Annual Site Audit

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Voodoomaster
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Annual Site Audit

#1 Post by Voodoomaster »

Well, what a year it has been. We started off with a campaign, filled with crashes from our former host at one.com, and when it ended, the host essentially said “get smaller or we’ll shut you down” – obviously, this is impossible. So we have moved the site from Asur.org.uk to Ulthuan.net. Yes, we have gone full circle, and are (after a few years absence) back on the Ulthuan domain name. There will be some who will hate it and others who will love it, I am sure. Of course, we’ve kept all the data that was on Asur.org, so luck was on our side in that particular case. Again, I thank Eldacar for buying the new domain, and to Ricold and Burning Sun for helping me put the site back together (they were the ones who went through it with the fine tooth comb after I just plugged all the data back in). Following this, we also welcomed Sun onboard as a Loremaster, together with Giladis and Ediblespread as Heralds to aid in the running of the site as a whole.

But now on to more general matters. The 7th (and newest) edition of the Asur has been released, and already the new Tactics forum is filling up with all manner of topics about how to play and even to deal with the new Asur. The 7th edition will also be bringing about some changes to the site, as these things do. We plan for the articles concerning the Asur on the front page to be updated slowly over time - especially the Kingdoms and the Warriors pages, a project that was begun some time back but never reached completion. The Library of Hoeth is gaining new articles all the time, and the Citizen Levy, the site E-zine, is undergoing a renewal after another long hiatus, with the team looking to have a new edition of the Levy out in approximately a few months time, assuming all goes well.

Another factor that the Loremasters have looked at is upgrading the site to pbpBB 3.0 now that it has been fully released. After carefully examining it for some time, the Loremasters reached the conclusion that right now there is no need to upgrade. I see it as, for example, upgrading to Vista as soon as it came out instead of sticking with XP for a few months.

Anyway, on to other things. For the past 3 years at this time of year (or thereabouts), there has been an online campaign here on the site. This year, however, we will not be doing one. This is largely due to the fact that none of the Loremasters and other members of the campaign team really have the time available to do one (contrary to the opinions of certain members, who know quite well who they are, we do have things in our lives that don’t revolve exclusively around Ulthuan). This is not to say that we will not do another campaign in the future, of course - just don’t expect to see one in 2008. We still have some aspects to finish off for the Hour of the Wolf, so expect them to come out slowly and surely as we can devote time to them. Ideas have been tossed around, but nothing concrete has been established.

Finally, there are the latest elections for the Hall of Ancients coming up, which I hope that everyone will participate in. There is also the issue of the member’s awards, for which I am offering a choice. Due to the lacklustre voting last year, I am not sure whether we should continue these at the moment, and will be happy to place them on hold. However, if you (the members who provide much of what keeps the spirit of the site going) want them to be held, I will be more than happy to hold them myself. Unless Lord Finuval Ethonial appears and wants to do them again, in which case I will happily place the responsibility in his experienced hands.

Anyway, that’s more or less it from me here, so I’ll finish off by saying this: any suggestions, any comments in regards to the site, you may feel free to post in Website Topics, or pop any of the Loremasters or Heralds a PM with a question and we shall answer it to the best of our ability. The site is continually growing, nearing 6000 members, and there are always new people (to the site, if not to Warhammer as a hobby) asking for advice, help and guidance. So if you want to help out a bit more, why not write an article for the Citizen Levy or for the Library of Hoeth, the year ahead is long and by the end of it we shall see many changes both on and off the battlefield.

(Except for Aryel. He probably won’t change, unfortunately. We did our best, but Nagathi is a corrupting influence.)

On behalf of the Loremaster Council,

Voodoomaster
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#2 Post by Uther Di Asturien »

He he he, this new Hall of Ancients election should be interesting :).

Anyway, I think I speak for us all (or for myself at least :wink: ) when I say 2007 was an awesome year to be in Asur.org.uk (or Ulthuan.net now).
Lets hope 2008 is just as good :D
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Re: Annual Site Audit

#3 Post by Nagathi »

Voodoomaster wrote:Another factor that the Loremasters have looked at is upgrading the site to pbpBB 3.0 now that it has been fully released. After carefully examining it for some time, the Loremasters reached the conclusion that right now there is no need to upgrade. I see it as, for example, upgrading to Vista as soon as it came out instead of sticking with XP for a few months.
Hey! Olympus is free, Vista isn't. Olympus works, Vista doesn't. Olympus is open source, Vista isn't. Olympus reduces the system loads, Vista increases them.
Vista is nothing like Olympus.

