I'm cross-posting this thread so that we can make sure everyone knows whats cooking on the concept of merging back down to one main forum system.

http://www.mstforum.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=274

So, it seems that a lot has happened while I took a break over the weekend so I guess I'll start with whatever comes to mind...

Please realize that it has taken a lot to fix Seek from what it previously has been, what was messed up (props to AJ for taking care of the OS), and working out special deals with IT.

Ever since we've been back and running, it appears that both sites have been catching a lot of criticism. When Seek first came back (which took us about a week and a half to get everything straightened out before we went live), we offered Tim a position as moderators/admins (and I guess Chank forgot to tell him his fellow mods are welcome as well) on Seek in hopes to give them what powers they had at MSTForum. This was a recognition type move as we realize it took a lot to build a community although most of them were Seek42 users looking for another outlet. The point is, someone had to step up while Seek was on the sidelines and it was them and we appreciated it.

While I realize that Seek42 off-campus users do have speed issues, please realize that it wasn't so long ago when you couldn't even access the forum without VPN'ing. This is in large part because of Chankster and myself having a nice little 1.5 hour chat of the pros and cons of off-campus hosting. Here are some of the final thoughts as to why we prefer to keep a) the name Seek42 and b) the on-campus hosting.

1) Seek42 the name is obviously a legacy here. To the jackass that tried to down the "Seek42 special", please realize that before it was a student discount, it was known as the Seek42 special and most dominoes employees still recognize it as such.

2) Hosting. The on-campus hosting is for many reasons. The first being the permanent location we have found. Please realize that this means while there is a campus (no matter what it is called), there will be a host. This is basically a dedicated server in which we are allowed to run our IRCd as well as the forums. It is also FREE. I understand the off-campus speed is a great deal, but please realize that somebody has to absorb the cost per month and year of hosting it when Tim and his fellow mods leave. In order to get something to the equivalent of what we now have, we would need a dedicated server which is ~$50/month for something decent. So who cares about the cost? It doesn't matter, we still have the IRC server which is not allowed on 99% of hosts because of its alternate uses. Who cares about IRC? A lot of people actually as you can physically chat or come for help and speak to people instantaneously (check out the Chat42 link above).

3) Chank and myself were planning to go through massive upgrades as we understand that people have become accustomed to phpBB3 and all software must be upgraded eventually. We brought the site back ASAP because we wanted all of you to know that we were coming back despite the obstacles we've faced. Please also realize that because you do not see certain things on this website *cough*, that does not mean they are not being worked on and nearing completion.

Thanks,
berto

While I really appreciate all the work that you guys have put into Seek, I don't see the harm in keeping both places up. MST Forums is Tim's baby, so he can do as he wishes with it. Both places have their advantages. Let people decide for themselves which forum they want to be loyal to (if not both, as I will be).

That's my opinion, at least.

While I see why you'd want to, I believe it does nothing but hurt both parties.

1) I don't want to visit two places if I don't have to just to catch up.
2) It is the EXACT same thing (or will be once we upgrade) minus a few more important features (such as Gamescan which we plan on upgrading, IRC, and a soon to be more powerful homepage).
3) If Tim and his mods help us run this, why can't we just combine our babies to make one uber-baby?

I certainly like both, for their own reasons

but especially with this topic being on both forums, it will no doubt be annoying having 2 forums with the same user base.

hopefully we can merge the two

If the concern is IRC, why not run the ircd on the box that is on campus and give it irc.seek42.net or chat.seek42.net? Then mirror account changes between the external host and the campus box every 24 hours (or something reasonable) so that the login info is the same between chat and the forums.

You'd still be free to run anything you want on the local machine with this setup too...

I'll also jump in and say that I don't favor one solution over another, I'm just looking for a solution that works for everyone including providing the end user with the best user experience.

I didn't mean to scare anyone by jumping out with a "lets close her down!" type of post, but I figured the idea of leaving things as they are had already been spoken for.

