*puts on blast shield*

I can't possibly guess what's going on on mobile. However, since some people are reporting really nasty ads on their (presumably Windows) laptops, while others aren't. I think it's possible that some portion of the people who are getting annoying full-screen stuff on their laptops have some kind of malware. This is just a friendly reminder from your local know-it-all nerd that it can't hurt to check for viruses etc. when ads are suddenly more annoying. For true paranoia, download a virus scanner (such as Malwarebytes) on a different computer, save it on a flash drive with an unusual name, and run the program from safe mode.

On mobile, though...hoo boy. Better bug Sean and Tamara about fixing the mobile problem.

If this many people are having trouble with it, though, maybe we could implement T-board anyway? The wiki says that the Other Board (which also works fine for me, btw) started as a refuge from a spam attack, after all... It's not terribly slow for me, either.

Actually, option one would work for me. I haven’t seen any of those intrusive ads that try to make me download viruses in months, and I don’t even use ad-blockers. I suspect that some quite complex algorithms are involved with this kind of ads, and that location matters. I’m apparently save for now, but of course this may change every day.

If it doesn’t come out that doing our own thing is either too complicated or more expensive, I wouldn’t like to give my money to YourWebApps for something they should do anyway.

I’ve been on forums, and for some situations, their style is a good solution. But for the PPC Board, I prefer to be able to see everything new by simply scrolling down the page.

So, the T-Board it should be. But I’m not sure how much work is involved in setting it up and maintaining it, and what will happen when the people who did this find something else to do.

(Sorry for being late. I’ve been ill for some days.)

HG

Starting with a slightly off-topic one: I enjoyed reading the Plort story at the beginning :)

Back on topic, regarding the proposed courses of action:

1) Not really much to say about this, as it's basically what we're doing at the moment anyway. On the upside, it's very easy to implement. On the downside, as you noted, it doesn't actually seem to offer a solution.

2) I don't think much of this option - it just seems very expensive for what we'd get out of it. And I'm not even sure it would solve our current problems.

Yes, it says that we won't get any ads, but I don't have a problem with the ads that appear at the top each page. What I've got a problem with is the pop-ups, and the auto-redirects that are almost certainly trying to get you to download viruses. I don't think that these are part of the intended function of the Board, and if they aren't meant to be part of the Board, then I'm not convinced that upgrading will make them go away. Personally, I would expect webapps to protect users from malicious content, regardless of whether they're paid members or not. If it turns out that the only way to get protection is to pay a (high) monthly subscription... I'm thinking maybe it's time we jumped ship?

3) From what I've seen of others, I dislike the forum style. I much prefer the current thread system, where it's nice and easy to follow multiple diverging tracks of a conversation (which tends to happen a lot). The forum style only really seems to work, for me, if you get an initial post and then a series of replies just to that post. When you get replies to the replies, and chains of conversation evolving, it just seems to become very disjointed if you're trying to read through it all - like trying to read a Choose Your Own Adventure novel as a normal book. I know that last time this was discussed, there were many proponents of a forum style Board, but I am not one of them.

4) I remember being very impressed with T-Board when it was brought up before, particularly how easy it was to jump around within a conversation thread, and the way you can expand long replies without having to load up a new page. That made it a lot easier to use on phones.

If I remember rightly, it was also possible to view it in different ways (some sort of preference settings or something?) so that it could look either like the current Board, or a forum. Which hopefully will be able to keep everyone happy with the layout.


In general, I'd still rather that the Board was a free service. I can just see introducing a need to pay being a hassle - if we work on donations, what do we do if we come up short? If we start charging a subscription, who has to pay? What if people can't afford it for any reason*, or if they're young enough that they'd need their parents' permission, who think it's a waste? If we do end up going with something that costs money, we really need to shop around as much possible to get the best possible rate, and then try and come up with a fair system for actually getting that cash.

I also haven't had any problems with ads for the past couple of days, and I was using the Board from my tablet quite a bit last night. Is this just random good luck on my part, or is everyone else noticing an improvement too?

If it turns out that things have cleared up, I'm content to go with 1), if we do decide to go somewhere else, I think 4) is our best bet.

- Irish

* I'm pretty sure that last time this conversation came up I'd been recently made unemployed. I can assure you that if I'd been expected to pay any amount of money at that point, I'd have just walked away.

