Please Read The Official Changelog

[Zwielicht]

February 4, 2026

Tax season is coming up for many of us once again.

That's why this next update makes things more convenient for those of you who need a payment receipt for the membership you purchased here. To learn more about this, you can read the official announcement thread here or read the site guide on how to do it here.

As for our second update today, there's a new field on user profiles where you can put your company name. It's available to all members and it also works with the new receipt feature.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 4, 2026

Another extra set of updates today focusing on the Wanted section and some of the prefixes on the forum. The main part of this update gives users more agency over their own Wanted threads by allowing the thread starter to choose to end it early.

• The "Wanted" prefix in the Downloads sections has been renamed to "Request".
• The "Closed" prefix in the Trading Post has been renamed to "Expired" to more accurately reflect its status.
• A new "Wanted" prefix has been added to the Wanted section since this makes more sense to have in there.
• The "Closed" prefix is now available in the Wanted section.
• Members can now end their own Wanted section threads by clicking the ended button. Wanted section threads still automatically closed after 14 days just so nobody has to remember to close their own threads, though.

The rest of the Trading Post still needs to be re-worked, but this is a small step toward finishing that.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 8, 2026

After a discussion started by @t2van in the forum suggestions section, demotion criteria has been added in for Sapphire, Platinum, and Founding. You can read more about it here.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 9, 2026

A small but necessary update today. I've changed it so that only Registered+ members (10 trophy points and 1 week old account) can place votes on forum suggestions threads.

This hasn't come up, but we don't need anyone farming 0-activity accounts to manipulate polls. Locking the ability to vote behind Registered+ makes that more difficulty.

The welcome message new members has been sent has always been updated. There was an outdated guide from last year that was removed from it and the welcome message now comes from both myself and @Impulse as opposed to just me.

Update: we also have a new bans and notices section. You can read more about it here: https://officeoutlaw.com/threads/new-bans-notices-section.3287/

Update 2: Okay, more changed today. OG Platinum is now a thing and Platinum has been opened up and made criteria-based. This means that promotions will happen automatically once a member meets the criteria.

Update 3: Even more updates today!

• Thread prompts have been added in to some of our subforums! You'll see these in the thread titles when you go to create a new thread. It's just a small feature to personalise the forum a little more.
• The Sapphire Online Income section has been renamed to Sapphire Marketing to make it broader.
• The Online Income section has been removed. Threads from there have been moved into the Marketing section.
• An "Income" Prefix has been added in.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 10, 2026

We have a bunch of changes to the Trading Post and will be opening it up again to new submissions soon. You can read more about this in the official announcement thread here: https://officeoutlaw.com/threads/coming-soon-trading-post-1-5.3300/

Some additional changes:

• The Trading Post rules are now linked to in the forum list. https://officeoutlaw.com/forums/#the-trading-post.53
• The Trading Post rules thread can now be found in the Site Guides section.

We've also spent some time cleaning up the nav bar today. You can read more about that here: https://officeoutlaw.com/threads/nav-bar-cleanup.3301/

Update 2: The karma system was also rebalanced today. You can read more it here: https://officeoutlaw.com/threads/karma-system-rebalancing.3304/

Update 3: Members now receive an automated DM when one of their account upgrades has expired.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 11, 2026

Well, I had a busy morning!

• There were some bugs that got fixed with the karma rebalancing. You can read more about it here: https://officeoutlaw.com/threads/karma-system-rebalancing.3304/post-39213
• Another bug was fixed allowing literally anyone with an account to submit to the service listings section. It's not open yet and members are meant to submit to the pre-approvals section.
• Polls are now set in the appropriate subforums. You know, the suggestions section doesn't need polls and neither does the Downloads section. Polls have also been disabled in the Newcomer's Camp section.
• The 0 point notice for sales listing rejections lasts for only 1 week as opposed to 2 weeks. It's just to prevent someone from submitting the exact same service immediately after rejection.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 12, 2026

There are a few new updates today in regards to the organsation of the forum.

