Sim Web Sites

[V'Roy 0]

You all toss in just 2 cents? That's not enough to get a website!

Ah, but every time you quote someone as tossing in two cents you multiply their contribution. So if 5 people quote someone as tossing in 2 cents then that person's total contribution becomes 12 cents.

 

Ironically our banking system creates money through a similar process.

Edited December 1, 2008 by V'Roy

[Mreh K'hal 0]

Websites, wikis, and work... oh my! I too have thought about this issue for a while.

 

I personally love playing around with HTML and CSS; even doing all the coding manually, since I'm geek enough. I've even used it to format my bios and logs here on the boards since the option is available in Invision (though unfortunately it seems to revert back to standard text after a while, something I didn't count on, leaving my CSS to flap in the breeze). Anyway, there are a lot of different options to use, each of them with their own advantages and disadvantages, some of which have been outlined already.

 

As for the individual website approach, it does offer the highest amount of individuality and creativity, as you can see with some of the spectacular websites that are available for some of our sims. Whatever the team has the time and effort to include can be in this format, but again it's time consuming and takes some know-how.

 

The wiki approach takes some of the sting out of it for the end user, but puts just as much strain on the wiki-master as the website approach does. If you go for really tight security measures, meaning the admin has to approve accounts (which would probably mean coordinating with the GMs to ensure that so and so is actually a member of that sim) would be very time consuming. Less stringent security measures would lead to spamming, inaccuracy, and the headaches of editing and deleting out the garbage. Plus that whole imbalance thing. Some GMs just don't have the time even if they have the inclination to do all that. Others may not even have the inclination.

 

There are also some open source CMS (Content Management System) out there that have more functionality than a pure wiki, though they offer the same challenges as a wiki. They don't offer the same amount of personalization on individual pages than the website approach, though the overall front end could be spiffed up to integrate with the STSF look pretty well.

 

Then there's the final option of a custom-made portal that could do exactly what we need it to do, however if anyone has the skills and know-how to do that here they're probably too busy being paid for their technical wizardry to have time to scratch one up for STSF. If I did, I would, but I'm a long way away from tinkering with coding to implementing such a complicated thing.

 

Any option that involves custom coding raises the problem of the ... discrepancies :: slight snarl :: between web browsers display of HTML and CSS. Why a certain one with a lot of blue involved in the look doesn't bother to incorporate the W3C standardizations is utterly beyond me, but I digress.

 

Lastly, we have to go into A9's philosophical argument. Do the bells and whistles matter as much as the practicalities anyway?

 

I belong to one sim with a highly knocked out website, one that had one but was rarely updated before AOL dispatched it into the ether, and one that doesn't have one at all. So obviously I didn't consider it a requirement, though I really wish Talon did have one, because I think if the Rihan data was organized and made more available I think more people may feel more comfortable trying the sim on for size. Though of course there's the counter-argument that it may scare people off that may have liked it if they did just happen across it. So, as I see it, it's as different for each sim as it is for each player.

 

A wiki seems like the most feasible add-on at this time. The hosting of it and the administration become an issue, but that is for people with more pips than I to wrangle over. I would think that creating admin/mod accounts for the GMs and then allowing them to individually add users themselves would be more feasible than open registration, since that gives the most amount of security and control if I did have those pips, though. :)

 

On a side note, I really wish we had some sort of HTML forms for the sim application process, which at the moment is time-consuming and unwieldy on both ends, I imagine. Of course I wish we had a centralized roster database to go along with it for the purposes of display and personnel administration. Part of my Christmas wish list for STSF, lol. I doubt Santa has many MySQL trained elves, though. :)

 

Anyway, sorry for the long-winded prattling, but I figured I may as well put in more than just a few cents, heh.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

First off, I will say that websites rock out. If I'm checking out a sim website, and you have messed up text, dead links, and a generally nasty appearance with the choice of your colors and layout a nightmare of a mess .... chances are I'm not going to join your sim.

 

However! I did not join STSF because of websites; I joined because of the Message Board layout, content, and general community.

 

I lurked for four months before jumping in to make sure there were no god awful flame wars and generally stupid people ... then again, every once in a while ... ::ducks:: :-P

 

Then I joined. While the various linked sites of the offered sims did help with a ship decision (s), there is/was also enough pinned briefing information (ship specs, crew rosters, general updates) within each sim message board section to more then help me with my choices of what ships I did join through these years.

 

Websites are great, I admit that up front, and they are an invaluable tool for RPG simming.

 

But sometimes, it ain't all about the flash bling blang boom; it's the content within. Sort of not judging that good book by its cover?

[FredM 0]

Hey there,

 

Since it did kind of relate to the original topic of this thread, the new website of the Reaent has just gone up....

 

http://www.ussreaent.com

 

Same address but much different FTP space. :o