Talking again about moving the forum

[Damxge]

Once again, I'm considering moving the forum from this forumotion hosting to a paid, phpbb forum hosting service. I'll explain below what this means for forum life, but first I'll explain what this means for the forum itself.

-We'll get a crap-ton of new option and customization.
-We'll have more themes and the option to change themes for individual members.
-Functions such as VIP purchase, certain subject creation options, and awards can be automatized, so no more waiting around for the Admin/Moderator to give you VIP or your rightfully earned awards.
-Forum 'widgets' will be much more interactive and powerful.
-The forum will show up for browser searches much closer to the top of the search ques. (we're on page seven of Role Play Forums google search)

But this will be a huge hit to the forum life itself, unfortunately.
-We'll lose our member and post count.
-Members will have to re-register on the new forum.
-The topics will not be moved over automatically, though users can choose to recreate their threads and topics on the new forum if they like.
-This forum will remain open for six or seven months after the move before I close it.
You might ask, "Why will we lose all of our stuff?"
Well that's simple, forumotion is an angry old man who won't give us our toys back. They believe that by NOT giving up the forum statistics and archives, that they can keep people on their service. Something I really, really hate.

This will be either a great step forward for the forum, or a huge money waster for me personally (its not cheap).

Any questions? Leave them below.

[cyclonecasey]

Nope, I like it the way it is and the price is too high!

[killer8529]

if the price is high dont bother really if you can find a way of copying and pasting basicly to this then mabye

[Chavvy]

Tbh, I think what Mike is proposing is pretty fair, besides, the pros of having a proper format stack alot higher than the loss of a few posts, besides, the "motionforum" tag really puts some people off.

But Mike has the right idea about keeping this site open a few months after the launch of the new one, it gives you guys time to migrate your rp's, maybe even wrap some up for now. Obviously, some of your larger ones would probably not be migrated due to the work involved, so what about one person summarising the events, and closing the chapter, and make a new one, sorta carrying on were you left off?

[Damxge]

Thank you Chavvy.


I forgot to mention as well, should we move the forum, I can put in place Adwords or something like that, and the forum will actually begin paying for itself, something forumotion doesn't allow, since they have the rights to all advertising.
I'm speaking with a web developer about some hosting, and it should be rather cheap to start up with a low traffic hosting service, and I can just contact Lawrence (the guy who is hosting the extremerpg.net domain redirect) to get the URL destination changed.

[cyclonecasey]

Sorry, I'm not gonna like the idea until there's a way to move the role plays with us...
I mean seriously, what would we do about London? It 24 pages long!

[Damxge]

The forum would be open for half a year after the move, meaning we'd have plenty of time to archive the longer role plays, something I intend on doing.

[cyclonecasey]

And... how would that work?

[Damxge]

Simply copying the posts to a text document and labeling each of them by the posters, and post them as a solid raw text on the new forum in a Role Play archive.

[Agrapeinthesun]

i like the idea of moving

[cyclonecasey]

How would that work for London? It'd be 25+ pages on one page!

[Chavvy]

it'd just take a little longer, thats all

[LordTomyh]

I like the idea, and will now start copying Everything to Word on my laptop; even if we don't move it's a good idea to have back ups.

Besides inSYNC, you already have London on a word document that you were reading to Bambi. Continue that.

Also if we don't mind the real name thing; call me Dylan.

[Damxge]

Thank you Dylan. I've already got my RPs copied over to Open Office, but those are only five or six pages long, London would take alot of time.

[cyclonecasey]

Uhm, I kinda deleted that after I was down... I'll get it again though (still don't want to move)
Of course... If you made me Admin I could hack (can't think of a better word...) the others and use there accounts to post exactly what they've posted here, before we actually open it to everyone else (this would not only fix the problem but also restore our comment count...
It'd be rather tedious but I'm willing...

[Chavvy]

I'm sure with coding, there is a way of doing it. I'll look it up later. What format you taking Mike?

[Agrapeinthesun]

About London, wasn't it supposed to end soon like the end of all the plots?

[Chavvy]

I'm guessing you could work it like a chapter, close the book with what you have, and start again following on from the previous events, just this time, a new plot, new characters and such.

[cyclonecasey]

Unless this forum stays opem forever (so we can link back to pre-existing stuff)... no

[Chavvy]

But the point being made is that its ALL being moved there, it just can't be straight away

[cyclonecasey]

I thought that the whole point was gaining lots of good features and LOOSING everything else because it CAN'T be transferred over!

[Chavvy]

the content can, just the user info can't (such as post counts and such)

Besides, I'm sure the current popular rpg's could be transcribed and edited to read as one piece. Whether whoever does it puts into one persons perspective, or into third person, thats up to them.

[Damxge]

I'm not sure you're understanding exactly what we'll gain from this. The forum as it is is dead, there's no way to deny that. No matter how many people I invite, the member count either stays the same, or goes down. This is hugely because of the freeforum bit in the URL and the theme/plugins for the forum. If we have a phpbb forum, we will have access to hundreds of plugins and widgets, we'll have a real forum that we can customize however we like, and, here's a big one, we'll look like we know what we're doing.
Of course, getting a new forum will only be half of the battle, then comes the next push for activity; which won't be easy and will take up quite a bit of time.
I'm sure you'll change your mind once we're moved over, but for now, try to see it through my eyes.


Also, new topic of conversation.
Since we are basically starting a new forum, that means we have the opportunity to change some big stuff, for instance, the name. Do you think we should carry Extreme RPG over? Or come up with a new name for the forum?
Also, organization, we need to come up with the categories and forums before we open it up, because the way the organization on this forum is a little lacking. I'll also need help writing up rules, explanations, etc to align with the new forum.

[cyclonecasey]

If you change the name, I'm QUITING!

[killer8529]

i have to agree the name thing was huge i remeber the last time we decided we should change the name the whole thing was deleted anyway back to a point i will help out with the rules and sh*t i am good about that thats how i deal with the f***ing up kids that play d and d and think its fun to destroy a village then go to the guard \and say hi i just did that but anyway i will get started on basic rule plan of stuff basicly useing the same version oh yes could we take away the tripple posting then to like five post because tripple posting not doing it is sorta anoying sometimes

[Sponsored content]