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Kallah Ramson

Sim Web Sites

29 posts in this topic

If it hasn't been noticed by others, AOL closed down their web hosting at the end of October. I think at least 2 of the sim sites linked from the schedule page are now gone.

 

I know when I'm thinking of joining a sim their website usually goes a long way in making my choice.

 

Just saying we may want to make an effort to get those sites back up, make sure the existing ones are top notch, and poking with a sharp stick those who don't have a site at all.

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If it hasn't been noticed by others, AOL closed down their web hosting at the end of October. I think at least 2 of the sim sites linked from the schedule page are now gone.

 

I know when I'm thinking of joining a sim their website usually goes a long way in making my choice.

 

Just saying we may want to make an effort to get those sites back up, make sure the existing ones are top notch, and poking with a sharp stick those who don't have a site at all.

 

I think much (if not all) of what you say is true. On the other hand, it's really up to each host team how they want to run their sim and its promotion. I know some hosts simply do not have the time or desire to mess with a site. I do think, however, that a sim with a website has a clear advantage of obtaining new players over a sim without one.

 

Now, if someone was offering to build sites.... :)

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I'm conflicted on the whole subject. I think it's great that people put effort into them and they're really pretty, but by the same token they're extra work for someone to do, hard to keep up to date if your not a webbie-inclined host and we end up duplicating a lot of information or linking to it anyway. Not to mention it takes people away from the site itself.

 

::tosses in two cents::

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I'm conflicted on the whole subject. I think it's great that people put effort into them and they're really pretty, but by the same token they're extra work for someone to do, hard to keep up to date if your not a webbie-inclined host and we end up duplicating a lot of information or linking to it anyway. Not to mention it takes people away from the site itself.

 

::tosses in two cents::

 

The one thing I do like about sites is that it helps our linkability on search engines. Right now more combination of Star Trek roleplaying, simming, simulations, etc. lists us in the top five hits on Google.

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Ok, so now that we are on the subject, where does one go to get a good web site made? Something that is not shabby and not expensive?

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Ok, so now that we are on the subject, where does one go to get a good web site made? Something that is not shabby and not expensive?

 

I hate to say "it depends" but it really does when it comes to web designing these days. There are some great content management systems out there that are absolutely free. You only pay for your domain names and hosting. But it really depends what you're trying to do.

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Ok, so now that we are on the subject, where does one go to get a good web site made? Something that is not shabby and not expensive?

 

Maybe somebody in STSF would volunteer to help design a site for you. I wish I had the skills but all I know how to do is type the URL into the little box and hit "go."

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Ok, so now that we are on the subject, where does one go to get a good web site made? Something that is not shabby and not expensive?

Maybe somebody in STSF would volunteer to help design a site for you. I wish I had the skills but all I know how to do is type the URL into the little box and hit "go."

 

::raises hand extremely tentatively:: I'm not a pro by any stretch, but I have designed a website for a game outside of STSF and have a passing understanding of HTML and CSS, though I still haven't quite gotten my head around JavaScript...in other words, I can't do anything really fancy but I can structure a basic page and at least make it look mostly clean. And I would, of course, be happy to help you out, Jami, or anyone else in the STSF crowd.

 

Just throwing the offer out there. If you're looking for a really pro design job, though, do *not* take me up on this offer, because you won't get it. :P

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I primarily pointed this out so the existing sim pages could be moved to an operational hosting site for those that weren't aware AOL had stopped their hosting. Or, so the links could be removed since it looks bad to have links that go no where.

 

Just a suggestion, what about an STSF Wiki? You then have one site hosting all the sims info in an easy to research format that can be added to by the community. I always thought there was a middle ground between sifting through countless logs for info and just getting an overview from a sim website and a Wiki format possibly fits this bill. But then I may just be too big of a fan of researching useless data.

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getting a domain is easy, and can be fairly inexpensive.

 

I would love to play around with designing websites for stsf or other people (if not for the crux dedailed below). Just like Kent I have html and css experience and have gotten better and better at it just by playing and asking for tips from experienced friends. For my three websites, I bought the domains without any management, hosted all the files on a friend's webspace and wrote all the code myself.

 

This is a very satisfying experience, the problem is it takes up an extremely large amount of time!!!!! And for someone not doing it professionally and pro bono, it's really hard to squeeze in. Like Grom said, you can somewhat easly find cheap/free software to help you. So I guess my post is really just echoing what Grom said, "It depends"

 

I wonder how webbie would feel about helping GM teams develop sites for their sims

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Re: Wiki

 

I've flirted with the idea of a wiki, and I know Lo's Arcadia site is a wiki itself. I think it could be really useful if people put the time into it, but I am not sold that we have the user base to generate enough content to make it work.

