This sounds like a good plan. Cool. I am checking your links out.Quote:
Originally posted by elmwood
Printable View
This sounds like a good plan. Cool. I am checking your links out.Quote:
Originally posted by elmwood
This is good.Quote:
Originally posted by elmwood
Or you could just kill chat entirely. Ain't gonna happen, I know. But chat is why I don't come here much anymore. It's sucked the life out of the board, much like any other parasite.
At least half and probably more of the ideas in this thread were brainstormed in chat first. Conversation in chat inspired Sarah to make this thread. Chat and what goes on there might save our bacon.
So, you're right. Not gonna happen.
Well measure response Myrnalene, thank you.
She is right Silenus, but maybe we can jump start the board part of the board with some new enthusiasm and keep it going.
BTW: It was not chat, it was instead a whole slew of things. Elections and polls to death, chat, drama, catering to socks* at first, no clear moderations at first, a drifting off of the founder, the fact that a large part of those that came over here were "malcontents from the dope" and oddly did not all get along, drama, drama, drama, and a lot of little miscues.
* not the fact that we don't hunt socks, that was a solid idea, we were actually catering to those using socks to cause drama or acting as concern trolls. Stupidity.
Only in the SDMB zone would people's reaction to seeing the one single useful, active, vibrant part of a community be to call for it to be gotten rid of.Quote:
Originally posted by silenus
Another possibility which might not be popular to anyone would be to abandon the message board format and go with a pure social networking site, using something like Pligg.
?Quote:
Originally posted by Julie
If we end up with a new format based on being the "Dome," may I suggest our Thunderdome/Pit be named "Domestic Abuse"? It's a reasonable pun and can be easily turned into a verb: "Poster, get into DA, I'm going to abuse you."
I like this idea. Chat is nice(it rocks on game day on the Canes board), and I'd hate to lose it. I'd be willing to pony up $ to help keep this thing running, too.Quote:
Originally posted by Myrnalene
Carol, :D
What Exit?, if you do not want to be involved in the administration, do not feel as if you need to stay. I would love to see you at the forefront as a leader but if you want to return to simply being a poster, I can survive that. And I would rather have you rejoin our civilian ranks and remain a happy and positive poster for many many months (dare I say years?) than to have you stressed to your breaking point until you feel you have to leave for good. We can find someone else to hoist the banner if we need to.
Look, it's either What Exit?, or the horror of Myrncalibur. Choose wisely, dumbo.Quote:
Originally posted by Inner Stickler
But seriously. There are other people here who are also good-natured and calm in temperament who could do this. I think Jim is a swell guy and I think he has some real talents at wrangling people that make for a good leader. But it's not worth stressing out one of our favorite users until he ends up having to leave us in order to spend more time with his ulcers. I agree with Inner Stickler 100% that I would rather not have Jim step up if he is reluctant. There's no reason he can't stay around and just arrange the PHP and massage the Javascript and molest the stylesheets, or even step down from that stuff too, if that's what it takes for him to post happily.
I think we need to talk about what the role of the leader should be. Here is my opinion on what the leader should do:
First, the leader needs to love the board and its members (not having this is the root cause of most of the phail at the SDMB) and be able to make a committment to this place - in time, blood, sweat, toil and tears. (Ok hopefully not so much of those last four).
The leader should appoint all new mods and admins* and should be the one to make the final call if a mod or admin needs to be removed.
The leader should not be involved in the day to day moderation - unless needed to act as a tiebreaker in the event of a stalemate between mods or if there is an emergency (tubgirl attacks, credible death threats, etc) and there is no one else available.
The leader should, with an ear to the community, set the standards and basic philosophy of the board and make sure that all the moderators understand what that is and can mod to that standard.
The leader should be able to identify issues that need to be addressed (for example, the banner) and figure out a way to make it get done - even if it means delegating a team of "civilians" who are willing and and able to help.
The leader needs to have an overall plan for this board and use the resources we have to guide us there.
In the event of a crises - the leader needs to be able to mediate between factions, act as a reassuring presence to the board at large, and always be there to act in the best interest of the community no matter what it takes.
The leader needs to work to ensure that the board is healthy and is functioning properly - so that the leader can then step back and let it run, keeping an eye on things and jumping in only when needed.
