Okay, now that this thing is back up...

[SineSwiper]

One, who wants to be a moderator? Serious requests only, please.

Two, anybody have any design ideas or mods to implement on the board? I plan on adding a bunch of mods to try to get the feel of the old script back in place. Or, if they don't exist, probably just coding them myself.

[Eric]

This is a major change... >_<

[Tortolia]

One for the better.

[Ishamael]

How'd you port over the files? Was there a utility already written or did you have to roll your own?

[SineSwiper]

How'd you port over the files? Was there a utility already written or did you have to roll your own?

I had to roll my own. RPGBoard is my own format, silly.

[Lox]

I'm willing to give this a try to see what I think.

[Blotus]

BL no like. Now the board has no personality. It's just like every other board out there.

[Julius Seeker]

I'm with BL on this one, I liked the old one quite a bit, the board really blows now. Sorry to say.

To improve it? Just make it identical to the last one;

For starters, get rid of all the non-essential things that are all over the place. As I said though, there probably isn't any way that this one could be built up to be as good as the real thing.

[Lox]

The main thing I loved about the other version is that I could scroll through an entire conversation in a minute or less. Then if the subject lines piqued my interest, I could read the posts that I wanted. This style forces you to click on a message to see any replies.

But like I said, I'll at least try this one ou.t

[Julius Seeker]

Avatars aren't working right either.

Signatures will now be forced to be boring since anything elaborate won't work since by far the majority of messages here at the Shrine were NT, and a message that short would look stupid above a large signature which is more elaborate than the message. The only person this aspect of the board will benefit is Zeus with his misleading topics =)

[Gentz]

Haha. I can't get enough of seeing the absurd length of our message subjects in a php format. It looks like we're a bunch of fucking retards.

Anyway, give Sine some time to set everything up here and get this shit customized. It'll be looking good in no time. And, Seeker, don't fool yourself into thinking your sigs weren't boring before.

[Ishamael]

How'd you port over the files? Was there a utility already written or did you have to roll your own?

I had to roll my own. RPGBoard is my own format, silly.

Oooh. I humbly I beg your forgiveness, great one. I should have known. :)

[Julius Seeker]

I suppose anything that's not porn is boring to you Gentz.

I was talking about signatures in general anyways. Any signature will detract from the type of posts we make. As I said, it was perfect before due to the nature of the type of messages that most people post here, non-text messages. Everyone could have their signatures, and now they can't for the reason that it will detract from the posts within any thread. Any signature in this type of format will be an annoyance.

[Lox]

Crap. My signature does look obscenely long compared to my little paragraph. Turning that of....now. :)

[Guest]

Place is feeling like home already, roflol.

[Flip]

tesy test

[Flip]

I did like the tiered format, but this could work if people use the quote option correctly.

Like Ish's suggestion in the other topic, it would rock if you could work out a way to mirror the board into both formats so new people who are used to board like this would not be afraid to join and us older guys could have the other format. That would probably take a lot of time, effort, and space though. I'm not even sure if its possible.

[Guest]

Though if it is possible, I am definitely in favour of Flap's idea since then everyone would be happy.

One thing is for certain, to keep it so that the system is convertable over to the other format (if possible) there would have to be a reply option set up below everyones posts. Also a default subject.

[Zeus]

Well, if you can make it so that those who like this setup can use it and those of us who don't have 10 hours a day to sort through posts can use the other setup, it would be the best.

At least I'm not alone in disliking this setup.....

[Guest]

I'm trying to remember, didnt we vote on keeping it the same a while ago?

[Guest]

You people act like any of us actually read the signatures in the first place. Pfft.

And avatars work just fine. Sine's conversion tool worked like a charm. If it didn't work for yours, take the 30 seconds to make sure the URL is right.

[Tortolia]

The above was me. Forgot to set it to auto-login after playing "guess the password" yesterday.

[Gentz]

I suppose anything that's not porn is boring to you Gentz.

Nope, porn bores me too :)

[Nev]

I like it. My brain works better when the discussion is more linear.

BTW Sine I noticed you got my start date right. Little touches...makes me happy. :)

If we do end up going back to the old format I can suggest a few things...but for now I very much like it.

[Nev]

Come to think of it, why are everyone else's start dates besides my and Sine's listed as 2001? I know you all have been around longer than that.

[Torgo]

The board has moved a lot over the years, so I'm guessing a lot of the original start dates are missing, and that Sine only remembers yours and his start dates.

Or something.

[Tortolia]

There was an account info wipe at one point. I can't recall whether it was a glitch or on purpose.

[Guest]

Yeah, I started around 1997 or 1998, can't remember.

