Revitalizing a Stagnant Community

[ender1]

Could be that his username is banned.

Just what I was thinking. The logo in the mock up was also made by someone who is banned.

[CezeN]

why do people think that just because a book is old, that nobody new is going to read it?

the book was written long before i picked it up and it's not like i will be the last person to read it. it's still in classrooms, it's still on the shelf. i didn't read it because of a movie. and i'm sure most of you didn't either. i think most people don't even KNOW about the movie until they get so obsessed with the books that they have to find out more information about it. and that's when they find pweb.

there will be new generations of OSC readers every year. and that's part of the reason that this site will never die. (unless someone stops hosting it anyway, and i bet someone else would take up the torch if that happened anyway.) ya'll need to stop worrying.

This^^^ is true.

We had to read Ender's Game for summer reading, for my 9th grade English class. I read it before that, but still, my point is that - yes more people will read it. Especially, if it's a summer reading book.
And generally, the only good one that I've ever read(other than Life of Pi) - at least that's what we all agreed on in my English Class...

[Gravity Defier]

Could be that his username is banned.

Just what I was thinking. The logo in the mock up was also made by someone who is banned.

Same here and I thought as much the first time Confessions showed up. If it is you, you know who you are, why not drop the pride down a notch or two and ask to be unbanned so you can fiddle around with Pweb. While I'm not a fan of the look you presented, I'm a major fan of the ideas behind it.

But the way this place has been lately, there really hasn't been that much reason for modding.

True, we don't need it but that's not to say it still isn't the case that as soon as people become mods, they disappear or go quiet.

[mr_thebrain]

i'm a man of action for the most part. i don't like discussing things that will never happen. we're all sitting here talking about what we can do to help bolster pweb into what it used to be with no idea as to how to implement such a change aside from post more (which i can see very few of us are actually doing) anyway, we knew we had to do that anyway, it's just that none of us have much to say right now i guess. so until we DO have some more to say, i say we actually work towards making some of the other changes.

if we want to add content to the site that's not part of the forum itself we need to put some stuff together, we should make a list of what should be on the site. we should start a thread to discuss what should and shouldn't be on the site. we need to get in touch with the people who can get things done. decide who's going to do the work and see how it can be done without stepping on anyone's (amka's) toes. i think we're all grateful for the work time and money she's invested in us and we don't want to insult her (even the ones who don't even know who amka is).

one thing's for sure, no one person is going to do all this work on their own and get it implemented. and i think before we bother with integrating wiki or any other outside websites, we should first work on our own site. it needs to be a collaborative effort. also i think that if we want it to be done we need to do as much of it as possible so that very little effort is needed by amka to make it live.

what do you all think?

[Wind Swept]

Since it's a wiki, we don't really need to know what we're doing informationwise going in, but it might be a good idea. What does need to be done is some research into integrated wiki/forum software. Other's priorities might be different, but what I want to see is reliability and a layout tht supports CSS, and allows uploading through the system, so amka doesn't have to worry if we want to change the look of the place.

[mr_thebrain]

i was talking about information on philoticweb.net, not on wiki, actually.

wiki is too much of a hassle to keep accurate we probably wouldn't be looking at the content every day and it would take one banned member to cause a problem. plus i don't want our website's content disappearing because it got deleted. we're not fox news we shouldn't reference wiki, it's bad practice.

[Wind Swept]

I believe the suggestions being made were not to have a "philoticweb.net" and a wiki, but to Make philoticweb.net a wiki. In my view, I think it's worth risking a banned member trying to cause trouble. You lock the place down for a few days, roll it back to before they mucked it up, and let them cool off. I think it would be quite rare that we find a big enough dick to really cause trouble.

As far as accuracy, that's the beauty of a wiki. It very likely will begin its life full of errors, but through discussion and correction, a collective approximation of the truth will eventually find its way to the fore.

[Mich]

I do remember the first wiki being a lot of fun for a while, and it would certainly help a few of us regain interest. It would be really cool to come up with a way to integrate the wiki into the forum without completely getting rid of the forum and just saying "let's move all discussion to the wiki," but I don't know of any ways to do that.

[ender1]

You can integrate MediaWiki with the forum. It'll use the forum's user tables for authentication for the wiki with an extension. You can restrict users from the wiki if needed as well. The only caveat is that users that have brackets in their name will not work with the wiki.

