The all new No Context thread.

[Vermilion]

I have a brilliant one here and now I don't feel I can post it.

[<]:^D]

I just read the reasoning for the old thread being closed. What an absolute barrel of cuntery this situation is.

[RetroCora]

There's a lot of history in the archive which would be a huge shame to lose if it was gone - same problem I had with gamesradar. There's so many good things that were posted back then that losing it would suck.

Requiring a login though is a great idea. Might drive more people to sign up too.

There are also a lot of wildly inappropriate things posted by people too young to realise any different(I’m very guilty of this). It’s a hard balance to strike between keeping the good content and getting rid of some of the nasty stuff.

[Ironhide]

I intended making this thread as a bit of a joke but remembered what I'd said previously about the no context thread and changed my mind.

[Moggy]

There's a lot of history in the archive which would be a huge shame to lose if it was gone - same problem I had with gamesradar. There's so many good things that were posted back then that losing it would suck.

Requiring a login though is a great idea. Might drive more people to sign up too.

There are also a lot of wildly inappropriate things posted by people too young to realise any different(I’m very guilty of this). It’s a hard balance to strike between keeping the good content and getting rid of some of the nasty stuff.

First the no context thread and now a vast amount of GR history? All over some paranoia that somehow in the future somebody will be linked to their username here and their posts from 2008 might be discovered?

We might as well just close the forum.

[Qikz]

There's a lot of history in the archive which would be a huge shame to lose if it was gone - same problem I had with gamesradar. There's so many good things that were posted back then that losing it would suck.

Requiring a login though is a great idea. Might drive more people to sign up too.

There are also a lot of wildly inappropriate things posted by people too young to realise any different(I’m very guilty of this). It’s a hard balance to strike between keeping the good content and getting rid of some of the nasty stuff.

The good and bad sadly is all our history. Maybe the best way forward is to start afresh, keep this forum as a member only archive and move forward with new accounts on discourse. That way we get away from phpbb, the archive stays member only and only we can get to it and we don't lose anything.

[Moggy]

There's a lot of history in the archive which would be a huge shame to lose if it was gone - same problem I had with gamesradar. There's so many good things that were posted back then that losing it would suck.

Requiring a login though is a great idea. Might drive more people to sign up too.

There are also a lot of wildly inappropriate things posted by people too young to realise any different(I’m very guilty of this). It’s a hard balance to strike between keeping the good content and getting rid of some of the nasty stuff.

The good and bad sadly is all our history. Maybe the best way forward is to start afresh, keep this forum as a member only archive and move forward with new accounts on discourse. That way we get away from phpbb, the archive stays member only and only we can get to it and we don't lose anything.

You'll lose the majority of the (already low) userbase.

[Preezy]

I don't know if anybody here uses their real name, but looking at the post history of most of us, the no context thread is the least of our problems if employers link our forum posts to our real identities.

This

Bring it on though. If my prospective employers can't handle me at my worst, they don't deserve me at my best

[kazanova_Frankenstein]

There's a lot of history in the archive which would be a huge shame to lose if it was gone - same problem I had with gamesradar. There's so many good things that were posted back then that losing it would suck.

Requiring a login though is a great idea. Might drive more people to sign up too.

There are also a lot of wildly inappropriate things posted by people too young to realise any different(I’m very guilty of this). It’s a hard balance to strike between keeping the good content and getting rid of some of the nasty stuff.

First the no context thread and now a vast amount of GR history? All over some paranoia that somehow in the future somebody will be linked to their username here and their posts from 2008 might be discovered?

We might as well just close the forum.

"Member Barnsy's" life is all but ruined already

[OrangeRKN]

The good and bad sadly is all our history. Maybe the best way forward is to start afresh, keep this forum as a member only archive and move forward with new accounts on discourse. That way we get away from phpbb, the archive stays member only and only we can get to it and we don't lose anything.

You'll lose the majority of the (already low) userbase.

Why do you think that would be a problem for the userbase?

