This Tuesday, January 13 at 2 AM CST we're going to release an upgrade that includes new features and enhancements to the TCA Community. The process will last about 3 hours, during which time the site will be in read-only mode. This means we will not be able to add or make changes to the content. As soon as the upgrade is finished, the system will return to normal.

Check out the highlights of the release below:

Member privacy. Community members can now decide to make their profiles private or public. By default everyone's profile will be set to public (Everyone); however each member can choose to make their profile available only to friends, and all others (including fans) will only see limited information for that profile. 

Member ratings. Like with all media, now members can rate each other. You will now be able to organize your feeds by a member's popularity. Simpler comment management. To make member profile management even easier, we've added a delete button next to each comment on a member's profile page. (We also removed the "comments on my profile" page, as this is no longer necessary).

In addition to these features, we are also removing the "online now" sorting option from the Member list page, and the "online now" presence indicator on the member profile page. We're making a few tweaks to this feature on the backend, and you'll see it return shortly. We've been turning it on and off for the past few months.

The "My Popular media" module on My Home has outlived it's usefulness, as it basically mirrors the My Friends and My News module on the same page. As such we've given it a moment of silence, and have allowed it to fade off into that good night.

More good stuff on the backend to help us manage the site. We're also busy working on other really cool things that we'll be announcing in the first quarter of 2009!