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DarkCabaret

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Not really, the forum is usually slow on the weekends, by Monday the normal members who are posting will be posting again.

Beth

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Actually, archive members are going to be ENCOURAGED to join and use the forum. Part of that is some of the new sections you've already seen here. The Yahoo groups are all coming HERE. So, anyone who once participated in those, will be told this is where they should be going instead.

Something else I'd like to see (once I have this restructure thing out of the way) is for the authors to actually interact with their readers in the forums specifically set up for the part of the archive they write in. Review responses here, rather than in the review thread of the story. That sort of thing.

Further, once the upgrade to the forum software is completed, guest viewing will be allowed for most parts of the board. Guests will not be able to post, only to view. In order to actually particpate, you'll still have to login.

Oh yeah, once I do the upgrade to my own forum this week, I'll post up the new features you all can expect to see and be able to use as well. It's really much nicer.

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Actually, archive members are going to be ENCOURAGED to join and use the forum. Part of that is some of the new sections you've already seen here. The Yahoo groups are all coming HERE. So, anyone who once participated in those, will be told this is where they should be going instead.

Something else I'd like to see (once I have this restructure thing out of the way) is for the authors to actually interact with their readers in the forums specifically set up for the part of the archive they write in. Review responses here, rather than in the review thread of the story. That sort of thing.

Further, once the upgrade to the forum software is completed, guest viewing will be allowed for most parts of the board. Guests will not be able to post, only to view. In order to actually particpate, you'll still have to login.

Oh yeah, once I do the upgrade to my own forum this week, I'll post up the new features you all can expect to see and be able to use as well. It's really much nicer.

Another adult fiction site encouraged participation in the forums by putting its password inside the forum, so readers are forced to enter the forums to get the password, at least. But I don't think you guys would want to do that.

About the author interaction: That adult fiction site's forum actually has a pretty active author-reader conversation threads! Especially for well-known authors and long-running stories. One of the good points on that forum. I don't know how they do it, though, because the nature of author-reader relationship there seemed stronger, although they don't have review posting features. Maybe it's just because that site's older, so they have more longtime members.

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I am so glad you said something about that Ninja

I was actually toying around with an idea like that myself; I was going to ask if it would be possible to allow something like a blog for authors on the site, so they can communicate clearly with their readers/reviewers, both on responses and basic explanation of what they were trying to do with which part of their story.

I guess this would be possible in the forums as well, but I feel it may be less cumbersome if done as part of the author panel.

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ACK! One thing at a time guys. blink.gif Gotta get all this stuff set up to work correctly first, before I EVEN start looking at new modifications to port in, like blogs.

1. Nope, will not be making a generic user with password that's linked to inside the archive for accessing the forum. What we WILL be doing is providing a LINK to the subforum (by category as listed in the archive) direct to the forum. It's up to everyone else to create their own user names and passwords. As there is no option to respond to reviews in the review threads for the stories, I thought that it would be good to encourage them to do that here in forum. Can make for some lively discussion, and, (so I'm told) can actually help an author in some ways. I'd bet that this other site you're talking about initially encouraged their archive members to join their forum to do exactly what they're doing. Same thing we're seeking to do here.

2. Blogs-

First, we have to make sure that such a module or modification will not stress the resources more than normal. If so, not an option at ALL. PHP programs such as this board and the archive tend to be resource piggies as it is. Adding yet ANOTHER resource hog to the overall site architecture I don't think is a good idea at all. As to blogging in forum, yes, there is an installable module for that, but it's ALSO a paid thing, and I'm not so sure that we really have a need for that. So MANY people already have blogs in LJ and MySpace, it's easy to provide that link in your signature, or as your homepage, or something like that. So, from my point of view, I'd have to say blogging in future here (whether as a separate software module or whatever) is not an advisable thing to add to the overall site architecture.

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I wasn't aware a blog was such a bandwith whore.

Nevermind the author profile thingy, maybe someday when AFF has a gazillion GB/mo. to use. ^^

A forum based one might be nice, seems like that would also entice people to come to the forums and stick around to see what's going down here.

But if that were to happen it would probably be like number 149 on the to-do list biggrin.gif

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I didn't even know there was a yahoo group! LOL Guess it'd help if I paid more attention to that kind of stuff huh?

