Right, changing hosts is no small matter. I'm sure some people don't even like discussing it but if TLR's host did attach strings to the hosting then we should probably know what they are. If those strings include stuff like not being able to use open source software on the website, or worse, not support open source gaming or something then we need to know. I like the notion that m$ is paying for this, actually goes go to improving their image in my mind but they have a long, long ways left to go. If TLR has to move else where to grow and improve, then it needs to be discussed and if a move isn't necessary then that probably needs to be known too.

The Openlancer project is waiting for a wiki and its clear that the most benefit is in hosting it on TLR so everyone has easy access to it. This isn't a matter of looking for a hand out for the project, it could certainly be hosted else where. Its a matter of location, accessibility, and supporting cooperative development by the entire community. To a lesser degree its also a matter of compiling everything known about the games covered here into a more centralized reference database thats easier to use than the forums. A wiki can do a lot for this site and the community.

The SVN and DAM servers would be a great asset but those can wait or be hosted else where. We need a wiki thats centered in the community.


-Burn

"Only the dead have seen the end of war"-Plato

No, it's not really that complicated. What I said still stands. Nobody in their right mind would donate within the parameters laid out here. Plenty of webmasters spend thousands of dollars out of pocket each year to keep their communities going, without accepting any donations or running any ads. If you operate differently, that's nothing to be ashamed about, unless you're lying about it or trying to cover up what's really going on.

The "parameters" for the hosting have been stated already, during the discussions held back when this topic was relevant. I doubt it will get discussed whenever someone else wants to know about it, but you should be able to find information out by searching for it all - it was roughly, well, about 8 months ago I think.

My personal feeling was that the site is run by people, and they run it how they see fit... not the community itself - they just benefit. Regardless, the site isn't mine, I have nothing to do with it, and if you wish to know more, then I suggest you contact the admins - or search for the old discussions (which will probabily be faster and more informative seeing as you can see what actually transpired).

As for donations - so don't donate. You aren't forced to, you aren't asked to either - so this site is exactly like the ones you are mentioning then right?

My reply was to someone else whom expected the admins to do exactly what they thought they should do, costing the admins alone whatever it may cost, without any forthought or consideration as to that fact. The simple reason was, if the site would cost to much for them to run - then the site would disappear. Simple, honest, reason. It was all to do with the hosting, and it was all to point out that although some don't like the hosting, we're damned lucky to have it. Essentially the post was to point out just how easy it is to sit back and throw insults and "you should do this" around, without having to then burden the consequences, especially if it would be detrimental to the site itself... then it's either time to recognise this fact (by putting them in the same shoes, by putting up some moola for it), or leave it to be run by those whom are already doing the job.

As it currently stands, your view of "not donating because the site is hosted by the richest man" is rather amusing. You do realise that the content posted is done by BP, as is the site maintenance and running right? There is no pay for him, no money, no reward, and hell - not even a thankyou 99% of the time. No recognition, no reward, and no real reason (apart from he's a top notch bloke who enjoys spending his time). Now what would I donate for, the costs of running a site? Or more like a tip towards someones hard work, a show of appreciation for what they provide for the people for no thanks or consideration.

Guess I view things from a different perspective to most though, because I am obviously alone in this viewpoint. I have never donated towards the cost of bandwidth for a site, but maybe the overall running cost (these guys pay for any upgrades, software, hardware etc) - even then I don't think I have donated for that specific reason before. My only reason I ever donate is to reward the people whom provide services free of charge, that is it. I donate if I benefit from something massively, for no charge at all. I donate if I utilise something provided, and it serves a purpose for me - from which I benefit, for no charge at all. Obviously our views on donations differ completely, for you it's the bandwidth, for me it's the people and their time I donate... and they can use said money to go out for dinner, buy a movie, have a chocolate bar etc.

As for other sites, I run my own, take no donations, and pay for it all myself... doesn't bother me in the slightest, only costs £100 a year.