The current forum software is increasingly falling over. The database is already beyond the point where we can migrate it into our preferred modern forum software (discourse). In all likelihood we need to migrate to new forum software sooner rather than later. I think starting with a fresh install, with the phpbb forum available as an archive on some subdomain, is probably the only practical way forward. We would keep all of the history, ensure old links redirect correctly, and gain all of the advantages of modern forum software. I'm genuinely interested why you think that would be a problem or drive people away (which is the last thing we want to do!)

[Oblomov Boblomov]

I'm genuinely interested why you think that would be a problem or drive people away

You underestimate how lazy we are.

[Preezy]

What's a discourse? I don't like the sound of that.

[kazanova_Frankenstein]

So long as I can log in with the same username and password I have on a post-it note stuck to my work pc monitor, I will be there day 1.

[OrangeRKN]

I'm genuinely interested why you think that would be a problem or drive people away

You underestimate how lazy we are.

What are you imagining as the effort involved for a regular user?

Ideally we can import the user list so people won't even have to recreate their account.

There will be a certain amount of getting used to the new forum software and its differences to phpbb. We did a trial a while ago now and asked people to sign up for feedback, from that we found the biggest points of friction and how to configure discourse to mitigate them, and overall opinion seemed positive (and I say this as probably one of the people who made the most complaints - well meaning but I regret now as it may have contributed to losing momentum at the time).

I'd also add that many forums require registration to view the archives, it wouldn't be an odd situation. I think it is a good idea, but that's a separate point of discussion to having forum history as an archive (public or not).

[Moggy]

The good and bad sadly is all our history. Maybe the best way forward is to start afresh, keep this forum as a member only archive and move forward with new accounts on discourse. That way we get away from phpbb, the archive stays member only and only we can get to it and we don't lose anything.

You'll lose the majority of the (already low) userbase.

Why do you think that would be a problem for the userbase?

The current forum software is increasingly falling over. The database is already beyond the point where we can migrate it into our preferred modern forum software (discourse). In all likelihood we need to migrate to new forum software sooner rather than later. I think starting with a fresh install, with the phpbb forum available as an archive on some subdomain, is probably the only practical way forward. We would keep all of the history, ensure old links redirect correctly, and gain all of the advantages of modern forum software. I'm genuinely interested why you think that would be a problem or drive people away (which is the last thing we want to do!)

When we moved from Gamesradar, we lost lots of members. I assume not all of the SOMN regulars migrated here either?

Starting again from scratch will result in a loss of members as there will be some that decide it's time to move on/can't be arsed registering again. Some will leave as they'll hate the new forum software and/or the look of it. If the new forum has no history on it, some will feel it's just not the same and will wander away. And we don't have many members.

If we move to new board software then we have to make any transition as seamless as possible. But I still think we'll lose a lot of people.

[Preezy]

Can confirm.

[kazanova_Frankenstein]

Is Discourse like training module for using Discord? Because I really struggle to use Discord.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

I'm genuinely interested why you think that would be a problem or drive people away

You underestimate how lazy we are.

What are you imagining as the effort involved for a regular user?

Ideally we can import the user list so people won't even have to recreate their account.

There will be a certain amount of getting used to the new forum software and its differences to phpbb. We did a trial a while ago now and asked people to sign up for feedback, from that we found the biggest points of friction and how to configure discourse to mitigate them, and overall opinion seemed positive (and I say this as probably one of the people who made the most complaints - well meaning but I regret now as it may have contributed to losing momentum at the time).

I'd also add that many forums require registration to view the archives, it wouldn't be an odd situation. I think it is a good idea, but that's a separate point of discussion to having forum history as an archive (public or not).

Oh I expect it will be minimal, but as Moggy explains, any change in this way will result in a reduction of the membership.

Did the boffins figure out a way to keep pages in threads over on this here Disco software?

[rinks]

Right, if we're making sweeping changes to accommodate everybody's sensitivities, I'd like to request a check-box to make my posts visible only to those who have opted in, and I get to veto the list so I can exclude those who don't meet my criteria.

[Qikz]

New AYA game, requires alt account on new discourse software. Problem solved.