I resign

[Grav]

I don't have the time, frankly. Fare thee well!

Also, I hate wetwires with all my heart. I can only hope that he may suffer the same slow poisonous death that he has inflicted upon this forum.

[gruesomeBODY]

Im sorry to here that Grav. You actually were awesome as Admin. U will be missed

[KagomJack]

Whoa, I didn't see this coming!

[WetWired]

So you give up? What have you done during your time as admin to reverse this supposed effect I've had?

[Willkillforfood]

He brought me here =D.

[Grav]

So you give up? What have you done during your time as admin to reverse this supposed effect I've had?

Yes, I give up! I forfeit to the absolute vice grip you have on this forum. It seems any idea of Chrusers or mine that you were against was either unimplementable or just not worth your bother. I can't even count how many instant messaging discussions between the three of us have been instantly rejected by you because you have a mental disease and cannot psychologically handle change. Any idea that may be interesting, or at least worth giving a chance, if not wholeheartedly agreed upon by you was shot down. We had to dance around on thin ice to persuade you to do anything because Chruser doesn't even have full access anymore. Even if he did, the code you've implemented is so back-asswards that nobody can make heads or tails of it but you.

Since you have no intention of letting us try new things, I really have no choice but to resign. I cannot afford to spend the countless hours it takes to convince you that something is at least worth trying. Even the things that you did implement, such as large avatars, took too much fighting. Honestly dealing with your mulish attitude leaves me drained.

I don't have the time or energy to help Zelaron any longer... because of you. I hope you enjoy choking the life out of this forum. I really can't see how you can argue otherwise. Even the portal is too little, too late.

I just feel bad for Chruser. It must be somewhat heartbreaking to watch this slow descent of his first pet project and not be able to do anything about it but act politically. I'm pretty sure that in your mind, this is your forum.


If anyone is put aback by this, this has been a long time in the making. I would even say Wetwires is the primary reason the forum has remained mostly stagnant in recent years. I wonder how many would follow us to a new forum, if one was made? Let me know...

[Mantralord]

ww has the ass burgers its not his fault

[KagomJack]

Shows how much I know about what's been going on behind the scenes. =o

[Kaneda]

Just what I was thinking.


Zelaron - You think you know,
But you have no idea.

[Vollstrecker]

This thread has good potential.

[Grav]

Just a few snippets from when my AIM logger actually works, which is rarely and only goes back a few months. This is going from most recent to older as you go down.

---------
GravitonSurge: is there a reasonable way to make it happen? maybe you have to log in somewhere every session to see the forum?
GravitonSurge: I dont know what php is capable of
146763477: Oh, you can do anything with PHP, but I don't want to build something from scratch
---------

---------
GravitonSurge: how feasible is a blog function? it is basically against everything I believe in, but members might like it. see example: http://forums.narutofan.com/blog.php?u=101654
GravitonSurge: or here http://forums.narutofan.com/blog.php?u=33926
146763477: I just don't see a reason for it. If you want to blog, use Live Journal or myspace.
146763477: You can provide a link in your profile
GravitonSurge: because for some of them zelaron is their main blog/outlet as it is
146763477: I still don't think it'd be very usefull
GravitonSurge: well how hard would it be to install
GravitonSurge: is it worth just trying
146763477: I don't think so.
GravitonSurge: would someone else think so
146763477: I doubt it
146763477: Any of the members likely to use it would rather post in the appropriate forum is the feeling I have
GravitonSurge: well, I tried! nevermind!
146763477: We're a close-knit group, so the separation of the blogs isn't really needed
146763477: It's not that I don't appreciate your suggestion, I just don't think it'll get used
---------

[I apologize in advance, Chruser, but they should know]

---------
[07:16] Zelaron: I want to attempt to install vBAdvanced, but I remember you said you've tinkered with it for a while, and it's incompatible with Synthesis
[07:17] WetWired: We've had a portal before; it wasn't all that useful
[07:18] Zelaron: Indeed, and yes, I agree. I am, however, confident that it can and will be useful now.
[07:19] Zelaron: The last one didn't have any board compatibility aside from the news, which you could read on the forum anyway. It was just eye candy that served no purpose, not to mention that it was search-engine incompatible
[07:22] Zelaron: vBAdvanced is significantly better, because not only does it let us add modular pages to it, everything is compatible with the forum and will remove some aspects of stagnation from the community.
[07:24] Zelaron: So it's not even worth a try?
[07:25] WetWired: I didn't say that, I'm just saying that if you don't have any plans for what you do with it once you have it, it's pretty stupid
Zelaron: if you didn't read what I said above, basically, I kind of convinced WW to add a zelaron portal "if its reasons are good enough"
---------

---------
Zelaron: WW would likely disapprove. How dreadfully unfortunate.
---------

---------
146763477: You there?
GravitonSurge: yes
146763477: Why'd you temp ban all those people?
GravitonSurge: so they could revel together
146763477: huh?
Zelaron: haha
GravitonSurge: I feel like I'm at work talking to him
GravitonSurge: talking to my boss
GravitonSurge: except my boss is less of a PITA
---------

