DL subhosting for SaGa modding community

[Laggy]

To get to the point, there is a small but dedicated SaGa Frontier hacking/modding community that's been in the works for years. It started initially as a data mining project by a few prominent folks over at GFAQs and is still going strong. Everyone knows how much of an utter SaGa fanboy I am, so it should come as no surprise that I have a personal interest in this.

They've recently posted on several boards asking for possible hosts for their forumboards, as they'd prefer to have as opposed to being a subsection of another board. I've spoken with Tallychu to see if he has any qualms about offering to share our hosting, and he's fine with the idea. On the technical side and actual work involved, I'm volunteering to handle this.

Links to the thread in question:
http://board.byuu.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2235
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=8122
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,13617.0.html

Ultimately, I feel the goal of this is to generate more exposure and intercommunity interaction on both of our ends. Everyone probably knows that I and several others have had on and off interaction with other modding communities (FFH as of recent) and frankly I think the chance to see some new faces is a good thing. (And of course I want to see their delicious work bear fruit.)

Please throw in your two cents if you have any concerns or topics you'd like to see addressed.

----


Q. Will the prospective SaGa Frontier modding forum at the RPGDL be a part of their current forums, or will we just inhabit the same hard drive as them, and otherwise have really nothing to do with them (besides giving them all the ad revenue in exchange for hosting us)?

A: You'll have your own forumboard rather than being a subforum of the DL forums, since I was under the impression that that was what you wanted set up. Unless you purchase your own domain name, though, the forum link will be subset of the rpgdl.com domain (something like http://www.rpgdl.com/sagaforums/ with the directory name up to your discretion).

The DL has no advertisements and generates no revenue; we subsist entirely on our own community contributions to pay for hosting. We're offering to host you in hopes of assisting on the SaGa hacking/modding project and growth of its community in general, and while there will be no direct ties to the DL site/boards this is partially being done in hopes of seeing some intercommunity interaction, if nothing else. We do have an IRC channel and it's always great to see new faces. As I mentioned before, there are a number of us who are quite dedicated SaGa Frontier fans.

Q. *Will the RPGDL help maintain backups of our forum, since we're on the same hard drive as them?

A: Yes. In the event that the hosting situation ends up not working on either of our ends, I will provide an entire copy of the forum's files in the case that you decide to migrate elsewhere.

Q. *Do you have experience in web mastering and administration of web sites, and internet message boards and forums? Will you be our admin?

I have some experience with site hosting (I am a system administrator by profession), but it's not my expertise, nor do I wish to maintain a web site. That's an entirely different can of worms unto itself (Talaysen handles the DL site, which is largely quiet, and I pitch in when needed). This proposal is to set up an SMF forumboard with the version you're requesting and adding in mods for it where possible; I'm quite confident that I can figure out most of what you're after in that regards. If you're looking for a dedicated webmaster with your own site that integrates with the boards, though (like romhacking.net), that's beyond the scope of what I'd prefer to do and, to be quite honest, asking a lot of one person. This is for just a forum board.

As I'll be doing the majority of the work here, I will be your technical admin and the one with actual access to server files, but for actual forum administration I'd rather stay out of that and let someone who actually knows the SaGa modding community and project manage the board. I can step in as necessary if requested and will address technical concerns (board downtime, etc.), but anything that can be handled either through moderation or through the Admin features of SMF should be addressed by this person.

Q. *I'm kinda hardheaded about some things, but I have my reasons. I want the Hacks portion of our forum to be unpostable, at least directly. Specifically, if you want to add a hack, I want you to have to fill out a set of custom forms, detailing info about the hack and what platforms you tested it on - among other things - after which the hack will be added to a searchable/browsable database, and a topic will be created in the Hacks forum. After someone posts a bug report or update or recommendation or request on the hack via another set of custom forms, a post featuring the aforementioned info will be added to the relevant topic.

If all of this can be done within the confines of SMF's forum administration tools, then it's possible. Posting restrictions is certainly dead easy to do through it. I'm not so sure about the forms stuff (if you have a mod or plugin that integrates into SMF for that, then I can install it); so long as it doesn't require stepping into the field of hosting a separate site it should be fine.

