Today I purchased server space with a new hosting company. So our servers will now be with A Small Orange.
The domain name for the website (redwallwarlords.com) will be changed to point to our new servers. So that means there will be some downtime in the next 7 days as it gets transferred.
So expect that within the next week RWL will be down for anywhere between a few hours, to a day.
It's for the best though, because the new host will most likely be way better. Also, they have more up-to-date technology, so we will be able to set things up so that your forum account logs you into the games (no more signing into reg and turbo, just 1 sign in on the forums).
We are also going to update the forums while we're at it. You may not notice much of a change except that we will lose our forum theme, and things will feel generally slicker.
Yay!
Wow. Did not see that coming. What domain name will it change to?
Quote from: Raggon on February 14, 2012, 04:11:05 PM
Wow. Did not see that coming. What domain name will it change to?
PA just said the domain name is going to transfer so it shouldn't change...
*feels stupid* :-[
Congrats. I know how much trouble you've had with Bluehost and hopefully this will let you implement global accounts. :)
Quoteso we will be able to set things up so that your forum account logs you into the games (no more signing into reg and turbo, just 1 sign in on the forums).
What does this have to do with global accounts?
Quote from: Neobaron on February 14, 2012, 04:26:10 PM
Quoteso we will be able to set things up so that your forum account logs you into the games (no more signing into reg and turbo, just 1 sign in on the forums).
What does this have to do with global accounts?
If you're talking to me, in another thread Peace said they could make global accounts when they switched server, which was what I was actually referring to.
Though that pretty much sounds like global accounts/global logins to me, anyway?
No, I was asking peace. :)
I don't see how universal login is tied to our host is all.
I am trying to learn a thing.
Ah I see. The fact my post was last before yours made me assume. :-[
[unfunnyregurgitation]Obligatory "you know what happens when you assume" comment. [/unfunnyregurgitation]
windy set things up so that the SMF forum login can be used instead of our own game logins. It worked on his server and the A Small Orange servers (that's the new host), but not on Bluehost because some of their software is out of date. It's all highly technical, and requires a wizard such as windhounds to understand.
I should also mention that this move is going to mean we are upgrading to SMF 2.0, which means the forums will be more up-to-date and we'll have to go a short time before we have our own forum theme again. Other then that we won't lose any forum info like our posts or accounts or anything.
QuoteIt's all highly technical, and requires a wizard such as windhounds to understand.
I'll ask windy.
You'll ask windy to make you a wizard? Good luck, I've been asking for years.
I'll ask windy for the details. I am curious if this is a coding thing for RWL or if you are using a network service to tie the accounts. Since you seem to indicate that the out of date software is the reason why the people who code RWL can't tie the accounts, it sounds like the latter to me.
One is within the bounds of my education and it would be interesting to see how it works.
The other I don't really care about.
lolNeo
Its something to do with the version of PHP and the various options that Bluehost chose to run with. (seriously, if you've never looked at a php.ini do so. sooo many flags). I could probably figure out what the issue is by diff'ing the two php.ini files, but it was time to move anyhow. Bluehost is a cheap hosting option, and the downtime we've experience clearly reflects this. heh.
The new host, ASO, is running a Redhat base server so it matches what I'm running on my home server (Fedora 14).
What would run smoothly on my home test server and ASO just dies on bluehost.
All i know is that this is outdated its getting updated to a new server, and it may be down for up to a day am i right because everyone always says that the younger players and noobs get confused a lot because we are only in algebra 1 and 7th grade science *sobs quietly*
That sentence covers three completely unrelated topics without any punctuation in between. I am impressed.
Will the new forums have a rep system or like... a like button?
Very true. abartell not all noobs are that low some of us(myself) started in high school junior year.
Apparently they are capable of communicating with one another in some kind of odd age-specific dialect.
Fascinating.
Quote from: Neobaron on February 14, 2012, 08:31:45 PM
Will the new forums have a rep system or like... a like button?
Technically these forums have a rep system (karma) but it is turned off. Not sure how beneficial it would be for a small community like this.
:3
i want the karma system
Might be fun to try, heh. No promises; I have no strong feelings either way.
Anyway, moving hosts is awesome, bluehost is the worst. A writhing cauldron of Kilkennes. Here's hoping the new one is better :)
good old lord bloodwrath to be completely misunderstanding but still being partially true
We used the karma system once, I din't think we liked it. I think there is prolly an addin for 'likes'
i'm sorry can someone put what is going on in "noob" form, i am used to noob language
There might be some times over the next week where you won't be able to access redwallwarlords.com
It's in bold in the first post.
