Personalized domain name

techno_kid wrote:

I'm gunna shove all the possibilities i can think of as alternatives in here then (then people will receive notification if they have already posted). If someone wants to move the post feel free.

OPTION A
We could go for the domain name as you have suggested and pay for a .org or what ever TLD (top level domain eg .com .co.uk .us .org) you decide to choose. This obviously costs money and you should think about how many people can actually donate this amount of money just for a domain name. Also, does it bring any real benefits? Do people expect a gaming community to have a domain name of their own?

OPTION B
Similar to option A but using a .co.cc domain instead. I'm not 100% sure about how you could integrate individual page URLs (addresses) into this domain because you obviously haven't got much control over the way forumotion hosts these forums. Benefits are that it's obviously free (don't know if it's only for a year or not) and still looks fairly good.

OPTION C
I know certain administrators are going moan at me and i'm just saying this as another option so don't eat me...

Pay less for more! Look around for proper hosting and get a "proper" forum with a domain name and have complete control over everything. Benefits are it costs less for more and disadvantages maybe that you initially lose your posts. Have we got a strong enough community to restart the discussions elsewhere?

OPTION D
Do we really need a peronsal domain name or can we do without one? I touched on this before but do people think that non-profit organisations should be expected to pay out or can we accept that it's just not worth it for now. I might understand if we had 100,000 hits a day or something like that but we simply don't. On the other hand does it make us look unprofessional?

OPTION E
Does forumotion allow you to transfer domain names for free? Can you buy it elsewhere at a cheaper price and then transfer it to forumotion? It's something for the admin to have a look at but it could be a cheaper alternative.

CONCLUSION
Overall the question that should really be asked is whether or not we need it and this is something we need to decide on honestly. As a web designer clients always come to me with new ideas about their site but I have to ask them if it's worth them spending time and money on something which won't really give them any benefit. Is this the best course of action or is it just something to make us look cool?...

The one overall issue is that looking for alternatives is just a hassle. Why bother looking for an easier way when we already have people willing to pay the money?

i will try pay watever cost but i cant really guarantee it tho, as you know my views toward money and internet. btw i would suggest that we should have this name included www.AoF-GC.com it looks professional to me

techno_kid wrote:

OPTION A
We could go for the domain name as you have suggested and pay for a .org or what ever TLD (top level domain eg .com .co.uk .us .org) you decide to choose. This obviously costs money and you should think about how many people can actually donate this amount of money just for a domain name. Also, does it bring any real benefits? Do people expect a gaming community to have a domain name of their own?

OPTION A-
It just happened.No i don't think people would have donated but char offered to donate and help and so the idea was put out here.

techno_kid wrote:

OPTION B
Similar to option A but using a .co.cc domain instead. I'm not 100% sure about how you could integrate individual page URLs (addresses) into this domain because you obviously haven't got much control over the way forumotion hosts these forums. Benefits are that it's obviously free (don't know if it's only for a year or not) and still looks fairly good.

OPTION B-
Was never ruled out,just wanted more info.
No i don't think it is possible to integrate individual pages.
The only thing i know is that it is free and there is a 1 year limit.But i don't know what is beyond that 1 year limit.

techno_kid wrote:

OPTION C
I know certain administrators are going moan at me and i'm just saying this as another option so don't eat me...

Pay less for more! Look around for proper hosting and get a "proper" forum with a domain name and have complete control over everything. Benefits are it costs less for more and disadvantages maybe that you initially lose your posts. Have we got a strong enough community to restart the discussions elsewhere?

OPTION C-
Most posts here are old.The number of posts are more of a badge of honor,showing off,-"Look we have 10000 posts etc"
I don't know how we can restart discussions or what you mean by that exactly.
But we could transfer old posts by copying it in case of a shift to any forum.

In hind sight it was good we didn't take the Void server forum deal because they have stopped its expansion,only 3 clans who first applied for it got it-NO,Saint and ESF.Others are still waiting.

In this Option C give me the best deal possible and then we can see....
(Also if you are giving features pls explain then properly because many here including me won't understand these features.)
The question would also be-What can do with all these features?
Say we have FTP,would we use it?
We need good coders etc and the community should be more active on forums to make this worth it.

I would love to have a paid forum but there are limitations,get a good deal and lets see what others got to say.

techno_kid wrote:

OPTION D
Do we really need a peronsal domain name or can we do without one? I touched on this before but do people think that non-profit organisations should be expected to pay out or can we accept that it's just not worth it for now. I might understand if we had 100,000 hits a day or something like that but we simply don't. On the other hand does it make us look unprofessional?

