Why another forum?

Macrosill

Macrosill

Administrator
That is a good question. We seem to have reached a point in the diy display community where all things related are spread out among several different forums and locations. Some utilize newer software and some are still on older systems. All the information in these other locations is still pertinent, important and usable. We are not trying to remove or overpower any other forum. The purpose of this forum is to bring the diy display community together in one location that is controlled by us, the members. We have total access to all the data that is dropped into this site. This forum has 2 Administrators. They are KC, the developer of Vixen light automation software and I, Macrosill. This will ensure, should one of use become unavailable for some time, the other will have complete control over the board and all its content. This is a security feature necessary to prevent the forum becoming stagnant from the lack of updates or proper administration. We will be providing Archive links to the older forums for reference. We ask that you utilize this board for future posting. This board will not be successful without your cooperation. We want to keep everything centralized in one location for the ease of research and navigation. This board will be organized in a logical manner and kept so. Each area will have Moderators assigned to keep things tidy. We ask that you post in the appropriate forums and keep things in a respectable manner. Some features that are integrated into our new board is a chat system. Once you register and log into the board you will notice a link in the top right area of the index page called "flashchat". Click on this link and you will be automatically logged into the chat area to interact in live discussions about everything from holiday lighting to the weather with other community members from around the world. Another feature of the new board is a photo gallery. Upload your photos right here into your personal gallery.

To reiterate why we are here.
1. To consolidate all the broken data currently strewn across the internet.
2. To make research easier for the community on an organized board.
3. To have "our" data available to us in the future should we find a need to relocate.
4. Have fun and make new friends all around the world.

Please help make our new home a success by posting here from now on but do not forget the other forums from yesterday. We still need that data for research and reference.

Should anyone have any suggestions or comments please feel free to contact any Mod or Admin. so we can keep things personalized for our users.

Thank You for coming to the Do It Yourself Christmas forum and we hope to see you again really soon.
 
Great Work

Great to see a single site, now I wont need to log into 4 servers to see what is happening in the Xmas light world

Well done,


John.
 
Re: Great Work

wjohn said:
Great to see a single site, now I wont need to log into 4 servers to see what is happening in the Xmas light world
Click to expand...

I for one think this is a great idea, and would make everyone’s lives easier. I know I hate having to monitor 4 sites to stay on top of the info I care about. But don't write off the other sites just yet. This whole concept hinges on cooperation from EVERYONE involved. That includes all of the users of all the other sites, and convincing them to stop posting on the other sites and only post here. It also relies on the admins of the other sites. The only way this will ever work, is in the event you get the admins of the other sites to lock their sites down to future posts. I am not saying get rid of the other sites by any means. Just lock them down, so no new info ends up on them.

If they don't lock the other forums, people will continue to post on them, and the info will still be scattered across, well, now 5 different sites. So until that happens, I will continue to post, and visit the other sites. And my way of thinking, is probably on the same line as most. Therefore it will defeat the purpose of this new site.

And just to be clear. I like this idea, and fully support it. Hell anything so I never have to try to find anything on Computerchristmas ever again. Now let’s see if we can get everyone else on board, and I mean EVERYONE.

David Scott.
 
Just what we needed and none too soon either. I’ll still check the other sites but only to send them here. I like this kind of format; it’s much easier to use and it’s got a pretty cool logo too. :) Thanks for doing this! :D
 
Well, I intend to lock down the Renard site before too long, and I don't know if vixen will be locked, or not. However, I don't think that the cc site will be locked, and I'm not sure what the fourth site is. So, it will be three sites (this one, cc, and pc) if the other two are locked down.

However, I hope that this site will be enhanced a lot. The default phpbb skin is pretty boring, and there are a lot of features that could be envisioned to make it a lot bettter.

--

Phil
 
Great site!

I'd be glad to help with any new features or maintenance, just send me a PM.

One thing to remember - if you lock down one of the forumer sites it will get deleted after a certain period of time. Could we create a user called 'Archives' and have someone post in info from Vixen and picdimmer that is useful? Obviously there are other ways this could be done, but that's one suggestion.

-Matt
 
If there a way to import posts into this forum.... Maybe the other sites (blinky and picdimmer) could be mined and their posts placed here? Not sure exactly how to do it, but it might be doable?
 
I think the problem with getting the posts off Vixen and picdimmer is that Forumer doesn't allow access to the databases. And CC has a really old, outdated system that probably couldn't be transported over, even if Hill was wiling to give it to us.

-Matt
 
We could write a Screen Scraper application that went out and read all of the data from the pages. We may get shut down if the forum things it is a DOS atttack.
 
I was thinking more of a bot, slow running bot as not to get shutdown, that could try to build a database from the existing Forumer pages, stripping out all of the Forumer formatting and leaving us with the bodies of the posts. Then the database could be "imported" into this site, if this software has an import feature.
 
A spider is useful for getting a copy of the messages. It isn't too useful in bringing things over to a new site in an updateable manner, because it doesn't have access to the all of the account information. In any case, it's not too hard to write such a thing, I did one a few years ago for another type of forum (although the code is long since gone).

--

Phil
 
There's even a plain HTML archive provided by the forum that might be easier to use for a bot.

-Matt
 
Re: Great Work

Mrplow123 said:
snip....

So until that happens, I will continue to post, and visit the other sites. And my way of thinking, is probably on the same line as most. Therefore it will defeat the purpose of this new site.

And just to be clear. I like this idea, and fully support it. Hell anything so I never have to try to find anything on Computerchristmas ever again.

David Scott.
Click to expand...

David,
I understand your feelings. However I must point out the fact you say you "fully support it". Prior to that statement you said "I will continue to post, and visit the other sites. ". That is a direct contradiction. If you fully support this new forum lets keep posting here and not in the other forums. If you continue to post there then you are not helping and this will be a flop. Please do continue to visit and read the others, they hold a great wealth of information.

Please, everyone, lets make this a group success and continue to post here. The more we do the more others will join us.

If there is a current thread somewhere lets move it over here. If anyone would like to move anything over please feel free to start a new thread and copy and paste the discussions. I am willing to accommodate everyones ideas into this forum. After all it is for us, not me.

We are at 50 registered users already, and we are only a few days into this new forum. GREAT WORK EVERYONE. Lets keep it up.
 
I'm going to lock down Vixen, but I wanted to give Jayson a chance to wind up his co-op.
 
lockdown

KC,

Can you send out a bulk mailing to the Vixen Forum. It would be a shame to just lock it down now when alot of people may not be active posters and when they do come back wondering where did everyone go.
 
I can't do a bulk mailing, but I do plan on posting a noticable post, maybe in each forum, explaining what's going on with the two new forums.
 
KC,
I was just courious why you didnt fully fold the vixen forum under the do it yourself christmas forums? instead of another forum on the same site.
 
KC said:
I'm going to lock down Vixen, but I wanted to give Jayson a chance to wind up his co-op.
Click to expand...

I've heard folks discuss the fact that the Forumer sites don't remain if there's no activity. Since we cannot get them to provide the data, is there any way to copy it directly? I wish I knew more about it... I'd try to help strip the info so we could archive it.

Does anyone know of a good way to do it? I've locked down the Forumer Philly mini plus site too. LightsByGreg plans to attempt to make it into a PDF. I'd love to know how difficult something like that is. I'd be willing to work morning, noon and night to archive the Vixen and PicDimmer sites...
jeff
 
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