no offense ben but i like this forum
its different

Yeah - it's weird - but the fact that it seems scrappy is where it's charm lies :)
I mean - look at the topics - it's as crazy as it gets - coincidence? :)

I think this forum is lousy. I like it because of the topics and people, NOT the structure.

What about v-bulletin forums or something similar, are those expensive?

Remember that this is a free web-site supported by volunteers. If need want to improve the site then you need to a) convince Kestas it's for the better and then b) step-up to the plate and code it (or find someone who will).

I like the forum, things that people dont care about get pushed to the top, other things gradually make it to the bottom. Also, response time on most actual game questions are fairly quick. Its not overly organized, or organized at all, which can almost force you to see an interesting post you would have otherwise missed.

Oh i'm not complaining...I love it here. Just a suggestion.

BTW, vBulletin is $100/yr for a lease, $180 to buy then a $60 update fee each year...kinda pricey for a non-profit, volunteer site.

I like the way it is just fine. I really don't think there are any major changes necessary.

and btw ben, "I think this site needs a better interface?" isnt a question

I agree with some of the above that the forum is not ideal. However, it has the big advantage of only having to log in in one place to see your games and the forum. Typically, standardized forum solutions such as phpbb would have their own username/password structure which may be very hard to combine with the actual games. Getting a board at a paid forum web site would have the same disadvantage, with the added disadvantage of having to pay.

For the game interface, the only think I don't quite like is the fact that my orders only become truly legible after I finalized them. But it's not that big of a deal.

I think the forum is quite elegant. It might not be as practical as a super forum but I think it fits our needs at this point in time. I do love the democratic thread promotion though.

I think this forum is lousy. I like it
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???

Sioraf, read the rest of his post. Thats bad quoting.

I don't see how Kestas can keep this running indefinitely by himself. I wouldn't mind some ads on here to keep it going. I know I'd sell out like that.

But really, this is quite a thing for him to do. Bravo.

Typical Invictus: "Market Solves". You know what running this site for free is like Kestas? Socialism!

No, it's charity. It's noble. But it's untenable and I don't think ads are a bad idea.

But of course it's up to him.

You know who else was noble? KARL MARX

I think he's referring to Forum costs for that v-bulletin. I hope that the program Kestas has going and donations are enough to keep this site ad free. Commericalization may be necessary, but it would be nice to stave it off for as long as possible.

Exactly. I don't WANT ads.

Ok, I wasnt saying you did.

It was to Centurian. Sorry.

no problem

Sorry guys. I'm tired and I sometimes think I'm funny.

In all seriousness, ads suck and paying to play is even worse. However, if Kestas feels like he shouldn't bear the burden all by himself than I think thats reasonable. If he is considering some of the less desirable solutions he should atleast campaign for donations first.

@Giwald - That is exactly why we don't use phpBB or some alternative. Kestas has stated he wants a forum that meshes with the look and feel of the site and does not require separate log in.

We currently have a good thing going with Plura, which lets us generate some money without ads. It doesn't pay as well as ads, and its a new company so it might not last, but so far it seems to be a sustainable solution

I'm more worried about Facebook phpDiplomacy in that regard, it's currently running on 1 year of free sample Facebook hosting, but when that runs out I'm not sure what the plan is. I guess since they already have ads built into Facebook it won't be so bad to add them over there


Regarding the layout etc, it's true that I want to keep the forum integrated into the site. We have forum.phpdiplomacy.net for development discussions but I don't think that'd work as well for main phpDiplomacy chat

The other issue is that phpBB and vBulletin all use far more resources than my dinky little forum script. This forum loads in just a couple of well optimized queries (1 query if you don't have a thread open), while profiling phpBB and vB I found that they executed dozens of them. Even less busy sites which run fully featured forums need dedicated hosting, e.g. playDiplomacy which needs a dedicated Xeon with heaps of RAM (though that's in part due to some careless coding

We can do with only a small trickle of income for server fees when using Dreamhost's shared hosting, but if we wanted dedicated hosting we'd certainly have to move to advertising. Keeping performance up is priority #1 for me right now, because the number of page hits and visitors per day has doubled since July, and we were already pushing the limits of what a shared account can do (Dreamhost are a great host in this regard)


A hypothetical; would people rather have a full forum with ads, which may feel fairly separate to the site itself, or minor improvements to the current integrated forum without ads?

Another hypothetical; does anyone have any web hosting which they don't use much, which they would be able to use to share some load (things like images, maps, etc)?