Prophecy Index Upgrades and Changelog!
Thursday, November 15th, 2018 4:30pm

Hello everyone!  As of today we've officially launched the new, upgraded website and here's a list of everything that we did to improve the site.  Now, this isn't an exhaustive list of everything that was done, but it does cover the high points. :)

Prophecy Index Changelog:

* Under "Prophecies", the "Filters" tool now has the option to "List All Statuses" when choosing either "Modern" or "Biblical" prophecies.

* Newer/Better javascript pagination has been implemented on all lists.  This is advantageous for those on slower systems or connections as it speeds the movement between pages on the list.  It also reduces the number of page loads you have to do in order to view the entire list.

* I added Pagination to the "sources" section.  So no having to click "view more", and then view like 20 pages vertically of proofs.  You now get 20 at a shot and can view them one page of 20 at a time.  So it makes it MUCH easier to cruise the proofs without having to scroll.

* The "Report a Post" and "Submit a Prophecy" have been merged under the "Submissions" section, which will give room for more additional tools like that in the future, and also makes the menu smaller and more compact.  Yes, it's an extra click, but it also takes up less screen space.

* Small theme tweaks, including some CSS changes, and a new top banner that looks better than the old one.

* The print section had a small bug in it that made it display incorrectly.  That's been fixed.

* Prophecies now have their own dedicated report links.  You can either report an error on the prophecy right from the page you're on rather than having to go "report link" and futz around with that.  And, if you click the "Please let me know" link under the prophecy description it takes you to the "Report a Problem" page and now tells you what you're reporting on, so no need to include that in the report anymore as that'll automatically be sent to me.  It'll also give you a link to return to where you came from after the submission, so no extra browser clicks or backing up to get back to where you started.

* Proofs and Teachings now also have their own reporting links.  So if you see an error on one of those, like a bad link, typo/spelling error, the proof is under the wrong prophecy (that does happen occasionally, BTW), etc, you can easily report that now.

* On Modern Prophecies, under the Source section, there is now a 3 part information icon set with each.  The first tells WHAT the type of prophecy was (direct prophecy, dream or vision), a link to the prophets profile, and in most cases, a book and pencil icon that, if you mouse over it, will give you a summary of the entry.  And, of course, the link to the original prophecy online (external link) if you want to read things in more detail.

* Sources for Modern Prophecies has been cleaned up A LOT!  I removed everyone who couldn't either be vetted, had withdrawn their prophecy, all info that I'd previously had was lost, or I couldn't find any info on them, with only a couple exceptions, and those were left as I felt they were still valuable, even though I couldn't get any picture or bio info on the individual.  If you want to help with those couple entries and send me some info, please do.

* I've added an entirely new section called "Modern Prophets".  This section contains all the profile and related prophecies information for each prophet.  The index page contains type of prophecies they've given, represented by 3 different icons, how many prophecies, when added, and when last updated.  Their name also shows what types of prophecies they've given based on the three core types.

* The actual profiles for each Modern Prophet contains a picture, a bio (when available), and a list of what prophecies they're associated with.  Each prophecy in turn has an icon denoting type (ie, the previously mentioned prophecy, vision, dream), and the prophecy's current status.

* Numerous backend improvements, code and bug fixes, and theme fixes.

* Some minor corrections to sorting on the list pages for prophecies has been added.  Also, limited sorting was added to the list page on Modern Prophets as well.  I know some of you will want to be able to sort by type, and maybe even filter prophets, but I couldn't find a good way to do that.

Things NOT implemented:

* Prophet Rankings <- I couldn't find a good way to score the various prophets based on their accuracy as doing so is super, super complex, and I couldn't come up with a good way to do it.  However, if you want to try and create something for me, here's the idea I currently have for how the scoring will work for prophets.

1.  If an entry is classified as a "prophecy", it's a pass or fail, period.  And, if they fail on even ONE prophecy, they fail on everything.  But, if they pass, then it's an automatic score of 5. (the scale is presently set as 1-5, with 1 for fail, 2 for kinda failing, 3 for neutral, 4 for kinda succeeding, and 5 for successful, which are my rough classifications that will be refined later once I can get this working.) but if you think it should be 1-10 or something different, I'm all ears.  Also, the automatic fail only applies if it's a prophecy.  If they have successful prophecies, but fail on dreams or visions, some points can be taken away from that perfect 5.  But they can't gain points if they get a fail on a prophecy.  A fail on a prophecy is a flat out fail, and is by default an automatic zero across the board, but failures elsewhere (ie, via dreams or prophecies) can lower the overall score even if you get a pass here.

2.  Visions, which carry less pass/fail weight than prophecies (since a prophecy is classified as a direct word for word revelation from God, and dreams/visions are not as they're up for interpretation in most cases as they're heavily symbolic, but rarely literal) don't have an absolute pass/fail rating.  Since visions are generally symbolic, the scoring would be both based on the accuracy of the content of the vision, and its interpretation.

3.  Dreams have the lowest points value of the three.  Since there are no literal elements in a dream, and everything is up to the interpretation, and thus the lowest scoring of the three.

So, for example, if a modern prophet fails on a prophecy, even if they get everything else right, it's a 100% fail.  But, if they only have visions, the points would only be about 50% of a full prophecy.  So it would take only 2 failed vision interpretations/content to score a modern prophet as failed (a 1 given the above scale), or two successes to mark as successful.  Dreams in turn would be scored at 20% given that their accuracy is entirely up to the interpreter.  Content still counts, but only about 1/5th of what a full prophecy would be.  So it'd take 5 failures or successes to mark someone as failed or passed, based on the above scale.  But, if it's mixed, ie a combination of dreams/visions/prophecies, then each prophecy would affect 100% of the score, each vision only 50%, and each dream only 20%.  And, of course, that's the system I've come up with.  If you have something better, I'm all ears as I don't claim my idea is best.  If you have a better way to track the reliability of Modern Prophets, then hey, I'm all ears, as I know there are much wiser minds out there than mine. :)

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Anyhow, that's all I have.  And, I'm sure I didn't cover everything, but that's certainly the high points of what was changed.  If you have any questions, thoughts, suggestions, please let me know.  Oh, and please, please, please.  I've made it easier to participate here, so I would really like everyone's input and participation if possible.  That includes suggesting changes, adding prophecies, prophets, features, etc.  Believe it or not, most of the changes made here were from suggestions provided and made by readers, visitors and people like you.  So please share your thoughts and ideas, prophecies, proofs, teachings, etc with me.  I'm always willing to hear anyone's input, even if I can't use it. :)  And never assume I've already heard it, as I probably haven't.  And, even if I have, I may not have heard your suggestions or particular piece of information.  So please, please, please, share with me anything you think I should see or know about, as this is a community effort, and not a one man show, because this place is certainly far, far too big to be a one man show.  That's for certain.  Anyhow, please share your feedback with me.  I'd love to hear what you think of the upgrades. :)

Your Brother in Christ,
Steven Lake
Chief Admin