---------
GravitonSurge: I may leave zelaron soon
Zelaron: well
Zelaron: I believe you, k_a and I agree
Zelaron: we need to do something radical, asap
Zelaron: everything points toward the utmost demise of Zelaron
Zelaron: the visitor count is slowly declining, no new posts are made
Zelaron: old members are leaving
Zelaron: I am bored with the forum too
Zelaron: I have been bored with it for... a year?
GravitonSurge: my main problem is I am not even interested in talking to the people that are on the forum
Zelaron: I have told WW of its evident demise
GravitonSurge: the ones worth talking to, I talk to on AIM
Zelaron: I think the main purpose of the forum is to gather interesting people
Zelaron: and have the communicate
Zelaron: currently, we get pretty much all of our members from Google
Zelaron: and the content of the threads generally sucks
Zelaron: so we get visitors who search for stupid things
Zelaron: who sign up, and post more stupid things
Zelaron: and suddenly, we have a stupid forum
Zelaron: where morons go to post their hearts' contents
GravitonSurge: lol
GravitonSurge: interesting theory?
Zelaron: well, it works that way
Zelaron: if we have tons of threads about travel, people who search for "paradise vacation", "cruises" and "unabomber" will come to our forum
GravitonSurge: lol.
Zelaron: you get what you put into it
GravitonSurge: unabomber??
Zelaron: he did target at least one airplane during his career, didn't he?
GravitonSurge: dunno
Zelaron: anyway.
Zelaron: we could as well un-trash most threads at this rate
Zelaron: it'd increase seach engine hits due to more content
GravitonSurge: heh
GravitonSurge: maybe those spambots will finally work FOR us!
Zelaron: rpgmaker has kind of faltered as well
Zelaron: either that, or we steal databases from other forums and inject the posts into Zelaron
Zelaron: personally, I'm in favor of doing some dramatic changes. It's just not particularly easy to find out what they are.
Zelaron: If that fails, I'm just going to leave the board running and hope it will by chance get interesting members, but I feel I've done just about everything for it then
Zelaron: unless, of course, we could get our own server
Zelaron: Perhaps we should get rid of all the hacks and start over?
GravitonSurge: I think we've said that a few times
GravitonSurge: so do it =p
Zelaron: unfortunately, there's no "DRASTIC CHANGE HACK" on vbulletin.org
Zelaron: getting that stupid store hack would be nice
Zelaron: but apparently WW... isn't doing it
GravitonSurge: nobody is doing anything
Zelaron: I'm not sure why, but it appears that he's the only guy who can do it.
Zelaron: I don't even know why I have received that impression
Zelaron: oh yeah
Zelaron: IT HAS TO BE LINKED TO THE ACTIVITY HACK!
Zelaron: and guess who the ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD is who understands how that works?
GravitonSurge: ...? lol
GravitonSurge: whatever, fuck WW
---------

---------
Zelaron: nothing is happening to Zelaron right now
Zelaron: we have established this
GravitonSurge: yes, so, zelaron is boring?
Zelaron: pretty much
Zelaron: in fact
Zelaron: I think it would be beneficial to delete all board hacks, keep the posts, and start over with the default vB theme.
Zelaron: why? Because it's a god damn change
Zelaron: NOTHING is happening right now
Zelaron: and now WW's laptop fried as well, so the few changes we did have on the way (such as a store hack) aren't happening either, at least not for a while
Zelaron: oh yeah, I'm in Stockholm, and I can't get a connection at my place any longer
Zelaron: so I won't be online much for a few weeks either
GravitonSurge: I am sooooo tired of synthesis
Zelaron: well, we need... things
Zelaron: even if they're pointless, we need to show members that we are at least TRYING to change the board
Zelaron: "it works now; leave it be" makes it become about an interesting as a museum
Zelaron: but the visitor count has declined too
Zelaron: currently, we get around 700-800 unique visitors per day
Zelaron: which is... okay
Zelaron: but they're not posting
Zelaron: I say we enable anonymous (guest) posting for a while
Zelaron: although moderated.
GravitonSurge: sure
Zelaron: [02:05] 146763477: If we allowed guests to post, we'd get 500 spam threads a day.
Zelaron: SURPRISE
GravitonSurge: hahaha
---------

---------
Zelaron: ugh, why must everything be so... hard?
Zelaron: [06:44] Zelaron: What do you think about vBSEO?
[06:45] 146763477: We don't have any new discussions about anything that anyone would be searching fore.
[06:46] Zelaron: Our 35,220 total discussions include things people are searching for.
[06:48] 146763477: Yeah, but they wouldn't join our community because we don't discuss them anymore. Besides, it may be a huge pain for us since we have to change the encoding of every URL, and we have huge ammounts of template customization
[06:48] Zelaron: Perhaps we don't discuss them because old threads get locked?
[06:49] 146763477: No, because people are no longer interested.
---------

---------
Zelaron: [06:52] Zelaron: Why wouldn't they be? A majority of our unique visitors find us on search engines. It's still difficult to sign up and post.
[06:53] Zelaron: Why don't we allow guests to post as long as they fill in a six character alphanumeric sequence shown on an image? (Similarly to the search on vbulletin.org)?
[06:59] Zelaron: I want to purchase a vBSEO license for $149 and allow guests to post after confirming their "human nature". If it doesn't accomplish anything, too bad. At the moment, we're not taking enough action against the decline in new, active members.
[07:00] 146763477: I really don't want to deal with something as big as vBSEO right now.
[07:02] Zelaron: I don't know how to install Zend anyway, so I can't try it myself.
[07:04] Zelaron: I backed up the database an hour ago, so I'd try it myself and take responsibility for it if anything goes wrong, but I don't have the privileges to install Zend.
[07:07] Zelaron: Privileges would be nice.
[07:08] 146763477: Even I would not be confident installing Zend, especially considering that we are out of contact with our hosting providers if something were to go wrong.
[07:09] Zelaron: John is online.
[07:09] 146763477: I don't see him
[07:09] Zelaron: workjallen
[07:09] Zelaron: he's away
[07:10] 146763477: I have that one on my list. he's offline
[07:10] Zelaron: Maybe he blocked you?
GravitonSurge: why is WW such a pain
Zelaron: I sent him a few of my thoughts
GravitonSurge: hows that
Zelaron: [07:14] Zelaron: I've requested datacenter contact info from John.
[07:15] Zelaron: Anything else I should ask for? I'm heading to bed soon.
[07:15] 146763477: It'd be nice to know if dotsimple changed hands and who I should talk to.
[07:16] Zelaron: I'll let you know tomorrow if I hear anything.
[07:31] Zelaron: The good thing about "trying out risky, new things" is that members see that you make an effort to transcendentalize the community, or "bringing it to the next level" if you wish. Even if the changes fail to become popular enough, they initially draw a lot of attention from members, who know the staff isn't going to sit around and wait for things to happen on their own. When have they ever?

