What do we want?

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:23 am

OK, so I got a little ahead of myself by recreating what looks like a 'real' forum (all the sections etc) before we could get a chance to discuss what to do next. That doesn't mean I'm not open to ideas, just that I was having a bit of fun.

When the last site went down, I promised that as soon as they allowed it back up again I'd create a basic forum, maybe with only one forum section, so we could talk about what we wanted. So, here we go.

Here's how I see it. The free forums, particularly that last one, are extremely easy to setup and manage and have a lot of great features. Without going any further, the free forums do share one common flaw: we can't get our hands on the database. I was all excited about rebuilding on freeforums until I learned that the backup database would be encrypted so would only work on freeforums. IOW, you can't grab the database, which is all messages, members, etc. and go someplace else. This is particularly vexing if the free site changes it's business model and starts charging or simply goes out of business. IMO, you have to own and have access to your database.

On paid sites, like Glenn is sharing with us here, the database is ours to do with as we want. Great! The problem is they can be a lot of work. I won't pretend to understand half of the options in running this site and already have a couple of issues I don't yet no how to solve. This particular setup is even more complicated since (for the technical amongst us) it's running a RavenNuke modded php-Nuke rather than a plain vanilla phpBB (which is also here). Glenn has been very helpful so far but he's a busy guy with his own site and though I'm sure he'll help in an emergency. I have a good friend who I can also reach out to but what happens if I disappear? So, while we have our database we'll need to be much more self-supporting. For instance, can anyone figure out why the BBCode isn't displaying correctly even though it's enabled in the ACP? Yikes!

Finally, though Glenn has been great and hasn't mentioned money at all, I imagine we should consider chipping in once in awhile for the site.

OK, I've typed enough. Since we have our database, enter all you want throughout the site whilst we discuss.

What do you think?

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:29 am

to be honst. I do enjoy an attachment feature for adding images to

postings:idea:

and < i do believe, you are right about, glenn being to busy Shocked

and, to have all our toys in the hands of one admin, [aka..tim] is quite dangerous Twisted Evil

soo many questions, so little time
Rolling Eyes

why doesnt the avatar upload from our computers work Question

does glenn have a back up, in case he goes away

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:42 am

holysmokes wrote:

to be honst. I do enjoy an attachment feature for adding images to

hmmm...have to look for the mod for that. Personally I never used it preferring to link to photobucket but that's just me and I know it was useful to many over at vjmog, too.

holysmokes wrote:

postings:idea:

and < i do believe, you are right about, glenn being to busy Shocked

and, to have all our toys in the hands of one admin, [aka..tim] is quite dangerous Twisted Evil

Or in this case, aka....me. No worries, as soon as I learn a bit more you'll also be an admin and maybe more will, too. Right now, the way I get into the admin function is weird and hard to describe. Working on it.

holysmokes wrote:

soo many questions, so little time
Rolling Eyes

why doesnt the avatar upload from our computers work Question

hmmm...it should. Maybe related to the attachment issue above? Goes on the list

holysmokes wrote:

does glenn have a back up, in case he goes away

Excellent question!

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:55 am

over on the F site Glen has a donation box set up, it costs about 40.00 a month to run the site, members can donate a few bucks to keep to site running, might be a good idea to do that here also

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:11 am

we need to have mucho input from members

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:45 am

My avatar won't load from Photobucket or my machine. It is 170 kb and the max size is whatâ€¦ 9kb? Just something else I'm too big for. Laughing

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:52 am

Hoss wrote:

My avatar won't load from Photobucket or my machine. It is 170 kb and the max size is whatâ€¦ 9kb? Just something else I'm too big for. Laughing

I am having the same problem and I am sure it will be worked out soon.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:54 am

I just want a CB site that will be there when I try to login. Confused

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:56 am

GaryL wrote:

I just want a CB site that will be there when I try to login. Confused

You found one, welcome home.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:40 am

Hoss wrote:

My avatar won't load from Photobucket or my machine. It is 170 kb and the max size is whatâ€¦ 9kb? Just something else I'm too big for. Laughing

Hoss, max size is only for uploaded avatars. Can you link instead?