And for the wikki, I thought I said try contacting admins directly? It is their site, they run it, they pay for the stuff etc. I still personally see that only yourselves will benefit from such a thing, and that if they provide for one, then they should provide for all... but as I keep saying ad nauseum, I have no part of those decisions - so it has no bearing upon whether you may get what you wish or not.

Email addresses are off the main page, via the staff page link.


Edited by - Chips on 1/13/2006 1:07:20 AM

Chips,
A lot of people put in a lot of time on a lot of projects. If people donated money based on the amount of time other people put into a project or based on how much they used a project's "product" or "service" there would be money flying around all over the place. Not to mention the side effects of that with people's expectations and what not. So I only donate based on stated goals, like new hardware, paying a service bill (e.g. bandwidth), etc... Stuff that the people putting in the time would otherwise have to pay for out of pocket. That can include a little "padding" to cover other expenses. Point being that people only put in serious amounts of time on stuff like this if they really like what they're doing, not to make money and generally if money becomes a factor then it can cause the line between "fun" and "work" to blur to the point where its not fun anymore.

I think ads are good for getting some money for your time/effort. Including charging a service fee to remove the adds and/or any membership type things that offer more services than the free membership. The model of tapping a community with ads seems to work but the membership aspect of it normally has a negative effect on the community long term.

So I think the current setup works well but if TLR wanted to do a donation drive to get money for new hardware or whatever else then that would probably work well too without having a negative effect on the community. Look at the donation drives Wikipedia or public broadcasting have, that system works well.

As for the wiki, I emailed bakedpotatoe and Eraser but I haven't gotten a reply yet. I also posted comments about that on the Openlancer forum on here and on the Haven server forums. I want to keep some level of constant attention focused on this but I'm not really sure what else to do. Adding a wiki wouldn't cost anything directly so I can't see donating money to get them to add it. If the server needs an upgrade or something then they can put together a donation drive to pay for it.


-Burn

"Only the dead have seen the end of war"-Plato

There could also be the issue wether Wiki would work with this sites code. And the effort it would require to add it, upkeep it and troubleshoot it when nessisary. As BP does ovre 90% of the work on the site, his plate is a little full as well.

Id just like to say one thing about this, thanks i never realised how much effort and work it took untill now, so thank you guys for creating this site and keeping it working

Nothing is impossible. Just improbable.

Indeed, I second that, thank you bakedpotatoe and Eraser. I may seem critical of this site or something but it's a greate site that I'm only trying to make better...

The wiki should work fine with the existing code. Just have to install it into its own folder and replace the existing menu links with new links to the wiki pages. Should take all of maybe 30min to install the wiki and a couple minutes per link. They shouldn't have to worry about moving the content over, thats the general community's job. The only complicated part would be syncing the user database, that could take hours to days work out. If they skip syncing accounts then everyone will have to register twice, once on the forums and once on the wiki.

There are a few ways to sync the accounts. Probably the best option is to set them up to use the same user database but that would require adding fields to the existing database for the wiki along with some recoding on both systems. Another option is use a server side script to automatically keep the two user databases in sync, probably the fastest but also has the highest potential for problems. Another option is splice the user registration pages together so users only register once, then do a mass batch conversion to auto register all current TLR members on the wiki, and maintain two user databases. Another option is leave the wiki open so users don't have to register to edit pages but to have to register to move stuff, add categories, upload stuff, etc, this would kind of bypass the issue to some degree since only users that heavily use the wiki would have to register and realistically people that only do minor edits to the wiki don't need to register anyway (I don't like that option, I think only registered users should be allowed to edit pages but this is the easiest/fastest option).

There are probably a few other options I'm either forgetting or don't know about. Point is there are a wide range of options to make this work. I'm happy to help if I can.