• The Forum Suggestions section has been renamed to Forum Feedback & Suggestions. You know, people leave just feedback there sometimes, so the title should reflect that.
• Speaking of feedback, @t2van gave us some feedback on the confusing nature of where some of the prefixes located. This made us realise that we were in need of a need section where these prefixes could go.
  • With that said, we now have a Technology section where the Computing and Automations prefix is now located. It made sense to move these there as I imagined computing and automations would be something on a tech tree like in Civ 6.
  • We're still working through this one throughout the rest of the day, but the subforum descriptions will now go over what prefixes are available in each section. We're still working on making knowing where prefixes more intuitive, but this is just meant to be something else to help with the forum's usability.
  • Finally, we went through The Saloon and moved any threads that fit the new Technology section in there. We also generally moved a bunch of misplaced threads from The Saloon.
• Another one we're working on throughout the rest of the day is a backend reorganisation of prefixes. This will make it easier to find where prefixes are when you perform a search for them.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 16, 2026

We've spent some time updating the donation page today and we've also added in new trophies.

• The donation page has been updated. We now accept donations via Stripe and it's a choose your own amount link.
• New trophies have been added in for the new karma upgrades: Direct Message Plus, Signature Plus, and Profile Plus. There are also new trophies for adding your company name to your profile (Enjoying Your Company) and another one for completing your profile (This Is My Good Side).

At some point, we'll be working through the suggestions and feedback we've receive to fix some things up on the forum that many of you have pointed out.

Also, yes, we're still planning on opening the Trading Post this month.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 17, 2026

• Threads in the Bans & Notices section are now closed 14 days from the last post date. Moderators may close them earlier if they believe the discussion is no longer productive.
• The Trading Post in now open! You can read the announcement thread here: https://officeoutlaw.com/threads/the-trading-post-is-now-open.3356/
• Members can no longer send DMs to or make profile posts on staff member profiles. Too many have used this as an alternative to the support desk. The reason we tell members to use the support desk is so that the entire team can have the option to view and assist with the issue.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 18, 2026

We have a lot of updates for our outlaws today!

• We worked on an issue where Stripe payments weren't resulting in automatic upgrades. This should be fixed now.
• Thanks to a suggestion by @Dopious, members can now edit their own profile posts. https://officeoutlaw.com/threads/edit-profile-posts.3377/
• Messages in the pre-approval section do not count toward the user's post count.
• Threads in submitted to the pre-approval section no longer go to the approval queue. This is redundant now since we set it up so that only the thread starter and the admins can see threads in that section.
• Instead of asking for a portfolio, a question in the Trading Post's Pre-Approval section now simply asks for proof that the service works. This was changed because of an issue @INCC pointed out where there are many services where a portfolio is not possible. This also gives traders a lot more leeway in how they verify that their service works. https://officeoutlaw.com/threads/the-trading-post-is-now-open.3365/post-39839
• A new Software prefix has been added into the Service Listings section.
• The way prefixes work in the Pre-Approval section has now been changed. Traders now just have a default "In-Review" prefix when they submit a sales listing to that section. Once it's approved, the listing will be moved to the service listings section and have the correct prefix for the listings service type added by staff. We had to make this change because the service listing prefixes actually contain the approval message in them, which would be confusing to someone who just submitted their listing for review.

 

[Zwielicht]

February 18, 2026 Part 2

Yeah, it was another one of those days! I made some changes to the way the auto merge feature works that I'm sure all of you will like!

So, remember how the merge time is 10 minutes since your last post? This is still the case in all of the public discussion sections. However, I've set it so that all subforums in the Sapphire section have a 5 minute timer and the Platinum subforums have a 1 minute timer.

I also made some changes to the Trading Post in regards to this timer. Nobody wants to have to remember yet another rule, so I used this auto merge feature in the service listings section to re-work the thread bumping rules.

The merge time for posts in the Service Listings section is set to 240 minutes (4 hours). In other words, any posts created within 4 hours of your last post will be merged together. This means each thread will only be bumped to the homepage every 4 hours at the most. At some point, I may increase this timer or change the way it works, but this should suffice for now.

Section 7: Listing Bumping

Our listing bumping rules in The Trading Post are simple:

You can post in your sales listing as much as you want, just bear in mind that any posts created within 4 hours of your last post will be merged together. In other words, it'll only be bumped to homepage once every 4 hours.
This is an automatic feature, so there's no need to worry about violating this rule.