform, Akismet, that should help us filter out spam more effectively and with less manual labor. If successful, we may be able to reduce or eliminate the delay between membership requests and the activation of new member accounts.

Additional pain points are under investigation, including issues with the image uploader and with automatic backups, which would help us restore the site after a breakdown.

We see these repairs as a first step in stabilizing Briar Press and securing its survival. Next month I’ll be sharing more information about what the second and third steps will look like.

In the meantime, please comment on this thread, or in this topic area, about ongoing Briar Press issues that you’re experiencing. We’d also love to know if you notice any improvement in your experience on the site.

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