I would definitely be up for helping you out with moderating this forum (or even help set it up, if you need any help there). I was a moderator on d2jsp.org (one of the largest forums in the world) for many years but gave up moderating because it got so ridiculously big and bureaucratic, so I have some experience (I hope that doesn't sound too pompous).

Also, I think the most important thing to transfer are the critic lists and perhaps some of the more important polls we've held and the critics lists are not a huge project as they can simply be copy/pasted onto the new forum.

The large majority of the work, as I see it, will be transferring our polls to the new forum, which will require more work because layout and links are also important. However, the amount of polls is not so large that it will be impossible if we unite forces. BBcode is used on almost all forums, meaning we can just quote our posts here and copy them onto the new forum and the layout should look almost identical.

Added bonus to using phpBB is that it's free, although it would result in more traffic as it will need to be hosted directly on acclaimedmusic.net. Of course you do save the costs you currently pay Bravenet.

Henry, thanks for starting this thread. I'm glad we're having this conversation even now when Dan is back.

If password would be required in a new forum I hope this would just be for write access. Wouldn't we lose a lot of visitors otherwise? There has always been easy access to both the main AM page and the forum and I want it to stay that way.

I'd definitely back you too, Stephan. Thanks for the offer!

I'm not sure if a new forum can be run on acclaimedmusic.net though. Again, Bravenet is the website host ... (premium ftp hosting) and as I said I'm no expert on these things so it's probably best if you have a look at http://www.bravehost.com/matrix.php and see if they allow the things you want to do.

Yes, phpBB allows you to set what registered and unregistered users can do. Registration is a one-time deal, after which you can stay logged in. You can simply give unregistered users the rights to view all the posts but not reply to them.

Edit: Yeah, with the premium package it's definitely possible to install these boards (at least in the technical aspect). I can't say how much traffic these boards would generate in comparison to the current ones (I assume a little more) but it seems irrelevant since you have unlimited bandwidth.

I personally don't want to post on a forum where you have no choice but to look at disgusting images to read if they are posted.

Every other internet forum in the world does not allow direct digustingness or personal attacks against other users. This is not censorship, it's community standards of respectful discourse.

I do not even want to read a thread if I have no way to avoid seeing pictures of babies with empty eye sockets when I do so. That would cause me to leave the forum.

Let's also make a distinction here between government imposed censorship and what we're talking about here. This is Henrik's private club here, and there's a difference between the government stepping in and saying "You must censor this" and Henrik saying "This is not the kind of atmosphere I want for my forum, so I'm setting standards."

OK to keep this going, I'm happy to volunteer some time to transcribe polls to a new forum, if Henrik is happy for an upgrade, of course.

I'm willing to help too for exporting and moderating if need be
I've always wanted to help creating a board/site and it will help me in my job search

Most of the 'creating' (i.e. uploading) will have to be done by Henrik. He can then set (if necessary) extra admins (who can create new forums, upgrade users, ban users and generally fuck things up badly) and those can in turn set users to moderators (who can close topics, suspend users). You can even set up different types of moderators (e.g. super moderators who can edit/delete other people's posts and regular moderators who can only close topics). There's also the possibility to set up some special user group with forum regulars who have extra posting options (e.g. edit forever).

@Henrik: The actual installation process is pretty straightforward in my experience, but if you decide to go through with this I can help you out if you get stuck if we do this somewhere after January 31st (my last exam).

This sounds very promising. Just tell me what I need to do.

But first good luck with your exam!

I'm definitely not an expert in these things, but if I can help in any way, I'd be happy to contribute. Good initiative.

In regard to the (latest) nj post, I'm pretty sure by now we all know (s)he is a troll, and we should expect this stuff. If we don't react, (s)he'll stop doing it.

Edit: Bah, it won't yet me embed a Youtube video.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr5BaiOp4F4

Anyway, as the Kids In The Hall sketch I tried to link to expressed, I don't think you're right, Listy. I've never seen the Butters Stotch approach to handling bullies succeed in any context.

Ah, the enigma that is Netjade! Everytime I think I have you figured out you confuse me even more... I think everybody got a little too upset over a picture that isn't the worst thing I've ever seen on a forum, but it would be nice to see an updated forum with logins and everything. It won't stop spam.... honestly, this board is probably the least spammed forum that I frequent and all of the other ones require logins. But, at least you'd have the ability to remove posts and ban users easily enough for spam.

The only thing that I can see happening with an updated forum is that every post will become a poll or builder game. I think that of all the music forums I have gone to, AM has the best discussion and it's the reason it's my home. RYM can have good discussion and it's easier to use now that games are in a different section, but I've always felt that the people here are much more interesting to talk to and I like the small community where you know each other's tastes. Though, I'd never be opposed to a change because it would make the community larger mostly because the core users are already the foundation so at this point more users would only be for the better I'd think.

I don't think changing to a different type of forum will drastically increase the amount of regular posters, if at all, but if it does happen we can always create extra forum sections for those games. However, I don't think the people that frequent these boards are too interested in the simple polls and builder games; we like our polls long and complicated.

We could even create a section just for regular posters, but I've seen that lead to troublesome situations before in terms of defining who's a regular and whatnot, so I'm not sure if it would work.

Anyway, I'm not too worried.

NJ is not a troll and never has been.

right Moonbeam (about nj)

I don't want the new forum train to lose steam!

I don't think we should have a forum for only regular members. That kind of cliquishness is unappealing. Just an updated forum with login/password, member page, avatar and private message capacity would be great!

Don't worry, if Henrik is still in agreement I fully intend to get this going the 1st of February. Henrik, do you have IRC/Skype/MSN/Google Talk/some other chat program through which we can communicate a little more directly? You should still have my email address, I use it for both Skype and MSN.

I'm here for anything. Loving the ideias and would like to volunteer as a helper to move things if it's needed - if it's more complicated than it sounds (ahem "copy and paste" somewhere else) then teach me! haha

And nj has a heart. A big one. There's more than a troller there and our Facebooks will always be there as evidence.

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