Potential Private Hosting Poll!

Hi, everybody~

PixelScientist has graciously and awesomely offered to host the forums on one of her two domains! There are both positives and negatives to moving the forums from our current free hosting (forumotion), hence this open topic for discussion and feedback. I am very much in favor of migrating over to PixelScientist's hosting, but it's something that will affect all of us, so please chime in with your thoughts! c:

Pros:

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• Private hosting would be more secure, and wouldn't have any ads or weird creep features like a "Who's Online" user location map or a binary gender profile field. We haven't had bot issues yet, but if we ever do, they'd be much easier to combat.
  
• What you can do on forumotion is extremely limited. From a mod/admin perspective, private hosting would mean no longer having to work with forumotion's CMS. This means that things which are currently impossible - like creating moderator tiers - or things which are extremely difficult - like fully customizing the layout - would become both possible and quite simple. It would open up a world of fun possibilities, like having a landing page with recent announcements! WOAH! EXCITING! NEWS!
  
• We would be able to archive the forums.
  
• We would be able to export the forums, which would make it easy to relocate them in their entirety if we ever needed to, user accounts and all.
  
• We could have a couple emails associated with the forum domain, which would make admins and mods more immediately accessible than they currently are through the PM system - i.e. if a troll brigade rolls up and nobody's around, you could shoot one of us an email letting us know.
  
• I could organize the emoticons!! (Yep, this totally bothers me.)
  
• Last but definitely not least - If we're interested in privately hosting the forums, it would be better to do so sooner rather than later. (See below.)

Cons:

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There's really only one, but it's a biggun': We would lose everything and have to start over from scratch. Forumotion does not allow you to export or archive any part of your forum. We'd have to re-create our user accounts and re-post any important threads over at the new forums. This would, obviously, be a huge pain in the butt for everybody. However, it also means that if we do want to move, it would be best to do so sooner rather than later - especially before any RP threads get going.

There are two options to counteract how annoying and awful this transition would be. For Option 1, I propose keeping these forums in existence for a month or so until everyone has migrated any info/threads they want in the new forums over to the new forums. During that transition, I would create ghost threads in the new forums that link back to the major, ongoing threads here for easier access to any info you'd want to relocate. It would be up to each of y'all to create your accounts in the new forums and move any threads you want moved by copy & pasting them.

There's also Option 2. This situation is my fault for choosing forumotion in the first place, so I would be totally willing to go full admin creep and migrate the forums manually. This option would have the lowest impact on y'all (all you'd have to do is remember that the forums are at a new URL, log in, and set your password), but it also involves placing a lot of trust in me, an internet stranger, so it is definitely something I would want everyone to feel okay with before moving forward with it. As admin, I can see all of y'all's emails, but not your passwords. I don't know if this is a standard forum admin thing, or just a creepy forumotion thing. I just discovered this recently! It seems weird! Why would I need your emails! I promise never to sign you up for weird listservs! I'm kind of creeped out by this! Anyway! Here are the exact steps I would take for Option 2:

• re-create all user accounts exactly as they are here
• give them all a universal password
• using that password, log in to all of your new accounts in order to copy/paste migrate all of your posts here over to the new host, re-creating all threads exactly
• one by one, give each new account a unique stand-in password
• PM each of you on this site with your unique password and the new forum URL
• You log in, change your password, and all your stuff has been moved for you!

So, there's all of that information! Thanks for taking the time to read everything. The poll is multiple choice, so you can vote on our domain as well as your preference for our migration options. Please reply with your thoughts & any feedback! c:

Hi Aesta
What about the powerwordstudio/irondominion difference ? Is there a reason we could prefer one over the other or is that of no real import at all ?
(Maybe that's more a question for Pixelscientist, though…)

kinoumenthe wrote:What about the powerwordstudio/irondominion difference ? Is there a reason we could prefer one over the other or is that of no real import at all ?
(Maybe that's more a question for Pixelscientist, though…)

From an end-user perspective, there should be no difference. Both domains have access to the databases needed to install forums software, one-click installations of the predominately used CMSes, "unlimited" bandwidth, and numerous subdomains. They're with different hosts (one is 1&1 while the other is Dreamhost), but I haven't experienced notable downtimes with either one.

In the end, it would be the difference between subdomain.powerwordstudio.com and subdomain.irondominion.com. I'd favor the latter over the former, but I'm comfortable putting the forums either domain for the time being.

Also, many providers have regular sales on domain registration and hosting. For example, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. I think that it increases to 15.00 USD a month after the first year, which is still fairly reasonable. That would allow you folks to have 100% control over the site (as opposed to relying on someone like me). gameoftrolls.com isn't available, but I'm pretty certain that the community could come up with a new idea and build a site around it.

Hell, you could also integrate other CMSes into the site (Wordpress, for example), and start posting your own articles. It would be a great opportunity to build up a portfolio for the future, feature guest articles, and help people get their voices out.

Uh, scope creep there.

Thanks for the informations PixelScientist. This has informed my vote, which was option 2 for the move if it is to be done. I'd actually would also be ok with option 1, but since I had to choose, I chose the more convenient (from where I stand, not for Aesta :b).

Also, excellent scope creep. Too bad we can't award creepy points. (because that would be creepy)

kinoumenthe wrote:Also, excellent scope creep. Too bad we can't award creepy points. (because that would be creepy) :face: :face:

If we move to a different host (whether my own or another), we could totally implement a creep point system! There are a number of point system modifications available for phpBB3, and we could easily customize the code to suit our particular needs.

