Admin

no.

good to hear, just talked to Duzi as well who spoke to him a little. She's pretty relieved and so am I.

ProudAsian

the only real reasons we ever needed guest views was so that unregistered SNs could post on Password Recovery and so that the entire world could read Sponges fanfiction.

On our best days, we make about a million mistakes. We're limited in our abilities, our understanding and our processing. That doesn't mean I disagree with the concept of someone choosing the time and place of their own deaths. But I think there's a difference between perception and reality for all of us, and a decision of such finality, which can be ill conceived or ill considered, no matter how passionately or resolute one may feel in the decision, isn't like your garden variety "whoops" type mistake. Or even "well I made a mess I guess" kind of mistake. It's undoable. And it can destroy people left behind. Generally speaking, it's widely accepted in social science that people who reach out don't really want to end. They just don't know what to do, and have sort of painted themselves, by process of elimination, or some other method, into a corner, or pinned themselves down to do something they're ultimately not as sure about as they might think. Seeking attention isn't always about "look at me". We seek attention for a lot of reasons. Sometimes because we need help. And we might not always even understand what it is. But something in us wants to reach anyway. Attention could just be attention to some problem that a person needs assistance with. And attention of others is never really yours to command. I mean, you can reach for things. But other people outside yourself will react to that however they react. Some with disgust, some with pity, some with industry or good intentions, some with simple observation, even with malice. People will come at it from all directions. Because they are made up of different experiences and different wiring. On a selfish level, reading Skiles posts is something I would miss. It'd be one less opportunity to get a laugh or a thought out of the day. But that's my reaction to him. The good part of that comes from him. It's like a gift. When he writes something that makes me laugh or react or think about something. He's given me a lot of those. And I feel like, you know, all the issues he has to deal with, be they personal or chemical or medical or whatever, are part of who he is, but all that other stuff, all those little gifts he's given to me and others, all that humor, that perspective, that's all him too. And it would be a loss I think to everybody here. A lot of us don't really know each other well, some of us better than others, but I feel like Skiles has a definitive spark to him. It's unique. It's a gift. And the world would suck a little more without it.

thanks mostly to Duzi by the way, who luckily stays in touch with everybody.

His family has been contacted, and they're trying to get ahold of him.

bits of the admin are down as well. so we'll just have to hope he doesn't take off with a bunch of dinosaur sperms or something.

nope.

changed some banners. this week's release lists will post on Sunday. might have some more substantial news next week on overall software progress.

just everything. basically "as is" you can make a forum. You can add threads and make a folder structure. And there are nice ways you can set up for users to sort messages as well. So it's not all bad, there's some good stuff in it too. But even adding a reply button to every post, and stuff like that I think has to be added in. think of it as - basically we have the ability to build stuff, with the very bare bones basic ability to make a forum structure. But to do most of the other stuff associated with it, we have to build it ourselves. Though there are some good plugins as well. So some of it can be done with those. The difference for me personally though is - like if somebody has a quick request, or I have to do some quick content related thing, I don't want it to take like an hour. And I don't want me to be the only one who can do stuff to the board. Or me and KN I should say. I want software that will allow us to, on a daily basis, process content quickly and process user requests quickly. Because, while it sucks to be in limbo with some of this stuff, it'll suck even more if - like we pick something, set it up, and then after it's live realize that anything we need to do on it is a slog. Or a user has to not only wait for their request to be seen, but also has to wait for the one or two people that can actually process that request to have the time to go in and do that, instead of just clicking a couple things and having it done in like a minute.