YES! Finally.
I love it's little catchphrase: Homegrown Hosting. LOL
abartell, think of it as a car engine swap.
Our current engine (bluehost) fails at random intervals, has some old outdated parts, and is overall just kinda sucky.
Our new engine (ASO) promises to be a little better, and the mechanics working on the car will be happier as it uses newer, more standard parts.
Inorder to swap the engine the car has to go into the shop. Inorder to get to the shop we're waiting on a tow truck, and the towtruck driver is taking lessons from Comcast and promises to be out within 7 days at some unspecified time.
After the engine swap the car will look the exact same: same sunfaded body, plush interior with ducttape holding up the rear view mirror, and gorilla glue holding the dash together. Even the radio presets will be saved (read: all user data is being migrated, forum and game). Its just that it'll run a little better.
lol.
Not the most perfect of analogies, but hey.
tl:dr - RWL will go down within the next week, if you weren't told you'd just assume the server had choked again.
Quote from: windhound on February 15, 2012, 10:35:35 AM
abartell, think of it as a car engine swap.
Our current engine (bluehost) fails at random intervals, has some old outdated parts, and is overall just kinda sucky.
Our new engine (ASO) promises to be a little better, and the mechanics working on the car will be happier as it uses newer, more standard parts.
Inorder to swap the engine the car has to go into the shop. Inorder to get to the shop we're waiting on a tow truck, and the towtruck driver is taking lessons from Comcast and promises to be out within 7 days at some unspecified time.
After the engine swap the car will look the exact same: same sunfaded body, plush interior with ducttape holding up the rear view mirror, and gorilla glue holding the dash together. Even the radio presets will be saved (read: all user data is being migrated, forum and game). Its just that it'll run a little better.
lol.
Not the most perfect of analogies, but hey.
tl:dr - RWL will go down within the next week, if you weren't told you'd just assume the server had choked again.
This is a pretty great post
Quote from: Shadow on February 15, 2012, 10:39:41 AM
Quote from: windhound on February 15, 2012, 10:35:35 AM
abartell, think of it as a car engine swap.
..........
This is a pretty great post
Well, if we had a voting system, you could 'like' that post.
Windhound your comparison was brilliant
*likes*
haha. Great analogy. Epic post, actually.
i love the analogy it sums it up ral well even though i dont have a car
*copies a good idea*
*likes*
A karma system would not work well with our small community.
If the small community needs 10 admins/mods then it can't hurt to have a karma system. :)
And what's your logic behind that
We're not using my logic, we're using yours.
If you'd like to hear my logic you'll have to wait till tomorrow.
haha outa commission for the night good sir?
Distracted. :)
Well if you can just hit a "like" button instead of responding, it might reduce the discourse on the forums to very short topics where everyone agrees or disagrees with the main point.
That kind of system is great for filtering through a very large amount of information. It deals with quantitative data. Here on RWL we are dealing with qualitative data. We have a rich dialogue that needs to be protected.
Quote from: Neobaron on February 15, 2012, 10:06:47 PM
If the small community needs 10 admins/mods then it can't hurt to have a karma system. :)
That'd be five good sir.
Shael, Ollie, Shadow and myself are the admins.
Holbs is the currently active mod.
I suppose if you were being pedantic you could count Stormclaw and Retto and such, who are currently inactive but have retained title.
And it would appear we are a tad top heavy admin-wise, but eh. Distribution of duties and activity levels taken into account, its sane enough.
Karma systems do tend not to work as well with smaller communities.
FAF has it, it never really added anything to the forum -- other than Devari setting himself at -1337, the anti-leet.
FAF is a bad example. At its peak it had maybe 15-20 people active? And abuse is abuse. Most newer systems have post/rep requirements in order to +/- rep others.
It encourages activity on the forum, adds an extra level of identity, and makes standouts easier to spot for new folks to look at for help and ~role models~ if you will.
When there are interesting things happening on this forum, we get 10 people active at a time, most of whom never say a word. Surely it isn't coincidence that when things heat up or something is being discussed, RWL gets its biggest numbers. When MSN crew was at its most active, we regularly had 12-15 a night. The last 2 days were rather spicy in the UMD and general, and someone made the comment that we had 10 people in. Tonight almost nothing happened and we had 5 at a peak, with none of them being active for more than a half hour (myself excluded since I basically live on forums this included. And wolf snare because hes a closet nerd.)