Man, this new format is just pissing me off. It's so irritating having to go back and forth to figure out what the hell someone is replying to. Also, not having the discussions blossom into more than a linear conversation is freakin' irritating. We had better discussions within a thread in the past than we have at the start of one.

Well, look at it this way. I'm despising this new format enough that I'll be posting less and less. That's good news for all of you :-)

[SineSwiper]

The board has moved a lot over the years, so I'm guessing a lot of the original start dates are missing, and that Sine only remembers yours and his start dates.

Here. I could have swore I added an entry in there at around 2002 or so. I'll have to look through the archives for something like that.

Yeah, I started around 1997 or 1998, can't remember.

Who's this?

Man, this new format is just pissing me off. It's so irritating having to go back and forth to figure out what the hell someone is replying to. Also, not having the discussions blossom into more than a linear conversation is freakin' irritating. We had better discussions within a thread in the past than we have at the start of one.

The feeling is mutual to some extent, but it sorta has to be done. I understand the problem with having to click on topics, though I'm not sure how one would fix that.

As far as the linear conversations, it fixes problems with threaded modes, at the cost of exacting detail to who you're replying to. Even then, as long as you quote who you're talking to, you should be alright. The problem with threaded conversations is long discussions. They drag out into a 20-threaded deep nightmare, and it gets to the point that you no longer know who you're replying to. I tried to fix this to some extent with my hybrid mode, but it never caught on. Unforunately, despite the advantages, nobody wanted more complexity.

Well, look at it this way. I'm despising this new format enough that I'll be posting less and less. That's good news for all of you :-)

I hope not. I encourage you to stick around. Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve, and I've had the same issues you have in terms of these so-called "flat" message boards, but it eventually gets to be easier.

Also, keep in mind that this is plain, vanilla phpBB. I plan on modding the shit out of it to get some decent functionality into it. I don't agree with phpBB's (or a lot of other forum's) policy on "Keep it Simple, Stupid, and let the mod guys design the features", but it's something I have to deal with. On the flip side, I looked at phpBBFM (Fully Modded), and it's TOTAL bloat. Jesus, I don't need a fucking MP3 player on my MB.

I'm finding it incredibly hard to find a happy medium, so I'll probably just submit to downloading and installing the mods myself. Fortunately, easyMOD seems to do a lot of the hard work for me. (And may I say how moronic it is to expect people to "edit this, find this line, add this in front of it, etc., etc., etc., etc." The fucking patch utility was written for a goddamn reason!!) I think after I pull everything off, I may resort to starting a mega-patch that contains a bunch of these mods automatically.

[SineSwiper]

Come to think of it, why are everyone else's start dates besides my and Sine's listed as 2001? I know you all have been around longer than that.

That was an manual edit on my part, since I know the start dates of the two of us. Unforunately, RPGBoard's archives only go back as far as 2001. I think I had some major screwup a long time ago and had to kill the archives until then. It's a shame because I imported a staggering 84 thousand messages. It's kina mind-blowing that we've posted that much in the last 4 years, even if they are mostly NT messages.

[SineSwiper]

There was an account info wipe at one point. I can't recall whether it was a glitch or on purpose.

Added several mods; testing out one of them.

[Julius Seeker]

Alright, Sine, I have faith in your ability, I can't wait to see the final product of this board. Still, it is probably going to be a long time before a lot of us feel like this place is home.

It's not that I'm not used to this sort of board either, almost every other board I have been on in the last 4-5 years uses this format. It's just that I always liked the Shrine a lot better, so 90% of my posts were there.

[Nev]

I do like this because as Sine said, discussions won't automatically end anymore (or turn the board into unrecognizable garbage) when you hit the twelfth reply or whatever. We can have long postings/discussions. The other format was just starting to fry my brain.

One thing I've always hated about this format is that after a certain point the discussion can morph into something totally other and no one knows about it because the only thing in the subject line is the original subject. My company's intranet does this thing where they quote the first few lines of the last reply in the original thread link...that may or may not be valid, what do you guys think?

[the Gray]

Hmmn, one of the reasons I have stayed with the Shrine even as sporadically as I have is that it is inherently different than every other msg board.

This is... like the board has been hijacked by Walmart or Starbucks. Corporatized.

That said, I will trust in Sine to change it from what it looks like now. As it is, I don't think I'll be browsing through here very much. Too clunky.

[Kupek]

For the record, I prefer the old way; I don't see this change as necessary. But it's Sine's hobby, so along we go.

In all honesty, it feels a little like my favorite bar has been completely redecorated and overhauled to look like the one down the street.

