Role-Playing Staff

[TheHolo.Net]

The day has finally come. I knew it most likely would eventually, the group known as “The Shrine” has asked to be a part of our RP forums here at SWFans.Net. Alana tells me they have about 30 active members (a lot probably being alts of the same few people is my guess), but I do know they have been around for a while and have lasted somewhere in the area of a year’s time.

Their ezboard is a gold one, and as such gives me a look at how many hits a day they average and how many posts a day they average. Neither of those numbers is very high, but I will still have to require that they contribute something regularly(annually) to the bandwidth fees here at SWFans.Net. At this point how much I am not certain, but I do believe they meet the criteria of having 10 members with 50 RP posts here at SWFans and as such I don’t think turning them down is an option if they are willing to contribute to hosting costs.

Their ezboard is located here:

http://pub145.ezboard.com/bshrineofthedamned

It has a total post count of only 1,312 as of right now.

Thoughts, suggestions, opinions, hate mail?

[Nupraptor]

I'm quite dumbfounded. After all the harassment they give us, they want to be hosted here?

[Master Yoghurt]

Yeah, it is a little odd, but on the other hand, one cant blame them for wanting to get away from ezboard.

If they are willing to pay the annual fee and have enough members, I cant see how we can turn them down. I'd suggest making the Shrine subforums and put them in the Confederacy of Independent Systems category.

[Sanis Prent]

But they aren't CIS :huh

And yes, the double standard is definitely noted. Ah who knows. I get along pretty damn well with all of them, so if it were my take, I'd give the thumbs up. Just stick the finances to em though :)

[Master Yoghurt]

In my opinion, it would clutter up the design of the forum index too much having them on the front page, so thus they should be in a sub category. Also, it was under my impression the CIS would have smaller forums grouped toghether which did not fit to the main index or under other group forums? I was not aware such organising collided with a roleplaying concept.

Ogre might have some idea where to place them though, if that does not work :)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Well if need be you could redo the whole front page into "Dark Side, Light Side and Neutral." Three links, leading to the subforums. Its a whole lotta subforums. Then we'd have GJO (ok so there is only one Light Side group...) and TSO, TBH and The Shrine under Dark Side. CIS would be "neutral"

Maybe you'd just need the one "Dark Side" and pull everyone back into sub-subforum land. It takes people's group names off the main page, but...?

If the Shrine is willing to pay, and realize that Sw-Fans isn't going to start licking their boots every time they want to God mode or what have you, then yeah let them be hosted. They'll have to obey the swfans rules just like everyone else though.

SO I HAVE SAID, SO SHALL IT BE!

j/k :D

[Master Yoghurt]

Well, I am not sure how TBH or TSO would like the idea of being placed in sub forums (they are fairly large groups after all). But I am not a member there, so I would not know, lol

Possibly a better solution then, would be put the Shrine sub forums in some obscure place (same way as we did the shipyards), and place a link somewhere that would be visible, yet not cluttering up the main index with another main forum. Much the same way NR link is implemented. Would that work? :)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Well I didn't like my idea much either, but it MIGHT work. ;)

[TheHolo.Net]

Okay, here is what I am considering, but I will have to field it with all the groups represented on the main page before I request it from the Shrine, and I want to discuss it with the staff and work through any issues before doing that.

An annual cost of $50 must be contributed for your forums to appear on the main forum index. To have your forums hosted as a sub-forum of another forum would require that the group get permission from the hosting forum’s primary administration, with them footing the bill.

As far as I see it, the Confederacy (based on bandwidth usage and appearance on the main index) would be considered a single group and as such only required to meet the $50 annual fee, which has been covered by Eve to the year ending 2003. Between Morgan and Yog, LD, and Taylor, TBH, GJO, and Home One are all covered. I do not know the current status of TGE and their payments to Nup in the past.

If The Shrine agrees to pay the annual cost of $50, then they get a spot on the main index, if not they will need to speak with another group already appearing on the main index and get permission from them to be one of their sub-forums.

Personal contributions are welcome at any time seeing that our annual hosting fees are currently $600. I should probably come up with some kind of plan to try and promote contributions twice a year, encouraging people to help our forums out.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Sounds good to me. So, in April, I'll probably send you some more $$ if I have it in my budget. Not at lot though!! ;)

[TheHolo.Net]

I just drafted a notice that I should post in the Group Mods forum and send out to the primary administration of the current groups hosted here via PM. Let me hear you thoughts, before I do. The notice is as follows:
------------------------------------------------------------------
With the move to a new host, the SWFans.Net Forums staff has had to reorganize its policies on having Role-Playing group forums hosted here at our site. It has been concluded that with our more reliable and more expensive hosting package that a new system of hosting fees be arranged for Role-Playing group forums to be hosted here.