Nothing against your hacks and improvements, the activity hack rules, and the large avatar will definitely make the current members more active. I want one of those too, now. Sup. modding K_A and Lenny was likely a great call. But will new members sign up for any of that? No. Will they sign up if we get better search engine rankings? I don't know, maybe. I don't think there are any set-in-stone formulas for gaining new, active members. I just know we're not getting any.

We built a good member base in the past, and I don't see anything at all that keeps us from doing that now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we kind of... stop taking chances a year and a half ago or so, when the board seemed to "work on its own"? It's like, we have this machine which seems to work fine without any maintenance, but in reality, it is on a slow descent into a deep grave.
Zelaron: [07:34] Zelaron: It's not about "installing radical hacks", it's about making significant changes that WILL MOST LIKELY improve the community, bring members together, give them totally new features to try out and such.
[07:35] Zelaron: a new Zelaron Melee is a good start, and it's relatively simple to get it started.
[07:38] Zelaron: but it's not enough. We're the ones in power to change the community, and find out what it takes to make it "fucking awesome".
[07:38] Zelaron: Enough 7:40 am rambling for now.
[07:43] Zelaron: Sure, if the "change" formula I realize we've used for the first three years of the board's existence suddenly doesn't work any longer, let me know, but right now, I am convinced it is still the best chance we have got of getting anywhere.
[07:43] Zelaron: Thoughts?
[07:50] Zelaron: (The premise is obviously that anything like this would be done AFTER the proper contact information is obtained, so the server doesn't get unusable for weeks on end in the worst case scenario.)
Zelaron: there is probably a ton of grammatical flaws in there, I shouldn't stay up all night as often :-)
Zelaron: maybe he'll kick us off the server now or something, who knows?
GravitonSurge: why?
Zelaron: because I get the feeling that he doesn't agree with me.
GravitonSurge: i know he doesnt
Zelaron: I get the "it is futile to proceed any further. The board works flawlessly, and it shall continue to work this way forever, because I am an immortal robot" vibe from him.
Zelaron: I don't even have the administrative access to perform the changes I want.
Zelaron: I can't really touch the server.
---------

[Demosthenes]

That was an interesting read.

[Vollstrecker]

That was an interesting read.

Indeed. I partially get the vibe that WW doesn't have time to dedicate to helping get some new things running though, I don't suppose there's a way we could attempt to get him some competent help with the site development?

[Willkillforfood]

owned.

[Grav]

Indeed. I partially get the vibe that WW doesn't have time to dedicate to helping get some new things running though, I don't suppose there's a way we could attempt to get him some competent help with the site development?

Of course nobody is expecting him to work on the forums constantly. I certainly don't have the time to do it either. I also don't have the time to try and convince him to do something, though! I am not trying to come across as overly dramatic here. However, his steadfast reluctance to do almost anything new has pretty much pushed me to the limit of what I can reasonably deal with. It got to the point where I found myself preparing essays to present ideas to him rather than just saying, as I would to any of you, "hey, does this sound like a good idea?" It just became beyond ridiculous and I already knew before I would even say anything that it would be an uphill battle the entire way. When I did get the energy to bring something up, it almost always got shot down, even if it was an easy implement and could be removed if it didn't help. I think the large avatars was the only thing I suggested that he did, but the rules he imposed are not what I had in mind.

We can't bring anyone in because a) there is nobody who would want to work on a forum in this floundering state [and we can't get anybody new here because of his restrictions, catch 22] and b) nobody would be able to decipher the code he's got permeating every aspect of this forum! It functions in a way that only he can understand. This on top of the fact that he hosts zelaron on one of his machines means that he has absolute authority and nothing can get done around here, or at the very least, be attempted.

[Vollstrecker]

Well, I largely meant that if WW is a bit too busy to deal with everything on the forum, explaining some of his custom jobs to an assistant would be a great deal better (with a faster turnaround time) than him doing everything when he gets a chance to.

Of course that wouldn't work if he's as obstinate as those logs suggest, but I never really got that impression from him. I suppose we'll see when he replies to this thread.

[Grav]

I see where you are coming from, but unfortunately the voice of reason has failed Chruser and I for a long time.

I honestly don't believe anything substantial can be done unless we change servers, even if I or someone else has to pay for it.

[WetWired]

There's a lot of stuff that I said I wasn't going to do because I just don't have the time. I had hoped that Mantra could take up the code writing/modification, but it seems that he really had no time/desire, either. Why Chrusers claims to have no admin authority, I don't know, either; he has FTP, SSH, and board super admin authority. Also, you didn't post the whole portal convo with Chruser. I agreed to the portal, and actually set it up and did the 8 hours of work to fix its flaws; I just told him we need to come up with stuff to put on it before it goes live.

Also, I've been wanting a new forum style for years, but I'm not an artist, and Chruser has never seemed to have the time to finish designing anything.

