Plans for the future of Gamingforce

Some clarifications I feel I should make:

Q. Are you going to prune other parts of GFF?
A. What else is there to prune, really? How much more space can we get by removing posts? Just to put it in perspective, every single post on GFF added together (all 650,000 of them) comes to merely 300 megabytes. The drive space consumed by text is downright negligible.

Q. But what happens when we run out of space again due to VGMdb?
A. We'll start paying the additional $30 a month to double our drive space to 100GB. Happily.

Q. What happens when that runs out?
A. With requirements of that magnitude we'll have to seriously consider third party storage. Removing GFF wouldn't solve anything.

Q. So why move the two forums instead of just moving the attachments off-site? The forums themselves aren't using much space, like you said.
A. To decrease our risk of legal liability. This also ensures the long-term survival of GFF and its fellow tenants on our current dedicated host. The two affected forums will be moved to cheaper shared hosting, which means there is a lot less at stake.

Another motive for this is the separation of disparate communities. There's the possibility that the migrant forums can have their own dedicated administration.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

As much as most of us dislike The Concert Hall, Rychord has a point in that we could probably just move The Musician's Library in order to avoid legal ramifications.

However as Blah says it would give The Concert Hall a chance at their own community if the entire CH was moved. Hmmmm...

FELIPE NO

Q. Where is Paikuhan?
A. ...

How ya doing, buddy?

I'm sure Pai Q Han will come back someday. He's a good moderator.


"Jay Converse"? With a name like that you don't even need a nick, just roll it natural Max Biggs style

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by AcerBandit

As much as most of us dislike The Concert Hall, Rychord has a point in that we could probably just move The Musician's Library in order to avoid legal ramifications.

However as Blah says it would give The Concert Hall a chance at their own community if the entire CH was moved. Hmmmm...

The thing is that there would be nothing stopping those who prefer to follow the sharing threads to the .com from starting their own discussion forums there if they are so inclined (in fact it might even be desirable, what with the whole camouflage issue and whatnot).

Another solution might be to incorporate a CH type sub-forum in the Creator's Cafe...?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Pangalin

I'm sure Pai Q Han will come back someday. He's a good moderator.


"Jay Converse"? With a name like that you don't even need a nick, just roll it natural Max Biggs style

He did close one of my threads.

That's not a bad idea, thanks Pang

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

Nobody's trying to "break up the community". Everybody will retain their membership on GFF.org after the split. If people decide, individually, not to ever USE their GFF.org account to post again — that's their choice, isn't it? I mean I'd be pretty annoyed if someone moved Laughs & Games to another board, but I'd just post in both places since I'm um what's it called. Interested in multiple things.

Quote:

Someone "hilariously" changed the name of the thread to "FUCKING, FISTING or FISHING? Vote NOW!!!" If whoever did that had spoken to my face like that, I would have shown them some Bruce Lee Jeet Kune Do.

If you don't understand why that thread went off the rails then you weren't paying attention. It wouldn't be possible to say it to your face because nobody uses asterisks as completely inept self-censorship when speaking vocally.

As far as people being hateful to CH regulars when they pop their heads out, I only ever really see LeHah doing that. You can't draw conclusions from that crap; LeHah hates everybody.


v you're putting an awful lot of thought into an essentially unsustainable model, Bas

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

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 was speaking idiomatically.

Basil, no offense, but you're attempting to duplicate what occurred here as a happy accident, and you're justifying the excisement of the community in the process. If you really need a camouflage to exist then you're better off not screwing up another community that you're using for that camouflage.

Going to some other forum and attempting to do the same thing again is a bad idea waiting to happen. The odds of you successfully finding another topic or whatever to hide behind and get active posts in is pretty damn small, unless there's a hidden shared hobby the guys have in there that no one knows about.

When you get kicked out of the house because the cops might, just might, find your weed stash and Mom and Dad are tired of worrying about it, the first thing you think about is typically "How can I get a roof over my head," not "Where is the new hiding spot for my weed." Mom and Dad are even helping you find a new house. "Sure but I can't hide my weed in this house they're giving me! This sucks and YOU SUCK." is the reaction I'm seeing.

Alternatively...

Spoiler:

(17:27:00) (+Benjamin) LETS MAKE A BOARD ABOUT GARDENING AS OUR FRONT
(17:27:01) (+Benjamin) YEAH
(17:27:04) (+Benjamin) FUCK YEAH GARDENING
(17:27:12) (@a_worker) fuck yeah gardening
(17:27:16) (+Mo0) fuck yeah, gardening
(17:27:21) (+Mo0) manliest hobby ever
(17:27:23) (+Benjamin) GARDENFORCE
(17:27:24) (+Benjamin) GARDENFORCE
(17:27:24) (+Benjamin) GARDENFORCE

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally I'd planned to say something about not seeing a real need for the split to begin with. One notice in all the years that My Stuff and CH have been up and running seems pretty negligible, and it seems strange to move a whole forum of people away from the main community even if they don't interact with it much. Granted, I also underestimated the absurdity of their victim complexes until seeing the responses Shin's attempts at diplomacy have received. Personally, I don't see forums. People tell me I don't post in the Concert Hall and I believe them.