But I understand why you wish to wait. "Wait & See" seems to be a very common saying among lores :D
(Except for Aryel. He probably won’t change, unfortunately. We did our best, but Nagathi is a corrupting influence.)
Hey! 'Tis not my fault he steals my pants and drags me into the private booth of the tavern! I am perfectly innocent *whistles innocently*

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Re: Annual Site Audit

#4 Post by Burning Sun »

Nagathi wrote:"Wait & See" seems to be a very common saying among lores :D
As I see it, change is inevitable, and it's our job just to ensure it's as painless and smooth as we can. We couldn't get Olympus working to a level that we were happy with, or doing the functions we wanted it to based on this forum. Until Olympus is a better solution to the problem then phpbb 2.0.22, we will hold back the tide of change.
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Re: Annual Site Audit

#5 Post by Aryel »

Nagathi wrote:
(Except for Aryel. He probably won’t change, unfortunately. We did our best, but Nagathi is a corrupting influence.)
Hey! 'Tis not my fault he steals my pants and drags me into the private booth of the tavern! I am perfectly innocent *whistles innocently*

~ Nag
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Re: Annual Site Audit

#6 Post by Nagathi »

Burning Sun wrote:As I see it, change is inevitable, and it's our job just to ensure it's as painless and smooth as we can. We couldn't get Olympus working to a level that we were happy with, or doing the functions we wanted it to based on this forum. Until Olympus is a better solution to the problem then phpbb 2.0.22, we will hold back the tide of change.
As I said, I can help you doing the conversion. It's just a matter of clipping the db into smaller pieces (just like you had to do to move to the new host). Hyarion found a good software that does it quickly and painlessly.

~ Nag
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Re: Annual Site Audit

#7 Post by Burning Sun »

Burning Sun wrote:or doing the functions we wanted it to
That was more of a barrier then the database conversion.

Will it give us a customisable portal (like the current one)? Will it give us a CMS for the library? Will it give us the other various mods we use around here?

As I said, when it does what we want it to, we'll reconsider.
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Re: Annual Site Audit

#8 Post by Nagathi »

Burning Sun wrote:[Will it give us a customisable portal (like the current one)?
Yes. See www.phpbb3portal.com
Will it give us a CMS for the library?
Shouldn't be too hard to make yourself.
Will it give us the other various mods we use around here?
Most of the mods you have around here are in the vanilla installation of phpBB3.

~ Nag
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Re: Annual Site Audit

#9 Post by Burning Sun »

Nagathi wrote:Yes. See www.phpbb3portal.com
A system which is still in beta, on a site with nearly 6000 members? You are taking the piss aren't you?
Will it give us a CMS for the library?
Shouldn't be too hard to make yourself.
Where do you suggest I get the time for this, amongst the other things I'm doing, both for the site and reality? Believe me, if I had enough time to be coding an integrated CMS for phpbb3, I might be using it more usefully to do things like get deeper into re-coding the campaign system from last year.
Will it give us the other various mods we use around here?
Most of the mods you have around here are in the vanilla installation of phpBB3.

If true, then there will still be things missing. The things missing will annoy the people who use them.

Or, on the other hand, we can continue to use a system that works, is well tested, is well developed for, and currently does everything we want it to.

OK, Rather then arguing over what phpbb3 doesn't do, why don't you tell us what it does do that members have asked for, that we have considered implementing but have not because phpbb2 doesn't? What advantages are there to the switch that are of real benefit to our community?
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#10 Post by Nagathi »

<Lethalis> Voodoo, is there a way to ignore posts on teh ultuwan?
<Nathalie> Leth; no
<Nathalie> not until they go phpBB3
<Al> =/
<Ariel> ah... gotta love the foe list on A.org
* Hyarion LOVES the foe list
* Nathalie LOVEs the Bookmark feature


For example. Less than an hour ago.

It also has Custom Profile Fields, Usergroup Colours, better bot protection, Private Messages folders and rules, post warning when someone posts while you're typing, ability to save drafts, attachements (fully moderated through the ACP), a complete and working MCP, global announcements, birthday listing, better display of online users to admins, "dotted" threads (thread icon gets a dot if the user has posted in the thread), subscription management, better colour support for posting and many other nice things.

And even more for the admin.

