Should We Move? - Forum Transfer Discussion

[Chip]

As I'm sure you have noticed, this forum is broken.

The latest rash of bugs (multiplying apostrophes, broken links) have gone unresolved for nearly three months. The email function (needed for PM notification, password reset, abuse reports, etc) has been broken for more than six months. The New Files section on the front page has been "Temporarily Disabled" for a year.

Craigix, EvilDragon and I have all attempted to contact Hando (the board administrator) multiple times to try to get these problems fixed. We have offered to help fix the forum bugs. We have offered to host the forum for free on ED's server to cut down on Hando's costs. We've offered to do a donation drive to cover his hosting costs if he wants to keep his own server. We've even offered to buy the domain and forum database outright if he just doesn't want to deal with it any more. Unfortunately, Hando has not offered any reply at all. Were it not for the fact that his user page shows he logged in recently, I would be concerned that something had happened to him.



At this point it is safe to assume that Hando has no intention of maintaining these forums. It is highly unlikely that the current bugs will ever be fixed. It is a definite possibility that the next time this board goes down, it will never come back up. As much as I hate to say it, gp32x.de is on its death bed.

I have discussed the situation with Craig and ED, and we agree that instead of scrambling for a new home when GP32X eventually goes down for good, it would be better to transition to a new forum now. We are completely revamping the openpandora.org forums and expanding them to include more platforms. ED has acquired the domain "OpenHandhelds.org", which will be the new home for the official Pandora forums.

OpenHandhelds.org will be a newer, bigger, non-broken version of gp32x.de. I've reorganized the existing forums and added many new ones. This is not just a Pandora forum with a few other consoles supported as an afterthought. It is my hope that we will attract developers and users of a wide variety of platforms. ED will be working on the look and feel of the board, which should improve dramatically over the next few days. Soon it will have a proper front page and a color scheme that is easier on the eyes.

The transition will not be easy. I know a lot of people here will resist leaving GP32X. I've been very reluctant to consider moving as well. There is 6 years worth of information and discussion here that nobody wants to leave behind. But whether it is six months from now or next week, eventually this board will go down for good without active administration. It is far better to get the transition period over with now before the Pandora and Wiz are actually released.

I would like to request everybody's assistance in making this move easy and effective. If you would like to help, please consider copying over important information from this board to the new one, or better yet, to the wiki. As of now, all official announcements and core dev discussion will occur on the new forums. It would be best if everybody would move all discussion to the new forums now as well.

I would also like to hear any and all suggestions you may have for the new forums. This is a forum for everybody, so we want to hear everybody's opinion.

For now, the new forums are still at forum.openhandhelds.org. Expect a front page update on Openpandora.org when the front page is ready.

 

[PokeParadox]

I think it's all quite fair. There has been more than enough time to fix forum bugs, so a mass transition does seem like the thing to do.

 

[Prophet]

This is a bit depressing. But I suppose it's inevitable.

 

[streak]

Worst thing in all of that will be SEO for the new domain

 

[JayFoxRox]

Sounds nice, I will backup the Pandora-PSP topic tonight or so and move the most important parts to the offical homepage and the Pandora-Wiki

 

[satanic virus]

Hando replied quick enough to me a while back when I was making a donation! :rolleyes:

Good idea to move to new forums if these cannot be fixed. Good time now to plan to future proof the new site for upcoming popular handhelds (dingoo et al)

 

[fischju2000]

And so the great exodus begins

 

[PoisonedV]

Can you guys not use phpbb? I mean, I know it's "open"... but damn
oh god, ill miss gp32x

 

[streak]

I've send an email to Hando, he is alive 'coz he register himself on my page [ openpandora.pl ] in october'08 so hold on for one day...

 

[klikklak]

When I first read the title I figured the forums split due to pandora leaving to their own forum. It however appears that this isn't the case. With the new domain (which should be futureproof) and emphasis that all handhelds are welcome, I'm happy about this. Well, happy is the wrong word, but my english is failing me, it's sad to lose a home on the net, but an overhaul and active administration was needed, if it can be done at the new site, I'm all for it.

EDIT: it would be good practice to have the site up before you announce it. All I get is a 404.

 

[Chip]

Can you guys not use phpbb? I mean, I know it's "open"... but damn
I suggested about a dozen phpBB mods to ED last night to improve the look and functionality of the forum. There are things that it lacks compared to IPB, but all of them can be remedied with a few addons. Do you have any speciffic suggestions, or does this just fall under your usual world-encompasing umbrella of hate?

it would be good practice to have the site up before you announce it. All I get is a 404.
As noted in my first post, the forums are still at forums.openpandora.org. I've emboldened that bit to make it more obvious, since it could easily get lost in a large post like that.