[Grav]

I posted what I had. The portal is really just a small part of a larger problem. It does not matter what minor implementations are made over a long period of time, this forum's current state demands large, sweeping changes. And it has for a long time. We just can't get anything accomplished in a fair amount of time when you are behind the wheel. I'm not sure if you are cognizant of this, or if you just don't care.

It's a bit depressing, and I couldn't take it anymore. I may try to start up my own simple project, or maybe work on one with Chruser if he's willing, but Zelaron is out of my hands completely now because you are just too damn stubborn in every respect. Trying to work with you is like repeatedly hitting my head on a wall. You are probably going to ask "what do you want done, then?" It's not even about what gets done. It's the willingness and desire to at least do something, to try something new. The portal, even though it takes a lot of work, is not new. It will not revitalize the forum by itself, because more measures are required. And I can't ever see that sort of progress being made here if you're the only one that can implement them, as it now stands.

[Lenny]

Damn. Sad to see this happen. :(

Just something I picked up from your AIM logs:

GravitonSurge: I am sooooo tired of synthesis

The way I see it, anyone with knowledge of CSS can create their own style, right? I have to admit to downloading site pages and playing with the CSS, just to see what would happen, and it seems to me that all Synthesis is, and all Ocean, Zpehios, HUD, all styles are is CSS code. Unless some strange sort of VoodooPHP magic is needed, then it should be easy to create new styles. And as far as my own knowledge of sites goes, one does not need things other than CSS to make something look pretty.

I've run my own forums in the past (just little things, three or four members), and held Admin spots at various others (near enough all of them IPB-based forums), and I can remember looking at the style options for most of them, and seeing that it was basic CSS.

My point here is that anyone with knowledge of CSS could create their own style for the forum, unless aforementioned VoodooPHP is needed.

EDIT:

Also, I've been wanting a new forum style for years, but I'm not an artist, and Chruser has never seemed to have the time to finish designing anything.

You're online, so I might as well ask if my assumptions are correct that only CSS knowledge is needed for a style?

[WetWired]

No, there's HTML and images involved, too.

[WetWired]

Then why not try to find someone else to implement them? I've not had the "my code, noone else can touch" stance for quite some time.

Besides that, from the discussions between Chruser and you, it would seem that Chruser is defering command to me then complaining about it. It's his forums; if he wants to, for example, add adult forums, I'll tell him not to, but there's nothing stopping him from doing it. I'm not going to just stop hosting the forums because I'm not in absoute control.

[Sum Yung Guy]

Good reading. Im actually happy everyone is being mature about this discussion and it has not resorted to flaming. Lets try to work things out here guys. This is still the first and last forum I'll ever contribute a large chunk of post/time to.

[Grav]

Chruser's words were more out of frustration than anything. Chruser would be 'defering command' to you because regardless of what you say, you could stop hosting it at any time. While the adult forum is an easy change, many of the other things are not. You would be the only one capable of installing many things as it stands. These two factors represent something more insidious and fundamental: just knowing that we have to rely on you is an impediment, because nobody can really be sure if you would ever get annoyed enough to cut us off.

What we really need is a fresh start. We most likely would not be able to find someone to implement changes when the forum is currently heavily tied into your own coding. Getting someone to do it from the ground up is different. As long as the server was not hosted by them also, it would prevent the complications present now.

If it could be redone completely from scratch, and hosted elsewhere, I think that would be best. Even if you did the redesign, at least that degree of separation would be more assuring. In my mind, it doesn't even matter who does it or how it gets done, we just NEED that 'new' feeling, and the willingness to try new (even if they seem silly) things.

[WetWired]

I give you my word, I would not stop hosting Zelaron unless one of the following conditions occurs:
I get banned from the community in fact or in effect The colocation company gives me a cease and desist notice because of Zelaron, cuts off service because of Zelaron, or charges me extra because of Zelaron Pending legal action against me because of Zelaron I abandon my webserver altogether

[WetWired]

Also, I should note that the forum code base is actually quite agile. All of my code is in plugins except for the users online stuff on the forum home, which the hooks do not exist to alter.

[Lenny]

So, CSS, HTML and images. And you've got yourself a forum style? And that's definitely it?

And the basic structure for each style will be the exact same, due to VB plugins and hacks, right?

The only reason I'm asking all of this is because I think it would be interesting if I could give it a try. Obviously don't take this as meaning that there will definitely be a new style sometime soon (I'm extremely busy with school work and the like), but I'd like to give it a shot, even if it's just an experiment.

[gruesomeBODY]

I think that Lenny could do it. Actually im pretty sure.

[WetWired]

No, different styles can be different because there are variables that get inserted into the HTML and you can change where. Also, there are SGML entities that vB interprets as conditionals; for example the postbit relayout for the large avatar is controlled by something like this:
<if condition="is_member_of($post,55)&&($wwu002activitypercent>=50)"><else /></if>

For the most part, though, you don't have to worry about the conditionals if you don't want to. It's fairly easy to figure out why most of them are there and you can just change the HTML arround them.

I've given you style admin on the test board. Please only change stuff in the "Lenny" style.

The manual is here
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/
You should probably read the "Styles&Templates" section.

[Lenny]

Why thank you. :) I look forward to having a tinker with the "Lenny" style.

[Sum Yung Guy]

Please only change stuff in the "Lenny" style.

Can you allow us to change to the Lenny style? And we can make a thread for Lenny to read about what people like or reccomend for his style?

[WetWired]

I'm sure it can be arranged.

[Rurouni Storm]

Perhaps we should open the style creation to the zelaron community? Hold a contest or something.

[!King_Amazon!]

I didn't read the entire thread, but I can give Grav's statements my support. I've experienced it myself and hate to see what's happening because WW won't do anything.

