Page 1 of 3

Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:38 am
by Calisson
Preamble: How a community became scattered.
Three elven websites, Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan, used to represent the three elven factions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
Games Workshop, the maker of the game, merged the three factions in its campaign End of Times, then destroyed its universe.
GW ceased thereafter to support WH and created a new game, Age of Sigmar. Despite some remote continuity, the old factions do no longer exist, even the names are no longer in use, with vague aelf equivalents of Sylvaneth, Exiles and Highborn.
Many WH players were not satisfied with AoS. The community shattered.

Some players moved to AoS.
Some players stuck to WH in various editions or adaptations (WH8, WH7, WH6, Oldhammer...). They are the only ones to keep the old faction names.
A group of players created a game inspired from WH8 and named it The 9th Age; the rules are yet to sabilize. Elven names are different again: Sylvan, Dread or Highborn elves.
Other popular games took advantage of the end of WH: King of War and Warmachine/Warmahorde. They do not even have three elven factions.

This came at a time when forums are becoming less appreciated than Facebook or other new social media.
Forum activity was already declining, killing WH was a very hard blow.


The mission:
This project aimes to revive the proud heritage of the old Elven websites associated to Fantasy Battles with miniatures, and to adapt it to the present reality.


Models: The common factor of interest remaining across the community is modelling. This becomes our first, uniting topic.
Gaming: We accept equally all commonly played fantasy wargames using elven miniatures, no matter the editor.
Fluff: We accept equally all associated backgrounds, including the names given to elven factions in these various games.
As most of these games do not follow the old division between the three elven factions, we are open to all elven factions.
We keep a privileged room for our roots, despite not being supported anymore by a company or a large community. Therefore we preserve the archives of the old original factions, Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan.
We will complement the website with a FaceBook account.

Technical developments:
The three elven websites, Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan, have been moved to a single host. This saves money and Webmaster time.
This opens also some prospective for building something in common.

Opportunities to grasp:
The rich heritage of Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan must be preserved.
AoS has a website for Grand Alliance, to which all Aelves belong. There is no specific website only for Aelves, let alone for each Aelf sub-faction.
T9A has a website with subforums for each faction. However, they are not customized for each faction. Asrai, Druchii and Ulthuan are natural hosts for the respective factions.
KoW has a website with one subforum for Elves. No other specific forum for KoW Elves.
WM/H has a website with one subforum for Elves. No other specific forum for WH/H Elves.

There is clearly an opportunity for a common website displaying all kind of Elven models. All together.
For each game, there is an opportunity for a specific website dedicated to each Elven faction and each Elven sub-faction. Even if this does not make a specific common website, at least it allows:
- owners of Elven models to exchange ideas on alternative games payable with same models
- discussions across various pointy ears cultures.

Work with the two other forums:
Informed Ulthuan here: Merging a bit more with Druchii and Asrai
Reaction is a polite refusal, they seem to be wanting to wait what becomes with this project.
Informed Asrai here: Merging a bit more with Druchii and Ulthuan
Reaction is all positive. We start with them.


Plan (from What do we want the future of Druchii.net to be? and Which name for pan-elve website and FB account? polls)
New forum, named elvesonline.net, associated with a Facebook account, named elvesonline.

Main forums:
1. P&M.
- all combined (1).
2. Aelves in AoS.
- subdivided in fluff and gaming (2).
3. Elves in T9A.
- subdivided in 1 fluff and 3 factions gaming (4).
4. Elves in WFB (all editions)
- Asrai, Druchii, Ulthuan (3).
5. Elves KoW
- no subdivision (1).
6. Elves in other games (BB, WM, 40k...)
- subdivided by game (4).
7. Website miscellaneous (everything not model, fluff or gaming).

Total 7 main forums, 15 main sub-forums.
We will see when more sub-forums become necessary.

Identity:
Some sub-forums are dedicated to some factions.
Additionally, we should leave the user the option to select among 3 atmospheres (blue/green/purple) which would influence how the screen looks.
We should also let the user select which forum are visible and which ones are not seen on his screen.
Furthermore, we should have the three old addresses Asrai, Druchii and (when they are ready) Ulthuan redirected to the new website elvesonline.net.

Milestones:
1. (Daeron) Build the new site.
2. (Mods) create some activity here to be transferred to the new website, and in the FB account.
3. (Daeron) Migrate D.net and A.org into that site.
4. (who?) Advertise for the new website on every major forum.
5. (them) When ready, U.net joins.

Team:
Admin = me + ?
Webmaster = Daeron.
Moderators = Shadowspite, Cultofkhaine, Amboadine, + ?
FB animator = ?

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2016 11:19 am
by Darkprincess
Sounds interesting. Is there any idea of a timescale on this yet?
Also, you mention the new site being associated with a facebook account. While that is undoubtedly a sensible idea, I'm not on facebook (and never will be since I dislike the company even more than I dislike GW), so hopefully the new site will not require logging in from a facebook account.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2016 4:13 pm
by Daeron
Cult of Khaine and I are working on getting the new server started. The host is ready, so is the domain name but they need to be connected still. Then I can begin the installation process in earnest.

As soon as the new board is up and running, we can start organising it.