~ Nag
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#11 Post by Burning Sun »

Nagathi wrote:It also has Custom Profile Fields, Usergroup Colours, better bot protection, Private Messages folders and rules, post warning when someone posts while you're typing, ability to save drafts, attachements (fully moderated through the ACP), a complete and working MCP, global announcements, birthday listing, better display of online users to admins, "dotted" threads (thread icon gets a dot if the user has posted in the thread), subscription management, better colour support for posting and many other nice things.
Custom profile field: Got, used mainly for the Lores, works.
Bot protection: As Eldacar and I found out a few hours ago, our bot protection system appears to be working quite well thank you.
Post warning if someone posts while you're typing: That's not a new feature, it's called the "Preview" button. People just need to learn to use it if they want it.

So allowing for those things we already have and use, they're all things that have never been required or requested here.

OK, so we've found one feature that has been asked for and phpbb3 has which phpbb2 doesn't. We've also found one which we do use and is missing, and one which we do use and is in beta.

How is this supposed to be convincing us to switch?
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#12 Post by Nagathi »

As your mind is already made up, I cannot do more. And as you apparently know what every of the 6000 members here want to have and see, I can't do much about that either.

~ Nag
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#13 Post by Cerulaetas »

Perhaps this could be taken to PM?

I do think we can do without the member awards. I never really saw the point, and while they give a small amount of recognition to people. It really is more of a popularity contest/bragging rights fest than anything else, which makes the forum a lot less fun to be around for the few weeks both before and after the election when people are going absolutely crazy.
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Re: Annual Site Audit

#14 Post by Caradreth »

Voodoomaster wrote:So if you want to help out a bit more, why not write an article for the Citizen Levy
Yes. Do this. Do it now.

[/shameless-self-promotion.]

In other news, a good year for the site as a whole, then. A bif thanks to all the Lores, and even, dare I say it, the Heralds.

Nice one, guys! :)
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#15 Post by Prince Elileth »

Bring back ze member awards!

In other news, have your phpbb debate somewhere else. I'm sure a large portion of those 6000 members really just don't care as long as the site works so work it out amongst your selves.
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#16 Post by Teir »

Prince Elileth wrote:Bring back ze member awards!

In other news, have your phpbb debate somewhere else. I'm sure a large portion of those 6000 members really just don't care as long as the site works so work it out amongst your selves.
Agreed on both accounts.

To me it would be fun to see the member awards now that not everyone is an oldie compared to me. :lol:
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#17 Post by Anarion »

Just FYI on the member awards. I ran them last year because I thought they were a popular event on the site. However, it turned out that mostly it is a lot of shameless self promotion by a very small minority of members. When it came to actual voting I think I collected a total of 34 votes. When there are a total of 5-6000 members this doesn't seem like a very big percentage of involvement (even when you consider that there are more like only 500-600 active posters who post regularly).

Based on that experience I recommend scrapping the awards. Or alternately, if you do want to maintain some of them then come up with a new format. I think it's worthwhile to recognize some of the contributions of people on the site in things like painting and modelling, writing, roleplaying etc, but awards given to more personal things (best avatar, funniest member, etc) are just popularity contests and don't benefit the site much.
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#18 Post by Ediblespread »

As I believe I have said (or perhaps not), I'm with anarion on this one. If you do run them, then I reckon they should be a bit more serious. Of course, keep some of the sillier ones, but things like best RPer, best contributer to Tactics, Army Lists, etc, etc should be in there too...

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#19 Post by Nagathi »

The way we, on Asrai.org, do a similar thing is to announce 4-5 people on the site birthday. Best tactician, best P&M, best storywriter and such things. Nominated by the Council of Elders (moderators) and admins. The admins (well.. me, in practice) then decide who wins each award. The community only sees the result, and strives to win the next year. When the site staff are the ones deciding who wins, it immediately gets more prestigue.

~ Nag
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#20 Post by Uther Di Asturien »

In the Roundtable we dont have member awards, we have a system more similar to Asrai.org's
The admins and mods view the submitted content from the members as they come in and then from time to time as more people qualify for medals we hand them around in a cerimony.
An example:
User Sir Knigget submits 2 story articles in the "Literature" section
Then when the time comes for a cerimony Sir Knigget gets a storyteller medal in silver. If he can submit more stories with more quality then he will eventually qualify for a storyteller in gold.
Silver = quantity
Gold = Quality
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#21 Post by norwegian nerd »

I think asur/ulthuan had a good 2007 despite my recent activity or lack of. I appreciate the hard work put out by the lores. I'm indiffernt for member awards. I would like another campaign but I'm not running it so I'm not in a position to gripe about it.


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