We'd have to decide if they're points that people just accumulate in order to show rank or if they'd be used to "purchase" additional features. I'm a fan of the former over the latter, especially since those customizations often leave people feeling like they have to engage in the system or that the community is being restricted from perks that should be available from the get-go.

Option 3: screenshot the forum
Minor,very personal nitpick: you're asking 2 different questions in your poll,but it's only possible to either vote for the name or the option,not for the two.

It didn't work for you ? I was able to vote for both.

kinoumenthe wrote:It didn't work for you ? I was able to vote for both. :|

I haven't voted, but I appear to be able to make multiple selections in the poll.

I mean, I've already made an account here, so moving isn't ideal. But I'll make the move if people want to.

I'm fairly ambivalent. The forum hasn't been up that long so we don't have a whole ton of stuff to move, and I at least already got the DnD spreadsheet so losing that thread wouldn't fool me up too much. But honestly I feel like this means more on the admin side than my side so it's up to you

I think moving is a good option since I'm getting redirect ads on mobile all the time. I don't like the idea of Aesta having to manually move stuff. Is there not a way to export/import a flat file or something? That really sucks.

I'm still willing to help with any of the Web development work, but I used my spammy email account to sign up so pm me for my real email address if you want to contact me to discuss it.

I think moving is a good option in the long run, and doing it sooner rather than later is a good thing, since this is only, what, a month or two old?

Being able to have fine control over the forums has a lot of advantages, and hopefully we'll be able to set up Tapatalk compatibility which would make reading this on mobile devices a hell of a lot easier.

Katherinethegrape wrote:[..] hopefully we'll be able to set up Tapatalk compatibility which would make reading this on mobile devices a hell of a lot easier.

I'd be happy with Tapatalk with a responsive design that works on mobile devices as a fallback. Forumotion's default mobile design makes me so sad. It's terrible!

I think the move would be great but don't have any strong preference for how we should move. There's nothing here I would mind losing but it's up to everyone else. Heck, restarting the D&D thread could help organize the confusion I kind of caused there!

So tl;dr, I'm for moving but don't have an opinion on how it should be done.

I'm fine with moving, and I don't think what we've done so far is so big that it would be a massive problem. There's always the option to copy-paste any posts we particularly want to save. If we're going to move we may as well do it before we go much further, I'd have thought.

Moving seems like a good option, but I just joined up so I have almost nothing to lose... So I feel like I shouldn't try to sway anyone one way or another.

I'm fine with moving if people want, but I'd prefer to copy rather than start over. I trust aesta not to abuse our email addresses and passwords.

Also, many providers have regular sales on domain registration and hosting... That would allow you folks to have 100% control over the site (as opposed to relying on someone like me). gameoftrolls.com isn't available, but I'm pretty certain that the community could come up with a new idea and build a site around it.

Not a bad idea, actually. I wonder if themarysues.com is available?

Sorry,my bad,I didn't notice that it's possible to vote twice.

I haven't used a forum like this in ages and I am blind to the specifics. Whatever everyone else wants to do is fine with me.

WheelchairNinja wrote:Not a bad idea, actually. I wonder if themarysues.com is available?

It is, though I'd be wary of infringing on their brand. It's considered a bit underhanded to intentionally use a domain that is similar to an existing one. I was, however, trying to find any variation that would allow for the use of the word "treehouse." That has far less availability!

PixelScientist wrote:

WheelchairNinja wrote:Not a bad idea, actually. I wonder if themarysues.com is available?

It is, though I'd be wary of infringing on their brand. It's considered a bit underhanded to intentionally use a domain that is similar to an existing one. I was, however, trying to find any variation that would allow for the use of the word "treehouse." That has far less availability!

I thought about hosting the forum on its own domain when first setting everything up. Free hosting was intended to be like a "Hey well let's see if this takes off & then go from there!" back when I thought it would be super easy to move everything. x___x

Training at work is bonkers time intensive + I'm trying to move, which means monthly budget recalculation, so my life/wallet are gonna be a bit busy/shifty for the next few months. But! Once I'm through that, I'd definitely like to move us to our own url & hosting. I see PixelScientist's awesome offer to host us as a solid intermediate step, which will allow us to move easily to our own hosting in the future & prevent more intensive posts like RP threads from being lost to the vast depths of the internet once we do so. c:

That being said, I also understand that hopping URLs could be super annoying for y'all. >__< So if anyone else wants/is able to take us straight to our own private domain, I'd be happy to do everything I can to help out - incl. any thread moving.

PixelScientist wrote:

WheelchairNinja wrote:Not a bad idea, actually. I wonder if themarysues.com is available?

It is, though I'd be wary of infringing on their brand. It's considered a bit underhanded to intentionally use a domain that is similar to an existing one. I was, however, trying to find any variation that would allow for the use of the word "treehouse." That has far less availability!

Good point. I love the idea of reclaiming that name and that we would choose to identify as a Mary Sues because it now means Strong Female Character thanks to TMS, but that is too close to their URL. The other idea I had was to take a page out of the new Robin comics and do WeAreTheMarySues.com, but that's probably still too similar.

WeAreFuriosa.com? Or some sort of play on words using furiosa instead of fury?

I was checking out variations using TheTreehouse, but that appears to be a very popular phrase!

IntersectionalGeek.com, perhaps to highlight and/or emphasize that the effort is intersectional? Though that word is likely to be misspelled frequently by people. InterGeek.com isn't available, but we could try another portmanteau.

What about WeAreFuriosues?

edit: or just Furiosues.

I still like Wingardium Furiosa.