[HandOfHeaven]

Link to Lenny's design? Come on you Brit, I know you can complete it in a matter of hours. :P

[Lenny]

I probably could, but it's an hour to midnight, I've got an History essay to complete, and a bed to sleep in. :p

Tomorrow I've got a Maths assignment to do, and I want to do a bit of writing and practice my Trumpet, but I should be able to play about with a few things, just to see what happens and familiarise myself with everything. I've also got near enough foue hours of free time during school tomorrow, so, unless I'm playing Pool, I'll come up with a few design ideas.

---


Perhaps we should open the style creation to the zelaron community? Hold a contest or something.


It's an idea. The winner names the style and has it created, etc. I'd be up for making it once I've created my own, unless Chruser or WW do it first.

[gruesomeBODY]

I personally know that i cannot do it, but i would like to see what the Z community could do.

[Thanatos]

Ok, so we're getting a new layout. That's cool and all, but what of the other multiple problems that Grav has been discussing?

[Lenny]

I've just had a nosy at Grav's AIM logs, and this is what I've picked up (form oldest to most recent, as per Grav's post):

- Guest Posting/Zend ]- vBSEO
- New Style
- Guest Poting
- STore Hack
- Activity Hack... how does it work?
- Portal/vBadvanced
- Blog Function

---

Guest posting has been allowed to some degree - I think that there is a quick sign up feature to allow guests to quickly sign up and post, with the option to fully sign up within twenty-four hours.

New style - well, this is being addressed.

Store hack/Activity hack - first things first, we need to know how the activity hack works. And then we need a Store Hack that is compatible. Are there any members, other than WW, with extensive knowledge of PHP, enough to create their own Store Hack that is compatible with the Activity Hack?

Portal/vBadvanced - I don't know how many have checked WW's test, but what's he doing is done with vBadvanced, and is a portal of types.

Blog function - is it possible to integrate LiveJournal or Myspace blogs on their own Zelaron page, or within a users profile? I quite liked the idea of Users being given their own page (an extensive profile with extras) which was raised a few threads back.

[Xenn]

Bring back night vision!

Haha. Good thread.

[D3V]

Edit:

Well sad to see you go, even though I hardly ever agreed with you about anything. I think the Admins/Sup Mod(no s) need to have a sitdown to device a plan to get more activity, once again. There are alot of options out there that don't require that much though/work, just keep at it noobs.

And no, I wouldn't go to a new forum, these are fine just the way they are, just need more people.

[!King_Amazon!]

I think the Admins/Sup Mod(no s) need to have a sitdown to device a plan to get more activity, once again. There are alot of options out there that don't require that much though/work, just keep at it noobs.

It's been done. We had a running thread in the staff forum for like a week to come up with all of the ideas we could. Also, I remember meeting with Grav/Chruser in chatrooms to discuss stuff.

It's not really the ideas we need, we just need someone to implement them. Not that more ideas would hurt anything.

[D3V]

Oh yeah I know ofcourse. How hard can it be to upload new programs and implement them on the forum? I'm no programmer by any means but it can't really be that impossible.

[!King_Amazon!]

I don't think it's as easy as all that. We don't want to just add a bunch of crap that every other forum on the planet has. I think it would be best to actually have stuff that is somewhat unique to Zelaron, like the Activity hack. A lot of the ideas I had tied into the activity hack in some way if I remember right.

[WetWired]

The store hack tie-in to the activity hack is simple. The activity hack only controls the generation of funds. The issue there is simply finding a store hack that is capable of doing advanced things without being a mess. Besides the issue of people exploiting to get things for free, there's the issue of, for example modifying other peoples' user titles. If I modify someone's title for a month, then they go and modify it for a day, the proper thing to happen after a day would be for it to go back to mine, but there's a lot of code involved in tracking stuff like that.

As far as the blog stuff, I know there is at least one 3rd party modification and there is an official Jellsoft blog product for vB. I don't think either of them allow the extent of customization as LiveJournal or MySpace, however. I told Grav that I'm against this, but my time is not needed for this. Especially if we go for the Jellsoft version, it should be an incredibly simple installation (requires the forum upgrade I'm working on on the test board, however).

The vBSEO stuff may not be as much trouble as I initially suspected, but I haven't really looked into it.

I still think guest posting is a huge mistake, as it will prevent most people from ever making accounts. A quick registration may be as simple as a form hack, but it may be complicated by the verification image.

[Titusfied]

I thought we almost came to an agreement at one point that we would be able to limit an IP to, say, 5 posts before locking them out and forcing them to Register? Maybe that is just my own genius idea though? ;)

Anyway, I read this thread, and although I can sympathize with Grav and the like, I don't agree. I mean, WW is my age (25 or so), and if his life is anything like mine, after 4-5 years on Zelaron (I honestly don't know how long Zelaron has existed...), you basically lost most of the luster that once existed. And once that "pizazz" is gone, the motivation to actually sit down and write/implement coding to temporarily please some members is all but gone. I'm not saying this is the case either, but I wouldn't blame WW for his lack of catering to everyone's need on a whim. He's done plenty for Zelaron, and continues to do so. I wouldn't mind having like 1 or 2 changes a year, because it's not like Zelaron is broke. There are still a lot of posts and activity. It's not growing exponentially, or even barely linearly for that matter, but it's not declining either, as far as I'm concerned.

Why try to fix something that's not broken? Sure we can try to make it better, but give the guy that has the power, resources, and intuition to do it some slack. Seriously.....

Oh, and farewell.

[Demosthenes]

It's been broken for a while...

[Titusfied]

Not really. I can think of things that can improve, but I don't see anything that is clearly deficient that it would eventually turn Zelaron into non-existence.

