Our current forums are crap, we know that, you know that, everybody knows that, you can’t search, there are no formatting options, you can’t see how many people have viewed a post, which forums you have read, etc.
We have discussed it and looked long and hard, and the best solution would be a 3rd party solution called vBulletin with a WordPress -> vBulletin bridge.
Unfortunately this costs money. £220 to be… vague (prices are in dollars so depends on the exchange rate vBulletin costs $250 and the bridge $80).
So the question is, is this something you guys would like for a start, and is it something you would be willing to help us purchase?
If anyone wants to donate to this cause, please put in the paypal comments that the donation is for new forums, if we can’t raise the funds for it within 30 days we will refund to anyone who has put that in the comments (unless you specifically tell us we can keep the money even if the drive fails) and at least we will know it isn’t something people want.
If people want to see what the bridge allows check out this link: http://vimeo.com/81468596
Another possibility might be hosting the forums separately from the API and main website, so if something happened to those the forum would still be available, whether this would be on a different server on the same network or a server on a totally different network is something we would have to consider.
In any case, let us know what you think
I for one would pay for this in full if I had it. It’s so hard to help and support, as well as just socialize with the community with out current system. We could really use this to help the site grow and flourish.
Here’s hoping that Santa visits fanart.tv this year on his way through the Internet. 😉
One of the reasons i make some stuff for this site was/is that i want give back something to the community ! I have not so much money, so i help with the stuff i Make – i think it was realy nice to have a better forum … for ALL OF US ! maybe some of the people who cant make things with Gimp/PS read this – these ppl can support the community with a little bit of money… ( maybe smoke 1-2 cigarets less a day and donate this money… )
EVERYBODY can support OUR Community – with art, with help and with donations – when we work together we can getting better and better !
I would like it, but I don’t think it’s top priority. As previously stated in a blog entry the site’s having trouble with funding already so yeah…
Speaking of money, some ads on our left and right here wouldn’t hurt. Ads may be annoying at times, but if you don’t want them you can use adblock. It’s a real easy way for people who wants to help out for free by just deactivating the adlocker for this domain.
It’s a shame there isn’t more interest in this. One of the biggest gaps in this community is keeping everyone informed and being able to find relevant information. Not to mention just a good place to socialize. As it is now, you never know if someone has posted something in the forums unless you hunt the forums for new posts, or catch the blurb that shows up in the activity stream.
Beyond that, I believe more people would post if the interface wasn’t so user unfriendly. Manual HTML tags are a real PITA for all except coders who live in HTML source code. Having a familiar forum interface that keeps you informed of all new posts, a real post editor with format options, preview post, attachments…the list goes on.
WordPress was designed for blogging, and just having comments to a post is fine for most blogs. Our site is a real community that encompasses more than just a blog. It really requires an interface that allows for better 2 way communication, and WordPress with all its plugins, just isn’t set up for that.
The site will be moved to different servers next week and this would have been a perfect time to address this deficiency, but it isn’t looking so good. The core staff and the long time contributors are a small community indeed and we can’t do everything ourselves. With the amount of traffic this site gets, you would think a small request like this would be nothing if just the smallest percentage of people would donate a few $.
It would be a real shame to miss this opportunity to improve the site, but in the end it’s up to the users to decide.
I really want to see this happen as it would make mine and the admin/mods lives much easier, therefore, I will put up half the cost myself, that means we need to find a further £110
£5 for forum heading your way
BTW, according to curent exchange rates it’s just £201,58
How much more do you need?
I think we have knocked this on the head for now, but thanks for your interest, we have a phpbb forum up now and you can use your fanart.tv user/pass to login to it, it’s not quite as tight an integration as we would have liked, but it will do for now.