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If you are convinced that having a system for giving rep will reduce overall activity, then you don't get out much on the internet.
I would say it has the opposite effect. The rep/like/whatever system is more and more becoming an essential feature of online communities, and for good reason. Validation of opinions from people who are less eloquent or able to express themselves with ease will cause them to be more interested since having an outlet to express their opinions, even silently, will encourage them to follow along more and ultimately get more involved. As a personal example, I didn't really start trawling reddit on a daily basis until I realized that my contributing to +/- helped interesting topics (or at least those interesting to me) float to the top. Granted a personal rep system here would not be anything like that, but the mental effect would be unchanged.
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To dispel the :effort:/apathy escape tunnel, it is pretty simple to enable the system, is it not?
I also realize it isn't vital.
But neither are 9 mods/admins (I miscounted the first time), custom titles, the shoutbox, avatars, signatures, or any of the other non-essential features of the forum.
You make a good point about activity, but you can't argue that just because the rest of the Internet has a like system that we should. They don't increase discourse, they allow users to click a button instead of typing a post. They are used to filter massive conversations, and reduce posts. In our community we want to encourage posting because it let's us get to know each other.
I'm open to trying it though, the forum keeps stats on activity so we can see who's right (though not beyond a doubt unless I apply some of the qualitative research methods I'm learning, lol)
I don't think a Karma system on a small site is a harmful thing, more of an indifferent thing.
We have post counts to differentiate between long-timers and newbies.
I have a feeling that as soon as a Karma system in introduced there will be 10 topics in the spa room begging for points, and an exchange setup. "I'll up you if you up me" and so on.
On larger sites like Reddit and Slashdot this happens, but its just signal noise which is drowned out by the sheer number of active participants.
Also... I mean, the RWL game has always had more people than FAF, but even at our peak I'm not sure we've had more than 15 - 20 active forum users.
Maybe forcing people to signup for a forum acct w/ Global logins will help with that, maybe not.
Anyways. Five staff Neo. 5.
And those other features are less susceptible to meaningless abuse.
If there's interest in turning it on I don't really care, when the site moves we're upgrading the forum to SMF 2 anyhow.
Obviously it would be disabled in Spa. I was assuming there was no question of that.
That probably isn't possible or easily possible Rakey.
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Windy, this is one of those situations where "why" can succesfully and meaningfully be answered by "why not?"
I think it would be fun, if nothing else. :)
Quote from: Neobaron on February 16, 2012, 10:40:10 AM
Windy, this is one of those situations where "why" can succesfully and meaningfully be answered by "why not?"
Less participation in UMD discussions when people start to care about karma? People playing favorites and downvoting on principle? Heh. I am one of the indifferent ones, but I can see this thing being abused to annoy people and causing butthurt. The reason it works better in large communities is that most people don't really know each other and so rating are actually reflective of the quality of posts, whereas here I am not sure that it would.
On other sites I've been at, you could get gags for upvoting and gags for leaving abuse in rep messages (though I'm not sure if in this system you can leave a message with your rep) which may be a good idea if this is implemented. I like the idea, but I'm not sure it would be used responsibly.
Maybe you could add an option to "hide" you rep in your account management? Would that be possible? I'd probably end up using it lol. :P
You guys must not think highly of one another if you're convinced the inevitable outcome is abuse. :P
I love cloud to death but he and snare are currently having a posturing party in a turbo thread. I'm not going to rep cloud because I like him if his posts are bad in a given situation.
I might negrep puns though.
Trialling it might be an idea. I do like the idea, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't any abuse.
There will always be abuse darling. But there are certainly ways of curtailing it. :D
Indeed, but I am worried that Muse will end up as top-repped forumite, as some kind of sick joke.
I laughed IRL and now bus people are looking at me suspiciously.
I feel like if it had to be policed it would not be worth it just because there is already enough moderation going on ^_^. On the other hand, it could be fun to test it out and see how dysfunctional we really are as a society.
Don't worry, most are self regulating. You guys wouldn't have to do a thing.
I know how apathetic you guys can be. If I figured the prospect of increased responsibility/effort/involvement would be a factor, I'd have never brought it up.
Fights I cant win, etc.
That sounds awful on a readthrough. I hope you can understand what I was trying to say as I can't think of another way to phrase it.
My feeling are hurt. Neo, you are a jerk.
I try real hard.