I will caution that I think it's much more prudent to stay relatively restriction-free and loose about who can post what and where as the project grows. It's only when things have really matured and organization becomes a necessity rather than a luxury that you need to worry about those things. To my knowledge, no actual hacks (outside of hex edits) or mods for SaGa currently exist, it's generally better to let things develop as they will and cohesively piece it all together once there's enough work in progress to justify it. Honestly, a judicious use of stickied topics and forum organization will likely suffice to begin with.

--

This all, of course, comes with the mandatory disclaimer that all of us (you, myself, anyone involved in the project) are doing all of this out of our free time, and our dedication is largely dependant on our personal vested interests and motivation. If it ever ends up not working out for whatever reason, we can agree to settle things amiably and I will never withhold any kind of work (the forum's files and database in this particular case) from you guys if it comes to that. Flipside, I ask that you recognize that I am just one person and I may not be able to cater to every single technical request you want, or that things may just take time.

The other thing is that Talaysen, as our main admin host (aka he pays for stuff), has the right to bring up any concerns regarding proper use of resources such as bandwidth, space and all of that; these will have to be resolved promptly. I sincerely doubt that any of these will be a concern assuming you're not going to be uploading entire ISOs, though you should utilize off-site data storage (large images and other files, etc.) whenever possible.

If you frequent IRC, please drop by at irc.lunarnet.org #rpgdl and fire off a PM to me and we can discuss in real-time if there's further topics that need to be clarified. I think this is a little more efficient than cross-posting on three separate boards.

[superaielman]

I am completely fine with this and am willing to help as needed.

[Cotigo]

Still better than arguing about whether to allow certain equipment and setting up elaborate rules for such and then arguing about those rules in your imaginary character battle so I'll say OK.

[metroid composite]

NEAT



I mean, I don't know that I'll ever go there, never having played Saga.  But I tend to have a ton of respect for romhacking communities as a rule, and there's a lot you can do with dedicated hosting that you can't do on GameFAQs.

[Dunefar]

This is a fine idea, go for it if they're game.

[xibalba]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/198537-saga-frontier/61268429
^Better make that crossposting between four forums - actually five, if you count RPDL.

And to reply to your queries:

A: You'll have your own forumboard rather than being a subforum of the DL forums, since I was under the impression that that was what you wanted set up.

That's exactly what I wanted to do.

Unless you purchase your own domain name, though, the forum link will be subset of the rpgdl.com domain (something like http://www.rpgdl.com/sagaforums/ with the directory name up to your discretion).

Money is an issue.  In fact, I'm homeless right now, and posting from the local library, where I keep warm on weekdays.

The DL has no advertisements and generates no revenue; we subsist entirely on our own community contributions to pay for hosting.

If you ever need to generate revenue from ads in the future, ask and I will advertise the heck out of this forum... but probably not the SaGa Frontier modding forum, since that's kinda a gray area, legally.

We're offering to host you in hopes of assisting on the SaGa hacking/modding project and growth of its community in general, and while there will be no direct ties to the DL site/boards this is partially being done in hopes of seeing some intercommunity interaction, if nothing else. We do have an IRC channel and it's always great to see new faces. As I mentioned before, there are a number of us who are quite dedicated SaGa Frontier fans.

We can't intermingle our memberlists?  As in, if you're a member here, you'll be a member there?

A: Yes. In the event that the hosting situation ends up not working on either of our ends, I will provide an entire copy of the forum's files in the case that you decide to migrate elsewhere.

Good to know.

I have some experience with site hosting (I am a system administrator by profession), but it's not my expertise, nor do I wish to maintain a web site. That's an entirely different can of worms unto itself (Talaysen handles the DL site, which is largely quiet, and I pitch in when needed). This proposal is to set up an SMF forumboard with the version you're requesting and adding in mods for it where possible; I'm quite confident that I can figure out most of what you're after in that regards. If you're looking for a dedicated webmaster with your own site that integrates with the boards, though (like romhacking.net), that's beyond the scope of what I'd prefer to do and, to be quite honest, asking a lot of one person. This is for just a forum board.

As I'll be doing the majority of the work here, I will be your technical admin and the one with actual access to server files, but for actual forum administration I'd rather stay out of that and let someone who actually knows the SaGa modding community and project manage the board. I can step in as necessary if requested and will address technical concerns (board downtime, etc.), but anything that can be handled either through moderation or through the Admin features of SMF should be addressed by this person.

