[albummaster]

This will be the final update for 2025, so thanks to everyone who has visited the site this year and to the forum regulars, you are all very much appreciated. The best albums of 2025 on BestEverAlbums, at the time of writing, are Getting Killed by Geese, followed by Eusexua by FKA Twigs and Sable, Fable by Bon Iver, so thoroughly recommend you check them all out (if not already).

The 20th year of BEA has been tough for the site, with lots of external challenges (not least AI). The plan moving forward is to make more of the community side of BEA, to make it a more fun, social place to be and offer the sort of experience that AI can’t replicate. Many small fixes have been added in the background since the last update a couple of weeks back and the major changes today are on the home page where an activity stream replaces recent ratings and comments. This also lays the groundwork for a future update that will let users follow each other’s activity.

A Sources A-Z has also been added to complement the Artist A to Z and help people quickly locate the external charts they are most interested in. We've already seen quite a few external year-end charts for 2025 added to the site but if a chart from your favourite source hasn't been added yet, please create a custom chart and flag it for promotion (recognised charts are worth 3 points per entry).

Other updates in this round:
- Added ability to delete draft posts from list of drafts page
- Added more help text for recognised charts data corrections (require URLs for new sources and charts to more easily verify them)
- Renamed some of the comment sort options
- Add ability to search top ranked artists for artist name
- Make new ratings interface more touch friendly & fixed the delete rating button not working after the last site update
- Fixed ratings disappear after sorting/filtering charts
- Fixed an issue with graph axis labels inappropriate scaling & problem where graphs didn't load after sorting/filtering
- Fix swipe on touch-aware devices for back navigation
- Fixed wrong emojis sometimes displayed in forum posts
- Fixed album art hover on admin album page (empty white box appeared)
- Added filterable acitvity stream page
- Add Happy BEAnniversary! to user profile and inline forum post
- Fix enter key not working on add track(s) button
- Fix rendering of add reaction and reaction list on mobile
- Lots more smaller changes

Since the site’s 20th anniversary, there have been major changes across the board - integrated login, revamped ratings, new graphs, forum reactions, activity streams, and a much better mobile experience. Plenty more is planned for 2026 (subject to finances not running out). There's still loads more to do, but gradually getting through the backlog and starting to get into the corners of the site.

The next update is planned for the start of 2026, which will mainly focus on maintenance and housekeeping tasks after quite a few big updates. Happy holidays to everyone that celebrates (any important fixes will be pushed live in the background).

Enjoy the site and more soon
AM