IPB lacks the "out of the box and go" element that a lot of these other packages have. A lot of stuff that's standard in most of the message board packages that I look at you can do with IPB, but you have to introduce it through code and CSS, rather than just automatically have it already built into the admin cp. The plugins are better than SMF, because I don't think every plugin for IPB comes with built in automatic errors because it was created for an out-of-date version of the software and/or has to be adapted to the theme. But also it's more expensive. Most of the stuff that's just free with SMF you have to pay extra for with IPB. so, basically it's configurable, but it requires more work and you have to throw more money at it to get what you want. And even then there's no real simple cp for everything. Since a lot of the functionality is css related, you can't just adjust permissions for various volunteers so they can access this or that and take care of something quickly. Almost everything you do has to be done through the CSS, which is more time consuming than simply clicking a dropdown menu and picking an item, going to that page and clicking/doing whatever you have to do to get something to happen. With this board, for example, we can open things up task by task to various volunteers. And most common tasks have an existing path. You can build that with IPB. Eventually. But it doesn't come with those paths already established, and because most of it is CSS related, you can't really open it up as easily for volunteers to do more stuff. So, with SMF, it's old and a pain in the ass and stuff. But it's easy to manage content, permissions and features with it. With IPB, it's new and more adaptable to current internet standards. But to get the same level of ease of management of content, permissions and features, you have to shovel more money into it, and even then, it's tough to achieve the same simplicity that something like SMF has, as again, much of IPB is handled through the CSS and code. So with IPB, with a lot of stuff, we can eventually figure out how to do it and what to put into the CSS to get it. But there will never necessarily be an easy path for a volunteer such that you could just go: Admin>Permissions>permission subthing>chose pulldown option B>click the box next to the item you want or whatever like that. Instead for a lot of stuff we seemingly have to actually like "oh, we need to change that setting/feature/whatever? well, back into the CSS we go then."

[blockquote]Rolled 2d8 : 4, 6, total 10[/blockquote]

Castlevania episode 1

sent

these are issues that popped up for whatever reason due to the server migration. my guess is just that, because it's a new server, the way it processes things isn't exactly the same, and this being old software as previously mentioned, there are things that are probably running into processing issues on the new server that the old server, which was slightly different, didn't have issues with. Or did, but they manifested differently. Basically as I understand it, the new server is now processing this dinosaur board, and as a result of that, things are going to be a little glitchy for a bit.

I'm looking at 5 different programs at the moment. IPB and a few others. The current plan is to try to get some version of IPB to work the way I need it to work if possible. And while I'm doing that, I will also be looking at other software as time permits and passing that on to KN to check out to see what he thinks if I find something I think is better than SMF.

there's actually a lot. nodeBB! Lithium! Proboard, PHPbb, vbulletin, SMF, Vanilla, Punbb, lefora, discuz, beehive, xenforo, mybb, ikonboard, phorum, discourse, and probably a ton of other ones. The problem is it's tough to find one that's workable content-wise and server-wise at the same time. Personally like, with IPB, there's a few things I really don't like about it. But it's better for the server, so I'm willing to try to figure how to make it work. What would be great is if we could find something as responsive server-side as IPB, and as flexible content/permission-wise as the Proboard was and the SMF sort of is (though I'd actually like even more flexibility permission-wise than even SMF seems capable of). Permissions interest me because I think there's a lot you can solve with that one element. A lot of the larger pieces of the message board puzzle I think ultimately land in how configurable and complex the permission system is. At least in terms of content and moderation. But also other things.

