Building a new site

Well, I had a feeling we were running out of road. FWIW, here's my two cents on a way forward:

Separate the news site from the community site(s). Have a CMS-based news site that deals with the newsposting, the RPG database, etc, but have the forum (or fora) as a separate concern. That way, the newsposting site (let's say continuing as the RPGWatch domain) would be extremely simple and stress-free to manage - it would focus only on that aspect, run by a small steering group, the admins and newsposters. No worrying about what people are posting in forums for which you're responsible, moderation debates, spam, etc. People wouldn't sign up for accounts there, but they could submit news, articles, reviews and so on, for consideration.

Then leave the creation and management of the discussion and community that flows from the news site to others. There might be one forum, or many, and a Discord group, or many, and so on. The news site team could participate in whichever one they preferred.
You could also consider going the complete opposite direction, and turn the site into a forum only. News posts would just be regular forum posts inside of a "News" forum, with specific anointed news posters being the only people who are allowed to create new threads in that forum - but anyone is allowed to reply. Then of course you'd have the other forums such as RPG Discussion, Off-Topic, etc, where anyone is allowed to start new threads. Would be fairly easy to bring up a new site (esp. with no data carryover) in that format because it wouldn't require a CMS or all the integration work.
 
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Well, I had a feeling we were running out of road. FWIW, here's my two cents on a way forward:

Separate the news site from the community site(s). Have a CMS-based news site that deals with the newsposting, the RPG database, etc, but have the forum (or fora) as a separate concern. That way, the newsposting site (let's say continuing as the RPGWatch domain) would be extremely simple and stress-free to manage - it would focus only on that aspect, run by a small steering group, the admins and newsposters. No worrying about what people are posting in forums for which you're responsible, moderation debates, spam, etc. People wouldn't sign up for accounts there, but they could submit news, articles, reviews and so on, for consideration.

Then leave the creation and management of the discussion and community that flows from the news site to others. There might be one forum, or many, and a Discord group, or many, and so on. The news site team could participate in whichever one they preferred.

I remember once, one of the Codex guys said the Watch was for news, the Codex was for discussion, and it had always been that way. There might be some disagreement on that, but I think there is the germ of an idea there - that the Codex could be seen as a discussion forum using the Watch as a news feed. I'm wondering whether we should embrace that concept. Let the news and curation folks do what they're good at, with far fewer headaches, and let the rest of us worry about setting up one or many solutions for community continuity and discussions.

Mentioning the Codex, there is a clear advantage to almost-anything-goes moderation - it's an awful lot less to worry or argue about when you dont give a toss. The disadvantage is that approximately 50% of most threads are filled by a type that comes across to me as a troubled 12 year-old trying to curry favour with his bullying brother and their racist dad. And, personally, I find that like spam or white noise.

The problem with a bit more of a moderated environment, is that if it's a monolith over a whole community, there's always going to be tensions between people's views on how that should be done. So, maybe let's not have just one community - have the news site as a discrete entity, and let people set up whatever communities they wish flowing from that. Anyone can start their own Discord or subreddit with the push of a button. It's trivial to then have an RSS feed or somesuch from the news site, and create automatic new posts in your forum or chat room for each newsbit. Tell the world they're welcome to do so, but just chip in on the running costs now and then. The news site would be the part that requires some technical folks (where they could work in peace on clear objectives, with little to worry about).

If anyone likes the suggestion, I have ideas on what software solutions might be used.

How do you have the news carrying over straight into threads for the forum as done here ?
 
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You could also consider going the complete opposite direction, and turn the site into a forum only. News posts would just be regular forum posts inside of a "News" forum, with specific anointed news posters being the only people who are allowed to create new threads in that forum - but anyone is allowed to reply. Then of course you'd have the other forums such as RPG Discussion, Off-Topic, etc, where anyone is allowed to start new threads. Would be fairly easy to bring up a new site (esp. with no data carryover) in that format because it wouldn't require a CMS or all the integration work.

