Rules Overhaul [FORUM WIDE DISCUSSION]

[White]

I'll agree that recreating the boards will be more tedious, but overall, I don't think it's that big of a deal. The codes are easy to move, and if we're getting a new skin, why not paste it onto a new forum? As for the rules, dear god, the rules. Those are way too long. I was hoping we could do something to dumb those down so they aren't such a huge read. If we do, may as well write those up on the new forum too.

And we wouldn't need a completely new name. Lots of older forums recreate themselves on new forums and simply state on the old one that they've moved. Doing this, we'd could probably just add on another word to indicate that it's new and a bit different from the old one.

[Spring [Complex]]

The lovely White is right again, boards do move it happens, a lot; especially on proboards. Also, I stress Geizt's point again, it's hard to revive/restart when all those old ads are floating out there. I'll also throw in something I told Rocket long ago, the url name "ofthehearts" is not going to get us the hits it needs to. All the popular proboards RP's have the series name in there, let me state some examples for the record: narutoforumrp.proboards.com, narutorplay.proboards.com, pokemonforumrp.proboards.com, etc etc. That helps in the search engine when someone is looking for RPs. Then there's the Root Admin thing which we solve with a new board also.

There will be some labouring of love to do to get that all setup but it wouldn't be the end of the world for sure. Regardless, I think we can at least set aside the voting for newboard or old board, for when we've actually finished up the work that does need to be done. In that situation utilizing everything we've got here for now, saves some time. Though let me add one last thing which could make the board thing a non-issue, if we can get a free domain name such as a A co.nr or even a cheap .com, that would solve the board thing entirely.

Also, I do stress that we exorcise some democracy and elect a leader to have the final say on some of our votes, effectively the "Root" Admin. Though I'd like to point out, that it doesn't mean all the responsibility or power is on that person. A vote is a vote and it holds lots of weight!

[Rocket!]

DSA, you are psychic.

There's been a fair amount of discussion about url/name associativenessness, and there were a couple points that were in slow progress for the 4.0 update however long ago! I don't remember too many specifics, but one point was the notion of renaming the forum as "Kingdom Hearts: Dream Sequence" in order to be a fair bit more blunt about it all! I'd been having some trouble photoshopping such a game-esque logo though, and that got pushed off. Hmmmmmmm.

Regarding moving:

I'm more disinterested than against moving to another board, honestly. xD Old ads aren't a particularly bad thing, depending on how buried they are-- affiliations too-- and they'd go through if we got a new URL but kept the board. From what Pryth an' I talked about earlier, it should be possible to get the admin login. It's been a busy week for me and I've not had the chance to sit down with Grav and get done what needs getting done, though. >>;;

...looking in the Admin Panel, it looks like only the admin account can change the board URL.

If nobody's against it, I say we go ahead an' move if ProBoards says we can't get that main admin account back in the game. Otherwise, with a new URL, I don't see too much of a need for it.

/whistles~

Gotta go, but really quickly:

I think it's fine if chars have a certain small number of threads left on a world when they switch to a new one. Anyone particularly against the notion?

[White]

I'm definitely in favor. Four at the absolute most, but I think that's pushing it. I'm thinking more like 2-3. And that they don't create more after they've moved to the new world if we want to keep going with the linear pattern thinger.

[Spring [Complex]]

2-3 threads which are ACKNOWLEDGED to be in the PAST, so that we don't create Time Paradoxes, is reasonable and a compromise to Brezzen's hard stance on that issue (to which I admittedly share but hey, convenience/fun first). I'm glad we understand the issues raised concerning the url, forum name, and of course Root Admin account, then I think that's good. Let's have that added to the check list, please and thanks. Is there any other issue people had with old DS? If not I think we can take everything from the checklist and restart DS 4.0 as Kingdom Hearts: Dream Sequence, an AU KHRP.

[Rocket!]

Ah, well, in addition to the 2-3 bit, how about we also ask there be no outstanding Invasions/Quests on a world in question? Those tend to be character-plot changing, and for all they'd be "in the past", the "present" versions of the characters wouldn't have much elbow room, or might make for awkward inacurracies down the line.