The leader needs to have an iron glove and a velvet fist.
*I mean tech guys, here - a role that I think should be separate from mod.
Now, as for Jim - I have no doubt he can act as I have outlined above, if that is what he wants to do.
One thing, though - if it's gonna be Jim, I think he needs to stop moderating ASAP. I have been the worst about running to him if there is a problem, because he is always here and I know he will get things done. But from here on out, if there is something that needs to be modded, we should PM the Global Moderators and let that team handle it. And Jim needs to let them handle it. No one can be the leader, the chief admin and a mod. If it stays that way, in a few days he will be just as stressed out as ever and we can't have that.
I think that going to a hosted web server is as big a priority as a domain change. Two weeks ago when M[sup:1aei1u7y]c[/sup:1aei1u7y] Nutty and the three headed hydra where locked in mortal combat, I was afraid that the Nuts was going to pull the plug. M[sup:1aei1u7y]c[/sup:1aei1u7y] Nutty you are a better man than me for I'm not sure that I wouldn't have taken my ball and gone home*.
We also need to set up the administration so that no one person leaving for any reason can bring us to our knees.
Zuul as soon as funds are needed, or even before, please repost the contact info so that members can send to help. We might want to set a limit to how much a member can send so that a troll ( think SBSO ) wont think he can buy influence.
*This post is not meant to imply that any side was right or wrong in that train wreak.
Upon a night's reflection, (no I did not stay awake thinking about this), here's the raw deal.
1) I am honored so many trust me enough to suggest me.
2) I am panicked about the move to a new server/domain/IP/software all in short order and fearful we I know have enough tech knowledge in the right areas.
3) I am fine with being officially the chief admin, nice title actually, but not as comfortable as the one responsible for all the server tech at all. My problems all along were not wanting to step on other's toes and especially not overstep my position as it was CRSP's board.
4) We will need to raise a little money to do this right, I honestly do not know what the legalities of this are. 5) This makes me more nervous than the tech stuff.
5) I've asked McNutty and CIAS (CatInASuit) if they plan to stick around, I think CIAS does, but I do not know that, I hope McNutty does but he was already posting less even before the enormous new job of being a first time dad.
I think being the final decision maker will be simpler than the tech part. I think some of the other great candidates for the job as board owner or whatever we call are posters like Sarah who would probably be even more worried about the tech stuff. Myrna is surely the most passionate about this place. Either of them though would be as good or better choices. In the end, whoever takes over needs to support and respond to the mod team in a timely fashion.
So I guess this is the deal, I need some answers first from those with technical knowledge to see where we can go from here successfully. The tech details can and will sort themselves out, I just am nervous about but that is just something we can’t rush. The finance thing is probably easier than I fear, but I only know about Non-Profits that need to jump through some hoops for the IRS and fill out tax forms. This might not be an IRS issue.
Half the stress was not being sure when I should act and feeling like no one was making decisions. I think the second part is already changing.
All that said, if you want me, I will do it.
ETA: CIAS just PM’d me, he is going to stick it out. This is good news.
Ok, great. You know I have been a big supporter of you doing this, but I also know that you are taking on this role a little reluctantly, so thank you for agreeing to step in. It doesn't have to be permanent either. The more I think about it the more I think that the group ownership suggestion is probably the best way to go for long term board stability. That way the board is an entity unto itself and we don't need to rely on a single person at the top.Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
I can start looking into how that might work today and if we get a name settled on I can go register with godaddy and start getting that set up.
I sincerely wish you the best of luck with this, What Exit.
Some hosting sites will give a deal on domains. Mine (Hostmonster) gives a free domain with a hosting package.Quote:
Originally posted by NAF1138
Don't be swayed by any offers of a free domain; often, the domain name will often be owned by the hosting company, and if you want to move the site, you can't take the name with you. Domain name registration is cheap, anyhow. If you can't afford $15 a year for a dot-com through GoDaddy, you shouldn't be running a message board.
Also, I'd look at a VPS (virtual private server) rather than shared hosting. For a few more bucks a month, you'll end up with a hosting package that functions more like a freestanding server than an account that happens to be on a server shared with tens or hundreds of other Web sites. Although traffic at DoMeBo has fallen, it's still in the range that would put a lot of stress on a conventional shared hosting account. If traffic rises to just half the level of Giraffe Boards, a shared hosting account will make the SDMB on its worst mornings seem fast in comparison, and the host might even give you the boot. One of the last things DoMeBo needs is more snark fodder because of poor performance, and the drama of the resulting complaints. FWW, Giraffe Board has a dedicated server.
