Hello message board,

this Friday, Drowned in Sound is making a few (welcome) changes to the site that have been asked for, as well as a few other bits that haven't been asked for.

Before I let you all know the features, you also need to know that we will be experiencing around 2-4 hours of downtime on Friday (11th August) as Matt upgrades a lot of things server-side and Sean, Mike and I go to the pub.

So, new features then? OK...

* LOCATION-SPECIFIC LISTINGS

You will be able to view our (expanding and improving) live listings database by location. From the front page, you will be able to define a list of most recently used 'areas', which will be instantly selectable in the listings box on the front page. You can go as far down as you like with the listings too. For instance you can select 'Islington' as well as 'London' or indeed 'England'.

* IMPROVED PRIVATE MESSAGES

Not only will you be able to read your private message and reply (as of course, you always have been able to!), there will now be a 'Sent' message folder, filled with every message you send, including those sent from when the site rolled over to v3.0 last October.

* RECENTLY ADDED POSTS

Your user profile will now display the most recent threads you have contributed to, who they were started by and how many replied they've had. The last ten will appear on your user profile. This has been a heavily-requested feature and Matt's implemented it really well. Enjoy.

* E-MAIL ADDRESS AMENDABLE

If you change your e-mail address, (or did do three years ago ;)) you are now able to update your profile to reflect this and enjoy new PM updates all over again.

* RETRIEVABLE PASSWORD

If you ever forget your password, this is now retrievable to your e-mail address. Just make sure you keep your address up to date!

* EXTRA ANTI-TROLL METHODS

The mods will now be armed with a lot more power to stem the flow of 'troll' posting. This way the board will just generally be better.

Oh yeah, and one other thing...

* PROFILE PICTURES

Basically just to make you all shut the FUCK up. ;)
In all seriousness, you will be able to add a picture to your user profile, as you were able to before.

:D