[Demosthenes]

It's been on a steady decline. We hardly ever get new members who post, and it's even rarer to find members who stick around. The old members are getting tired of this place. They are slowly leaving as well. Sure, we have spurts of activity, however I'm sure if we could find an activity chart we would certainly see decline over the last 3 years. It's only a matter of time until this place has 5 or 6 posts a day. After that, people won't bother checking this daily, and will eventually quit checking altogether. That trend needs to be reversed if we want to keep this place going for longer than a couple of years. Not steadied, reversed.

[gruesomeBODY]

i agree with MJ

[!King_Amazon!]

Ditto.

Change in activity tends to snowball, whether for the good or the bad. If people post less, there are less posts to respond to, which means people in essense post less and less.

If people post more, there are more posts to respond to, people post more.

It's not that hard to understand, and if you've been around fairly consistantly for a few years you should see this yourself. Luckily, we've been going upwards lately.

[D3V]

I never see this place as going away, it'll always have its ups and downs. The "medium" members are just going to transition into the old skool members sometime soon as newbies roll in. It's just the circle of life.

[!King_Amazon!]

Yeah but the newbies have stopped rolling in.

Just the same, if there are less posts, there are less things for newbies to come here for. It really all comes down to posting more. You must have noticed the recent surge of activity since people started posting more. Everyone's activity has gone up, so it's not just more people, it's actually more activity.

[D3V]

I tried the Automotive aspect, but nobody really has lives outside of computeres and videogames, so it hasn't taken off at all. There are many things that can be talked about and posted about, but most of that would be daily news, which we don't even have a current stream on, maybe bring back News Poster and assign somebody that doesn't mind keeping us informed on top of things?

[HandOfHeaven]

Just because no one is interested in cars means they do not have lives? Damn, you're a narrow-minded lune.

[!King_Amazon!]

Oi, here we go again.

I'm gonna go ahead and call you both fags and get it over with.

[D3V]

Just because no one is interested in cars means they do not have lives? Damn, you're a narrow-minded lune.

Lol, if you would've read it says that nobody has lives outside of computers and videogames.. Doesn't necessairily mean you have no life if you aren't into cars.

[Lenny]

Glad we've got that sorted.

Right. News Poster. I think it would be an idea to bring it back for a few months, at least, just to see how it goes. Looking at the News Forum, though, lots of people post news, so we might end up with four or five News Posters.

[Thanatos]

That's how it used to be. I'd post news. I'm on MSN, CNN, and other related sites everyday. I like keeping up with current events.

[D3V]

Yeah I can vouch for that, I'm at work from 8-6 usually, varies with an hour or two most of the time, so I have plenty of time to catch up on CNN, MSNBC,NFL,Reuters,AssociatedPress,etc etc's Websites, i'm sure bringing back a news poster would atleast give pride to somebody that can take the time and somewhat dedication to bring the news to the people here :)

I would love to have another massive influx of threads and members roll through here.

[D3V]

Just a few snippets from when my AIM logger actually works, which is rarely and only goes back a few months. This is going from most recent to older as you go down.

---------
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: is there a reasonable way to make it happen? maybe you have to log in somewhere every session to see the forum?
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: I dont know what php is capable of
146763477: Oh, you can do anything with PHP, but I don't want to build something from scratch
---------

---------
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: how feasible is a blog function? it is basically against everything I believe in, but members might like it. see example: http://forums.narutofan.com/blog.php?u=101654
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: or here http://forums.narutofan.com/blog.php?u=33926
146763477: I just don't see a reason for it. If you want to blog, use Live Journal or myspace.
146763477: You can provide a link in your profile
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: because for some of them zelaron is their main blog/outlet as it is
146763477: I still don't think it'd be very usefull
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: well how hard would it be to install
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: is it worth just trying
146763477: I don't think so.
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: would someone else think so
146763477: I doubt it
146763477: Any of the members likely to use it would rather post in the appropriate forum is the feeling I have
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: well, I tried! nevermind!
146763477: We're a close-knit group, so the separation of the blogs isn't really needed
146763477: It's not that I don't appreciate your suggestion, I just don't think it'll get used
---------

[I apologize in advance, Chruser, but they should know]

---------
[07:16] Zelaron: I want to attempt to install vBAdvanced, but I remember you said you've tinkered with it for a while, and it's incompatible with Synthesis
[07:17] WetWired: We've had a portal before; it wasn't all that useful
[07:18] Zelaron: Indeed, and yes, I agree. I am, however, confident that it can and will be useful now.
[07:19] Zelaron: The last one didn't have any board compatibility aside from the news, which you could read on the forum anyway. It was just eye candy that served no purpose, not to mention that it was search-engine incompatible
[07:22] Zelaron: vBAdvanced is significantly better, because not only does it let us add modular pages to it, everything is compatible with the forum and will remove some aspects of stagnation from the community.
[07:24] Zelaron: So it's not even worth a try?
[07:25] WetWired: I didn't say that, I'm just saying that if you don't have any plans for what you do with it once you have it, it's pretty stupid
Zelaron: if you didn't read what I said above, basically, I kind of convinced WW to add a zelaron portal "if its reasons are good enough"
---------

---------
Zelaron: WW would likely disapprove. How dreadfully unfortunate.
---------

---------
146763477: You there?
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: yes
146763477: Why'd you temp ban all those people?
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: so they could revel together
146763477: huh?
Zelaron: haha
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: I feel like I'm at work talking to him
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: talking to my boss
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: except my boss is less of a PITA
---------

