Welcome to the new Dramabeans!

by javabeans

You may notice that things look a little different around here. We’ve been working really hard to bring you a cleaner, more responsive, more interactive experience, and are very excited to welcome you to the new Dramabeans!

Don’t worry—it’s still really the old Dramabeans, and all of our content is still here… somewhere… maybe in a new corner of the site. We know that we’ve gone into your living room and rearranged all of your furniture while you were out, so we’re here to guide you and tell you where we put all your stuff. We even got your some spiffy new stuff to go with it!

 
User accounts. You are now able to claim your usernames for good by registering with the site. If you are a longtime user, sign up with the email associated with your comments; we’re doing our best to link your old history to your new account. With your account, you can now create a profile and post things on your fan wall, and also track all the comments you’ve made. (You can still comment without creating a user account, although you won’t get to use any of the account features below.)

 
Upvoting/Downvoting. The thumbs are back! Comments can now be given thumbs-ups and thumbs-downs, but only to registered users. Thumbs are super fun, so you should totally register.

 
Featured Beanies. The “Beanies” tab in the header will take you to a page that highlights you guys and your comments. Be an active Beanie and be featured here!

 
Following. Users can follow each other, reply on each other’s fan walls, and get notifications when your friends post content. You can also follow shows by going to a recap and clicking the “Favorite” button.

 
Beanie Levels. Every comment upvote you’re given, every user you follow (or are followed by), and every fan wall post you make accumulates points for your account! What is this good for? Not anything useful, but we have implemented point levels, which will change your Beanie status as you accumulate more points. In your profile page, you’ll see that your Beanie level starts off as “Candy” (because everybody starts out as a Candy in dramaland!). We plan to also display the point totals so you can actually see how many you have (this feature is coming soon!), as you work your way up to water maid, noble idiot, and contract girlfriend, among many others. We also plan to add comment counts to the point totals.

 
Notifications. Your account will notify you when someone follows you, when someone comments on your posts (on your fan wall), when someone likes your post, and when a show you’re following adds a new post (say, posts a new recap). We’re adding email notification capability very soon!

 
Recaps, News, and Extras. We’ve grouped everything into three overarching categories, as you can see from the front page. “Recaps” includes not only drama recaps but also drama reviews (say, year end reviews), What We’re Watching posts, Spill the Beans, and movie reviews. “News” encompasses all news (drama, movie, variety, celebrity). And “Extras” is where you’ll find Podcasts, Open Threads, Beans of Wisdom, Announcement and meta posts, and anything that’s not a recap, review, or news post.

 
Blog View. If you don’t like this division of categories and yearn for the olden days when everything was in nice reverse chronological order, don’t worry, we’ve taken care of you. The “Switch to Blog View” button in the header will take you to a simple page that displays all posts.

 
Glitches. We’ve tested the site extensively and prepared as best we could, but we know there will inevitably be some glitches as we all settle into the new site. If you encounter any, shoot us an email at hello@dramabeans.com. Screenshots are super helpful, as well as information about what device/platform you are using.

 
Thanks for all your patience and understanding—we’re beyond excited to present our new site to you, and hope you like it! We promise to work out the remaining kinks as quickly as we’re able. In the meantime, go forth and explore, Beanies!

 
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