So you just don't want to deal with the people, act as a leader of the entire forum, or otherwise constantly be bugged over everything and anything just for being the highest ranking member?  Sounds fine.

If all of this can be done within the confines of SMF's forum administration tools, then it's possible. Posting restrictions is certainly dead easy to do through it. I'm not so sure about the forms stuff (if you have a mod or plugin that integrates into SMF for that, then I can install it); so long as it doesn't require stepping into the field of hosting a separate site it should be fine.

I will caution that I think it's much more prudent to stay relatively restriction-free and loose about who can post what and where as the project grows. It's only when things have really matured and organization becomes a necessity rather than a luxury that you need to worry about those things. To my knowledge, no actual hacks (outside of hex edits) or mods for SaGa currently exist, it's generally better to let things develop as they will and cohesively piece it all together once there's enough work in progress to justify it. Honestly, a judicious use of stickied topics and forum organization will likely suffice to begin with.

I actually found the aformentioned mod, but I'm not sure I really want to use such a thing, since it will entail setting up another database or sorts.  Very much like RHDN, but more advanced, in that you can search on every possible detail of a hack, hacks are cross-referenced in terms of hacks that interact with each other - or cancel each other out, or whatever - and you can fill out forms to file bug reports on hacks on every possible platform (with drop down boxes for the various emulators, modded PS1, modded PS2, PS1 eboot on PSP,...), submit updates to hacks, report interactions with other hacks.  As I said in the other topics, I don't want a FF3/6 situation, with a bunch of hacks and tools and no central and consolidated data source on conflict between them, canceling out, interactions, updates, bugs, and other things I've no doubt forgotten.

If you can think of a superior forum layout and posting protocol, which will correct these problems, then please share it.

This all, of course, comes with the mandatory disclaimer that all of us (you, myself, anyone involved in the project) are doing all of this out of our free time, and our dedication is largely dependant on our personal vested interests and motivation. If it ever ends up not working out for whatever reason, we can agree to settle things amiably and I will never withhold any kind of work (the forum's files and database in this particular case) from you guys if it comes to that. Flipside, I ask that you recognize that I am just one person and I may not be able to cater to every single technical request you want, or that things may just take time.

With that in mind, I'll trim the technical requests, and try to be short, clear, and to the point.

The other thing is that Talaysen, as our main admin host (aka he pays for stuff), has the right to bring up any concerns regarding proper use of resources such as bandwidth, space and all of that; these will have to be resolved promptly. I sincerely doubt that any of these will be a concern assuming you're not going to be uploading entire ISOs, though you should utilize off-site data storage (large images and other files, etc.) whenever possible.

Is it possible to only allow *.7z and *.rar filetypes for upload?  And ban image uploading all together?

We can use imgur for images, and link to them.  Avatars, screencaps, and whatnot.  Does anyone know of any really good free file uploading services?  With features like unlimited downloading for free users, and uploads last forever?  Those are the only two we really need, but things like a really freaking high file capacity are nice too.

Since I'm on the subject, bring up any further technical details, and I'll tweak the proposed layout to remove as many mods as can be.  Since I assume mods increase the amount of data which needs to be sent and recieved, which means more money needs to be spent to host us.

If you frequent IRC, please drop by at irc.lunarnet.org #rpgdl and fire off a PM to me and we can discuss in real-time if there's further topics that need to be clarified.

I lack the requisite Java.

Here's my forum layout, for now.  I think SMF 2.0 - what this forum already uses - will be sufficient, for now, since I don't really want to use many mods.  And speaking of mods, I have an account at the SMF forum, so I can find what I need myself and check if it works with the version this forum uses, though I think I'll need to know the specific version.  PM it to me, I guess, since I think it's a bad idea to post it in public.

-Section: "Hacking" //this section is where it's generally okay to post
*Board: "Newbie Board" Description: "Got a question?  POST IT HERE!"
*Board: "General Hacking" Description: "Investigating, documenting, and reverse-engineering SaGa Frontier."  //tutorials are stickied here.  As are documentation spreadsheets.

-Section: "Projects" //posting is very restricted in this section
*Board: "Hacks" Description: "Hex edits, assembly hacks, and hack-generating spreadsheets ONLY!"  //self-note: Sticky a "Read this first!" topic on this board.  Possibly limit posting to users at least 30 days old.  Also, hack-generating spreadsheets go here.
*Board: "Mods" Description: "Full game makeovers.  Don't post here unless you have a patch, or you're providing feedback." //Rules thread: "You must have a patch to start a topic.  If you're just wanking, post in General Hacking."