---------
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: I may leave zelaron soon
Zelaron: well
Zelaron: I believe you, k_a and I agree
Zelaron: we need to do something radical, asap
Zelaron: everything points toward the utmost demise of Zelaron
Zelaron: the visitor count is slowly declining, no new posts are made
Zelaron: old members are leaving
Zelaron: I am bored with the forum too
Zelaron: I have been bored with it for... a year?
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: my main problem is I am not even interested in talking to the people that are on the forum
Zelaron: I have told WW of its evident demise
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: the ones worth talking to, I talk to on AIM
Zelaron: I think the main purpose of the forum is to gather interesting people
Zelaron: and have the communicate
Zelaron: currently, we get pretty much all of our members from Google
Zelaron: and the content of the threads generally sucks
Zelaron: so we get visitors who search for stupid things
Zelaron: who sign up, and post more stupid things
Zelaron: and suddenly, we have a stupid forum
Zelaron: where morons go to post their hearts' contents
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: lol
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: interesting theory?
Zelaron: well, it works that way
Zelaron: if we have tons of threads about travel, people who search for "paradise vacation", "cruises" and "unabomber" will come to our forum
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: lol.
Zelaron: you get what you put into it
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: unabomber??
Zelaron: he did target at least one airplane during his career, didn't he?
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: dunno
Zelaron: anyway.
Zelaron: we could as well un-trash most threads at this rate
Zelaron: it'd increase seach engine hits due to more content
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: heh
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: maybe those spambots will finally work FOR us!
Zelaron: rpgmaker has kind of faltered as well
Zelaron: either that, or we steal databases from other forums and inject the posts into Zelaron
Zelaron: personally, I'm in favor of doing some dramatic changes. It's just not particularly easy to find out what they are.
Zelaron: If that fails, I'm just going to leave the board running and hope it will by chance get interesting members, but I feel I've done just about everything for it then
Zelaron: unless, of course, we could get our own server
Zelaron: Perhaps we should get rid of all the hacks and start over?
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: I think we've said that a few times
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: so do it =p
Zelaron: unfortunately, there's no "DRASTIC CHANGE HACK" on vbulletin.org
Zelaron: getting that stupid store hack would be nice
Zelaron: but apparently WW... isn't doing it
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: nobody is doing anything
Zelaron: I'm not sure why, but it appears that he's the only guy who can do it.
Zelaron: I don't even know why I have received that impression
Zelaron: oh yeah
Zelaron: IT HAS TO BE LINKED TO THE ACTIVITY HACK!
Zelaron: and guess who the ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD is who understands how that works?
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: ...? lol
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: whatever, fuck WW
---------

---------
Zelaron: nothing is happening to Zelaron right now
Zelaron: we have established this
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: yes, so, zelaron is boring?
Zelaron: pretty much
Zelaron: in fact
Zelaron: I think it would be beneficial to delete all board hacks, keep the posts, and start over with the default vB theme.
Zelaron: why? Because it's a god damn change
Zelaron: NOTHING is happening right now
Zelaron: and now WW's laptop fried as well, so the few changes we did have on the way (such as a store hack) aren't happening either, at least not for a while
Zelaron: oh yeah, I'm in Stockholm, and I can't get a connection at my place any longer
Zelaron: so I won't be online much for a few weeks either
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: I am sooooo tired of synthesis
Zelaron: well, we need... things
Zelaron: even if they're pointless, we need to show members that we are at least TRYING to change the board
Zelaron: "it works now; leave it be" makes it become about an interesting as a museum
Zelaron: but the visitor count has declined too
Zelaron: currently, we get around 700-800 unique visitors per day
Zelaron: which is... okay
Zelaron: but they're not posting
Zelaron: I say we enable anonymous (guest) posting for a while
Zelaron: although moderated.
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: sure
Zelaron: [02:05] 146763477: If we allowed guests to post, we'd get 500 spam threads a day.
Zelaron: SURPRISE
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: hahaha
---------

---------
Zelaron: ugh, why must everything be so... hard?
Zelaron: [06:44] Zelaron: What do you think about vBSEO?
[06:45] 146763477: We don't have any new discussions about anything that anyone would be searching fore.
[06:46] Zelaron: Our 35,220 total discussions include things people are searching for.
[06:48] 146763477: Yeah, but they wouldn't join our community because we don't discuss them anymore. Besides, it may be a huge pain for us since we have to change the encoding of every URL, and we have huge ammounts of template customization
[06:48] Zelaron: Perhaps we don't discuss them because old threads get locked?
[06:49] 146763477: No, because people are no longer interested.
---------

---------
Zelaron: [06:52] Zelaron: Why wouldn't they be? A majority of our unique visitors find us on search engines. It's still difficult to sign up and post.
[06:53] Zelaron: Why don't we allow guests to post as long as they fill in a six character alphanumeric sequence shown on an image? (Similarly to the search on vbulletin.org)?
[06:59] Zelaron: I want to purchase a vBSEO license for $149 and allow guests to post after confirming their "human nature". If it doesn't accomplish anything, too bad. At the moment, we're not taking enough action against the decline in new, active members.
[07:00] 146763477: I really don't want to deal with something as big as vBSEO right now.
[07:02] Zelaron: I don't know how to install Zend anyway, so I can't try it myself.
[07:04] Zelaron: I backed up the database an hour ago, so I'd try it myself and take responsibility for it if anything goes wrong, but I don't have the privileges to install Zend.
[07:07] Zelaron: Privileges would be nice.
[07:08] 146763477: Even I would not be confident installing Zend, especially considering that we are out of contact with our hosting providers if something were to go wrong.
[07:09] Zelaron: John is online.
[07:09] 146763477: I don't see him
[07:09] Zelaron: workjallen
[07:09] Zelaron: he's away
[07:10] 146763477: I have that one on my list. he's offline
[07:10] Zelaron: Maybe he blocked you?
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: why is WW such a pain
Zelaron: I sent him a few of my thoughts
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: hows that
Zelaron: [07:14] Zelaron: I've requested datacenter contact info from John.
[07:15] Zelaron: Anything else I should ask for? I'm heading to bed soon.
[07:15] 146763477: It'd be nice to know if dotsimple changed hands and who I should talk to.
[07:16] Zelaron: I'll let you know tomorrow if I hear anything.
[07:31] Zelaron: The good thing about "trying out risky, new things" is that members see that you make an effort to transcendentalize the community, or "bringing it to the next level" if you wish. Even if the changes fail to become popular enough, they initially draw a lot of attention from members, who know the staff isn't going to sit around and wait for things to happen on their own. When have they ever?