 

[PokeParadox]

When I first read the title I figured the forums split due to pandora leaving to their own forum. It however appears that this isn't the case. With the new domain (which should be futureproof) and emphasis that all handhelds are welcome, I'm happy about this. Well, happy is the wrong word, but my english is failing me, it's sad to lose a home on the net, but an overhaul and active administration was needed, if it can be done at the new site, I'm all for it.

EDIT: it would be good practice to have the site up before you announce it. All I get is a 404.

You can access the board, but the new domain isn't completely active yet
CODE
http://forum.openpandora.org/

 

[Bramrash]

ah well, see you on the other side fuckwits.


Edit 2: nevermind

 

[b._.o._.b]

Great initiative that I highly support!

 

[Kyo]

Bummer. I'd hate to see this forum, my posts and everyones posts in it go. But I agree. The forum is definitely on it's death bed, and it should go prepared rather than unprepared. It'd also be good to put some life back in the other forums which are less annoying (this forum keeps logging me out). I'll be back to my activity over there, and modding duties, as long as I keep them

 

[PoisonedV]

Can you guys not use phpbb? I mean, I know it's "open"... but damn
I suggested about a dozen phpBB mods to ED last night to improve the look and functionality of the forum. There are things that it lacks compared to IPB, but all of them can be remedied with a few addons. Do you have any speciffic suggestions, or does this just fall under your usual world-encompasing umbrella of hate?

I'm hurt. Well, I would suggest replacing the moderators there, which were hastily slapped on, with either the gp32x team or an entirely new one, quicky reply, post merging, multi quote and maybe sub forums.

 

[Chip]

I would suggest replacing the moderators there, which were hastily slapped on, with either the gp32x team or an entirely new one, quicky reply, post merging, multi quote and maybe sub forums.
The less-active mods have already been removed. All the mods here who had accounts there under the same name have been given mod status. I added a Guru category and did the same. I've already set it up with sub forums under categories. The others I'll look into. I'm fairly certain they're all possible.

 

[TrevorBradley]

Yes, yes, and yes. The assessment of the state of gp32x.de is correct, and the choice to transition now, rather than before the next outage is the correct one. This is the right decision.

Might I make a suggestion.. perhaps a user driven project for the masses here, that we actually attempt to document what did happen here and start transition that information to another source, perhaps a wiki, perhaps some part of the old site that contains the old forum posts... a "messy" archive where we can transition the data to a wiki or other source at a later date.

I'm not so concerned about the Pandora console info (that's relatively well documented), but I'm more concerned about all those gems of knowledge in the dev forum... SDL/OpenGL coding techniques, how fenix works, etc.

I'm also wondering if it would be worthwhile (and I know people would hate me for this suggestion) to scuttle the ship? Leave the domain intact but drop forum access? The only person I could legitimately see being pissed is hando, but if you leave everything intact he should be able to put the site back together if he chooses. (Usually a replacement html file does the trick). *Yes* the forums could be left intact, but leaving it so will divide the community, and if there's a community effort to retain that old data, I find it hard to see an argument against this idea.

Good luck getting this off the ground. Hopefully the lot of us come around to the fact that this is the right decision.

Oh, just a warning about phpBB. I've actually maintained a phpBB site, did an entire site modification with mods and some tweaks of my own creation.. and you can get a really great looking site with the mods that are out there.. but it makes upgrading more difficult. It can be done, but you have to have a full site admin willing to reapply the mods with each new version. A better option perhaps would be to create side-by addons that could be used without heavily modding the site. (Look and feel mods should be just fine for upgrading)

I'm sure there's a few eager beavers out there who would be willing to write custom phpbb or other mods for the site (that would be reviewed by OP and the community, of course)

 

[Kyo]

Well, there's always http://archive.org, though it seems to be somewhat incomplete. The problem is that we can't just copy information without permission as it's not the same forum, but those who are active can certainly transfer their "gems". Besides, it's not like gp32x will go down tomorrow. In fact, right now we have no reason to believe it will go down at all other than hando being generally unavailable, and he's been like that for quite a while now.

 

[dsraa]

I'd like to say YAY, but somehow I am saddened that we could not revive the ol' engine that has carried us for so long....on the internets, I've been here since 2004, which is like forever on the internets.

I asked hando a while ago to fix things, maybe close to 8 months ago, to re-organize the forum, and make a pandora category, and show it on the front page, along with gp32 and gp2x's sections......but all that ever happened was a slight change in the design, and that was it. I myself was very frustrated that the main focus that people see when they are looking for Pandora info, is not even on the gp32x.de front page. It was a point when the topic trackers on the frontpage got broken. I got an initial response from Hando.....but it seems that he is not as passionate or committed to the site, as he should be.

Its sad....its really quite sad what has happened to the forums, and the site in general, that it NEVER really got fixed, and now we MUST move....




DSR