TALK ENGLISH

I'm watching it now. Cena is kind of a mystery to me in that, he really is good. He's good on the mic and in the ring. But I still tend to hate him. I think it has something to do with that sort of two-faced thing of - like he seems to assert himself as the top guy, but at the same time, he seems to be constantly sucking up. And not in that sort of character suckup way. Just in a more oblivious "what me? suck up?" way. Like it's always "god bless amurca" and "I fight for our troops tonight!" and that kind of horseshit. Also the whole "U-S-A U-S-A" thing was kind of old hat years ago. And especially in Trump's America I feel like it's just not particularly conducive to audience expansion. Though with it being July 4 and Cena returning, and the ratings have been sort of on the decline, also battle royal, etc, they may well end up getting a ratings bump. Styles/Gable was amazing. Tyler Breeze as Renee Young was funny. I also like what Sami Zayn is doing in his promos. None of these three is going to get a push or anything out of any of it. But they're entertaining. I like battle royals. But they're also a bit sad, because they sort of showcase all the unnecessarily wasted talent WWE has. Like Mojo eliminating Luke Harper, crowd boos. I'm with em. And then they're sort of making a big dramatic moment out of Mojo and Ryder meeting in the middle of the ring and I just don't care. But that's who's getting pushes so there it is. WWE creative always feels like - it's less about telling a story and more about just pushing a guy, and if he's "successful" (however the fuck that's determined) you get credit for it because you were the person who wanted him pushed. It's kind of like trying to write a screenplay in a corporate boardroom with a corporate structure handling the creative elements of it. It just doesn't work. It saps the creativity out of something that requires creativity to make a mark. But also big cheers when Zayn took out Mojo. I swear to god they pay absolutely no attention to their audience. I picture the writers room at WWE like - just people trying to like the right person who's getting pushed by Vince and bitching about how the audience doesn't react right to their personal push picks. I'm a little impressed they actually left Dillinger in as one of the final three. Zayn/Styles/Dillinger. Though clearly, Zayn/Owens always put on an amazing show, and Styles is just plain amazing with anybody. Styles I think is literally the best they've got right now. Dillinger is interesting as a darkhorse, but in terms of a killer PPV match, we know for certain that Owens/Zayn and Owens/Styles either one would be crazy good. But clearly Styles is the favorite. Says something that the audience is so behind Dillinger, because he's in there with two of the most popular WWE performers. Styles wins it. Pretty decent show. Not great. Felt actually like Cena's return put a damper on what was otherwise a pretty good show. And again, I think Cena is good. Just his whole schtick is old. Doesn't matter how passionate or loud or amped up his delivery is, it's just old schtick. Playing to the relatively safe "U-S-A" thing and talking about his love o' countreh and all that. I felt like it sucked a lot of the air out of the room right off the bat.

whoa yeah. I actually used it recently and it was fine. But just now tried and it didn't even load a page. Just white nothingness.

I also like how they're changing things up a bit match-wise. Instead of all these 6 man tag matches and five-way elimination whatevers, twice tonight they just went with a one on one match with tons of distractions and interference. I like that better. Heath Slater Vs Miz was good. Just for those two. But then Miz's new entourage was there (Axel and Dallas) and Rhino was there and Ambrose was on commentary. They could easily have just set up Miz/Axel/Dallas Vs Slater/Rhino/Ambrose. Which is kind of what they've been doing every single week lately. But instead they just went with a one on one story, and everybody still got ring time and everybody pulled off something cool at one point or other. But I don't know. it just makes a better story to me. Also Finn Balor Vs Cesaro was cool for the same reasons. Sheamus was there, the Hardys, and then Elias Samson was stalking Balor as well. That had some awesome spots with all 6 guys. But the basic story in the ring was still this match between two people. I like that better than "GM interrupts match to make it a 3 on 3 match between Balor/Hardys vs Sheamus & Cesaro and Samson". The story dynamic and match dynamic is better with two competitors. Then the supporting performers are kinda icing on the cake.

raw not bad this week. I'm diggin the Joe/Brock stuff.

FOLDER BANNERS IS AN ABSOLUTE NECESSITY

It's not a joke, and we've explained it before on here and possibly on the planning board as well. The SMF software was written several years ago and things have changed considerably since then. People are accessing from different devices and the way the data is structured and processed isn't particularly compatible with today's internet. So the basic premise here is the software will never be better than it is, it will continually grow more and more obsolete and difficult to process/use as time goes by. Because of the way it's set up, it's an unnecessary drain on the server to run the software, whereas software that's more up to date and actively developed, is constantly being tooled to the advances in how the internet is used and processed. SMF is an old slow horse in a world where we've almost progressed beyond cars. So look at it that way. We need a new car, because this old horse can't really get where we need it to go particularly fast, because the roads now are built for cars, not horses.