-Section: "Tools"  //each tool gets it's own board, where tool creator gets feedback and archives older versions, and each tool get's it's own feature request sub-board.  Also, this section exists, but it doesn't get any boards yet.  I want it to exist to highlight that we need SF-specific tools.

-Section: "SaGa Frontier Clone Project"
Board: "(Project Name) Discussion" //self-note: Sticky a topic: "WANTED: SaGa fanatic who wants to make a clone of SaGa Frontier."

-Section: "Off Topic"
*Board: "General Discussion" Description: "Talk amongst yourselves." //I wonder, should we just use RPGDL's general section here?  It might make sense to do that if we can share member lists.
*Board: "Forum Feedback" Description: "Request and discuss new features, report bugs, and talk about the site here."

Anything preceded by a comment - the double slashes - is just me talking to you, to myself, or just saying things I want feedback on.  It doesn't actually go in the forum.  BTW, don't create the forum just yet, I want to see if anyone else has some ideas.  Let's wait until, say, next Tuesday, before we set anything in stone.

We also need a name for the proposed SaGa Frontier clone.

EDIT

Forgot to say, we also need an exact hack (hex edit, asm hack, and hack-generating spreadsheet) posting protocol.  Same goes for Tools.  All are required unless otherwise posted.  What we need:
*Emulator, and emulator version or SVN number tested on.  INCLUDE OPERATING SYSTEM!
*Hardware tested on.  PS1 eboot on PSP, modded PS1, modded PS2.
*Known bugs.
*Other hacks/tools it interacts with.
*Other hacks/tools it  renders obsolete.
*Other hacks/tools it conflicts with.
*The actual hack - files it changes, the addresses in those files, the original data and the new data.
*Data it rearranges, if any.  POST CODE!
*Data it optimizes, if any.  POST CODE!
*Version History.
*Version number.  (We'll just call the first release 1, and count up from there.  And I don't mean this is version 1.45334234pi.  I mean this is version 1, this is version 2, this is version 3, this is version 4,...)
*Edit/modification/release dates.

[VySaika]

SaGa hacking. Truely you are braver men then I, godspeed you crazy bastards. I'll look forward to whatever sense you manage to make out of that wonderful trainwreck of a game~

[xibalba]

SaGa hacking. Truely you are braver men then I, godspeed you crazy bastards. I'll look forward to whatever sense you manage to make out of that wonderful trainwreck of a game~

Nah, I'm just really stupid.

[Laggy]

SaGa fans subscribe to a special brand of masochism.

The integrated member list idea is really really cool conceptually, but I'm pretty sure SMF wouldn't support that by default (they're separate databases). Tallychu and I might be able to work some db magic to make it happen. We'll see.

Can you provide a link to the mod in question? I think I'd get a better idea just being able to read up on it to see what's required and whether it's practical or not.

EDIT: As far as hosting files I really don't see it being an issue so long as we avoid uploading anything that violates the host's ToS (obvious) or grossly large in terms of size. File formats that are common targets for being viruses and such also a no-no. I can set up an FTP account if absolutely needed. Otherwise you probably want to utilize something like Megaupload.

[xibalba]

SaGa fans subscribe to a special brand of masochism.

The integrated member list idea is really really cool conceptually, but I'm pretty sure SMF wouldn't support that by default (they're separate databases). Tallychu and I might be able to work some db magic to make it happen. We'll see.

Can you provide a link to the mod in question? I think I'd get a better idea just being able to read up on it to see what's required and whether it's practical or not.

SMF says it's server is currently under severe stress.  IIRC, it was literally a "Custom Forms Mod".  I made a topic there under the name xibalba, so you should be able to find it by looking up my name, or by googleing +xibalba +(smf forums url).

Honestly, the more I think about it, the less I like the idea of custom forms and databases, because those require a tech admin (a specialized skillset, in short) to set up, maintain, and fix.  But if we have them in forum posts, all we need is a mod with a lot of free time if they get screwed up, and attentive mods to prevent that from happening in the first place.