I like this better to be honest - personally.
 
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You could also consider going the complete opposite direction, and turn the site into a forum only. News posts would just be regular forum posts inside of a "News" forum, with specific anointed news posters being the only people who are allowed to create new threads in that forum - but anyone is allowed to reply. Then of course you'd have the other forums such as RPG Discussion, Off-Topic, etc, where anyone is allowed to start new threads. Would be fairly easy to bring up a new site (esp. with no data carryover) in that format because it wouldn't require a CMS or all the integration work.

I think the downside with that is that you have fragmentation of the newsposting; it seems to me that it would be optimal to have all the newsposting and database work concentrated in one place, and act as a feed to whatever communities arose from it. But that's of course assuming you see value in having one or many communities from a single news source.

Another advantage in what I'm proposing is that the folks concerned with the news site itself would have none of the issues of running a forum to worry about, and could discuss the output where they chose.

In terms of complexity, the news site could be be very simple and secure indeed - it only needs to be as complex as folks want to make it. When it comes to integration work by a forum or chatroom, that really is trivial stuff - taking an RSS feed and creating new topics from it is something one of the guys here could do in minutes. On Discord, I wouldn't be surprised if there a bot that can do it.
 
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I have zero technical expertise, but I'm always willing to help out with forum moderating, etc as I do now.
 
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How do you have the news carrying over straight into threads for the forum as done here ?

Really, super easy to do. The news site can easily produce an RSS feed (or many other ways of providing a data feed), and the forum has a few lines of code that say: read the RSS feed, and for each new article create a new topic in the news section, using the article title.
 
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As I recall, XenForo is exactly what Mythros had been wanting to move the forum component of RPGWatch to eventually. The Codex uses it too. I'd think you could create an "acceptable" Watch replacement (along the lines of what I mentioned earlier + some bells & whistles) entirely with XenForo. Wouldn't be as fancy as what's in place now obviously, but I think the key to keeping a smaller site like this alive is to keep it simple...
 
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As I recall, XenForo is exactly what Mythros had been wanting to move the forum component of RPGWatch to eventually. The Codex uses it too. I'd think you could create an "acceptable" Watch replacement (along the lines of what I mentioned earlier + some bells & whistles) entirely with XenForo. Wouldn't be as fancy as what's in place now obviously, but I think the key to keeping a smaller site like this alive is to keep it simple…

You may be right. But, IMO, what I'm proposing is fairly simple, too. My line of thinking is that the newsposting of the Watch is of much wider value than the forum discussion of the Watch, to put it bluntly. So, I see a much more focused news site that is almost stress-free to maintain by those who are keen to do so, and serves many groups using it as a source of information and discussion, could have a much brighter and more sustainable future than carrying on in this form.
 
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You may be right. But, IMO, what I'm proposing is fairly simple, too. My line of thinking is that the newsposting of the Watch is of much wider value than the forum discussion of the Watch, to put it bluntly. So, I see a much more focused news site that is almost stress-free to maintain by those who are keen to do so, and serves many groups using it as a source of information and discussion, could have a much brighter and more sustainable future than carrying on in this form.
Yeah, having a news site and then a forum site that just pulls in news for discussion via RSS is a lot simpler than what's in place now, at least from what I've gathered from Myrthos' posts. But to get both (news and forums) that way requires more pieces to fall into place and could result in fragmentation of the community too, if there's no "official" forums to go along with the news. And I figured that if you forced people here to make a choice between keeping the news, or keeping the community, they'd probably pick the latter, although maybe I'm wrong.
 