-Burn

"Only the dead have seen the end of war"-Plato

I spoke to Bakedpotato.
You can ask him yourself, but he said that it would not be possible to use the wiki, because of the fact the everyone will be able to edit it.
You'll do best to ask him about it personally though

I did, I emailed him over a week ago. The wiki can be set to require user registration to edit pages and any page and/or category can be locked to prevent people from editing it, including TLR site content moved over to the wiki. Thats really the point though, everyone can edit it so we can have cooperative community development. I'll email him again but it would be nice if he would reply to this thread and the wiki thread...

EDIT: I emailed him again asking for a simple test run of the wiki, just installing it and quietly adding a link on the main menu. If the test goes well then maybe in a few months some of the static TLR content can be moved over. This is a reasonable middle ground here. MediaWiki is a solid system with plenty of management and anti-spam controls. If properly managed I doubt spam, abusive users, or bad content will be a major problem. If I'm wrong and the test run fails then so be it, nothing is really risked and the resource cost to TLR is minimal. If the test goes well then the wiki can be developed into a major community asset for cooperative community content development.

I know some of you guys have doubts about using a wiki but please support a simple test run just to see what happens one way or the other.


-Burn

"Only the dead have seen the end of war"-Plato

Edited by - MegaBurn on 1/17/2006 12:36:15 AM

I have some new info, Lancers runs duel 1.3 processors, and we have problems with the amount of data on the server, as it brings it down from time to time daily, so the probalbility of adding even more data, will be less than ideal. It may be simple that you will need your own server to run wiki, rather than on lancers.

There's a couple of things we would like to do before we expand into anything, especially something like wiki. That would be up to the Moderators anyway (more or less) as they would have to be the ones putting in the time to check the content constantly.

First we would like to get the whole site re-coded which Arcon was in the process of doing but he moved to a new location and I don't know what his plans are.
Second we would like to get a new server. The current server is old and needs to be upgraded. I don't see that happening unless maybe we ask for donations. I can get a dual 3.0 xeon server that Rich aka the Raw server operator offered but my hands are tied by my wife as far as paying for it myself. So unless we ask for donations to buy the new server I don't see that happening. We've never asked for donations nor do we want to bombard the community with advertisements to get some kind of income coming in, that is if we could get some income that way.

If you have any suggestions feel free to let us know what they might be...

What about a donation drive? Just follow the general model used by Wikipedia or the various public broadcasting companies.

I don't have a good feel for the numbers but off the top of my head, I think the stats average to something like 15% of the user base should donate but I think our user base is a little younger than normal, so maybe 10%. So if we have something like 5,000 semi-regular users that would be around 500 people. If everyone puts in US$10 thats US$5,000. Most people won't put in a fixed amount like that, some are likely to donate more, some less.

But the planning should be a little more detailed than that, starting with running some more accurate numbers. Then maybe add a donation page with stated goals for the donation drive, like "we want a new server that costs $x, we have $y fund available, and we need the community to help us meet our goal by donating $z." Could add a progress bar or ticker, or something. And of course move the donation button to the top of the page, it was literally 3 months before I even noticed it was there. Detailed specs on the current server, new server, and the data/processing load on the current server would be good too.

I'm not sure if I can help much, other than donating and running around asking other people to donate.


-Burn

"Only the dead have seen the end of war"-Plato

Mega, this is not an attack, but a quriosity question. Why are you so fired up sure we need Wiki at all? I personally don't see the need for it.

A simple question but I don't have a simple answer, other than that adding a wiki will be good for the community. I'm already said most/all of this in other threads but here it is again, my reasoning is this:

In part its a matter of current needs. The Openlancer project development team and Haven Enterprise mod development team each need a wiki for content creation. If a single wiki were hosted on TLR rather than two independent wiki's then there would be a greater potential for cooperative development between the two teams. As more projects begin to use TLR's wiki for content creation the potential for cooperative development would increase exponentially. Openlancer in particular is at a critical point where if it is given development resources centered in the greater TLR community it will survive, if it branches off on its own without community support it, statistically, will probably fail. I'm on both development teams and am willing to fight for resources that will benefit each of them, so the potential of a TLR hosted wiki is a major goal as it will benefit both.

