Build a new and a better forum where 100% ad revenue goes directly to Zanz?

[chriskang]

1. Chances are high that you won't get any answer from him. What's plan B then? Do it without his consent or abandon the idea?

2. I always wondered why the forum was made here in first place. We have absolutely no control over the administration which is quite a shame. We could do so much more with a fresh phpBB install. Same goes for the wiki. Why use wikia when you can install a new Mediawiki on any domain in something like 10 minutes.

3. I don't care about that

4 & 5. Custom templates is a good idea. I can help with that.

6. Who could disagree with that?

7. Again I might be able to help. A script to migrate all the content from this forum to another shouldn't be that hard to code.

8th point was: "who will be admin/mod" but you already answered that. So no more question for me.

[chriskang]

Sounds impossible to me but then again I'm not the script guy

"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

A script like this can do the job in less than 2 minutes:
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=589439&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
... and only requires an install on the phpBB side.
An access to the SMF database is also needed. Do you have this access EH? Or if you don't have it, are you allowed to create a backup of the database?

It wouldbe neat if they could be merged somehow- though I have no clue how that would work...

Are we talking about a merge between the old and the new forum? Or between the wiki and the forum?

[Evil Hamster]

If its a script, I imagine it would need to be run on each individual board. If it had to be run on individual threads or pages, that would be a nightmare...

[Evil Hamster]

If you can get all that done, then great!

I'm only doing the admin job cause I wanted the forums back not because I want to be in control

And it is a pain in the backside...

If you do start this, I will assist any way I can.

[Evil Hamster]

It wouldbe neat if they could be merged somehow- though I have no clue how that would work...

[Evil Hamster]

An access to the SMF database is also needed. Do you have this access EH? Or if you don't have it, are you allowed to create a backup of the database?

Its not possible.

[jmizzle7]

I think it's a great idea, SG. I really want to see Elements develop, and every little bit of revenue helps. Even though this is considered the "official" Elements forum, Zanz isn't affiliated with it one bit. It's only here so us players can talk about the game. All that aside, I think that if we were to show our support for his great game by revamping the official forum and allowing the ads to fund him directly, maybe we would see more development on the game itself. I wish I could help with the technical stuff, but my only real experience I have is with Java and C++, not websites.

[Scaredgirl]

I don't really care who builds the forum but he better be someone who has done it before, AND have time to do it. Even an idiot can build a hosted forum like this one but building and customizing a forum is not a small task if you do it all by yourself from scratch.

I don't care who the admins/mods are, I've said from day one that I don't want any of those jobs. Also like I've said before, I only care about the game and Zanz getting more money would be the #1 way to benefit this game.

If that forum is built on Zanz server, after it's finished, he can just change the password and become the only person with full control over this forum. This way a disaster would never happen, unless of course if Zanz goes nuts or something.

[Scaredgirl]

If we go ahead with this, I'm sure there are a lot of non-technical tasks available, like coming up with ideas, etc. Especially if we also redo the Wiki.

[Scaredgirl]

This is what I suggest:

1. I will contact Zanz and as him if it's ok to build new official forums. If he says yes, then I proceed to step 2.

2. I will build a new phpBB3 forum and host it on my own GoDaddy hosting plan, FREE of charge! (or even better if Zanz has some hosting plan, and we could use that instead)

3. Community will have a vote on what style to choose. There are hundreds of different templates available, here's one I took by random: http://www.awesomestyles.com/forums/index.php?action=switchtheme&style=305&bbtheme=DJS%20ClearForest

4. After choosing the template, I will modify it to have an Elements theme. This means that instead of regular icons and buttons we would have quantum icons etc. Also we could use some of the graphics in the game/cards. The goal is that the forum would look like the game.

5. As for the forum itself, we can customize it however we want. We can add all kinds of cool features. There are no limits like we have now. For example we could integrate chat module to this forum chat demo (http://chat.ecobytes.net/).

6. I will make an Google Adsense account and put a couple of ads on our forum (just like we have now). I will use Zanzarino's paypal so ALL revenues go directly to him. This means more money to Zanz which means more money to the development of Elements.

7. Then we will move the most important threads from this forum to the new one. This is going to take a while but I'm sure we will have enough volunteers to do the job. The longer we wait, the bigger process this will be. I say we act now while we still can. Otherwise we're stuck with this horrible forum forever.


The main motive for this suggestion is that Zanz gets more money -> Elements gets more love. There is no hidden agenda involved. When we are using this Simple Machines forum, we are basically giving money to people who have NOTHING to do with Elements, which is wrong imo.

What do you think?

[Scaredgirl]

1. Chances are high that you won't get any answer from him. What's plan B then? Do it without his consent or abandon the idea?

There is no plan B. If I don't get a reply from him then this project is probably dead. Unless we can come up with some kind of redirect system or something.

2. I always wondered why the forum was made here in first place. We have absolutely no control over the administration which is quite a shame. We could do so much more with a fresh phpBB install. Same goes for the wiki. Why use wikia when you can install a new Mediawiki on any domain in something like 10 minutes.

History of this forum
This forum was started by Pilchard, a regular player like you and me. Apparently Zanz didn't have the time or energy to do a real official forum so he gave his blessing to this one. Huge mistake.

After non-stop trolling by our regular loser troll, Pilchard gave up and closed the forums down. After a week or so he gave the admin rights to EvilHamster (regular user like you and me), and this forum has been run by EH ever since.

So this is basically a forum run by fans who have nothing to do with the development of this game, and it's full of ads whose revenues don't go to Zanz.


Yep. It would be a great idea to redo the wiki also. It's full of all kinds of crap and I haven't even bothered to go there for a long time. Wiki needs a fresh start maybe more than this forum does.

4 & 5. Custom templates is a good idea. I can help with that.

Great. The less work for me the better. Doing an Elements forum style would be a cool challenge I think.

7. Again I might be able to help. A script to migrate all the content from this forum to another shouldn't be that hard to code.

If you could do something like that it would be awesome. That's something I know nothing about and it would help the transition tremendously.

[Scaredgirl]

It wouldbe neat if they could be merged somehow- though I have no clue how that would work...

Chriskang talked about some "migrating script" earlier on this thread. Sounds impossible to me but then again I'm not the script guy, I usually use code made by other people. 

As long as we can salvage all the most important threads I'm happy. Who reads those 6 month year old discussions anyways?