Also, my personal philosophy is, "It's only after you cut away what you don't need that you become complete."  So, do we really need a database?  Do we really need many of the fancy pants features that other forums have, which make them bulky and slow (google Insane Difficulty Forum to see what I'm talking about).  No.  All we need is a dark background, and light text, with cool - as in temperature - but contrasting colors for borders.  If we can find a good file hosting site, then we won't even need attachments.

I'm fine with there being separate member lists.  I just want to do what I can to help RPGDL, since you're helping me.

And I'm pretty sure megaupload uploads expire after a while.  And they can be marked as copyright violations, by anyone at all.

EDIT

File formats that are common targets for being viruses and such also a no-no.

Like what kind of filetypes?  I really like the idea of limiting it to *.7z and *.RAR, and possibly limiting new users from being able to upload for, say, 48 hours.

[Laggy]

Yes, if we move forward with this, we want to just start with a functional forumboard and see how much can be organized and done from there. Mods can always be added on as seen fit.

Honestly I think it'd just be cool if any members of the SaGa modding community were to frequent either our boards or IRC or whatever. This is by no means mandatory, it's just a friendly plug since I'm sure we have interests in common. If I can make the shared member list possible, I'll be sure to do it.

Keep us updated on feedback from your end. I'm not going to start any work other than preliminary investigation until we get a firm green light to do this, and hopefully get a chance to speak with more folks.

Re: Megaupload, they do but only after an immensely long time (of inactivity) and virtually no one will mark them for copyright violations unless it gets really popular. Considering we're both pretty niche communities as is, this is unlikely to come up.

Anything that ISN'T hundreds of megs can probably easily be uploaded directly onto our host via FTP, so that should pose no problem there.

EDIT: You can limit forum uploads to only compressed formats... but possibly the better solution is to bar total free user uploading entirely. If people want to submit their stuff, they should really be providing it directly to you (or whoever the admin will be, the person I will give exclusive access to a site FTP upload account) where you can monitor/filter it and then host it directly on the site yourself if it proves to be functional.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Obviously I am for this.

[xibalba]

I guess we can allow uploads for now, with stipulations (new users can't upload anything for 48 hours, only *.7z and *.rar) and then if it becomes a problem, we can switch to another model.  Images via imgur.  Restrictions on sigs.  Also, we will never provide roms, so could you scrub that sentance from your post?  And, uh, could you possibly switch to a PPF-only for whatever mods you already have here?  We're kinda strict about that in the modding community, and we don't want to be associated with ROM sites.

[Laggy]

Yeah, that isn't an issue. The main site does not host nor link anything illegal (for obvious reasons).

[metroid composite]

The integrated member list idea is really really cool conceptually, but I'm pretty sure SMF wouldn't support that by default (they're separate databases). Tallychu and I might be able to work some db magic to make it happen. We'll see.

Hmm...I don't have the most recent admin password or I'd take a look.  It might be pretty easy if users are stored in a specific table; then you just modify some php files to point to the other db for that one table.  The one thing you'd want to be careful of is moderators/admins (we'd presumably want separate mods at least for each forum, so ideally the mod/admin tags would be stored in a separate table from the user table).  So...yeah, how much of a pain this would be really depends on the DB structure.

Granted, all of this really just saves people 60 seconds making a new account, and maybe saves a little bit of storage space in uploaded avatars.



Alternatively, the super duper extra lazy version that WOULD allow account sharing would be something like...SMF allows subforums with its own moderators.  See for instance:

http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/board,15.0.html

Just make a self-contained Saga section.  (This would take me about 20 seconds).

This would definitely be more integrated than previously suggested solutions, though.  (We'd share global moderators.  And the DL globals might like...delete spambot posts in the Saga section or something.  ...If they're not feeling lazy, which is a pretty big if...).

[Laggy]

One of the first things they explicitly requested was to have their own forumboard, not be a subforum of any other.

[xibalba]

-Section: "Hacking" //this section is where it's generally okay to post
*Board: "Newbie Board" Description: "Got a question?  POST IT HERE!" //Tutorials are stickied here.
*Board: "General Hacking" Description: "Investigating, documenting, and reverse-engineering SaGa Frontier."  //Documentation spreadsheets are stickied here.

