Plans for the future of Gamingforce

Simple Machines Forums? Man. I used to post on VGmp3.org a number of years back, so that'll be fun to use again.

Anyway, I tried posting an announcement in My Stuff but I'm getting database errors trying to view it. I accidentally posted a duplicate, at that.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

There's one point I'd like to bring up, if I may.

In my perspective, the only reason My Stuff and Concert Hall have even existed for this long is because they're hidden from guests, that they're hidden from the general public, and restricting those boards to members-only give a first impression to the record labels cracking down on piracy that we're just another message board and that they shouldn't bother with us, because to them, we're not doing anything illegal.

But - If My Stuff and Concert Hall are going to separate to the .com domain - how do you expect it to survive, what with both boards clearly out in the open for everybody to see?

It's just like Scoremania, those separated film score bootlegging message boards that a few people in My Stuff and I tried to run way back when. Those boards were repeatedly taken down, and the longest streak we had with one iteration of that board was about a year.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to an MS/CH/community separation, far from it. So long as server space issues are resolved somehow, fine. But I haven't the slightest idea how a separation could work and still prevent the sharing boards from being detected by the RIAA or whomever. Hell, even discussing about it right here in a forum that can be viewed publically is a major risk in itself. If the separated .com domain gets a cease and desist letter or action is taken then - is that just the end for MS/CH or what?

I mean, it's amazing that in all of nine or ten years the sharing boards have been up we've only gotten one DMCA notice and no action has been taken from anybody to shut us down, but.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by LeHah

Muwahahahahahahahahahahahaha

: rings hands together :

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

To be completely honest, I have no idea what the best kind of a camouflage would be when MS/CH eventually splits to the .com domain. Naming the split-off forums as something music-related generates a red flag to the record labels. We could make the split-off forums appear as a message board for a completely unrelated topic (ie gardening, pets, religion), though that would possibly require changing the forum skin or overall appearance of the board to outsiders. Several problems lie in taking this course of action, however:

1) What if people start signing up and are wanting to discuss these fake topics, unaware it's actually just a cover for MS/CH?
2) Would we want registration enabled or disabled? If enabled, how would it work? There's the option of having registrants activate their own accounts or to have administrators activate them instead, though the latter would create a substantial amount of work for us.
3) If registration is enabled - do we create any fake subforums/topics and have those show up for guests, or do we display a notice for guests saying something like "You must be registered to view these boards"?


There's also the option of copying posts/threads from the non-MS/CH areas of Gamingforce and integrate that into the split, though would that really work in the long run, seeing as we're still a fairly active community? Would those higher powers-that-be wonder why there's two "Gamingforce" message boards, with one of them appearing inactive (on the outside)?

Someone probably has better ideas than I do, so I'd like to hear them, if any.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?