The AAVSO is excited to announce our transition to a new forum system. The feedback of our members is incredibly important to us, and the AAVSO is committed to giving the best user experience. The new system is modern, faster, and easier-to-use.
As part of our 2024 Strategic Goal to improve our technical infrastructure, this milestone was funded thanks to the generous support of members like you through our 2024 Annual Campaign.
The new forums will introduce several long-awaited features as well as some new ones:
- Better Navigation: Users can now easily and quickly find categories they are interested in by using the navigation menu on the left.
- Group Chats: Communicate easily with other observers using our messaging features for quick queries, without having to create a topic!
- Enhanced Subscriptions: Now, you can subscribe to entire categories (not just threads!). For example, you can click the bell icon on the subcategory page for Observing Campaigns to be updated about new campaigns.
- Improved Moderation: The new forum system has a robust permissioning system, which will allow us to keep our community safer.
- Attachment Uploads: Due to better moderation capabilities, we are now allowing trusted users to upload attachments to the forums.
- Additional Features: The new platform includes features such as post voting and badges, further enhancing user engagement.
The new forums can be accessed at forums.aavso.org. For an in-depth guide on how to use the forums, refer to this article (also available in Spanish). The existing forums will soon become read-only. For questions about the migration, please see this FAQ. If you have any questions, you’re always welcome to contact us at webmaster@aavso.org
Migration Timeline
| Date | Action |
| Aug. 22 | New forums are rolled out to our community. |
| Aug. 29 | Existing forums closed for new topics. Discussions without any activity in the past month will be locked. |
| Sep. 5 | Discussions without any activity in the past week will be locked. |
| Sep. 12 | Forums will be made read-only, with active discussions moved to the new forums. The existing forums will redirect to forums.aavso.org. |
Like this content? Want to see more? Support AAVSO’s day-to-day operational needs with a tax-deductible contribution.
Sign-in with Google
This week, we are also releasing Sign-in With Google, allowing users to quickly sign in to their existing AAVSO accounts using their Google account. To be eligible, you must have signed up with AAVSO using a Gmail account. You will see the Sign-in with Google option on the login and sign-up pages, allowing you to access your favorite applications quickly.
Both of these new features are part of AAVSO’s efforts this year to modernize its infrastructure, made possible by contributions to our annual fundraising campaign. These technical improvements play a major role in our larger strategic goals, such as lowering the barrier to entry for variable star astronomy and improving the user experience for current users.
Earlier this year, we made significant changes to our underlying technical infrastructure to reduce our operating expenses, as well as upgrading to a unified and secure authentication system. We continue to follow through with our strategic goals by upgrading our entire website later this year. We would like to thank our sponsors and community once again for helping make these changes possible. 