Sooo, looks like it'll take me longer than my original 1-2 week estimate to get thezikes.com back off the ground.

Now, before ya'll bum-rush me with pitchforks and torches and stuff, gimme a minute to explain.

First, I am re-writing it all from scratch. Not a great reason in and of itself, considering the simplicity of the original system, but that brings me to an important point: I'm adding a few much-needed new features while I'm in there.

These features will be easiest to implement if I just work them in from the start, and I'd really hate to re-write this thing a third time, so I'm taking care of it now. I want to get it right, cover all the angles, etc. Plus, these are things I've wanted to do for ages anyways, and I don't feel like waiting much longer.

That being said, here's a list of reasons you shouldn't hunt me down and string me up:

• Personal Databases - Yeah, that's right. Your own, personal, Zikes emote database!
• Multi-coding - Okay, this is a tough one to explain. Basically, it works like this: in the last system, you put in one emote and one code and both of them are tied up forever (or at least 'til the emote is voted out of the system). This was a major design flaw. It basically meant that if an otherwise awesome emote had the unfortunate luck of getting submitted with a "bad" code (one used by dA, for example) then the emote would get downvoted out of existence. The new system separates the deviation and the code, then allows relationships to be created between them. This means one emote could potentially have multiple codes, and one code could be used on multiple emotes, and whichever "relationship" has the most votes wins. The highest-ranked code on an emote wins. Much more fair, much more flexible
• Increased Security - The new system requires registering with the site before any new emotes can be added, or voted on. I understand that this is much more restrictive than the previous version, which sucks, but the previous version was open to too many forms of abuse. I'm trying to keep things fair with this one. Besides, when you sign up you get your own personal database!
• Compression - Right now you have to download a 500kb file every time you enter dAmn. This causes a several second delay between dAmn loading and Zikes loading, which can be rather annoying. v2's gonna compress that down as tight as possible. I'm hoping for 100kb or less, and if it gets over that I'm going to try to implement a pre-loading system that sends the most-used emotes first, then the rest of them in a second package.
• Automatic List Refresh - Yeah, no more refreshing dAmn to get the latest set of emotes
• Tags - Tag a deviation with something like "eightb" or "noes" for easy finding
• API - The whole system's being built as an API first. Even the main site will use the API. Hopefully this'll make it easier to implement new features later on, and give us some more scripting options

Future features:

• Usage Data - Yeah, popularity and usage metrics for emotes. Anonymous or tied to your account, it'll be up to you
• Integration With dA - Visit an emote's dA page and information about that emote will be pulled down from Zikes. Available codes, in-page voting, etc. Not in Zikes yet? Add it right from dA!
• Other Stuff - that I can't remember right now but might put in here later

I hope all this sounds like enough to keep the angry mob business at bay a few more weeks or so. Lemme know if you've got any questions