At Long Last A New Home

[Anubis]

I've been looking at the incorporation of the Facebook Like button this evenings, but I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with it. The Facebook T&C's state that the button's design cannot be altered in any way, and sadly its 'light' design doesn't really suit our forum skin well in my opinion.

The image below shows what it would look like within our current button structure, but I feel it sticks out like a sore thumb. I'm not entirely sure whether it would be better to just do "one button per thread" and hide it away at the bottom of the page in order to create less of a style clash problem, but that would surely circumvent the point of having the button on site at all.



Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. Not entirely sure what direction to move in with it at this time. Am I making too much of the style not meshing with the forum skin, or do others agree?

[Isileth]

Yeah it doesnt slip in nicely.

As a non facebook user I would question what would actually be gained from it/what it would really be used for. I dont understand its relation with a group like ours.

[Whizbang]

I have to mirror Isi's sentiments. I do not use Facebook and wonder exactly what the purpose would be for having a button on the forums.

[Anubis]

It allows users to more conveniently share forum content through Facebook to wider groups of users. It would widen awareness of us through that alone, as threads/posts would be able to be advertised/shared with more people than frequent the forums. Maybe we'd get a new member out of it, or maybe we wouldn't, but the reach of our content would expand.

I can see the use of it, and do think it would be a 'nice to have'. Provided we can think of a way to make it fit in, that is.

[Isileth]

I'm still not sure exactly what would be put on facebook and who exactly that would attract.
What forum content is any good for those outside the forum and membership? I can sort of understand having the news on the main page being put out there but individual threads or posts?

[Anubis]

That would vary from member to member really, both in terms of who they'd want to share it with and why. Whilst not everyone would see the purpose or use it, I'd still say it's nice to have. I generally take the view that if one person would use it it's worth having, provided it doesn't negatively impact everyone else.

[M.Steiner]

This is what I worried about when I went ahead and made the styled button for us in advance.
For ref:

Stupid how they don't allow people to use a modified button of their own. Seriously where's the harm?. Whatever I guess... Shame because the one I did fits perfectly and it wouldn't matter how many times it appeared on a thread... :/


Their version does stick out like a sore thumb just as I feared and if I'm honest, looks like crap there. I'm not a facebook user, infact I'm not a fan of sites like that at all tbh but I was open to the idea of integrating the button into the site for those who do. Still am to a degree but I'd hate to think their generic looking button began appearing underneath every single post and then find out that it hardly ever got used and did no good anyway.

As an outside point of view I could see it being useful for threads as a whole or news posts but I do think it'd bring down the style continuity we have here if it was appearing under every post, plus I don't really see the need for the latter but then I don't use it. Also because it sticks out so much peoples eyes will always be drawn to it, all the way down the page. Maybe a good thing for the facebook people but not good from a design point of view
As for liking threads rather than posts - For example our discussions threads on games we've just been playing like Deus Ex or The Witcher 2 or announcements of ours. Sharing those on facebook may bring some other members along (or new people) to join in on the chat who may check that place more often perhaps, or find us through friends. Or the TOR pre-launch guild thread too for instance. Maybe that would gain even more interest than it has if it was creating a bit of buzz on facebook as well?. I dunno, maybe. I can see the benefit in that.

If there's somewhere we can place it on a per thread basis which doesn't detract too much from the design I'd rather go with that option if we end up using it than have it appear 25 times on every page as that will look awful. Would that be useful for those of you who use the site though? Or would it need to be per post?. Probably better for you facebookers to answer that as I have no clue.
Those are my thoughts anyway!

[Ozany]

Congrats on the new server. Now I may have to bend y'all's ear again about the potential for a eve dev kill board so I can stop spending in game funds to keep a griefwatch board going. The issue before was the SQL server we were on, but if we are on MySQL, then that may be solved.

I tend to not know enough about the programming side to know what I don't know about what I need to know , so I leave that to you server admin kinda guys.

I will find the evedev killboard links again and get back in contact with you regarding this matter.

Oz

[Anubis]

I will find the evedev killboard links again and get back in contact with you regarding this matter.