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Hey there,

 

I know I had a lot of the Reaent's and Aegis' website files stored on AOL servers. I'm actually taking the opportunity of the need to move to completely revamp the sites. Neither design has really changed in 5+ years so I figured why not. That being said, for an extended period of time I have been using Flash as a major component of the sites. It has become more and more popular in some arenas. Of course, it isn't required and there is still a large amount of JavaScript coding that can do the same thing (especially for button effects).

 

As far as a Wiki goes, I know that has been discussed previously. While I personally would love to see one, knowing full well the database of entries that could be created just for Reaent and Aegis would run well beyond five hundred, it does take work to setup. In addition, Wikis have a horrible issue with spamming. That being said, I do remember asking our wonderful Webmaster a few years ago about if there was a method to link the usernames from the message boards/chatroom to the Wiki login system. Regretfully, the answer was no. So that being said, even if we had one, for security purposes we would probably have to individually grant people an account to use it in order to keep it from being abused.

 

Personally, since over 85% of STSF's sims are over ten years of age or older, I think you could probably create a good encyclopedia of information. The issues would be with organization.

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I'm just throwing this out there. But I don't know if it will work or not, and I definitely can't make it, but what about someone who DOES have this kind of experience creating some sort of uniform page for each ship, which simply leaves the actual content management of the website to the GMs.

 

That way, the GM's wouldn't have to worry about the design, except maybe picking a different color scheme/logos for each site so that members can tell them apart.

 

They can have all the same usual pages: "Roster", "About", "How to Join" etc.

 

It's just an idea.

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not a bad idea, but as someone (kallah maybe?) pointed out, the flashy website about the sim is a big part of recruiting for some people. I suppose your idea could work purely for information. But still that puts a lot on the creator to maintain information updates. A lot of rosters are often out of date because personnel change so often.

 

Arcadia's website is a wiki, which is really nice, there is a LOT of content there, races the crew has encountered and even detailed summeries of the past and current plots, but it's also contributed to by the crew because of it's wiki-nature. This helps a lot with such large scale content. I'm not sure but something like a wiki might be easier to set up as a template than a website from scratch.

 

You'd have to ask STSF Lo'Ami, who created the Arcadia site.

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Okay, I was staying out of it earlier, but it's time for my 2¢.

 

The simulation games in STSF are very diverse and so are the separate web presences. Would a shiny website increase recruiting? Maybe, but I am more convinced that a person's RL schedule, coupled with their enjoyment of the Command Team's style is really the deciding factor for choosing a particular sim.

 

Some people have more skill and resources available to them to make a sim website and make it special, and some don't. A website is not a requirement, since the sims take place on STSF.NET and we have the schedule and the Message Boards here as well.

 

As for a wiki, we have discussed this in the past and it will take a substantial effort to create, organize and maintain such a database. It will only be as good as the data submitted and updated. I think you will see the same imbalance as you see now on individual websites - and who wants to step up and volunteer to coordinate the wiki? It is not a short-term project, it will go on for as long as the site maintains the data.

 

Thanks.

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Scheduling has meant very little to me in picking out sims. I picked out my first sim (Fek'lhr) be reading a collection of logs on the old SFOL boards titled "The Fek'lhr Chronicles". I was fascinated by the stories they had told and wanted to be part of that sim. Websites can give that kind of info without forcing someone to read every post on the boards to get an idea about the type of missions and command styles.

 

That's my experience at least. I could be alone in that. Sounds like a poll to take.... be kinda interesting to just to see how most people pick a sim anyways.

 

As for Wiki's, there IS a sim wiki out there somewhere that's for ALL Star Trek sims from any group. We could just take it over. I know someone (I'll blame Fred) filled out a lot of info about Aegis, Raeant, and another sim or two.

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Arcadia's website is a wiki, which is really nice, there is a LOT of content there, races the crew has encountered and even detailed summeries of the past and current plots, but it's also contributed to by the crew because of it's wiki-nature. This helps a lot with such large scale content. I'm not sure but something like a wiki might be easier to set up as a template than a website from scratch.

 

Generally, they are easier to build, because there's very little original coding. Adding content is about the equivalent of typing text.

