new forum stuff

[Rick_D]

can we get a quick reply box and maybe a new colour scheme and less gay buttons?

thanks

oh and no list of moderators, and i want one of those personal text things under my name, don't be gay

thanks again

[Skjalg]

i second everything he said, especially the part where he wants a special text thingie under his name which says "don't be gay"

[-HP-]

[Rick_D]

not sure what you mean, either that mapcore isn't the ugliest forum on the internet, or that the feature skjalg mentioned is in that location?

[-HP-]

lol, just kidding! ) Was on a sunday mood!

Anyway, yeap, I kinda agree. Whereas thrik does the best he can patching the forum up, I think we deserved to have a few more things being put into the forum, a theme other than PHPbb's default for instance.

[Thrik]

Yeah there's no doubt the forum could use some loving, it's something I've been thinking about and trying to action for the past couple of months in fact. I thought quick reply was now actually enabled on all forums, that setting must have gotten un-set somehow so I'll sort that out.

There are more extensive changes I want to do, namely redoing the design and bringing back the spotlight and a community feed type thing. However the forum first needs moving from its current struggling server to a larger dedicated node, which will speed things up (especially if you happen to be in Europe ) and give me a lot more flexibility to do the things I want to do. My intention is to reinstall phpBB on the new server and port the gigantic database over, which will get rid of a lot of the broken/dodgy crap that's made the forums harder and harder to work on over the years.

There is a hold-up that's stopping this from happening regardless of how much I want to do it, which I won't go into but it's being worked on. Once this is done — which is in itself a big job considering the multi-GB size of the forums — I can get to work on the niceties. I'm optimistic it'll be sorted this month so, well... hang on.

[Rick_D]

this might not be the place to offer, but if we need ot get a donation sorted out to help mapcore evolve or move to a better server, or if we even need to purchase your time as a web developer then let's do that, I would be more than happy to donate a hundred euros and i am sure the other mapcorians would put in amounts that reflect their means. such as peris and philipk putting in a hundred thousand dollars and HP putting in a small portuguese cake.

but all joking aside, if this would help then PM me or make it public, if it's for the benefit of mapcore people will help.

[Thrik]

Donations would actually be very much appreciated. I've toyed with the idea of ads and stuff like that to make some of the costs back, but I'm not willing to degrade the forums like that so if people are actually interested in donating I'll put a donation link in the design and you can do so at your discretion — anything received will go straight back into hosting costs and time as they pretty much just come out of my pocket and have done for years. When I have a little time I might integrate a donation user group so people who do so get some privileges of some kind, like a gay custom title.

The move to a proper dedicated node is long overdue as the forums do consume a fair whack of resources, the only thing actually holding it back is some complications with the domain registrar due to the process of moving it from Mike's account to mine (he's been too busy with DNF crunching and shit to devote too much time to what is a very convoluted process) — however we're working on these and like I say am pretty confident it'll be sorted this month.

I do thank you all for your patience, I know I've been promising some things for quite some time and haven't been able to deliver yet. I do not like this. But things will pick up once the aforementioned is done, especially now I've moved home and have a proper computer space for getting serious business done. I know exactly what I'm going to do and have rough mock-ups and such set out, but there's no point building on the current house-of-cards foundation as it'll all need redoing when I reinstall the forum software.

[Rick_D]

well that's awesome that we can help. maybe a public notice that you have a donation system available would make more folks realise they can help.

also, what sort of payment options would you accept? cause paypal for me is an issue

[Sentura]

paypal for me is an issue

same

i guess it would be too much of a bother implement a credit card system, so maybe ill just mail the cash.

[Thrik]

Gotten banned from Paypal?

I'm not sure, I'll look around and see if I can use anything like Google Checkout as options. Otherwise I'm sure I can arrange some kind of cheque thing, not sure I've not looked too deeply into it before. But if the support is there I'll make sure there's a way of supplying that support ASAP.

[-HP-]

Take my money!

[arhurt]

Can I pay you in TF2 hats? :santahurg:

[Mazy]

I'd love to donate some monies for the core as well. These forums bring so much joy to the world that it's the only sane thing to do!~

[insta]

I'd love to donate some monies for the core as well. These forums bring so much joy to the world that it's the only sane thing to do!~

What he said!