You should also consider that I have no idea whats going on. I just try to guess whats going on based on reading some threads here and there and then filling in the gaps with my own imagination.

In response to the RSO suggestions in IRC:

Pros:
-University Bank Account
-Stuco rep
-Possible funding
-University webspace
-An office

Cons:
-Must adhere to university rules
-"It must not be a source of disruption or embarrassment to the University or the community. "
-"It must be devoid of activities that conflict with the primary purposes of the University."

There must be more pro's and con's since this is like 5 minutes worth of thinking and discussion, but we can still look at these for now.

Does seek need any of the pro's? Does seek need money? Does seek need a vote in student council (Stuco has members at large for people that live off campus needing representation - seek could have its members run for MAL positions if they wanted representation)? Does seek need an office? The answer to these questions is no as far as I understand.

Certainly these pros can't outweigh the cons of limitations on what we can do and talk about. Could we talk about Gumby? Graffiti? The name change? Dumb UPos? Meter maids? Anything controversial, without the risk of having it come back and bite us because it is a "source of disruption" or embarrassment? What would Carney do if he had power over seek during the name change fiasco?

Seek would essentially become censorable. And seek would change from what the essence of what seek is - an underground hub for people to talk about (nearly) anything they want. There's no point in throwing red tape at something when there aren't any clear benefits to doing so.

Seek could possibly benefit from some organization and structure, but I don't think molding seek into an RSO would be the right way to go about it . I think at most seek needs a standard way of passing on the torch and picking mod's - stuff like that.

Based on all the people I dealt with in student government when I was there, you'd get into all kinds of trouble as an RSO. I think just about every thread will offend someone and I can think of 10 right off the top of my head that would offend a sizable portion. Most most people that are offended won't try to argue their side, they will just try to censor you and "prevent your evil from spreading". Eventually the university would get tired of censoring everything and just cancel the whole deal.

I don't see anything good coming from having two sites that offer the same service at the same price, to the same audience.

I'm sure there is some business term for this, but in the end, why have two sites? Personally, I don't care which is which, I will migrate to whichever site has more activity.

Format wars are never pretty.

Agreed, an RSO is a very bad idea.

I can see how some might see that. Me and chank were talking about this when others joined in. The only deficit of this site is it is hosted on resnet and therefore is subject to the bandwidth shaping. The biggest pro of this would be to find a permanent home for seek that is not subject to bandwidth shaping. Another big pro, is that making it an RSO it will create a way to keep it running "passing the torch" and continue it as a form of communication for the campus and alumni.

I think if we have a good trustworthy bunch of mods, a strict rules page, and the good userbase that we have had it will be good.

It may also (with promotion) open seek to a new userbase and have a more diverse news from campus.

Hell we might even have better grammar than the miner.

Just my two cents, but there is not enough quality unique posts on MST to warrant a merge.

i think the idea would have been to merge this site into theirs or convert this to phpBB3

I think we need to get together sometime this week and work out the details of our sites.

Is it possible to host the forums off campus and still maintain IRC on campus? Can IRC link to an external database? I think last month MSTForum did ~8GB transfer and 15,000 hits (not even close to what I image seek reaches in its peak) but I doubt that warrants the need for a dedicated server. MSTForum has been hosted by Godaddy and it's costing $5/month. I don't mind absorbing this cost indefinitely.

I don't think it's necessarily imperative that we merge the posts since MSTForum has only been up for a month and hasn’t had a chance to create enough content that’s worthwhile.

I’d like to see you guys upgrade to BB3. I wouldn’t mind helping to create a style that looks very similar to the current seek. Then we could offer both the mstf and seek style. The custom code that was added to seek shouldn’t be very difficult to duplicate on a new board.

To summarize: I’d like a forum that is online year round, up-to-date, fast, and stylish.

I’m currently in Columbia, but next week or over St. Pats, do you guys want to work together to create an “uber babby?” Then both domains could point to a common place and not split the community.