 

Adding content is not trivial, though, and does take time. If I had more of that, more of the sections would be filled in. As is, I try to keep the plot summaries updated so at least I'll have a way to remember what happened.

 

There's actually quite a bit of the Arcadia encyclopedia that's incomplete and waiting for editors.

 

As for anti-spamming, I do require account sign up (a mostly useless measure -- bots can sign up for accounts), and have a rather simple captcha checking edits with links. It has prevented all spam so far, although I suspect it will be broken (since it's rather easy to break). When it is, I'll switch to something stronger.

 

(Technical background: Arcadia's wiki is self-hosted on a spare machine running Debian GNU/Linux, Apache, MySQL, and MediaWiki. The theme was custom designed by me for the Arc website. The background graphic was klepped from Moose's original static-HTML Arc website from long ago. It is based on MediaWiki's default Monobook layout - the one used for Wikipedia - although you probably wouldn't know it by looking at it. The domain name is from dyndns.org, which I have an account with for other reasons.)

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Scheduling has meant very little to me in picking out sims. I picked out my first sim (Fek'lhr) be reading a collection of logs on the old SFOL boards titled "The Fek'lhr Chronicles". I was fascinated by the stories they had told and wanted to be part of that sim. Websites can give that kind of info without forcing someone to read every post on the boards to get an idea about the type of missions and command styles.

 

That's my experience at least. I could be alone in that. Sounds like a poll to take.... be kinda interesting to just to see how most people pick a sim anyways.

 

As for Wiki's, there IS a sim wiki out there somewhere that's for ALL Star Trek sims from any group. We could just take it over. I know someone (I'll blame Fred) filled out a lot of info about Aegis, Raeant, and another sim or two.

 

Hey there,

 

First...

 

YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE!!! :P

 

 

Second, you would be surprised for how many people the time a sim takes place is the major problem. Go figure.

 

Third, the website you reference is intended more as a global thing. The issue you run into is that it isn't really designed to be a mixture of an IC and OOC encyclopedia of information, it looks at stuff from a "real world" perspective. As I believe LoAmi has shown with the Arcadia Wiki and several other sites that just have "encyclopedias" on their websites, content is out there and could be useful. Regretfully, large amounts of history from many of our sims was lost forever when a certain Keyword was pulled down. That being said, having an avenue to create an article about Planet Q and what happened when the U.S.S. Hood visited it in the Stardate version of 1997 might be neat. Heck, I think one possibility would be (saying it was anywhere close to remotely current) is the ability for sims to add on to different things others have done. Anyway, my few cents. :(

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I'm sure space is a problem also. Lo'Ami happened to have a spare hard drive laying around to serve his website from, All of my personal websites have their content stored with a web developer I am very good friends with. But not everyone is able to find space for free, so starting up something on the web can be costly if you don't find those "right place right time" avenues for all the hosting overhead.

 

Speaking of, how does STSF pay for the hosting of such a massive forum and chatroom?

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Speaking of, how does STSF pay for the hosting of such a massive forum and chatroom?

 

Three words: Work-related expenses. :P

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::2 cents:: The idea of a wiki for STSF isn't such a bad idea. For one thing, you can use ideas from each other the different sims separate websites, to fill in information that some people might want, like open positions, information on plot lines, NPC's, ect. ect. so running out of info for it probably isn't a problem. Besides, if all else fails, you can just get the players from the different sims to go on shameless plugs about their games on the wiki ::jk::

~Ali

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Three words: Work-related expenses. :P

I wish

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Work related expenses.....just another word for "real life checkbook."

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You all toss in just 2 cents? That's not enough to get a website! Seriously though, I think what we need is a single website for all the sims, and then have it that you can go from there to each sim separately. Making a wiki sounds okay, but a problem is that then anyone can add information that may be plain bogus. Either that or two people argue about something though it. A website though that has chatlogs for one sim for one thing, and information about races in another, soemthing like that. Though the maor thing thats going to happen is RL timing. Kids that are in school that want to play are most likily going to choose something like aegis because its on a weekend night where their parents arn't going to push them so much. ::tosses 5 cents in:: :)

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Making a wiki sounds okay, but a problem is that then anyone can add information that may be plain bogus. Either that or two people argue about something though it.

 

So that would mean I can never post the information that I have all set to go about the 'I Love Beverly' tattoo that Picard has on his rear end? You know, the one he got during that one shore leave, with the big heart? Aw Dang.

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