Regarding root admin accounts, I should be able to sit down with Grav sometime over the weekend! I'll let everyone know how it goes as soon as possible. ^^

Katsumi: What I've got so far is mainly elements of a larger picture that isn't quite put together. I didn't have the time I wanted to today to make a mock up to show off what I've got on the mind, and I know you'll be off over the weekend. I'm hurrying, but I'm running through a lot of tutorials to make sure a lot of the functionality theory bruhaha is as spot on as I hope it is, and to make sure that what I want to do... can actually be done at all.

>>;

I can make a Microsoft Paint-esque design-y example and post it up tomorrow, assuming your weekend doesn't start until Saturday... otherwise, I'll try to get something show-offable by the time you get back.

Sorry for all the hassle! >>;;

Added the Board url/name/Admin account to the checklist!

Regarding URLs, I'm willing to drop the needed cash to pick up a proper URL. If anyone's done any kind of research on this in the past, let me know! I want to make sure every cent counts! o.o;

[Geizt]

Character limits can only be a good thing, you know? I know some people who make a new character every time they get an idea, and then before they know it, they've got 20. Nothing good comes from that.

[Spring [Complex]]

I know some sources to get it affordable, most important thing is that said name accurately portrays what people need when they search for DS =p something along the lines of khdsroleplay.com xD I'm quite interested to see what your thoughts are for a new skin, so when you get the chance to post a decent preview, place it up and we'll discuss that all too. By the way, y'need not pay more than $10 for a domain name. It's premium box that costs a bit more cash Q.Q but is not needed for now anyway.

Also, does the checklist reflect some of the stuff staff was working on prior to collapse too? Like I know abilities are there. I don't think those need as much reworking as we might believe as I at least felt room for some interpretation. I think what would be nicer is to have the canon names for techniques up and any missing canon techniques to go up as well. That provides a sense of unity and shows how current we are. I also agree with White, simplification on those rules so people aren't studying a DND campaign would be so good. In that sense we've got to Casualize (made up words ftw) DS a bit more otherwise we'll miss a lot of potential members. Though we must concede if we keep our plot focus we'll be missing member sets anyway but we don't want to scare off people who might like to give that a shot.

Oh and one last thing, I must strongly stress the importance of Quest Masters/Game Masters. Can't have a plot driven forum without them, they are the bread/butter of all this.

[White]

Hey. What happened to all the progress?

I take it Rocket hasn't had a chance to sit down and talk with Grav.

I'm not sure I'm in total favor of electing someone to have final say. I don't get what's wrong with majority vote, unless there's a tie.

How about getting the poll(s?) up? I'd do it myself, but I'm not sure how to set them up the way we want them to be.

[Spring [Complex]]

Well we'd still be using Majority Vote, it's just when there's a tie you need someone to act as Final Call, really not much of a big deal it's not like we need to be bossed around or anything =] Though I would expect the Final Call person to do a lot of talking in terms of announcements and any communication with affiliated sites and such. Basically Admins should be handling technical issues around the forum like they're supposed to xD OOCly things, while a single Staff group dubbed Quest Masters/Game Masters should handle the Roleplay at large.

[Sir Percival]

Firstly, I missed you all greatly. Secondly, I think something that might help for continuity is a timeline thread. Or more than one thread. You can then have Gummi travel or other forms of travel take X days, in-universe. It helps to figure out where character timelines overlap. Lastly...anything I can do to help from a phone? Well, only from a phone temporarily. Hopefully, I get internet soon.

[Geizt]

If you're going to have a timeline, don't make it too strict. Just give sort of general areas. Too strict a timeline means no fun for anyone, ya know?

[Sir Percival]

What is this talk of too strict? I just think a day-based timeline would be great to know in what order events occur.

[Villainous Angelus]

You know what's even more shocking than Jay being on a computer with internet access? Me being on DS and actually contributing something to the site for a change (at least for quite some time). Anywho not the point.

I've been following this for some time now (for some obvious and some not so obvious reasons), and I've developed my own opinions on all the various things that I think are wrong with DS, opinions on what things you guys think are wrong with DS, etc. etc. etc...

But to me, that seems to be your biggest problem at the moment.