There were up to a dozen Yahoo! Groups, in fact, up until the beginning of September. We had a Betas Group, an Art Group, a Technical Group, a Problems Group, an Awards Group, a general Moderators' Group, the Main AFF Yahoo! Group... the list goes on. They were quite a bear to manage, and I'm thrilled we're finally going to finally be making use of this Forum to its maximum potential. Not only will everyone be meeting in one place, but that one place will be able to be protected by us, and our Community's meeting place's security won't be up to the whims of Yahoo! (who, from time to time, would delete a Group with no warning).

So, the Grand Master Plan! is to be mirroring not only the Archive here in the Forum, but to an extent, to mirror the defunct Groups here, too.

For anyone that's concerned about the present inactivity -- I think it's a lucky thing. This gives us a chance to really build this place up nicely and smoothly before we link everyone up and direct them here, so when folks take a peek at what we've got to offer, it should be a fairly polished and easy-to-use product.

Perhaps this last morsel of information will help to quash any fears: The Main AFF Yahoo! Group boasted about eight thousand Members. The time is nearing in which we may wish for a little more silence! tongue.gif

Hope this addressed some apprehensions.

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I wasn't aware a blog was such a bandwith whore.

Nevermind the author profile thingy, maybe someday when AFF has a gazillion GB/mo. to use. ^^

A forum based one might be nice, seems like that would also entice people to come to the forums and stick around to see what's going down here.

But if that were to happen it would probably be like number 149 on the to-do list biggrin.gif

Very likely.

Right now my primary concern is getting THIS thing ready for upgrade. Time consuming, but necessary what I'm having to do pre-upgrade.

This entails, in part, finding appropriate modules to replace functions that are no longer available for the newest versions of the board, testing them offsite to ENSURE that they work, and then when time comes adding it to the new board setup. That's only a part of it, of course there are other things I'm doing now as well, such as the restructure which is integral to how the face of things will be once upgrading is complete, and you all can get a sneak peak as to what that will be once it's all done anyway. I'll finish THAT before upgrade so I don't have to it later. Trying to minimize board down time.

I also upgraded my own forum today (same software) which was only 7 versions behind current. THIS one is about 15 versions behind. So, that upgrade took me six hours altogether. That's just to upload the software, run the upgrade and then the maintenance utilities that have to be run to convert this that, and the other thing. That time does NOT include time I will be using to make my old 2.15 skins compatible to 2.3.3, nor does it include the time I will be using to port BACK in the mods the upgrade erased. Of course, one of the strongest reasons I see for doing the upgrade whether on my own board or here, are the language differences. This version (2.3.3) addresses that. The board is now FULLY compatible to php 5 and mySQL 5. I realize that doesn't mean much to most anyone else, but it's a critical factor in how this board can operate.

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Wow is right!

For upgrades on this forum would take hours or at least couple of days to get done.

Hopefully, we can handle a small downtime, when that day comes and not freak out too bad over it.

I know I'll be reading more stories during the downtime or at least writing more. smile.gif

Beth

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Not a couple days, but I guarantee ya I'll be glued to my damn monitor for at least eight hours straight that day. As I said, I plan on having all the pre-existing modification which have been updated for the newest version of the board ready to go at the same time. So, I'll have that already done and ready to go before I even initiate the upgrade part.

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From a moderating point of view, I'm not so sure that having review response threads for individual stories/authors is such a great idea. Discussing review issues and general advice on how to respond to certain types of reviews is much more inclusive.

That being said, you have a "blog" option in your profile. You can type the URL of your blog in there and it will show up in both your profile info and as a linked button at the bottom of each post (where your contact info is located).

To the techs: how hard would it be to do the same for the archives? I mean adding a field to provide a blog link (under Homepage, perhaps?). If it doesn't cause any issues, I think that may be a good idea.

Personally, I'd love to have a PM option and/or the ability to reply to each review directly on the board (I remember seeing this option on another fanfic site - was it MM?). But I also know that the latter would require coding that may disrupt the review boards, and the former would also require some careful coding.

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Once again we're looking at how php 3 interacts with php 4 & 5, as far as pre-existing modifications. IF a modification is updated and written in the later language versions, it's a non issue as far as bringing it back in, provided it's something that's actually used frequently like the IB Store. Again, in my opinion, I think a blog option here is non essential.

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Well if it doesn't make sense to have it here, then don't knock yourselves out doing it.

You folks do enough as it is; A spot on the author profile page to list it would be extravagant enough in my opinion..

Making/securing a personal blog should be a non-issue for the users of the site.

tongue.gif

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