[Guest]

For the record, I prefer the old way; I don't see this change as necessary. But it's Sine's hobby, so along we go.

In all honesty, it feels a little like my favorite bar has been completely redecorated and overhauled to look like the one down the street.

Good analogy, i want my old shrine *cry*

[SineSwiper]

One thing I've always hated about this format is that after a certain point the discussion can morph into something totally other and no one knows about it because the only thing in the subject line is the original subject. My company's intranet does this thing where they quote the first few lines of the last reply in the original thread link...that may or may not be valid, what do you guys think?

Actually, one of the admin options is "split thread", where you can choose a bunch of messages to go to a new thread. I think as long as the powers that be (errr...me) keep up with topic branching into something else, you can maintain topic structure.

Hmmn, one of the reasons I have stayed with the Shrine even as sporadically as I have is that it is inherently different than every other msg board.

This is... like the board has been hijacked by Walmart or Starbucks. Corporatized.

I think it's mostly the default look of the thing. Again, I hate doing this change, too, and it's shortfalls annoy me enough to change them, so hopefully I'll eventually get everything to what it needs to be. It won't be the old Shrine, but it should be something that we can be confortable with.

Also, somebody was talking about individuality with their sigs. Just shorten the sigs and get some avatars. I'm surprised at how few of you have avatars now. To me, that was a very easy way of identifying somebody without having to read the name. I think I put the ? sign as a way of saying "Hey, that looks stupid, and you have no personality; go change it."

I also want to be able to add some sort of font color/size/style for everybody, so that they can portray some individuality that way.

[Guest]

Also, somebody was talking about individuality with their sigs. Just shorten the sigs and get some avatars. I'm surprised at how few of you have avatars now. To me, that was a very easy way of identifying somebody without having to read the name. I think I put the ? sign as a way of saying "Hey, that looks stupid, and you have no personality; go change it."

With the old way, I never saw the point of using avatars because I identified people by their font color, background choice and sig. At that point, an avatar doesn't add much.

[SineSwiper]

With the old way, I never saw the point of using avatars because I identified people by their font color, background choice and sig. At that point, an avatar doesn't add much.

Still, the avatars were truly unique. People could have similar fonts, backgrounds, colors, and the like.

[Julius Seeker]

Well, I am just going to stick with my Avatar. I don't need a sig.

I do think that the number of words posted total should be recognized in the stats though.

[SineSwiper]

I do think that the number of words posted total should be recognized in the stats though.

I agree. The changes will take some time, though. I've already updated my RPGBoard project page, and effectively canned the code. I'm going to release some RPGBoard mods soon.

[Shellie]

Id like to see a page of new messages, kind of like the old board

[Flip]

Id like to see a page of new messages, kind of like the old board

I agree, i know the little icome next to the post is supposed to change when there are new messages in that thread, but it doesnt seem to be working for me right now.

[Tortolia]

Id like to see a page of new messages, kind of like the old board

From the main menu, look in the upper right and you'll see an "All messages since last visit" option. It'll show a page with all threads that have new posts in them.

I agree, i know the little icome next to the post is supposed to change when there are new messages in that thread, but it doesnt seem to be working for me right now.

Load the thread by clicking on the yellow icon instead of the thread name and it'll jump you to the most recent post you haven't read.



I won't disagree that this format requires adjustment, especially if you don't normally use PhpBBs, but it's quite workable. Once Sine gets some tweaks in it'll be fine.

On another note, Sine, could you temporarily disable guest posting for a bit until people get used to logging in or get their cookies set up? Would help figure out who's who, since half the new posts are Guest.

[Shellie]

Id like to see a page of new messages, kind of like the old board

From the main menu, look in the upper right and you'll see an "All messages since last visit" option. It'll show a page with all threads that have new posts in them.

Gah. Thanks ;)

I guess we just have to get used to this and where everything is.

I agree that the new format is long overdue, it just takes some getting used to.

[Nev]

I'm not attached (unduly) to the new format. I like it better, but if people like the old one better we ought to stick to that. Message boards are about people anyway, and if people leave as a result of the change I don't think we've gained anything.

BTW Seraphina I like your avatar. ;)

[Shellie]

Heh, thanks. Ive actually been thinking about getting a kodama tattoo for a while.

[Nev]

what's kodama?

[Shellie]

Have you ever seen Princess Mononoke?

The creatures in my avatar are kodamas. They're forest/tree spirits.

[Gentz]

Oh, stop being a bunch of drama queens. Php is a great MB format. This is just the bare-bones out-of-the-box format - and if I know Sine, he'll be customizing the hell out of this shit.