OPTION D-
Imo,it does make us look unprofessional.
But i am just being myself,a perfectionist,and therefore a personalized domain name sounds good to me.

techno_kid wrote:

OPTION E
Does forumotion allow you to transfer domain names for free? Can you buy it elsewhere at a cheaper price and then transfer it to forumotion? It's something for the admin to have a look at but it could be a cheaper alternative.

Yes,i think so.But this could have been changed,will have to look more closely.

techno_kid wrote:

CONCLUSION
Overall the question that should really be asked is whether or not we need it and this is something we need to decide on honestly. As a web designer clients always come to me with new ideas about their site but I have to ask them if it's worth them spending time and money on something which won't really give them any benefit. Is this the best course of action or is it just something to make us look cool?...

Yes,this is the question i often ask too,but in this case there is/are donor(s) and therefore this lost its relevance.

I would ask the same thing for Option C-
Can we pay for a paid forum?
Yes it will make us look cool,but who wouldn't want to be cool if one can afford it?

And the earlier question-
What are your dreams for this community in future or how do you envision it in the future?

Then i thought 300 members+ would be needed,but now i realize if we have 300 active guys we would become one of the largest clans out there in the world
and smaller clans much smaller than us still afford this.

Its about having quality members,more than quantity.

At the end of the day i can't decide on this,because it will be the donors/potential donors who will decide on this.

-Geromix

Quote :

OPTION B-
Was never ruled out, just wanted more info.
No i don't think it is possible to integrate individual pages.
The only thing i know is that it is free and there is a 1 year limit.But i don't know what is beyond that 1 year limit.

Your right, and you can't use page specific links so thats probably a bad option.

Quote :

OPTION C-
Most posts here are old.The number of posts are more of a badge of honor,showing off,-"Look we have 10000 posts etc"
I don't know how we can restart discussions or what you mean by that exactly.
But we could transfer old posts by copying it in case of a shift to any forum.

In hind sight it was good we didn't take the Void server forum deal because they have stopped its expansion,only 3 clans who first applied for it got it-NO,Saint and ESF.Others are still waiting.

In this Option C give me the best deal possible and then we can see....
(Also if you are giving features pls explain then properly because many here including me won't understand these features.)
The question would also be-What can do with all these features?
Say we have FTP, would we use it?
We need good coders etc and the community should be more active on forums to make this worth it.

I would love to have a paid forum but there are limitations, get a good deal and lets see what others got to say.

As for this, it all depends on how much you want to pay really. You can go for alot of options really but I would've said that the best option is something like £3 per month. That would give you sooooo much more than the sort of £1 a month scheme your going for. You'd only need one person to sort out the coding options etc. and they would find it easy to do if they have half a brain. Otherwise, it can all be done via a simple interface with buttons etc that is easy to understand by anyone at all. Features you would get and there uses are:


- Storage Space - Based on a general view of your forums you don't need much space for anything. Forums run on databases (which I'll cover later) so your posted don't get stored as files. This means all you need to store is pictures and the forum scripts (code). This takes very little storage at all. The plan I'm offering gives you plenty of room to expand.

- Traffic - Looking at the average daily visitor I have doubled it and then doubled it again to get you a safe level of monthly traffic allowance to keep the site online. Basically, every time someone loads a page it takes away a bit of your bandwidth and I've given you a very safe level in this plan.

- Subdomains - You probably won't need any of these unless you decide to split the forums by game (bad idea) but i've thrown 30 in for free.

- Email Addresses - If you want to look really professional admins could have access to email accounts such as admin@domain.com or no_reply@domain.com where domain is your domain name. You don't have to pay for these they are free up to 500 (more than enough).

- Database - This is where all your posts etc are stored and this is where the main strain will be placed on your website. I'm offering a MySQL database which is compatible with any forum script you may choose to use.

- FTP accounts - These used to change the code and add new files to the website. You might not use them but you can have 5 for free anyway.

- 24/7 Support - You will receive my mobile number and a support center number which you can contact in case of a problem. Ticketing systems are also in place online so that you can email us and receive a reply within the hour.

- Free Domain - This is available for a year and for prices after that are £5 a year for .org's.

£3 a month is less than cost price (I don't mind chipping in on this option) so I obviously can't go cheaper myself. It would also give you better stats, no ads, the option of your own other scripts eg. chat room, games etc, you could have ANY code you want not just bb and html which means you could edit the way things work with php (more advanced for people like me). You can also choose any theme from anywhere, not just from forumotion settings (including flash).

Doing this is also a good way to purge (be rid of) old inactive members since although we have 300+ members registered, I find it hard to beleive that they are all active when you see the amount of users online per day!

