SpaceSimCentral Opinions

[sscadmin]

Bullwinkle wrote:
Quick Reply is often abused, and can quickly make a mess out of a forum. I am hoping that DarkOne intentionally omitted it.
Quick Reply is an option, but I disabled it on purpose when I created the forums just because I thought it would spur better conversation because it might cause the members to read more of the posts before posting. And in quick reply not all of the bbcodes and quoting functionality is there.

[Bullwinkle]

Darkone wrote:
Quick Reply is an option, but I disabled it on purpose
Nice!Rock on, DarkOne!

[Digitalus]

I like SpaceSimCentral enough that I donated a few bucks. At least I think I did. I clicked all the buttons and got a receipt.Er, anyway! This place is great, good people and fun conversations. I always find great games or news bits that I might have missed in other places.

[sscadmin]

Digitalus wrote:
I like SpaceSimCentral enough that I donated a few bucks. At least I think I did. I clicked all the buttons and got a receipt.
Thanks Digitalus. And it did work. I have changed your rank.
Digitalus wrote:
Er, anyway! This place is great, good people and fun conversations. I always find great games or news bits that I might have missed in other places.
There is definitely a lot of people coming to SSC, its just getting them to post and stop hiding in the shadows. I used to have to really work hard at pulling in all the latest info on games and projects and now most of the areas do get some coverage because the members help out a lot in finding the news on their favorite games/projects. So it is coming together nicely and I hope to get a real solution soon for the Knowledge Base.Because the KB that I have seems like it is some work to maintain and get things published on. I might go back to MediaWiki since there is a PHPBB bridge that is being worked on which isn't perfect yet but its a start. I just need to read up more on the whole security aspect of the wiki. Because I think the KB is a nice thing to have its just that it needs to be tied to the site database and it takes up some space. But this is for a different post.

[Dramacius]

Darkone wrote:
There is definitely a lot of people coming to SSC, its just getting them to post and stop hiding in the shadows. I used to have to really work hard at pulling in all the latest info on games and projects and now most of the areas do get some coverage because the members help out a lot in finding the news on their favorite games/projects. So it is coming together nicely and I hope to get a real solution soon for the Knowledge Base.Because the KB that I have seems like it is some work to maintain and get things published on. I might go back to MediaWiki since there is a PHPBB bridge that is being worked on which isn't perfect yet but its a start. I just need to read up more on the whole security aspect of the wiki. Because I think the KB is a nice thing to have its just that it needs to be tied to the site database and it takes up some space. But this is for a different post.
I have a bit of experience with PHPBB3 and web sites in general (in no way am I an expert) If you want some help send me a PM I will take a look at what I have done to some of my old sites.I currently run an animal website in Wordpress which is very popular and is very much automated now. (www. supporttheanimals .co.uk (remove the spaces to go to it, I have added them as I am not sure how Darkone feels about me posting a link to an un related site here.))I did use the knowledge base in an old website I run for a while when I was running a gaming clan. I will see if I can find the files and set them up on my virtual server to play with.

[sscadmin]

That is a nice website you have there Dramacius and it's ok to post links to anything in a post as long as its relevant to the discussion and of course the content is generally kid friendly :)I have thought about using Wordpress for a frontend to SSC, I just would need to have a good bridge to connect the two and use the user base out of phpbb3 for wordpress. The mod I use for the portal (stargate portal) is ok but its not too flexible and there is really no SEO behind the code at all. I thought about wordpress or another blogging software that integrates into phpbb because then maybe I wouldn't need a KB/wiki for the games. I could just create a blog page for each of the games. I basically trying to find the easiest to maintain but a tight integration as well and that seems to be the issue. With my template and graphic skills at a 10% level I stink at styling anything. Thought about paying someone to create a theme and logo for the site to give it a more WOW factor :)But I have no problem people posting good examples of setups that they either use or know about. I am just trying to get a good layout that will help more people communicate and also get the word out better.

[Geraldine]

Digitalus wrote:
I like SpaceSimCentral enough that I donated a few bucks. At least I think I did. I clicked all the buttons and got a receipt.
Well done Digitalus! Every donation no matter how small, helps to keep the SSC going. Also glad your enjoying being on the site, there really is no better place on the net for those who love space sims. Long live the SSC!