That's all changed now though, because GARDENFORCE FUCK YEAH.

Originally Posted by She Loves Piano

even though a lot of you hate me and call me names because I spend much time in the CH, I'd like to see the community stay together. After all, if CH disappears, who are you all going to complain about and call names--each other? Oh wait, you do that too!

Congratulations on disproving your own victimization. Being called names around here is pretty standard, and has little or nothing to do with you spending most of your time in CH.

How ya doing, buddy?

Tritoch,

I know being called names is standard practice, hence I ended with "After all, if CH disappears, who are you all going to complain about and call names--each other? Oh wait, you do that too!" --this was my (poor) attempt at a joke.

I don't feel like a "victim" when strangers online call me names, etc.--it says more about them than it does about me.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

For the record, I promised to defend any Concert Hallers who posted in here from unwarranted abuse. I never promised to defend them if they made a complete tit of themselves.

This was such a civilised discussion yesterday too.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Shin

This was such a civilised discussion yesterday too.

Yeah, this went to hell in a hand-basket pretty damn quickly by the looks of things. Though the moment someone takes Mo0 at all seriously is always a sign things are heading down a bad road.

Nonsense aside, I want to say thanks to Blah: cheers dude, you answered my questions from before, so thanks for that. Appreciated, and cleared up a few things I was unsure about.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

That's not to say we can't learn from this though.

Those of us who post all over the boards know this is a very silly place at times, as evidenced by the banner and name changes. We find that kind of thing funny and it's one of the reasons this place never gets stale or boring.

The Concert Hall types are largely unaware of goings on outside their little section of the boards and for the most part this is fine, they have no need to venture out so not getting everyone else's sense of humour is no problem.

The problems occur when they do need to venture out, either because of an April Fools prank they don't get or because something pretty serious like the entire forum being moved to a different site. Most of the CHetards are perfectly reasonable people I'm sure who are capable of delivering or understanding rational debate but sadly, the ones who choose to come out and express their views are often basically idiots with a huge victim complex; Mersenne, Gay Perverse, packrat and so on.

When they make fools of themselves, they get abused, as would any member who spouted the same sort of crap no matter where they usually posted. Because they see themselves aas intellectual martyrs or something though, they take it personally and assume that it's because we all hate them and all the other CHetards.

Although this is patently bollocks, they say it often enough for other, marginally more self-assured CH types to start believing it and this whole culture of there being no point even bothering with us because we all hate you arises.

What we really need to do is ban the idiots like Mersenne and Gay Perverse from this thread and the one in CH and try to get some opinions from the more reasonable and normal CH regulars.

I mean, we don't need to at all of course, it's Blah and Miles' server they can do what the fuck they want when they want but in the interest of doing something positive that benefits the maximum number of people, it makes sense to me to at least attempt to engage the affected parties.

At the end of the day though, if we really can't find any CH regulars who care enough about the place to engage in discussion about it's future then I guess it really doesn't matter what happens to it and you might as well just delete it Blah.

Additional Spam:
In some form of probably hopeless attempt to get this back on track, I've posted new announcements in both the main Concert Hall and the Musician's Library bit and changed the title of this thread back.

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

By the way, whoever's put the word filter on the full site name should probably make an exception for links, since it's breaking internal links. For instance, a link to this thread...

http://www.gamingforce.org/forums/bo...tml#post682013

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

First as a CH-regular, I must admit CH has brought about enormous benefits to me as a music student, whether through the vast amount of recordings or your not-so-regular sheet music or even books on piano pedagogy(which I treasure dearly).

Yes, CH has been instrumental in developing me, in some way or another.
Sure, I'd definitely miss CH if its down, and I think I would (as would all other CH-ers) miss the potential it possesses.

CH is a channel for (classical) music lovers to explore and delve into new realms very conveniently, as compared to if you would to gather all the various data(scores, recordings..) yourself.

I agree, CH is pretty desolate, but I think there at at least ten to maybe twenty regulars who share stuff and post and discuss music occasionally. And believe me, as a music student, this opens up another dimension for me, as opposed to sticking to one way direct input from my various teachers. The various recordings uploaded and traded between us helps a lot, because they are pretty expensive you think about buying lots of them.

I wouldn't think all CH-ers have bad attitude. I think most of them(like me) are just a little more intrested in fiddling around with music and are pretty busy with work so its just bookmark in, check for new stuff, or upload new album bought, check for discussion threads on music, close IE/FireFox, chill out.

Personally, as a musician, I dare say I'd do anything to give a hoot about the world's current happenings and just seek refinement after refinement, and maybe one day perfection in art. But alas my current studies(non-musical) does not permit me to. So you see, I think music-inclined people could possibly be a little eccentric like this. Thus the non-venturing out of CH.

Regarding the space issue I think we would be all OK for deleting of attachments. And possibly banning attachments function or enforcing a rule to stop that. I think most of the stuffs are actually uploaded on filesharing websites like megaupload/rapidshare etc. now. Its only a few files here and there, but of course it snowballs. So deleting the attachments could work. Perhaps would this be a possible solution to the space problem? If not, why not?