The system is rather simple and non discriminatory. For any Role-Playing group to be hosted at SWFans.Net Forums and appear as a main forum link on the main forum index at http://sw-fans.net/forum/, a group will have to meet the set minimum annual fee of $50.

Any groups that are sub-forums of a group on the main forum index are not required to pay fees directly to the SWFans.Net hosting funds, but instead are at the discretion of the forum they are hosted within. A limit of 4 (light traffic) sub-forum groups per main index forum link will be strictly enforced. Light traffic equating to less that 20 posts a day. Any sub-forums that exceed that limit would then be required to pay towards the SWFans.Net Forums hosting funds on a scale defined as follows:

20-50 posts a day - 25$ annually
51-100 posts a day - $30 annually
101-200 posts a day - $40 annually
201 posts a day or more - $50 annually

With the reliability, daily backups, room for growth, and greater speed provided by our new host, our annual hosting fees have increased dramatically from what they were previously, thus making the enactment of this strict set of new policies unavoidable.

Annual fees do not have to be paid in a lump sum payment, but will need to be met within each calendar year a Role-Playing group is hosted here.

Just to let you know this policy is not ridiculous in its cost, the current listing of five RP groups on the main forum index at the SWFans.Net Forums paying an annual fee of $50 covers less than 50% of the overall hosting fees paid for our complete hosting package. That difference will have to be met by myself and/or any other voluntary contributions made by our forum members.

[ReaperFett]

I see a problem though. One or two flood posters could cost a person a lot of money, but they themselves could hardly be blamed.

[TheHolo.Net]

Group moderators have the ability to curtail such a thing, by forum specific banning or whatnot.

[Taylor Millard]

It sounds okay to me. I have no problems paying for hosting. Which reminds me...even though it's an offsite link, do I need to go ahead and pay for TGE as well?

Oh and since the Empire was broken up shouldn't 'The Galactic Empire' be labelled 'Imperial Groups' instead?

[TheHolo.Net]

Originally posted by Taylor Millard
It sounds okay to me. I have no problems paying for hosting. Which reminds me...even though it's an offsite link, do I need to go ahead and pay for TGE as well?Any groups that are sub-forums of a group on the main forum index are not required to pay fees directly to the SWFans.Net hosting funds, but instead are at the discretion of the forum they are hosted within. A limit of 4 (light traffic) sub-forum groups per main index forum link will be strictly enforced. Light traffic equating to less that 20 posts a day.
Originally posted by Taylor Millard
Oh and since the Empire was broken up shouldn't 'The Galactic Empire' be labelled 'Imperial Groups' instead? The Forum name is his (Viscera's) decision to make not ours.

[Taylor Millard]

Okay...yeah I was going to say maybe we should ask Viscera but he hasn't RPed in a long time. Which is why I brought it up.

Okay makes sense.

[TheHolo.Net]

Nup: Can I get some info via PM or Im on what arrangements you made with Viscera?

[Master Yoghurt]

The proposed hosting fee system seems fair to me

In order to cover all the costs, there would be voluntary donations from our members. I dont think it will be a problem honestly. I am sure the members of the GJO could contribute some extra, in order to help getting the whole year covered. I could probably add some more as well.

[Nupraptor]

Hmm... I had forgotten what the Shrine's layout looked like. I'm not too happy with the fact that it's a blatant rip of the Blizzard's Diablo 2 site.

[TheHolo.Net]

Well, its Mara's design and I do have a copy of the email getting her permission to use it, so if there is any trouble with that, I could deflect it towards her.

Maybe I should add a forum layout design byline into their footer?

[Nupraptor]

Sure. With an e-mail address hyperlink. So if someone wants to complain about it, then can go directly to her.

[TheHolo.Net]

Will do. :)

EDIT: Done

BTW: Just a note: I ran all the Shrine graphics through Fireworks and shaved over 100 KB off their total size. :x

[Nupraptor]

Typical. Thanks for doing that... I hadn't thought of it.

[Sanis Prent]

BTW: isn't the optimizing stuff in Fireworks the same thats in PS 7.0?

[TheHolo.Net]

I'm not sure.

I have implemented an idea I had to make our forum index a little smaller. Now, even with the addition of the Shrine, there should be one less forum on the Main Index than there was before, because I put the 3 general forums into a master forum. SWFans.Net - Operations & News

[Nupraptor]

BTW: isn't the optimizing stuff in Fireworks the same thats in PS 7.0? Not last time I checked. I still make graphics in PS7 and shave off at least 50% of their filesize with Fireworks 4.

[TheHolo.Net]

The Footer addition is indeed a good idea. I don't want any part of the responsibility for how those forums look in Mozilla or Netscape, nor do I want to try and fix them for those browsers. Coding everything with Frontpage is not the wisest way to do such things.