Forum migration coming up soon

[Reader]

Hello Dragon's Dance players,

Quick heads-up to let you know that Forumatic is shutting down on the 20th of December, so I'll be moving the forum to a new host soon.

1) Suggestions for good free hosts warmly received.
2) Considering a paid host this time: suggestions warmly received or may go with Bluehost for ease of transfer.

Forumatic announcement:

https://www.forumatic.com/shutdown/

Don't panic about any of this, should lead to a more reliable host, will retain old posts and might even give access to funkier themes (some of you might remember the splendid forum theme "
Southron Ambitions"
had).

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

Proboards is the only other free forum service I have much experience of, but might be worth a look. It's very similar to this.

[Reader]

Proboards is the only other free forum service I have much experience of, but might be worth a look. It's very similar to this.

Cheers, will give it a look tomorrow.

Bluehost isn't expensive and I'm less wary of spending a small amount on hosting now that the game has run for a while, but happy to hear ideas from everyone.

[Loreia]

Maybe some of us can chip in, if that helps.

I'm a member on some forums created with forumotion. Free service, to my knowledge.

[Reader]

Maybe some of us can chip in, if that helps.

I'm a member on some forums created with forumotion. Free service, to my knowledge.

Cheers, that supports phpBB 3 (which this runs off), while I don't think proboards does so.

Don't worry about the cost - well within my means. Paying gives people (justifiable!) expectations too! Appreciate the sentiment however.

If I ever have a fund-raising it will probably be to commission a cast painting or similar (we did this for the Legend of the Five RIngs Winter Couty I participated in), rather than hosting costs.

[Baelon Drakeson]

BitW was on proboards, and frankly had nicer editing tools/schemes (keyboard shortcuts, background image). If transferring content would be an issue though, that would be of higher importance.

[Reader]

BitW was on proboards, and frankly had nicer editing tools/schemes (keyboard shortcuts, background image). If transferring content would be an issue though, that would be of higher importance.

BitW definitely had better tools. Will investigate if a transfer is possible. I particularly liked the scrolling chatroom style feature on the main page, gave the whole thing a community feel. Agree that preserving the old stuff is key, which is easiest with another phpBB 3 board.

Other issue is the backend stuff being similar/the same - I'd massively prefer this as learning a new bunch of Admin settings doesn't appeal.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Other issue is the backend stuff being similar/the same - I'd massively prefer this as learning a new bunch of Admin settings doesn't appeal.

Fair enough. I was in my head considering that a part of the potential transition issues - so much of what makes this game function well is appropriate forum access set-up.

[Reader]

Other issue is the backend stuff being similar/the same - I'd massively prefer this as learning a new bunch of Admin settings doesn't appeal.

Fair enough. I was in my head considering that a part of the potential transition issues - so much of what makes this game function well is appropriate forum access set-up.

I'm anticipating something going wrong with the privacy setting during handover leading to untold secrets being spilled. Will need to watch out for this..

[Septon Arlyn]

Maybe some of us can chip in, if that helps.

I'm a member on some forums created with forumotion. Free service, to my knowledge.

Cheers, that supports phpBB 3 (which this runs off), while I don't think proboards does so.

Don't worry about the cost - well within my means. Paying gives people (justifiable!) expectations too! Appreciate the sentiment however.

If I ever have a fund-raising it will probably be to commission a cast painting or similar (we did this for the Legend of the Five RIngs Winter Couty I participated in), rather than hosting costs.

I would actually love this... How much are we talking to do a commission like that? maybe even have house commissions?

[Reader]

c£100-£150 for high quality stuff a few years ago, very affordable. Number may have moved a little and depends on style, how many characters you jam in and finding the right person.

I may well do one or two off my own bat at one point. Commission, not paint. Paying for things is my strong suit, not painting things. :;
):

[Septon Arlyn]

So question on this... should I back up all my personal form stuff on a word document so I can easily transfer to the next website?

[Loreia]

He will be picking up a forum where that's easy to do without having to take notes. I am not sure how that's supposed to work though.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Personal forum stuff should transfer if the rest of the forums do. Having backups never hurts though, and losing a character sheet would.
If you have important PMs I'd recommend saving those - in my (informed but not expert) opinion, those are the most likely thing to be lost.

[Septon Arlyn]

Yeah I already have a lot of important PMs transferred to my personal forum anyways.

[Loreia]

I have been periodically copy-pasting my PM's to notes for an archive.

We should have some notice before it happens, with information on what the players should be doing to save what otherwise won't be moved.

[Reader]

I have been periodically copy-pasting my PM's to notes for an archive.

We should have some notice before it happens, with information on what the players should be doing to save what otherwise won't be moved.

I'll endeavour to do this.

Should be able to find a solution that moves everything over, will do some investigating this weekend! I'll hopefully be able to briefly run both in parallel to check things are working.

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

Anyone know how to change one's e-mail address on here?

[Reader]

Anyone know how to change one's e-mail address on here?

I can do it!

[Reader]

I've tried to give people access to their house forums once more.

However, you personall forums (nested within House forums) present a challenge - I can' seem to set foum access on a user by user basis, only for group. My tentative solution is to allow each group to see all of their fellow House member forums. This is inelegant. Bah. Suggestions welcome - this is the best compromise solution I've come up with. Open to objections/alternatives.

[Ser Walton Dulver]

if it's not possible to separate by user, You could just leave all House members' folders visible for everybody within House. I think we are big enough to not look up stuff which isn't ours, right?

[Baelon Drakeson]

That's annoying. Creating a group for each player should work, but would definitely be a lot of work.

House-public private forums makes it rather difficult to keep secrets from the rest of your house, which presents a problem if anyone is playing against the interests/politics of another house member. It also presents difficulties when we need to keep minor things secret too, like joust maneuvers when house members face each other. We can resort to PMing with you for such things, but that's liable to cause havoc with your inbox.

I'll think on this more, to see if I can come up with any other proposals.

if it's not possible to separate by user, You could just leave all House members' folders visible for everybody within House. I think we are big enough to not look up stuff which isn't ours, right?

The issue is that those forums would also come up in the unread posts listing and such... making it very easy to accidentally click on something you shouldn't.

[Reader]

That's annoying. Creating a group for each player should work, but would definitely be a lot of work.

That works, but is filed under "way too much work".

Thanks for thoughts so far, will ponder this further and do more digging.

[Theomore Tullison]

There's only group permissions allowed?

How did it work on old place?

Anyhow, if it works as I think it does, it's not really much work once you:
1) Get the hang of it.
2) Only need to bother with new people who tends to come in one by one.

[Baelon Drakeson]

It can be done!

Or at least, according to this help forum page. Specifically, scroll down to section II.

It still seems like a lot of work, but less than creating a group for each user.

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