Nothing against your hacks and improvements, the activity hack rules, and the large avatar will definitely make the current members more active. I want one of those too, now. Sup. modding K_A and Lenny was likely a great call. But will new members sign up for any of that? No. Will they sign up if we get better search engine rankings? I don't know, maybe. I don't think there are any set-in-stone formulas for gaining new, active members. I just know we're not getting any.

We built a good member base in the past, and I don't see anything at all that keeps us from doing that now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we kind of... stop taking chances a year and a half ago or so, when the board seemed to "work on its own"? It's like, we have this machine which seems to work fine without any maintenance, but in reality, it is on a slow descent into a deep grave.
Zelaron: [07:34] Zelaron: It's not about "installing radical hacks", it's about making significant changes that WILL MOST LIKELY improve the community, bring members together, give them totally new features to try out and such.
[07:35] Zelaron: a new Zelaron Melee is a good start, and it's relatively simple to get it started.
[07:38] Zelaron: but it's not enough. We're the ones in power to change the community, and find out what it takes to make it "fucking awesome".
[07:38] Zelaron: Enough 7:40 am rambling for now.
[07:43] Zelaron: Sure, if the "change" formula I realize we've used for the first three years of the board's existence suddenly doesn't work any longer, let me know, but right now, I am convinced it is still the best chance we have got of getting anywhere.
[07:43] Zelaron: Thoughts?
[07:50] Zelaron: (The premise is obviously that anything like this would be done AFTER the proper contact information is obtained, so the server doesn't get unusable for weeks on end in the worst case scenario.)
Zelaron: there is probably a ton of grammatical flaws in there, I shouldn't stay up all night as often :-)
Zelaron: maybe he'll kick us off the server now or something, who knows?
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: why?
Zelaron: because I get the feeling that he doesn't agree with me.
Grаν¡tоnЅurgе: i know he doesnt
Zelaron: I get the "it is futile to proceed any further. The board works flawlessly, and it shall continue to work this way forever, because I am an immortal robot" vibe from him.
Zelaron: I don't even have the administrative access to perform the changes I want.
Zelaron: I can't really touch the server.
---------

hi thar Gravitonsurge

[Wallow]

D3V, stop bringing back these old forums for spam's sake....

[Skurai]

Think of it this way: it keeps me from posting in new threads!

[D3V]

Just exploiting the srs bizness side of zelaron.

[Skurai]

There's a srs bizness side? All I ever see are the side and mad side.

[D3V]

There was a span of about 2 years where rules were enforced and people we're crybabies about everything, including myself. Namely myself.

[Skurai]

Zelaron is an anarchy. Other than the fact that Lenny is here. But he's more like an idle god than a government.

[Lenny]

Idle gods suffer boredom every now and then and smite people. :)

[Skurai]

Don't ban me! My "mother" lurvz u! :(

[Kazilla]

When it comes to Lenny, we all know its a straight monarchy.

[KagomJack]

Remember how annoying I used to be?

[Skurai]

No, I don't. Tell me a story of back when.

[Willkillforfood]

remember how annoying i am?

jk ;p

[D3V]

Remember how annoying I used to be?

all I remember are the days of teh furry

[Skurai]

Days of the furry? Link, pl0x?

[!King_Amazon!]

Some of my best work.

The furrier side of Kagom Jack (http://zelaron.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35859)

It's probably worth mentioning that when Kagom first joined Zelaron, he claimed to be a straight catholic guy.

[Skurai]

... an otter?
I'm a hyena. :3

[D3V]

Some of my best work.

The furrier side of Kagom Jack (http://zelaron.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35859)

It's probably worth mentioning that when Kagom first joined Zelaron, he claimed to be a straight catholic guy.

Agreed with the entire post. +1

[Skurai]

Why do you agree?

[D3V]

That was some of K_A's best work.

[!King_Amazon!]

The only thing that gives it a run for its money in my mind would be the Kyeruu/Ailis nonsense.

http://zelaron.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41089

[Grav]

How the fuck was that four years ago? Damn. :(

[D3V]

The only thing that gives it a run for its money in my mind would be the Kyeruu/Ailis nonsense.

http://zelaron.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41089

WOWW........ I had completely forgotten about that. Another great run of hilarious moments.

[Skurai]

The only thing that gives it a run for its money in my mind would be the Kyeruu/Ailis nonsense.

http://zelaron.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41089

I would have said that it was Kyeruu just because...

they both talk like this with lower case is and no punctuation but then again maybe that means jamer496 is kyeruu too hahahahahaha

On a sidenote: Wow! This show is old... I'm a pretty new character, huh?

[Slim]

I would have said that it was Kyeruu just because...

they both talk like this with lower case is and no punctuation but then again maybe that means jamer496 is kyeruu too hahahahahaha

On a sidenote: Wow! This show is old... I'm a pretty new character, huh?

You're the one added simply to give everyone a single person to universally revile

[Skurai]

I already went over it in my head. We're all Chruser.