1. I do use ad-blocker on my desktop. It's a computer safety thing; sorry, PoorCynic and other YouTubers! I do check the Board on and off at work, depending on how close to the end of my family's data cycle we are, and how much data is spare. The ads are cyclical on my phone. Sometimes, they're rare (like now), and I use the data plan freely. Other times, the ads hit hard, in which case I keep off the internet browser entirely for a while, waiting for it to die down. (Interestingly, the Board is always fine when I check it on wifi networks; the ads are only a problem when the data plan is turned on.)
   
   So the ads are an occasional issue for me, and since they seem to be an even worse issue for others, I'm not a fan of "wait and see." In fairness, we should still hold on and see how Tamara and Sean respond, assuming they do in a timely fashion.
   
   2. $90 per month x 12 months per year = $1080 per year. The U.S. government officially lists me as "working poor"—I could probably chip in about $20-$30 of that per year, and even then, I would miss it most miserly. If the community, as a whole, is able to afford this . . . ugh. It still feels like such a money sink, even if we can (says the guy who buys food that Safeway puts on clearance).
   
   3. Honestly, I don't hold the same reservations about a forum-style Board as some others seem to. I think we would get used to it pretty quickly. I mean, I really only see a few topics we would even have (Permission-related posts, badfic/mission reports, OT discussion, RPs/Board games . . . heh heh, "Board games"), so I don't think it will be that hard to get through them all in a fairly short space of time. (If you think about it, we already have an entire separate board used almost solely for role play. I'd say we might actually get more happening if we had them both at "home base.") So, I guess I'm saying that it makes little difference to me whether we stay on the current style of Board or the Proboards variety.
   
   4. I just read what Tomash and Dann were saying about this before I started this post, and I have already forgotten it, because I do not speak electronics. I think it would be an easy transition from the current Board to the T-Board('s successor), so I would be fine with doing so, even more fine than with moving to a forum board, perhaps. Again, my contribution to a fund would be limited to twenty-fivish dollars a year. (And also, we would need to go to some kind of rigmarole to keep my parents from seeing a mysterious charge on my finances their son refuses to explain. Like, someone else pays my part directly, and I send them cash in the mail as reimbursement.
   
   —doctorlit sounds so cute, talking like he knows all these computer words

Hosting: T-Board is not hosted on Dann's server. It's hosted on the free plan of a cloud service called Heroku. This plan would be unsuitable for hosting the Board since it imposes a 10k row limit on the database, which we will outgrow quickly.

Dann may or may not have a server available. I don't know anything about that server, so I can't comment on it. If there is a machine, we can probably host there, and we'll be good until Dann gets hit by a bus or some other such catastrophe. Cost in that scenario is between $0 and about $10/year, depending on whether we want a domain name or not. We might consider having some kind of money stash for new hosting around anyway if that works out.

If Dann is unavailable, reliable servers can be had for on the order of $5 ($10 if I'm misestimating resource usage) a month. Again, we'd have to pay for a domain if we wanted a *.com (or .org etc.) If we don't want to do that, we can probably leech of the dynamic dns services, which hand out things like ppc.nodns.com.

Software: The code has some minor bitrot, mostly because the web framework I'm using has released several new versions since the last time I touched T-Board, and Dann or I would have to update the code to work with the new framework. This is a day or two of work tops (*), but could take a few weekends, since I have an internship at WhatsApp this summer.

Last time I showed off T-Board, there were concerns about the lack of anonymous posting. T-Board is structured so that everyone that posts needs an account. You can put anything you want in the Author field, but if you post under something other than your username, it will show as "Author text". This is sort-of the case now (IP addresses), but T-Board will make it more explicit. This would be a somewhat major change (your posts in RPs and things like the shipfests will be attributable to you), we should discuss. If we decide that we want anon posting back, I'll have to figure out how to integrate that with the registration library I'm using.

Since Reddit wasn't tossed off the table, I can try to explain how moving there might work out for us in another post.

Having read everything so far, it seems to make more sense to go to T-Boards. When I was a newbie, the Board's way of organizing posts was a bit weird, but I've since figured out its quirks and, as hS and Neshomeh said, it's pretty intuitive. A traditional forum wouldn't be as accommodating, IMO.

Being that I don't go on Reddit, I know nothing about subreddits, but if it's indeed The Board but Better, and Free as Well, then we might have to consider it.

And does anyone have any opinion on Omega's idea of using the Wiki's own forums?

But then, maybe it wouldn't. Iunno.