Really ... go with a VPS. I can't emphasize this enough. Shared hosting for a moderately busy message board is the epitome of weak sauce. I moved to Liquid Web a few months ago, and can't say enough good things about it so far; reliable server, fast, and responsive US-based technical support. The one shortcoming; the servers are based in Lansing, Michigan, which is off the beaten path of the Internet's fat pipes; ping times are a wee bit higher than the usual Dallas, Atlanta and NoVa-based data centers. There's other good VPS hosts; check out the forums at webhostingtalk.com.
Do any of you prospective admins ever check out the web hosting message boards like webhostingtalk.com? Ever check out the vBulletin support board at vbulletin.com? Ever see the many message boards for message board administrators? (I like theadminzone.com, but there's several similar sites that are just as good.) There's a lot more that goes into running a message board than you might think, so get out there and educate yourself!
A really stupid question just occured to me.Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
How well can you hide the mere existence of something in vBulletin?
Surely the web filter classifiers know very well where to look in the standard software products. If a bot receives a message along the lines of "You don't have permission to access chat.php ..." that doesn't help us much.
Funding: yeah, hosting and bulletin costs money. I. going to make a recommendation that y'all will probably hate.
Advertising.
Hey, stop throwing those rotten vegetables at me! Instead of Google Ads, look at selling banner space to other members, so they can advertise their online businesses, blogs, and so on. I think members on the SDMB have been begging for something like this, but TPTB have been unresponsive.
There's various vBulletin plugins for banner ads that track clicks, rotation, and so on.
Plugins can often be configured so their function and visibility is only available to certain user groups.Quote:
Originally posted by Feirefiz
On my site (http://www.cyburbia.org/forums), visitors see a different header message than logged-in users. Visitors see a message encouraging them to register. Members see a header with links to site news. This took a little bit of hacking in the header template field. An excerpt from the header template field:
Code:
<if condition="!$bbuserinfo[userid]">
(message displayed to visitors)
</if>
<if condition="$bbuserinfo[userid]">
(message displayed to users logged in)
</if>
I think we are on VPS currently, but I know that McNutty doesn't want to be the permanent host. I will add VPS hosting to my list of things to check into. It seems a lot easier than setting up an LLC for board ownership so I will probably get some decent answers faster. :smile:Quote:
Originally posted by elmwood
I haven't yet. In fact I didn't even know most of them existed. I am not really planning on becoming admin, but I think I should have the time to get myself educated so I at least know what we are talking about when the time comes. Thanks.Quote:
Do any of you prospective admins ever check out the web hosting message boards like webhostingtalk.com? Ever check out the vBulletin support board at vbulletin.com? Ever see the many message boards for message board administrators? (I like theadminzone.com, but there's several similar sites that are just as good.) There's a lot more that goes into running a message board than you might think, so get out there and educate yourself!
You don't necessarily need a VPS, but you absolutely can not use a typical shared web host. They're cheap, they offer amazing amounts of storage and bandwidth, but they'll put you on a server with five million other websites and performance will be awful (for the three days before they kick you off). I initially went with URLjet.com based on recommendations on the vBulletin hosting forum. It was something like $15-$20/month (I paid for six months up front, which gets you a discount) and they'll install everything for you, you just have to buy a vB license. They run regular backups, they'll install upgrades, and they have really good support. If you want to host somewhere else, it's easy to transfer your domain and files. They may even migrate the database from McNutty's server for you.Quote:
Originally posted by elmwood
I'm fairly certain they'll give you more than enough cpu and memory to run well past GB's current levels -- we were already up to almost 1000 posts/day when we moved to a VPS on 7's server and performance was still excellent.
You may need a VPS at some point, but right now I think it's probably overkill.
Also, while I'm all up in your business, a few other comments:
1. Don't make a rule that the "leader" shouldn't moderate. They certainly shouldn't be the primary moderator, but they should have the same power as any other mod to move posts, chastise the wicked and ban Fenris.