Yeah, do that. We can definately sort something out now that we're on MySQL No point in you spending isk when we can easily do it for free now.

If you either drop the links to me in PM or over IRC, I'll take a look at them asap and let you know how quickly I can get it up and running - should not take too long when I have the information!

[Stracius]

The thought had crossed my mind as well, but figured you'd beat me to brining it up Oz

[Whizbang]

So who pays for the server, and if someone wanted to help donate to keep the server running is there a donate link?

[Kon]

Ed pays the bills. I'm not sure donations are entirely necessary, as they'd probably just go to the purchase of more antique guns or fencing lessons.

[M.Steiner]

Actually, you were right up until we left Viewsnet & migrated, Kahn. Anny pays for the server now.
Many thanks go to Ed for paying the bills for so long though and keeping a roof over our head.

[Anubis]

MS is right. I now pay for the server, whilst Ed and Messiah continue to pay for the domain names that they respectively own (and thanks to them for that!).

Whilst I appreciate the thought, a 'donate' button isn't necessary right now. I can comfortably afford the server, and an incredibly generous exchange rate between the pound and the dollar has made it even easier for me. Should I get into a position though where I would struggle to keep paying for whatever reason, I may re-consider - but I can't see that happening in the near future. We're paid up until September 2012 atm anyway, so no need to worry until then

I do appreciate the thought though. Nice to know people may be willing to help out if it becomes necessary.

[Anubis]

Just as a note to everyone, I have archived the D&D and Star Trek Online forums whilst I was creating the new one for TOR. Neither had had a new post in them for around a year and a half, so I think it's safe to say they're thoroughly 'inactive'. The forums are, as always, available for perusal in the Archive forum should anyone wish to take a look at them.

If SSX activity in those games picks up again in the future please let me know and I'll be happy to reinstate the forum/s. This is particularly true for D&D, the activity within which can be somewhat inconsistant due to the nature of the game.

[Anubis]

As a further note, since this has basically become the unofficial server topic, some of you may have noticed an hour or two of downtime this evening.

This was due to my making changes to some of the configuration files on the server, and encountering problems in the process. Everything should be fixed now (as it was a "is this domain visible to visitors" type problem rather than a "you have caused the downfall of half the functionality on your site" one), but if anyone encounters any issues over the course of the next few days please let me know! Even if they're unconnected, I'd like to know in order to make sure that no side effects have lingered.

Thanks!

[Padishar]

TY for letting us know and once again for working on this

[Kon]

I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but I can't log in without the "log me in every time" cookie. If I don't check the box, I'm logged out again when I go to any other page on the forums. This happens in Firefox and Chrome. Not sure what other details I can provide.

[Anubis]

I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but I can't log in without the "log me in every time" cookie. If I don't check the box, I'm logged out again when I go to any other page on the forums. This happens in Firefox and Chrome. Not sure what other details I can provide.

I'll investigate this afternoon and see if I can reproduce this. No-one else has mentioned it, but does no harm to check

[M.Steiner]

Firefox 15.0.1 here. Had none of those reported issues on this end I'm afraid. Only problem I have with Firefox is that emoticons refuse to show for me if a youtube vid has been included in the same post. I can get them to appear but it requires a force refresh everytime I view it for the first time, have mentioned this before though so not a new problem
One thing I have noticed though. Has something changed with the forum font? The font itself, size, spacing, anything?. Just recently it has looked a bit different from how I remember it that's all. Either I'm losing my mind or I may have pressed something if not lol oO

[Anubis]

Just tested in both Firefox 3.6 and Chrome and can't reproduce your issue in either I'm afraid Kahn. I suspect it may have something to do with your Korean spy software?

Also MS, no - nothing to do with text styling has changed recently, so you may have hit something by mistake lol.

[Anubis]

Just a note to say that Santa is visiting us once again this year, but he may require you to clear your cache

[Isileth]

Blimey thats come round again quick.

[Anubis]

Just an fyi for everyone - I'm going to be upgrading our server tonight, so there will be a short period of downtime whilst that's ongoing.

If you visit and find us down, try again in about half an hour or so and everything should hopefully be back to normal