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Yeah, having a news site and then a forum site that just pulls in news for discussion via RSS is a lot simpler than what's in place now, at least from what I've gathered from Myrthos' posts. But to get both (news and forums) that way requires more pieces to fall into place and could result in fragmentation of the community too, if there's no "official" forums to go along with the news. And I figured that if you forced people here to make a choice between keeping the news, or keeping the community, they'd probably pick the latter, although maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah, the way I'd put it is that the newsposting is of much wider value in general, but keeping the community is very likely more valuable to the community. My take is that the newsposting could be more likely to survive if it just does what it does, without too much to worry about, and a community can re-form, split, coalesce, whatever. If the Watch community chooses to stick together in one de facto offical forum, great. If it splinters a bit, also fine. I get to stay in touch with the folks I find interesting and fun.
 
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Re: cloud hosting
I have experience setting up software on cloud hosts. In my experience, they always end up more expensive than advertised, esp. when you add in bandwidth costs even though it's mainly just egress costs only.

Would you consider being hosted by Sorcerer's Place? https://sorcerers.net/

RPGCodex is currently hosted by them, and so was it's sister site about strategy games (even when I was domain owner, before being absorbed into the Codex).
And a bunch of others: https://sorcerers.net/Hosting/hosted.php

It's free hosting, with the main "cost" being displaying advertising as stipulated by Sorcerer's Place.
https://sorcerers.net/Hosting/index.php

As long as someone is capable of setting up open source software, there is zero reason to spend many 100s of dollars on hosting.
 
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If anyone remembers I ran a small forum site back in 2015.

It didn't cost me much as it was a cloud based site with free hosting included. I only had to pay $25 a month to get rid of advertising. Which asking for donations helped.

All the tools and add-ons were provided from the service/hosting site.

The other alternative gets very expensive as you have to build your own site, pay for hosting, and pay an annual license fee about $200-$400 for the forum software.
 
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The other alternative gets very expensive as you have to build your own site, pay for hosting, and pay an annual license fee about $200-$400 for the forum software.
There are plenty of free forums (e.g. phpBB + Pages plugin for news) and cheap hosting options.

I should note that my comment above re: hidden costs was really in response to an earlier post about "generic" cloud hosting. I'd be interested to know if the cheaper cloud-hosted forums allow customisation for a front page, etc.
 
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Re: cloud hosting
I have experience setting up software on cloud hosts. In my experience, they always end up more expensive than advertised, esp. when you add in bandwidth costs even though it's mainly just egress costs only.

Would you consider being hosted by Sorcerer's Place? https://sorcerers.net/

RPGCodex is currently hosted by them, and so was it's sister site about strategy games (even when I was domain owner, before being absorbed into the Codex).
And a bunch of others: https://sorcerers.net/Hosting/hosted.php

It's free hosting, with the main "cost" being displaying advertising as stipulated by Sorcerer's Place.
https://sorcerers.net/Hosting/index.php

As long as someone is capable of setting up open source software, there is zero reason to spend many 100s of dollars on hosting.

Sorcerer's Place doesn't sound bad, is there an option to get rid of ads if you pay some money?
 
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Sorcerer's Place doesn't sound bad, is there an option to get rid of ads if you pay some money?
Not that I'm aware of. Any potential future owner(s) can find out for sure by contacting Taluntain and co. here:
https://sorcerers.net/Info/Contact/index.php

I think a few adverts is worth it for the peace of mind of not having to worry about various costs, but it's true that others users might think differently.
 
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Separate the news site from the community site(s). Have a CMS-based news site that deals with the newsposting, the RPG database, etc, but have the forum (or fora) as a separate concern.

My only motivation when I'm posting news is to share what I saw and discuss about it, so this wouldn't work for me, but I don't know about the others. On the other hand, that's indeed a source of stress when the discussion goes haywire, but that's going to happen in a forum anyway.

EDIT: though the news may be the important part regarding revenues and traffic, perhaps that's what you meant?

As for the idea of having the discussions at the Codex, I'm sorry but if that ever happens I'll be looking for something else entirely. From what I saw, it is nothing like the Watch. I'm actually very surprised by the idea but I don't know the past of either place, maybe the situation was different before?