Anyway, in Plort terms, here is a fell sigil of that vile besieging race:



((I can do puns too, y'know. =] ))

Generally speaking, if the T-Board is a viable option, I support it (though I don't think I'll be able to monetarily support anything right now — ask me again in four months and you might get a different answer); it's basically this Board, only better.
If the T-Board isn't practical and the ad problem doesn't get solved (it doesn't really affect me, I'm a dirty rotten AdBlocker), I'd prefer moving to a forum-based layout like Proboards.
Paying YWA sounds iffy and if we're paying we might as well pay for the T-Board (though, then again, I won't be able to fork any money in the next few months anyway), and I don't know Reddit or whatnot, so I'd rather do something else.

The wiki actually has a forum built in, it just needs to be turned on. Has anyone looked into it?

I'd be up for any, although the "crawlingly slow" server of number 4 bothers me. Also, how much more (or less) would we be spending by moving to a new Board? If it's about the same, slightly less, or slightly more than the 90$ fee for number 2, then I suggest we pay that instead and stick with our current (and faster) Board.

The third option is the one I like the least. The forum style just makes me go... ick.

As someone who has both used this format and a more traditional forum I much prefer this format for what we do. Are there things that could be better? Sure, the sub-threads can get pushed off and hard to find again, or just inconvenient to do so, but I do like the format we use currently.

Now to each of the previously provided possibilities. As to keeping it the same, I think this is acceptable. However, I do not have the add issues, because I have an Ad Blocker. However, I do agree with several sentiments, that I do not like the IP address visible to the public.

Paying YourWebApps. I cannot at this moment afford to support anything, so I am not in support of this idea at this point. In three or four months, I might be. But are we even willing to use YourWebApps? They do not seem to have been particularly helpful.

As to ProBoards, I think it could work, but we do have a risk of fragmenting. And while, as pointed out by others we have some minor fragmenting it is not as pronounced as it could be on a more traditional forum. I also feel like forum style will slow down the posting, and I like the speed certain threads move, particularly our RP threats. And I have tried a Forum Based RP, and it just did not feel entertaining. It could work, but this would be probably my third choice at this point. I have seen a few places that they have adds that are just as intrusive as the ones here. Though, I cannot confirm that.

The T-Board. This is an intriguing idea. It would theoretically solve the problem, but there are costs associated with it. It would eliminate our problems, but you need bandwidth, domain names, and the like. It would cost a monthly fee. Though I think others more knowledgeable than I have suggested that it would be less expensive than upgrading with YourWebApps. And it should solve all our problems, while keeping the format similar enough. This seems like the best option all around to me.

Sub-Reddit, well I do not use Reddit so I do not know how effective it would be. I do know, however, that Reddit has a few internal problems going on right now. Further they seem to be closing down on quite a few sub-Reddits. Now most of those are things we would other wise ban ourselves, but the problem I see is that, in just a few weeks they went from a policy of keeping things largely open and allowing a great many things, to shutting it all down. This seems a bit arbitrary to me. Who knows, maybe a future head will find all sporkings offensive and decide to shut us down. I would prefer to avoid them.

And for Google Groups, I do not know enough to have one opinion or another.

But I think the real question is, do we have enough active members to warrant moving to paid hosting?

T-Board works, but it needs some tweaking first. I would be down with moving, but I would not be able to help in paying for server space. Nor, I think, would many others. And I hate traditional forums. We would segment as a community. IRC and Board has shown that much. I don't want it to break apart any further.

If we can't find easy solutions for 4, I say Reddit. I gave more detail below as for why.

I don't see "doing nothing" as a viable strategy. I doubt YourWebApps is going to make changes that would affect their bottom line (their first response to the issues suggested that fairly well). Relying solely on AdBlocker is just ignoring the issue; it's like looking at a wall riddled with termites and rot and saying "Just slap some spackle and new wallpaper on there, it'll be all right." Not to mention the facts that one, AdBlocker is uneven from platform to platform; and two, it doesn't really help the folks on mobile.

I would prefer Option 3, as those are the kinds of boards that I enjoy. I like the organization inherent in them. No longer would missions disappearing off the front page be a major concern. I'm not holding out hope for that one getting a lot of support, though.

So yeah, Option 4. If there's a way we can do it, I'm all for it.

One is basically unworkable (we can't expect everyone to use AdBlock like I do, especially newbyes who don't know that there is this problem), and paying the premium account is really an extortion more than a premium account (Want to get rid of those ads that make your site unworkable? Pay us lots of money!)