2. For fuck's sake, don't set up a board of trustees to run a small message board. You're talking about a couple hundred bucks startup money for a vB license, and then maybe a couple hundred bucks a year for hosting. Just have someone collect it. If the IRS kicks down your door, send them to me so I can punch them in the nuts for wasting my taxes auditing some message board instead of major tax cheats like Fenris.
3. You'll want at least two people with admin permissions, who can log onto the hosting control panel, the vB admin panel, etc. and help people with account issues, change usernames, upload new smilies. I recommend Fenris. He has admin experience (in his mind).
All good points. #2 especially. I started looking into this and it's just going to be a headache.Quote:
Originally posted by Giraffe
I would avoid getting a VPS right now. This is what you're on at the moment and McNuts is the only guy you have to admin the nuts and bolts of it.
Think of it this way: What would you guys do if tomorrow SQL wouldn't start on the VPS? What if Apache stopped processing all PHP pages? Would you know how to fix that?
If I were you I'd move to a managed platform (like URLjet) where your only concern would be maintaining the messageboard. Let the admin at URLjet sweat about keeping SQL running.
I think Seven's right...why take on more headaches than we need?
URLJET is sounding good. I am still waiting to here back from CRSP and McNutty. But it looks like CRSP is ready to hand off the keys. I hope he decides to stay around as a tech or a mod when time allows. He would have to be considered the equivalent of a plank holder I think.
I am waiting for an Email from vBulletin on their chat plug-ins and if they can be on a separate domain but use the same DB for users and etc.
I think besides some new mods, we will also have a few chat only mods to boot the obnoxious or the fighters until they cool off. Something to mull over, I won't be hasty about it.
With a supported VPS, you don't have to worry about it. Cheap VPS packages are usually unsupported; the good ones cost a few bucks more, but offer the same level of support as a shared hosting account.Quote:
Originally posted by Seven
Besides, you learn a lot running a message board, including some basic server-related Linux commands. Apache go down? service httpd restart. If there's more problems, the issue is probably in a httpd configuration file or .htaccess. MySQL an issue? Rebooting usually fixes it.
Also, many shared hosting packages don't offer SSH (secure shell) access. It's a must, IMHO.
moar liek sudo /etc/init.d/httpd restartQuote:
Originally posted by elmwood
debian supremacy
Any idea of the cost per month or per year?Quote:
Originally posted by elmwood
Any interest at all at being a tech admin here? You don’t even need to deal with chat, the mod staff will handle that.
nm
Hey Roo, glad to see you.Quote:
Originally posted by Heffalump and Roo
Sure, I'll help y'all out for a while. Can't do it full-time, but I can at least get you started. :)Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
Way cool. Tomorrow I am going to look into a host and vB license.Quote:
Originally posted by elmwood
You know what we also need a chat domain name probably. Pachychat? Elephant Talk? Chatterdome?
I was thinking we would do something like chat.pachydome.com, or Pachydome.com/chat and pachydome.com/forums. I can talk to the folks at godaddy and see what our options are in that respect. Do we have to keep them on seperate domains for saftey? I thought we just had to keep chat off the front page and non accessable by non members.
Cool! If you need some $$ for the license, let me know, and I'll Paypal you a little bit of scratch. Not $1000, but, like, $30 or so.Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
Cool! If you need some $$ for the license, let me know, and I'll Paypal you a little bit of scratch. Not $1000, but, like, $30 or so.Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
Looks like elmwood's down for $60.
Trunk Line?Quote:
Originally posted by What Exit?
Trunk Line is genus. It doesn't have the word chat in it. If the bots can't map it. And nonmembers can't see it. It should not trip any filters.Quote:
Originally posted by Scissorjack
It's cute and catchy and ties in with the Elephant theam. And sounds techy enough to be off limits to filter sites without raising eyebrows.
That is really pretty damn awesome.Quote:
Originally posted by Scissorjack
Trunk Line is magnificent.
That would work.Quote:
Originally posted by Scissorjack
Try $30 (PPed) and some temporary server space. :)Quote:
Originally posted by OneCentStamp
Hey all,
I normally hang out at Giraffe and have been following the domebo thread over there. I dropped by to wish you luck and, well, I'm good for ten bucks if it'll help you guys out with the license
:)
Thank you! It's appreciated.Quote:
Originally posted by Lazlo