In part its a matter of having the right tools for the job. TLR has a massive amount of static content on the forums but forum systems are simply not designed to manage static content. Moving this stuff over to a wiki would make it easier to search, correct, expand, and otherwise manage. If the general static site content were also moved over to the wiki then it could readily be turned into an encyclopedia of Freelancer and ultimately an encyclopedia could be added for each game supported by TLR. With content ranging from general game features, to full storyline details, to a wider range of higher quality tutorials. For me this boils down to both ease of access and ease of adding to these resources. For the TLR management is should be a major concern as any games they decide to support will need a certain amount of new static content written (fan site stuff), this can be done by the general community as a whole if its placed on the wiki.

In part its a matter of the future of TLR. Some people are saying the game industry is dying, including some career industry veterans, and the general stagnation of the industry is obvious. I think the future of game development will be centered in online communities. Some may be commercially sponsored to create commercial products while others will probably be more like genre specific versions of Source Forge to create free open community developed open source games. I think if TLR wants to grow then it will need to take up a model similar to the latter and change its focus to free open community open source games. Doing this now will allow TLR to become a leader in this trend and to some degree go to ensure TLR's long term survival. That goes well beyond adding a wiki but its a start. My own personal interest in this is kind of mixed, I want to fight the greed and stagnation of the industry, or you might say to “help its death along to a more rapid conclusion”, while at the same time doing something to help create these new development communities. I like TLR so I figured this would be a good starting point.

In part its also part of the rather idealistic realization of the full potential of games as interactive content medium rather than “just entertainment”. Modern games are a proxy for reality in a manor that allows people to escape from their normal lives into some abstracted and generally idealistic fantasy world. This is fine in general but its generally filtered for mass market consumption and always lacking the finer details. A good example of the potential of games as a proxy for reality is how people use to read National Geographic to see the world, or read news papers from other countries as a proxy for visiting those countries. Now people talk to people from other countries on forums like this one and on IRC chat, and by other mediums traditionally designed for just communication. Not surprisingly game mods frequently add so much to the game that most players can't see playing the original game without the mods, prime examples are Morrowind and to a somewhat lesser degree Freelancer (due to more limited modding support). Then there is always seeing art, reading stories, listening to music, watching TV/movies, etc from other cultures and/or countries. For the full potential of the culmination of all of these elements - and the next logical step in the evolution of game design - to be fully realized then a system for creating them must be in place. TLR already has the multinational/multicultural community so its a prime candidate for becoming a platform to support the development of this “next level” of gaming (as opposed to yet another “next generation” of the current model of game design).

Most of the above goes well beyond just adding a wiki but in general is a good first step in the right direction. It's important to keep in mind that a wiki is a content creation platform, unlike a forum which is designed to be a communication platform. The next two systems required for most of the above are a source code management system and a digital asset management system. Then finally some project management stuff. Honestly I think TLR should abandon hosting mods and focus on content creation, that would free up the necessary server resources to handle content asset management rather than just hosting files. If a new server will allow TLR to both continue hosting file downloads and expand into content asset management then its certainly worthy of a donation drive. To that effect I'd suggest suggest submitting an announcement to Slashdot to bring more attention to the cause but that would probably flood the server into a total melt down.

I should also note that to a lesser degree having TLR host the wiki would save me from having to host it for Haven Enterprise and possibly Openlancer. I'd rather donate money to TLR than pay larger bills to my web host. Realistically for me to ask for donations to support hosting this stuff I would have to offer more services. For me to do so doesn't make sense when you consider TLR already has a community base and a much better hosting arrangement.

I want to see all of this happen and as far as I'm concerned it will happen, its just a question of when, where, and how. Thats what I'm all fired up about. The needs of Haven Enterprise and Openlancer, and the future of TLR and future of game design/development.


-Burn

"Only the dead have seen the end of war"-Plato