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:13 pm

GaryL wrote:

I just want a CB site that will be there when I try to login. Confused

Actually this is the place where we discuss that very issue.

The only issue I have with using Glenn's hardware is that if it goes down, we'll likely loose both sites. If we stay, I do think we should be a paying customer. I doubt our bandwidth will ever be anywhere near as high as CB1100f.net, but we will undoubtedly have some issues to take to him from time to time, and I think at least some compensation should be in order; it might help to circumvent some anxiety in advance.

I also believe we should have several admins, but they'll need to work together obviously. Also I think each admin should be able to keep the keys to a backup stored someplace or two off the server, and that backups should be done at least once a week, perhaps on a rotational basis by the admins, so they are all familiar with the process. Any mods that are done that backups don't cover should also be documented with directions and stored in commonly available locations for the admins if a restore is needed, and they all need to be familiar with how to do that as well. Let's face it, we're bikers and shit happens.

I think the problem with the free forums is much more insidious than it first appears. I think they get you started on a forum on their old hardware with a barely adequate throttle on the bandwidth, then as soon as you get going with lots of hits or complain about the throughput, they'll come at you with a paid account. You can't move, because they keep their questionable encrypted backups unavailable... you can't get it from them to move all your work and time investment, so you either start over or pay up. And if they fuck up and loose your site altogether due to incompetancy or whatever, oh well, no loss to them. Fuck that.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:26 pm

My av is 100 x 78, 326 kb BTW. It's hosted on photobucket and I used the profile link at the top of the page to get to the Avatar control panel. I used the

"Link to off-site Avatar:
Enter the URL of the location containing the Avatar
image you wish to link to."

box to put in the url to my av. It worked fine. I have encountered similar problems on other forums, not being able to get an AV off my local computer. I think the software is set to default to this behavior to keep the amount of information stored on the local server down. With linked AVs the images are stored on remote servers, so storage and bandwidth on the local server are decreased.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:41 pm

genesound wrote:

With linked AVs the images are stored on remote servers, so storage and bandwidth on the local server are decreased.

Makes a lot of sense to this high tech inhibited CBer and now I am loud and proud with avatars and sig pics all from photobucket.com

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:28 pm

we also need a spot that only mods and admins can access

this place will be for storing members email adresses, in case something happens , all can notified

going to other sites, trying to notify our members..using their resources...suck

I have an email adress

hondadohc@gmail.com

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:04 pm

I was linking using the url in the wrong spot. I put it in the link to another site and it worked. Go figure.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:20 pm

A couple things.

1: Don't worry about any $$$ right now. the CBF guys have been incredibly generous. The disk space and bandwith usage by both sites combined isn't even near a limit. I have historical records should we ever need to divy up cost. As of now, and for quite some time it's a non-issue from my perspective.

2: Backups. I can and will commit to backing up the Database and file system on a regular basis. you have also been given access completely to the root of your site and to the database. What does that mean? It means what you see here is just something I threw together, literally out of the box. Youi can tear it down empty the DB and delete all the files if you wish. Whatever you build it completely up to you. Just feel secure that should something horrible happen you now have the tools and authority to fix it.

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:11 pm

That is damn nice of you Glenn ! I'm sure once we are up and running we can generate some cash flow to be self supporting.
I'm due to kick in a donation over at the F-Site anyways. Embarassed

Dave I wish knew little more about PHP code, would be willing to help in anyway I could FWIW. Wink

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:01 am

Pointdiver wrote:

Dave I wish knew little more about PHP code, would be willing to help in anyway I could FWIW. Wink

http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp

That'll get ya started Smile

And though I'm a relatively a newbie to the forums, I'd be willing to donate time if any help is required. I'm a network/systems analyst by day and a computer enthusiast/hobbyist the rest of the time. I don't know PHP very well but I have worked with ColdFusion, which is similar but proprietary. Might be nice to have something to focus and to polish up some.

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 8:31 am

Pointdiver wrote:

That is damn nice of you Glenn !

++1