Hello all, we have a few JudgeApps updates to share.

First, a few members of our team - Yuval Tzur and Alon Luski - have been creating monthly update bulletins, and the most recent one was just published! You can find it on our blog: JudgeApps Updates January 2019. Updates are posted 15th of every month.

Second, an update just went live. JudgeApps now knows about Spheres, and Projects can be assigned to a Sphere or Region for easy searching! If you manage any Projects, please edit them to tell us how they align with a Sphere or Region, and check out the Spheres and Regions you're interested in. More details on our blog at New Organization Tools for Projects.

Third, over 90% of certified judges aren't subscribed to get email notifications from general forums - including from Official Announcements! I think this is our fault, because JudgeApps used to default those notifications to “off”. I've added a new tool to more easily view your notification settings and customize them for each forum, available at this link. New users also get a summary of the forums as they sign up, so they can customize their notifications right away. If you're reading this, you probably already get notifications - but please help us spread the word by sharing this with judges in your communities who might be interested!

I think that's all I've got for now. You can always reach us at our Support site with any suggestions, or contact me directly if you're interested in helping out with JudgeApps! We're always interested in recruiting developers, whether you're already a Python veteran or if you're motivated and interested in learning it.

Signing off,
Dan Collins

The JudgeApps update notes for February 2019 are now live, courtesy of Yuval Tzur: https://blogs.magicjudges.org/judgeapps/2019/03/15/773/

We have another JudgeApps update, this time talking about how (and why) we've made it easier to obtain a JudgeApps account, and describing some related changes to permissions that we made to accommodate the influx of users. Read the details here: https://blogs.magicjudges.org/judgeapps/2019/03/19/updates-to-judgeapps-account-creation/

I've added new privacy settings related to how we use your location (City, State (if US), and Country), as well as your avatar photo. This allows you to make those visible only to registered users, only to certified users, or hide the location completely. You can change your settings on your profile page.

(Users who previously chose “Location Hidden” automatically have the new location setting set to “Hidden”, which means that only site admins and other functionaries have access to that information. For other users, the defaults are location visible only to Registered users, and avatar photo visible only to Certified users.)

Additionally, our JudgeApps Development Update for this month, covering changes made in March, is now live. You can find it at https://blogs.magicjudges.org/judgeapps/2019/04/15/judgeapps-updates-march-2019/

Thanks,
Dan Collins

We'll be making the update soon to allow even logged-out users to read the public forums, events, and some other parts of the site. So if you'd like to check your settings regarding visibility of your location and photo, before that change goes live, please do so within the next week.