I have no problems about switching to a forum, but I would also be able to spare some money for the upkeep of the T-Board (in fact, if it is 5 dollars a month I would have no problem paying all myself if the need arises.)

That's my two cents. Or two dollars, if we start the fundraising.

I'd vote option 4. Examining the T-Board, it solves almost all the problems I have with the current Board, and a few minor issues that don't bother me in particular as well. However, I don't have any ideas as to how to go about solving the issue of hosting. I'd be willing to contribute some money myself, but I don't know a good host or anything.

That said, I do run AdBlocker on my laptop, and even when using a computer that doesn't, I haven't been overwhelmed with ads. So I'm not really the target audience you're addressing.

I'll give a State of T-Board post after I get off work (~evening PST).

Also, I know this is a rather odd idea, but could we do a subreddit? Reddit has the threading style we like, and it doesn't cost money.

It is now not uncommon for ten identical ads to pop up on top of one another, and I'm forced to close them all one by one. I suspect that's also the reason for the now ridiculous load times (30+ seconds!).

I say hold off until we hear from the admins, but if it gets worse, we'll have to likely look into moving. I don't want to change to a more typical forum; like Nesh said, I also like being able to see what's going on just by scrolling down the page. Unfortunately, as a poor college student financially dependent on my parents, I wouldn't be able to contribute to funding yet.

If they won't try and change the ads to make the board useable, I'm not inclined to want to pay for it- especially not that much a month! Especially since we aren't asking for the ads to be removed, but to not be dangerous for our computers and to allow us to actually use the board.

What I think we should do is look into how much it would cost for server space somewhere for hosting, and then the domain name. I'm fairly certain it would come to far less than their quote of 90 dollars a month- they aren't just factoring in the cost of hosting the board, but
also how much money they make from having those ads on our board in the first place.

There are enough of us, and enough of us with a wee bit of money for discretionary spending for that matter, that we should be able to handle the cost, I would think.

(Also, please check your email.)

First of all, the Board isn't a security problem if you take steps to protect yourself, such as AdBlock (which you can enable ONLY FOR THE BOARD if you really want to, I promise, it doesn't automatically make you an unethical jerk) and a decent anti-malware program or two. It's harder to do that on mobile devices, granted, but who likes writing posts on their phones? I only do it if I don't have a choice and really feel strongly about posting right this minute anyway. If your mobile device is all you've got... I dunno. How many people are actually using the Internet primarily or exclusively on a phone?

That said, I'd be fine with adopting the T-Board if we can find a way to make it work. I'd propose that we might be able to work out a way to spread out the costs of hosting among those of us with both stable jobs and a stable presence here (e.g. me and Phobos), so it wouldn't be too onerous for any one person. Plus maybe a PayPal account or something that other folks could use to chip in as/when they're able—could maybe serve as an emergency fund in case someone can't make their payment that month for some reason. And we could all sign something that says we agree that even though we're paying for server space we don't own the Board and won't get all weird about it, if that's a concern. We've traditionally been rather queasy about Actual Authorities.

Above discussion of money could also apply to simply taking the current Board premium, too, if it turns out that would cost less.

I'm pretty firmly against moving to a ProBoards-style forum. They're so chunky, and I like being able to see everything that's going on just by scrolling. And of course there's the concern that people will form sub-forum cliques, and never venture out to see what people are talking about elsewhere, thus diminishing the community spirit.

That's my two cents.

~Neshomeh

I like the layout and the design (Which is the perfect example of "The Board, but better"). We'd have to pay for hosting and (probably) a domain name, sure, but we could at least slightly offset the cost by putting in some non-intrusive ads. (As for Google Drive, apparently, it doesn't allow for things like PHP, which might be a problem.)

...but if people do vote to move, Google Groups is a nice compromise between this type of board and a forum-style one.

We can end this advert problem here and now and we will never have to have this discussion again.

I personally find this Board's "splitting threads" feature father confusing-- I'd settle for a conventional style posting board any day. Plus, it would be easier to organize topics and such with the proposed Proboard model.

Furthermore, I know that some of the ads that pop up on this Board sometimes carry redirects or viruses-- a few years back my antivirus kept on blocking intrusions until I installed an Adblocker on my browser. If we move, we won't have this problem anymore-- and I also really, really hate the fact that this Board leaves IP addresses out in the open. In the name of security, I favour uprooting the Board and transplanting it to a new forum style board. In my eyes the benefits far outweigh the negatives-- all of which are security hazards for our computers.