[Eddie Pinz]

if we want to add content to the site that's not part of the forum itself we need to put some stuff together, we should make a list of what should be on the site. we should start a thread to discuss what should and shouldn't be on the site. we need to get in touch with the people who can get things done. decide who's going to do the work and see how it can be done without stepping on anyone's (amka's) toes. i think we're all grateful for the work time and money she's invested in us and we don't want to insult her (even the ones who don't even know who amka is).

Brain,

I am pretty sure someone (Locke??) has the information from the original site. We talked about getting it up and running before. I don't think we have the capability to get it back up there without Amka. We also had a contest to change the silly banner at the top of the screen. Again, that couldn't be done without Amka.

I am very gratefully to her for keeping this place up and running, when she really doesn't have to. Especially seeing as she is paying all of the costs. And I mean absolutely no disrespect to her or do I mean to step on her toes, but this place has fallen into disrepair. It might be as easy as asking her to give someone admin rights to the site. I am pretty sure that zevlag has had them in the past. Or maybe its time for someone (or a group of people) to start footing the bill for this place. I mean she has been paying all of the costs for 9+ years. Again, I mean no disrespect. Just throwing some options out there.

[Syphon the Sun]

Can we sell stock in pweb?

[mr_thebrain]

I am pretty sure someone (Locke??) has the information from the original site. We talked about getting it up and running before. I don't think we have the capability to get it back up there without Amka. We also had a contest to change the silly banner at the top of the screen. Again, that couldn't be done without Amka.

I am very gratefully to her for keeping this place up and running, when she really doesn't have to. Especially seeing as she is paying all of the costs. And I mean absolutely no disrespect to her or do I mean to step on her toes, but this place has fallen into disrepair. It might be as easy as asking her to give someone admin rights to the site. I am pretty sure that zevlag has had them in the past. Or maybe its time for someone (or a group of people) to start footing the bill for this place. I mean she has been paying all of the costs for 9+ years. Again, I mean no disrespect. Just throwing some options out there.

really just agreeing with me.

anyway, if locke has the information, we need to get him to give it to us. if it's not him then we need to find out who. if nobody, we need to generate new content. if only zevlag and amka have rights then they are the ones we need to try and talk to. or get in touch with the people who can get in touch with them. i don't talk to either of them so i'm no help. basically we need to get permission. i doubt it will be all that hard. i hope.

i remember mp3s of songs that were inspired by EG, and i remember a link to movie information, i remember a link to fan art.
i can't remember if there was a list of his works. i would like to see a page with the collected cover art from around the world. i would like to see all of that back, and updated and perhaps making the site prettier. i don't think we need to bother with a wiki or facebook or any other integrations if we can just make our pweb full of content again.

if people want to make a wiki, it should be for fun and stay in wikiland.

[ender1]

Some of the fan art and other misc stuff should be able to be retrieved via archive.org.

[Gravity Defier]

Some of the fan art and other misc stuff should be able to be retrieved via archive.org.

I do believe that stuff is what elf gathered in this thread (links at the bottom of the page):

http://www.philoticweb.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1548

[Wind Swept]

I can almost comprehend your aversion to Facebook, brain, but I can't understand what you have against the idea of a Wiki. The reason the main site went by the wayside in the first place is become it became inactive. If anyone can edit, it's much more likely to be perpetually updated, spark discussions, and thereby keep conversation in the forums fresh.

It would be really cool to come up with a way to integrate the wiki into the forum without completely getting rid of the forum and just saying "let's move all discussion to the wiki," but I don't know of any ways to do that.

We just don't use Talk pages. Link the discussion to a thread, instead. And Milagre would have a hard time translating to a Wiki discussion, anyway.

[Mich]

We just don't use Talk pages. Link the discussion to a thread, instead. And Milagre would have a hard time translating to a Wiki discussion, anyway.

Well, when I say "integrate," I meant seamlessly. Because that would be really great, just being able to bracket your way to an article from the forum without any of this "url tag" nonsense. Not that the Ender part of this site is super-active, but maybe it would help it become that way.

But apparently this MediaWiki can do such magic! Not that I know anything about it other than what ender1 said.