-Section: "Projects" //posting is very restricted in this section
*Board: "Hacks" Description: "Hex edits, assembly hacks, and hack-generating spreadsheets ONLY!"  //self-note: Sticky a "Read this first!" topic on this board.  Possibly limit posting to users at least 30 days old.  Also, hack-generating spreadsheets go here.
*Board: "Mods" Description: "Full game makeovers.  Don't post here unless you have a patch, or you're providing feedback." //Rules thread: "You must have a patch to start a topic.  If you're just wanking, post in General Hacking."

-Section: "Tools"  //each tool gets it's own board, where tool creator gets feedback and archives older versions, and each tool get's it's own feature request sub-board.  Also, this section exists, but it doesn't get any boards yet.  I want it to exist to highlight that we need SF-specific tools.

-Section: "SaGa Frontier Clone Project"
Board: "(Project Name) Discussion" //self-note: Sticky a topic: "WANTED: SaGa fanatic who wants to make a clone of SaGa Frontier."

-Section: "Off Topic"
*Board: "General Discussion" Description: "Talk amongst yourselves."
*Board: "Forum Feedback" Description: "Request and discuss new features, report bugs, and talk about the site here."

Tweaked the layout a bit - moved tutorials to Newbie Board.

Also, I want to talk about user groups.

Non Staff

Level 1 -
*Can post in non-restricted boards, can't upload.
*Can't PM, can't mark topics for review.
*After a user has existed fro 48 hours, that user graduates to level 2.

Level 2 -
*Can post in non-restricted boards, can upload, but uploads require approval by Trusted User or Staff.
*Can PM, can mark topics for review.
*After a user has existed for 14 days, that user graduates to level 3.

Level 3 -
*Can post in non-restricted boards, can post in restricted boards, can upload.
*Can PM, can mark topics for review.

Accelerated User
*Basically, a user promoted to Level 3 who should only be Level 1 or 2.  Accelerated User becomes Level 3 sixteen days after account creation.
*Bestowed by Trusted User, Mods, or Admins.

Trusted User
*Ascended Level 3 user.  Bestowed on Level 3 users by admin
*Can temporarily ban Level 1 and Level 2 users
*Can move topics of Level 1 and Level 2 users
*Can lock topics created by Level 1 and Level 2 users
*Can approve uploads
*Can't delete topics
*Can't delete posts

Staff

Mod //we all know what these do, no explanations required
Section Mod
Global Mod

Tech Mod
*Subcategory of mods
*Can edit other people's posts, but usually only to revise and update info about things like asm hacks and hex edits.
*No restrictions on moderating abilities.
*More of a reminder not to bother this mod with non-technical crap.

Tech Admin
*Has same powers as Admin, but comes with the stipulation that no one bother this user.
*Perhaps restrict the ability to PM this user to mods and admins.

Admin

DragonAtma just sent me a PM.

I have a few things to point out...

If you're allowing *.7z and *.rar, you should allow *.zip as well. Even so, it may be better to allow all files but have posts with uploads have to be allowed by the mods first (and presumably the files would be virus-scanned by them!).

I've never used imgur; I host images on imageshack, which always worked out fine.

I actually started work on an SF homage game (Eternal Frontier) long, long ago (2002 or something, most likely). Unfortunately, life interfered, so I never even finished the planning.

Zip archives are allowable then, unless anyone has a good reason why not - like the tendancy to contain viruses (I don't know if they do tend to contain them, I'm just pulling some supposition out of my bum).  Anybody?  And uploads requiring mod approval is iffy - depends on how many mods and trusted users we accumulate.

On some sites, like ffhacktics, you can't see images hosted by imageshack.  Really, it's up to the user, I just want to make my preference for imgur known.

Your dead project goes into the SaGa Frontier Clone Discussion Board.

[Laggy]

Most of what you want to set up here requires no actual technical experience and only some passing familiarity with SMF (and really, it isn't that hard to learn because the admin tool for SMF is quite extensive and all GUI); whoever has admin privileges to the board can basically do all of this with no actual fiddling done on the server end. I'm more than happy to help you do the initial board setup and organize things in this regard, but it's worth noting that you aren't dependent at all on me to do things like set up the board infrastructure or set privileges for user groups (unless you're lacking someone who has any inkling of forumboard administration whatsoever. In which case I'm willing to fulfill this role, it may just take a bit of time )

[xibalba]