As I recall, XenForo is exactly what Mythros had been wanting to move the forum component of RPGWatch to eventually. The Codex uses it too. I'd think you could create an "acceptable" Watch replacement (along the lines of what I mentioned earlier + some bells & whistles) entirely with XenForo. Wouldn't be as fancy as what's in place now obviously, but I think the key to keeping a smaller site like this alive is to keep it simple…

XenForo seems good, but it's far from free. At this point I have zero experience in self-sustained websites and I think that's another important point. @Myrthos; what kind of budget is realistic for a site like the Watch?

There are free, open-source forums that are very good too. And being open-source is a good point for security in projects used by many people.
 
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I'm wondering, is the localization important for a host? Does it complicate things when it's in another economical region than the owner's?

Re: cloud hosting
I have experience setting up software on cloud hosts. In my experience, they always end up more expensive than advertised, esp. when you add in bandwidth costs even though it's mainly just egress costs only.

Would you consider being hosted by Sorcerer's Place? https://sorcerers.net/

RPGCodex is currently hosted by them, and so was it's sister site about strategy games (even when I was domain owner, before being absorbed into the Codex).
And a bunch of others: https://sorcerers.net/Hosting/hosted.php

It's free hosting, with the main "cost" being displaying advertising as stipulated by Sorcerer's Place.
https://sorcerers.net/Hosting/index.php

As long as someone is capable of setting up open source software, there is zero reason to spend many 100s of dollars on hosting.

Advertising… Meh :-/ Then we can start a race against ad-blockers and put off viewers with an annoying website. I suppose it's something to see with the budget question.

A good hosting is so difficult to find, at least one that lasts long enough. I never had a good experience with free hosting, they were unreliable, would go bankrupt, had sketchy bandwidth or uptime patterns, bad security, no backups, no flexibility. In my opinion, if there were only one post to pay, it would be the hosting, but I'd be curious to see the others' opinion on that.

I've used one good host who was later acquired by another company and it went downhill, too many changes. That's bound to happen sooner or later, but at least it's good while it lasts. The best experience I had was with a independent providing hosting solutions for a living.

About extra costs, it's typical with domain name providers but I don't see how with hosting solutions, is that extra costs due to growing bandwidth?


EDIT: Note that for the Sorcerer's Place, apart from the ad question or the fact it's free and so probably offering no guarantee of a good service, there's also their conditions and their ToS to deal with. Is this something we'd feel comfortable with?
 
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My only motivation when I'm posting news is to share what I saw and discuss about it, so this wouldn't work for me, but I don't know about the others. On the other hand, that's indeed a source of stress when the discussion goes haywire, but that's going to happen in a forum anyway.

As for the idea of having the discussions at the Codex, I'm sorry but if that ever happens I'll be looking for something else entirely. From what I saw, it is nothing like the Watch. I'm actually very surprised by the idea but I don't know the past of either place, maybe the situation was different before?

On the second point, I'm not suggesting that folks here move to the Codex. What I'm getting at is that, in a sense, the situation I describe already exists - that you have a community essentially using the Watch as a news source. And that, in a different way, we could do the same.

I completely understand that your motivation to post news is to then discuss it with a community. All I'm suggesting is the separation of the newsposting bit from the discussion community. Let's say, in my scheme, that just one forum arises as the de facto official Watch forum, which I think is quite likely. You would post news, and then discuss it and participate on the forum. There would be very little difference to the experience newsposters have now.

The huge advantage, IMO, is the newsposting site would be far simpler, easier to maintain and secure, very few legal issues to worry about, etc. That would make it far less onerous for someone to take on. I would use something like Ghost CMS on a cheap VPS, then we'd spend a bit of time creating a theme that replicated the Watch news layout, let the guys code the clever bits for the database, and so on.

Then, setting up the forum bit separately requires very little effort and technical skill, and could be run by a different group. A single Watcher could decide that for 25$ a month, a hosted forum is something they could afford themselves, and there's your community. Or there's the free or very cheap options mentioned, that can just focus on the straightforward forum.
 
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