[Yebra]

I love the wiki idea and I recall mediawiki and phpbb have a lot of plugins made by people trying to do pretty similar things so there's definite potential there.

On an unrelated note: Has it always said 'Ender's Games' at the top?

[ender1]

I love the wiki idea and I recall mediawiki and phpbb have a lot of plugins made by people trying to do pretty similar things so there's definite potential there.

Well, I tried it and it is easy enough to get the two to work together. I got it so you can login to the wiki with the forum login.

On an unrelated note: Has it always said 'Ender's Games' at the top?

I never noticed it saying that before, but it probably has always been like that.

[wizzard]

I'm sort of in favour of re-integrating the religion and science forums, myself. I think it would bring renewed interest in the topics to a wider set of people.

I definitely agree with this. The conversations that stand out most in my head are the long, drawn-out arguments between Leto II and, well, everyone else. They were (usually) intelligent, they almost never degraded to flame wars, and they were interesting to read. (I never actually participated, cause holy crap did Leto scare me (and so did everyone else, for that matter (yay nested parantheticals!))) These don't happen any more, I think in part because milagre square has been broken down into seperate pieces.

As far the whole "oldbies are excluding noobies" thing, I've felt like a noobie pretty much my entire time here, and I joined in 2001. I've never felt excluded, though, and I think a big part of this was the AIM chats that went on almost nightly. I actually got to talk to people, I actually got to know them on a first name basis.

I've never been a prolific poster-I'm not sure who here even recognizes me-but I lurk religiously, and PWeb, especially Dear Bob, has been an important part of my life for 8+ years now, and I hope it doesn't go anywhere.

*goes back to lurking*

[mr_thebrain]

holy crap, it's a party! even wizzard posted!

i like reintegrating science and religion threads into milagre.

[Taalcon]

:peeks in:
*runs out of the room screaming*
Ah, Nostalgia...

[mr_thebrain]

heh. that brings me back.

[neo-dragon]

Everyone can relax. I'm back. Pweb is saved!


What's that?? No one even noticed I was gone for nearly a month...

[Gravity Defier]

I'm back.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

*ahem* I mean, hey, Jason...how was your trip?

[neo-dragon]

I'm itching from numerous insect bites, and I'm a few shades darker from way too much sun, but otherwise pretty good. I even mastered floating on my back.

[zeroguy]

I'm itching from numerous insect bites, and I'm a few shades darker from way too much sun, but otherwise pretty good. I even mastered floating on my back.

Hmm, you weren't on landside leave hanging around on a lake, were you? Where the sharks know to leave you alone and you were visited by your sister who convinced you to go back into space?

[Petra456]

Everyone can relax. I'm back. Pweb is saved!


What's that?? No one even noticed I was gone for nearly a month...

Did you at least bring pweb back anything good!? Where's our souvenir?

[neo-dragon]

I would have gotten a t-shirt, but I didn't know pweb's size.

[Jayelle]

According to this thread, it's x-small.

[Jebus]

Ba-doom-tchoom

[mazer]

Okay, all you old fogies that don't care to discuss Ender or discuss politics or otherwise venture outside the community portions of the Philotic Web:

As you may have noticed, much of the old guard has departed our sacred halls. We all of us came in droves so many years ago because of our love/curiosity for Ender and his world. That was

About this time I got bored and decided to skip down to the end and see what he is talking about



[qoute=author]Now, I'd hate to suggest that Facebook is the one, true savior of Phoebe. I'm sure other measures could be taken toward revitalizing our community.[/quote]

WTF how this even related.

-This messege brought to you by an old pwebber passing through his old stomping grounds.

[Jebus]

I suppose when you're 12 a year and a half does seem like a long time ago.

[Wind Swept]

WTF how this even related.

Lesson learned: Always read every word I write.

[mr_thebrain]

but you make that so difficult...

[Ela]

ahh Confessions, I say Ami should continue to be Admin considering she's paid all costs associated with the website since its inception, and continues to pay for those, even though she's not active on the site, and all that remains at the time is the forum.

QFT.

Also, I disagree that Pweb is dying. I don't post much, myself, but every time I check in there are new posts and I've seen many newcomers over the years.

Forums change as membership changes. That's just the way it goes.