Most of what you want to set up here requires no actual technical experience and only some passing familiarity with SMF (and really, it isn't that hard to learn because the admin tool for SMF is quite extensive and all GUI); whoever has admin privileges to the board can basically do all of this with no actual fiddling done on the server end. I'm more than happy to help you do the initial board setup and organize things in this regard, but it's worth noting that you aren't dependent at all on me to do things like set up the board infrastructure or set privileges for user groups (unless you're lacking someone who has any inkling of forumboard administration whatsoever. In which case I'm willing to fulfill this role, it may just take a bit of time )

I screwed around with Proboards a long time ago, and I'm know how to make boards and whatnot.  The only things that would require SMF expertise are the complicated user types.  You know, specific limits and privilages, as well as the ability to bestow additional privilages.  I'd probably need you to set up that functionality.

I'm posting this here as a record of what I want to do, and for feedback.

[metroid composite]

Most of what you want to set up here requires no actual technical experience and only some passing familiarity with SMF (and really, it isn't that hard to learn because the admin tool for SMF is quite extensive and all GUI); whoever has admin privileges to the board can basically do all of this with no actual fiddling done on the server end. I'm more than happy to help you do the initial board setup and organize things in this regard, but it's worth noting that you aren't dependent at all on me to do things like set up the board infrastructure or set privileges for user groups (unless you're lacking someone who has any inkling of forumboard administration whatsoever. In which case I'm willing to fulfill this role, it may just take a bit of time )

I screwed around with Proboards a long time ago, and I'm know how to make boards and whatnot.  The only things that would require SMF expertise are the complicated user types.  You know, specific limits and privilages, as well as the ability to bestow additional privilages.  I'd probably need you to set up that functionality.

I'm posting this here as a record of what I want to do, and for feedback.

Priveledges aren't too hard in SMF.  There's a GUI for them.  Although...some of the stuff works, some of it doesn't.

Mostly you put people into usergroups like "Moderator", and then give priveledges to the group, rather than the individual.

[xibalba]

Ah.  Create groups, assign privilages to them, then add users to that group.  Understood.

[Lady Door]

Privileges.

(Sorry, I had to.)

--

I'll note our hosting agreement provides for technically unlimited bandwidth and storage space. I say technically because I know that this "unlimited" has a clause that says something along the lines of "within reason," but I'm pointing it out because I can't imagine we'll need to worry TOO much about upload/download issues.

Also, if you have interest in purchasing a separate domain, we can host unlimited domains. You could purchase, say, sagaforums.com and we could host it, and just have it redirect and mask as if sagaforums.com were a separate site.

Let me know if I'm not being helpful. >_>

[xibalba]

Privileges.

(Sorry, I had to.)

Thanks, I couldn't remember that one.  I'm getting old.

I'll note our hosting agreement provides for technically unlimited bandwidth and storage space. I say technically because I know that this "unlimited" has a clause that says something along the lines of "within reason," but I'm pointing it out because I can't imagine we'll need to worry TOO much about upload/download issues.

Still, I don't want clutter.  There are plenty of other places to goof off on the internet, but there will be only one SaGa Frontier Modding Community.  And you never know what the future holds, so my precautions are warranted under the heading of Paraniod Crap Which May Eventually Be Useful.

Also, if you have interest in purchasing a separate domain, we can host unlimited domains. You could purchase, say, sagaforums.com and we could host it, and just have it redirect and mask as if sagaforums.com were a separate site.

So, if I want a different name, basically?  The name isn't that important, provided you can remember it.

Let me know if I'm not being helpful. >_>

Total help units recieved: 14

[Lady Door]

Definitely a plus to keep it lean, regardless of what our host can handle, I agree. Just pointing out that we don't have to panic or budget right off the bat.

If you want to be able to go to www.sagaforums.com instead of www.rpgdl.com/sagaforums/, we can do that. Don't have to, and I think the subdomain is fine, but the option is there if you want to pay the $10 or whatever to register your own domain.

[xibalba]

Definitely a plus to keep it lean, regardless of what our host can handle, I agree. Just pointing out that we don't have to panic or budget right off the bat.

If you want to be able to go to www.sagaforums.com instead of www.rpgdl.com/sagaforums/, we can do that. Don't have to, and I think the subdomain is fine, but the option is there if you want to pay the $10 or whatever to register your own domain.

Noted.  If anyone wants it, they'll say something, I'm sure.