I wouldn't like to see CH go down. Taken down now, or in future by some law firm. Its been part of me for quite some time already. I've been here since before the crash of the first forum. And I strongly believe it has many benefits to young upstart-musicians.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Shin

What we really need to do is ban the idiots like Mersenne and She Loves Piano Gay Perverse from this thread and the one in CH and try to get some opinions from the more reasonable and normal CH regulars.

Agreed, but unless some admin steps up to do that if they feel is warranted and to promote actual discussion in this thread, I'm pruning the bullshit from here and tossing in everyone's favorite piss trough.

Enjoy it, PERVERTS.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

We're also 6 pages into a "serious" discussion. It may be a good idea to give a quick pros-cons synposis / "Previously, On GFF" overvue on the whole subject.

FELIPE NO

I kinda did that in my new CH announcement... kinda.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I'm not especially sure where the whole 'everyone hates the Concert Hall people' thing came from - sure there've been the non-personal complaints about CH using up server space with no wider participation (which is true), but I can't think of any specific examples of a 'proper' member biting the head off of a Concert-Hall-only person (barring the examples of the last couple of days where it's happened because of actual conflict instead of some kind of prejudice or whatever), so I agree with Shin that it seems like it's just a general attitude going around.

Of course the sheet music trading stuff would work fine with all the attachments hosted off-site and just links posted, but I see that the legal issue is the more pressing concern, and I don't think I'm alone amongst CH regulars in saying that while losing this particular sheet music resource would be a shame, it would be much more of a shame to see the actual community - that is, the regulars who post everywhere and get to know each other and get properly involved with the forums (the aforementioned 'proper' posters) - lose the boards altogether because of copyright violation that doesn't involve or interest you at all. Those of us only interested in sheet music can find other places to get it - there's no single resource as good as this place has been, but they're still there.

I think you'd find the place much tidied up if you just withdrew pdfs as attachments and moderated the place to prevent sharing of copyrighted
content - both the sheet music and the recordings (so pretty much 99% of the stuff that's been posted there altogether). That's a big change from the current TRADE WHATEVER YOU LIKE mindset in there at the moment, but some of the most interesting stuff I ever saw posted in CH was perfectly
legal - transcriptions Capnflav and Mercuzio have made, or those Pseudo made when he was still around. The same applies about those who compose their own music and share it, either to get some feedback or just to show off.

It's all stuff that wasn't available anywhere else and really shows off the talent of some CH members. Get rid of the illegal stuff, make the Concert Hall public, and after you lose the fifteen million members only interested in free sheets they'd otherwise have to pay for, you have a nice little group of
people with stuff of their own to share, be that a composition, a recording, a transcription, an opinion, or whatever.

I'd stick around for that, and so would enough other people to make it a viable section of the forum, I bet, plus it would get rid of all space and legal issues. A big concern would be that it'd need to be very heavily moderated to stop people still posting illegal stuff, either out of old habits or bloody-mindedness. That would be quite a huge task, but I think drastic action like that could even reinvigorate the forum and make it more a part of the overall boards this is probably wishful thinking.

Most amazing jew boots

That's not a terrible idea. But I'm gonna keep with the notion that at least illegal stuff of The Musician's Library would be moved because well we're still planning on moving My Stuff no matter what. Might as well take one other dubious facet over to the .com while we're at it. I wouldn't mind having a deloused version of The Concert Hall sticking around on the .org. I know you guys seem to follow your rules fairly well and new ones probably wouldn't be that big a deal especially if you know there's a certain den only three different characters in a url away.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by AcerBandit

I wouldn't mind having a deloused version of The Concert Hall sticking around on the .org.

See, I like this idea, what with being a classical musician who thinks that only talking with other classical musicians on classical music topics makes one a douchebag retard.

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

Dbin's suggestion isn't half bad. But if it were to happen, I'd like to see a change in the people who run that section. New blood is needed to enforce new policy.

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

I've been following the thread, and I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Moving the entire CH would amend to everyone's feeling here. Forum regs wouldn't take a second glance after CH is gone and vice versa. Let CH sort itself out at the .com domain. The ones who don't move will have no clue why CH disappeared one afternoon (aka. leechers) and no one will care.

The only problem I have with this is My Stuff. Why throw it on top of CH? The main difference between CH and MS is that there is actually DISCUSSION in CH, though I admit the vast majoring on both forums are primarily leechers (who are the real problem).

It's a little sad to see GFF split like we are, having ventured around every forum and even gffchat sometimes. But who am I so say.

Most amazing jew boots

Alright, so(after looking at this thread for some days and reading Shin's post in the CH)...

As a concert hall regular(well, I'd call myself a regular) I wouldn't like to see the whole Concert Hall gone/moved/deleted. I'd be fine, though, with the removal of the musicians library in order to have more space...
Sure, it's convenient to have the sheet music threads, but they aren't necessary and they aren't the reason why I continue coming to gamingforce(even if I first came here because of FF7 piano sheet music).


Also, I think Dbin's post said what I wanted to say(and more) better than how I said it.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?