You would, as i have said before lose all your posts but you could keep this site going for a bit if you still needed them and just link back to here. You will however have much better security (people try to hack forumotion everyday and post exploits online. none have attacked my servers successfully and i fix all flaws immediatly).

If you want the best than this is it!

Like I said before, I am willing to contribute to whatever we decide on doing. If we were to use this option we would need to make sure to have people willing to program all of the stuff we might want. I am willing to do some of this but I don't really have alot of time now.

techno_kid wrote:

As for this, it all depends on how much you want to pay really. You can go for alot of options really but I would've said that the best option is something like £3 per month. That would give you sooooo much more than the sort of £1 a month scheme your going for. You'd only need one person to sort out the coding options etc. and they would find it easy to do if they have half a brain. Otherwise, it can all be done via a simple interface with buttons etc that is easy to understand by anyone at all. Features you would get and there uses are:


- Storage Space - Based on a general view of your forums you don't need much space for anything. Forums run on databases (which I'll cover later) so your posted don't get stored as files. This means all you need to store is pictures and the forum scripts (code). This takes very little storage at all. The plan I'm offering gives you plenty of room to expand.

- Traffic - Looking at the average daily visitor I have doubled it and then doubled it again to get you a safe level of monthly traffic allowance to keep the site online. Basically, every time someone loads a page it takes away a bit of your bandwidth and I've given you a very safe level in this plan.

- Subdomains - You probably won't need any of these unless you decide to split the forums by game (bad idea) but i've thrown 30 in for free.

- Email Addresses - If you want to look really professional admins could have access to email accounts such as admin@domain.com or no_reply@domain.com where domain is your domain name. You don't have to pay for these they are free up to 500 (more than enough).

- Database - This is where all your posts etc are stored and this is where the main strain will be placed on your website. I'm offering a MySQL database which is compatible with any forum script you may choose to use.

- FTP accounts - These used to change the code and add new files to the website. You might not use them but you can have 5 for free anyway.

- 24/7 Support - You will receive my mobile number and a support center number which you can contact in case of a problem. Ticketing systems are also in place online so that you can email us and receive a reply within the hour.

- Free Domain - This is available for a year and for prices after that are £5 a year for .org's.

£3 a month is less than cost price (I don't mind chipping in on this option) so I obviously can't go cheaper myself. It would also give you better stats, no ads, the option of your own other scripts eg. chat room, games etc, you could have ANY code you want not just bb and html which means you could edit the way things work with php (more advanced for people like me). You can also choose any theme from anywhere, not just from forumotion settings (including flash).

Doing this is also a good way to purge (be rid of) old inactive members since although we have 300+ members registered, I find it hard to beleive that they are all active when you see the amount of users online per day!

You would, as i have said before lose all your posts but you could keep this site going for a bit if you still needed them and just link back to here. You will however have much better security (people try to hack forumotion everyday and post exploits online. none have attacked my servers successfully and i fix all flaws immediatly).

If you want the best than this is it!

So it would cost-
$52-$50 per year?

If we have five guys to donate so it will turn out to around $10 per year for them?
It is not bad.

All this is good but i would like to know what kind of forum version will be used.
I would Karma system to be there.

For me and many others here,the forum should be really good looking as well.

I would like others to respond to this.

-Geromix

That's the best thing about it!! You can use ANY forum script you like!!

So what is the 'best one'?

The forum software that will suit us the best,has possibility of MODs etc.

Has good themes/styles etc.

If we get 300 visits per day would it affect bandwidth?

I would rather give up emails,subdomains etc for this.

Well actually i dont think u should throw emails out the window. Think of this, i know we arnt a business as such but AoFs problem is not getting members but getting them onsite and keeping them active. We could operate some sort of a 'welfare' or member services kinda thing were by, promotion applications go through it, bullying goes through it, Mentorship for a certain amount of time goes through it & etc. things that not only bring the members in but actually make them feel like they being looked out for within the community. Just my opinion.

As a gaming organisation maybe afew extra emails could be handy depending on how the work. mainly the good question would be how do u access the mail and send it? is it by ur computer or can u make it run off the site? We could use emails as a extra methods of running certain things. everyone has an email if they registered on the site so then they could contact diffrent departments within the AoF through them.

know its abit hard to grasp the need at first but i think it would help. what u think?

My other reply may have came out rude but i just dont see whats the point in wasting 20 bucks on that if u could get something more expensive yes but in the long run better. Take a choclate bar, if u seena choclate bar in the shop for 50p but then seen a pack of 5 for £1.00 what would u get? ( BTW that actually happened with dairy milk choclate bars from caburys xD thank u guys!)