You guys are jumping all over the place. While it's nice to have a list of things you think need changing, you guys will "argue" about one problem for a while, then jump to another topic before the previous one is actually resolved. Pick one to get done. And then proceed to pick another area, and do the same with it. That's the biggest reason why nothing's getting done (That and Rocket up and vanished, which I believe is only temporary). And even Rocket's guilty of this, so nobody here (except me, as this is my first post in this topic, as well as anyone else who has not posted in this topic) can claim they haven't done this.

The first issue (and arguably the biggest issue, as none of the other stuff matters until this is decided), is whether or not DS will move to a new site.

We've already established that about half of us want to move to a new site completely, while the other half of us are saying either delete or archive old threads and be done with it. Both have their advantages, both have their disadvantages. Regardless of whether or not you move, Complex was right in that getting a custom domain would probably help increase flow to the site. On the other hand that'll cost money, and if you don't want to pay right away, you could make a new site, transfer stuff over to it, and the url could be like the narutorplay.proboards.com one.

As mentioned before, moving allows other sites to think that it's a new site completely, thus eliminating any issues with old advertisements and affiliations. Granted if there hasn't been much of that going on for quite some time, those ads could be naturally buried, or could have been deleted already. Something to consider about this though is whether or not site that members of DS advertised on are still around or not. If not, then the ad is no longer relavent anyway (if the site was just closed down as opposed to being deleted altogether). If it is, then as I just said, it's either been buried or deleted. And if it hasn't, then it probably isn't frequented that much itself, in which case advertising there wouldn't be my first choice anyway.

Redundancy is hated, but I'm going to be redundant anyway. Moving the site allows you to change the url to something that can get more hits when people use google. And you don't have to get a custom domain. So that solution is free, as opposed to paying Proboards to change the url. If you did decide to get a custom domain, it'd cost about as much to do that as it would to have Proboards change the url to another .proboards url (depending on which custom domain service you use, I'm quoting namecheap.com). So staying here would require you to pay for a url change, whereas a new forum wouldn't. The custom domain would simply be optional at that point. Keep in mind that Proboards doing their proboards url change is a one time fee, where the custom domain is a yearly charge.

So just going off that information, creating a new site (not factoring in the time it would take to transfer information such as rules and so on, those are going to be changed anyway from the sounds of things), is probably the smartest option. That way you don't have to pay money for a new url if you don't want to, at least not right away.

Now as for the clutter argument when it comes to moving or staying, that may or may not be an easier aspect to settle.

Archiving everything old takes time. First you have to figure out what needs archiving. Then you archive everything. And then you'd have to redo all the parts that need redoing. I don't know about you, but that seems to me like that's more time consuming that creating a new site and just putting up the new content there. I could be wrong, depending on how detailed you would archive the stuff here so that you could stay here. Deleting it all and then posting up the new stuff here may be faster, but then you lose any references you have to this version of DS (unless somebody backed up all the information from the site recently, which is probable, but highly unlikely).

Okay? With me so far? Good.

On the other hand moving to a new site allows you to use this site as a reference, without having to lock everything, move it to new boards (if you archive that way), and then redo everything based off that. That alone makes it seem like less of a hassle for me. Granted you might want to go and make it so that nobody can join/post anymore on this version of the site should you choose to move, but eh, that's not that time consuming a project (I've done so numerous times on sites with more boards, sub-boards, and the like than this site).

So that's another thing to look at. You have to weigh the monetary costs, and the time costs, and then you can make a decision on whether or not to move.

And to be honest, based off of what all I've seen so far that you guys are saying needs to be done/redone, moving the site seems like it's a better choice for everyone. May not seem like it at first, but in the long run it really is. Agree or disagree with me all you want, there's no question that the most important thing when it comes to this decision is what's best in the long run.

Now what you guys think is best may differ from what I think will be best, but what do I know? I've only been a part of about 15 unsuccessful forums, half of which managed to turn it around, some because of someone saying pretty much the exact same thing I just said. And I've been apart of a lot more successful forums that had already done this.

But my personal experiences may differ greatly from yours; I can't, and I won't, deny that.

But that's it from me for now.

[Spring [Complex]]

Stellar quality post Angy, thanks very much for this. Also everyone who's participated now, please check your PMs. We'll be aiming to wrap up the many points of debate exactly as Angy prescribed soon. Thanks for everyone's patience and contributing to the little list of "How to Revive DS 2011 edition". Let's get this show on the road, everyone!