[sscadmin]

Did some looking into the phpbb3 and wordpress bridge and there is something being worked on here: http://www.wp-united.comLooks very promising and I would probably at the least wait for the next release before starting some testing but would prefer v1.0 to install on the site itself. But looking at the tight integration of WP and PHPBB with this bridge does have some appeal and can be really useful in advertising some of the great projects inside :)Geraldine - Your always to kind

[JamieGrant]

How can I change my name from my real life 'Jamie Grant' to my usual online modding name 'Tokus*Maximus' - do I kill my current threads, rejoin and rpsot or is there an admin power that can quickly do it all while preserving my threads and posts?Keep up the great work Darkone, as always.Tokus*Maximus

[s2odan]

Quote:
How can I change my name from my real life 'Jamie Grant' to my usual online modding name...
I was wondering the same thing, as I dont have the most inventive of names :DAs for my opinions on Space Sim Central. Well they are only good, I would have to dig very deep to criticise this site.But most of all I like how this is a 'free and open' site. People say what they want without fear of the giant hammer of +1 banning. (*Cough* Egosoft) This means a lot to me, as I can't stand 'censored' sites.Its also great how you offer a centralised location for indy devs to host their games, if it wasn't for SpacesimCentral I would still be scouring the internet for elite remakes

[sscadmin]

JamieGrant wrote:
How can I change my name from my real life 'Jamie Grant' to my usual online modding name 'Tokus*Maximus' - do I kill my current threads, rejoin and rpsot or is there an admin power that can quickly do it all while preserving my threads and posts?
I sure can, and I can make it 'TokusMaximus' for you I don't allow those extra characters or spaces. Is that fine Jamie?And s20dan, I can change your name to anything you want just let me know what you want. And thanks for the kind words, my whole goal all along is a free exchange of opinions and with any luck a hub for gamers and developers to interact and make the best games possible. I guess I have always had faith in people and gamers to act responsibly and be respectful and I have yet in two years ever have to PM anyone about behavior so it has been a great ride so far and hope you and I can be having this conversation 20yrs from now SSC has been a great learning experience so far and there is still so many things I want to do its just the know how that sometimes gets in the way

[Dramacius]

I have to admit this is the friendliest "LARGE" community of any time I have ever been on, its a pleasure to come back time and time again to read up and post (all be it not as often as I would like) on the various topics.I am just wondering what you direction is, are you aiming to be a general gaming community or are you planning on keeping it Space/Sci Fi?

[Geraldine]

s20dan wrote:
I was wondering the same thing, as I dont have the most inventive of names
Oh, I dont know about that S20dan, perhaps you would feel better with this as your avatar.

[sscadmin]

Dramacius wrote:
I have to admit this is the friendliest "LARGE" community of any time I have ever been on, its a pleasure to come back time and time again to read up and post (all be it not as often as I would like) on the various topics.
And here I thought SSC was a small community because there is just over 1000 reg users, but there is definitely a lot of lurkers here.
Dramacius wrote:
I am just wondering what you direction is, are you aiming to be a general gaming community or are you planning on keeping it Space/Sci Fi?
I don't think I have the bandwidth to ever expand outside of that. Plus space/scifi is where my interests and passions are. So I will do my best to keep SSC a focused community on what matters most to all of us here ... 'the inner geek'

[Bullwinkle]

Darkone wrote:


Dramacius wrote:
And here I thought SSC was a small community because there is just over 1000 reg users


A thousand people is a very large forum community, DarkOne. Where have you been hanging out that is larger?

[Dramacius]

1000 is more than I have had in communities I have run, the most I have ever managed was about 700 with only maybe 150 or so regular visitors.I only ever known of major forums to have larger communities.

[sscadmin]

I was comparing SSC to sites like WCIC and FS Communities which have over 5000+ users but they have also been around for 5-10yrs now. But I cannot complain about SSC much at all. I do no advertising and count on just word of mouth to get the job done. And I have noticed that if you are nice and respectful to developers they are actually quite helpful and usually jump at interaction with the community... cool concept :)I know I find myself in a bit of a pickle where I look at the SSC community and see it growing and I want to try to make spreading the word easier and want to use FB, Twitter and other sites to just help promote these great games. And now I get to the point where I have to search out new tools. Because I don't think phpbb will meet SSC's needs much longer. But I know moving the sites content to entirely different format will be a huge undertaking for me. But I will make more posts in the admin area about possible changes and upgrades and moves to another server. Because I think 1and1.com isn't going to meet my hosting needs soon. Because of their DB size allowance of 100mb, I see that GoDaddy is giving out 1GB DB's now so might just to them.

[Dramacius]

If you are considering going to a different source I would recomend vBulletin if you have the funds for it, it is by far the most powerful software option available. There are also scripts available to convert from PHPBB3 to vBulletin so you wouldn't loose any users or Posts.

[Bullwinkle]

Darkone wrote:
I was comparing SSC to sites like WCIC and FS Communities
What are WCIC and FS Communities?What is wrong with phpbb?

[sscadmin]

I have been thinking about their new 4.0 publishing version, because the features and the CMS that sits on top looks great. Just it's almost $300 and you only get support for a year. Right now SSC pays for itself with the Google Adsense ads, I get a check every few months that pays for my hosting. Basically I stink at any marketing, i'm just a gamer and not a business/marketing guru. I will be trying harder to get some advertisers so I can update the site's software I hope in 2011.