On a side note. Techno m8, maybe post some examples of what sites of a similar package to what u are suggesting have could help us all get an idea of what others have done and what we should expect for what any doners are considering contributing financally for.

@Geromix

There isn't a best one as such. You should probably spend some time looking at:

- SMF - http://www.simplemachines.org/
This is free and gives a great variety of extensions (http://custom.simplemachines.org/)

- phpBB3 - http://www.phpbb.com/
I've never used this but some people like it.

As for bandwidth 200Gb should be more than enough but if you find you need more you cann add to it at any time. Towards the back end of the credit crunch i might be able to throw some extra in anyway. Just as a thank you.






@DarkGhost

Because you can use php you can run email from the site as you want to. I can't give out the names of sites i host for legal reasons but if you want examples of extra features it gives you feel free to ask.

Think ive seen that phpBB3 on some of the other communitys ive seen trying to get off the ground. Never seen the first one before. seems interesting but its just a forum and thats what we want. we can work on it to bring it up to a standard seems pretty plain. Not to mention Free is always nice.

on a side note dont themes also cost us something normally?

SMF is by far the best forum app i've ever found. Thousands of MODs, good community support, etc.

To start for themes you should look at http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?action=search;type=8 or http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/ and they're all free on there!

now do we just need to get the donaters to vote on it?

I am happy to contribute to anything we decide to do, but I am having real issues finding a way of donating. I am in New Zealand and I currenly don't have a credit card. Ideas?

Well so far i can say there are 3 (potential)donors-

>mightybean
>char561
>Kevlar

techno could chip in some.

I would certainly like some help to be given to mightybean in this regard,new alternate way for him to donate.
So i would like him to get to the ability to donate properly.
We need him.

The other 2 donors too should give their approval.

I would like Kevlar to contact jack_untune,he was ready to donate earlier,maybe he can help us out again.

Also leaders pls send a message to respective branches regarding this,any more donors would always be good.

A small contribution of $5 would be appreciated.

I would certainly like people to take some time out and look for good themes.
I have searched in the SMF theme site,there are some good ones but so far i haven't found the 'perfect one'.So pls search there.

On the other hand there are some good themes that come close to being 'perfect' for phpBB 3.
http://www.phpbb3styles.net/

SMF looks good, but it will be a tough choice between phpBB 3 and SMF.

i personally have been looking at the mods part of the site.
Deres something about Karma updates, Avatar on member list, group moderators ( a new way to get all leaders of a branch to add members to their group maybe?)

a pile on ur favorite thing.. Karma HERE
or maybe even better HERE

dont think look like something we need?HERE

looking at the amount of mods and all that come out with SMF im impressed with it.

Obviously we could modify the themes to like what we want and I would certainly reccomend smf over phpbb3 but if you do find a perfect theme we could use phpbb3 if we have to.

As for donating, I've already donated a pound a month past cost price so I don't know how far I can go past that. I could try my best but I doubt I could do much to help with more.

I'm with you on getting an eye out at some themes nice and early and guys don't be worried about sharing them cause we're not going to slag you off if we don't like what you've found.

So Techno m8, say we went for SMF what version would u recommend?

I would say 1.1.8 for the SMF version. We could go for version 2, but there will still be alot of problems with it and untill an official release (ie. not a beta) has been confirmed we should stick with the safe versions. It also means more plugins are compatible and same with themes.

I would recommend:

- Karma - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1129
- Sign Up Security - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1078
- Social Site Sharing - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1062
- Auto Email Inactive Users - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1186
- Merge Double Posts - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1523
- Signatures - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1715
- Online/Offline User Status - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1764
- Ban List & Page To Show Reasons - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1198
- Bookmarks - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=350
- Contact Page - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=377
- Custom BB Code - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=331
- Custom Register Page - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1347
- Admin Notes - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=560
- Auto Happy Birthday - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1470
- Custom Profile Fields - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=319
- Enhanced Profile - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1348
- MSN Status - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=427
- Staff Listing Page - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=348
- Advanced Login - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1296
- Advanced Recent Posts - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1069
- AJAX Quick Reply - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1214
- AJAX Personal Text - http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1339

etc etc...

Ok I opened the Signatures link, but I can't make out what in the Sexy Vampire's name this is about... I actually doubt if this has annything to do with a personalized domain name 0.o

Smf doesn't have a great signatures feature so that makes it better

On the idea of themes tbh the best ive seen isHERE
In my opinion of course.

@techno: what's SMF?

@ghosty: true it looks good

According to SMF home page...

Simple Machines Forum — SMF in short — is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.

Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your message board and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other.

SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software - and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!