Meanwhile we can begin two development processes, in parallel:
1. The development of the layout, skin and look of the new community. Here, I've accepted Cult of Khaine's gracious offer to help out.
2. The development of the data migration. I might have an easier time doing this solo, but I'll try to give some reports along the way (just in case).
I suppose we can only migrate the activity if both paths are completed.

I just want to point out that this will cost time and some testing on occasions. This can't be completed overnight. Both developing a new style and the data migration are time consuming. I hope we'll be ready by Christmas.

Upgrade to phpBB3.1
We'll be upgrading to phpBB 3.1. I confess this might slow down our entire migration process... but I feel we must try to use the opportunity for a data migration.
In theory we could do this before we migrate, or after. But why bug people with 2 migration processes?
This upgrade has been long overdue, and some of the features added in 3.1 will help to make the board feel a little less outdated.

Some details on the new style
The new phpBB 3.1 allows a hierarchy in styles. This permits us to create variations of the same style with considerably less development effort. I propose we use that to good effect:
- We'll use 1 style as "master". This master style is neutral, and focuses mostly on the layout and functionality of the forum.
- We develop new styles that are linked to the master, one for each colour variation or subrace.

So all styles will have a similar layout (minor variations are possible) but different looks. This permits us to tackle all technical issues in 1 style and provide some coherence throughout the whole board.
Also developing a single layout will save some time.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2016 7:02 pm
by Darkprincess
Sounds like you have everything well under way then. This is really good news. I didn't mean for my question about timescale to make you feel pressured to go live early - far better that we wait until everything is thoroughly tested. I was just curious, that's all :)

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2016 3:17 pm
by Calisson
Good to see that the technical development is on track.

Now, if the skeleton is developed but not fleshed, we will remain at zombie state.
I will start a thread calling for animators: Help wanted: we need animators

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2016 11:59 am
by Calisson
Daeron, how is it going?

I was wondering whether we should start animating 5-7 simple forums, to be transferred once the new site is ready.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 4:29 am
by Calisson
No opinion?
Are we just letting D.net down?
What we need is not so much a new forum, it is new animators.
For T9A, we expect some new fluff before the end of december.
Anything else for other forums?

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 7:03 am
by Shadowspite
Calisson wrote:What we need is not so much a new forum, it is new animators.

Ah, so are we 'Animators' supposed to have started already? I was under the impression that our role was to start discussions and post new content on the new site/forum once it is up and running. But should we be doing that already on the existing forum (and the FB page)? If so, the problem isn't a lack of enthusiasm or "letting D.net down", it is just a communication error.

I am currently working on a short story featuring aelves in the AoS setting that I should be ready to post soon (since a big criticism of AoS is that there's little information about how aelves fit into the Realms). I had intended to post it in the new forum, but I can probably bring it forward if that's what's wanted.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:16 pm
by Calisson
No, you're right, the plan was as you say.
However, I am getting concerned that if we leave D.net silent for days, it will be harder to revive anything.
A way to do that could be to identify the appropriate forums and start creating threads there.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 12:14 pm
by Daeron
I'd gladly get started on WFB, but I'm a little swamped with life and work. It's clearing up, but then I do have some technical obligations for this community. I'll get some stuff done before the end of the year, but it's a bit hard to commit to results at the moment.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:29 pm
by Calisson
Always better to have too much work than not enough!
Hope nothing serious in private life.
Take care!

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 11:01 am
by Daeron
Only good stuff :) I'll try to force making some time this week.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 4:57 pm
by Calisson
Calisson wrote:identify the appropriate forums and start creating threads there.


- Painting and Modelling (Cultofkhaine) => Painting and Modelling
- Age of Sigmar discussions (Shadowspite) => Age of Sigmar discussion
- The 9th Age (Calisson) => The 9th Age - Dread Elves
- WarHammer 8th and variants (Daeron) => mostly Druchii and Warhammer Fantasy Battle Discussion
- Kings of War (no animator yet) => Tabletop, RPG and CCG Games (not enough to warrant a specific forum yet)
- Community Chat (all animate) => Community Chat

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:37 am
by Daeron
I'm raising a red flag. I haven't been able to get anything done since the previous update. I'll try to contact CoK and see if we can liberate him from his dependency on me.
My time is a bit short lately. When I do find an hour break before going to bed, I usually just want to sit down and relax a moment.

I still want to do this, but we probably won't make Christmas with the new site.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:26 pm
by Calisson
Thanks for telling us.
No real hurry, your time with/for us is voluntary time, your time with family is more precious.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 10:45 am
by Daeron
I have a tough week ahead on the job, but I do think my schedule is starting to clear up. I'm optimistic about being able to put in some effort in the coming weeks.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 4:06 pm
by cultofkhaine
Give me shout when your ready -still happy to help further with the graphics etc

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:04 pm
by Daeron
A brief layout of the "technical" migration and what needs to happen. This isn't graphical related.

Although the migration has been delayed a few times, it's not been absent of my mind and I've used the time to think the migration strategy through. I'd thought I'd give an overview of the technical work. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, since I'll be opening the gear box of an engine people usually don't bother too much with.

Data consolidation

What needs to happen isn't just a migration from 1 database to 1 database. That would be merely a copy, or data transfer. Since we plan on merging forums we need something more, something that isn't supported by the forum software. I managed to dig up some topics on the support forum of the software we use, only to read that the organisation doesn't have any intention to support such a feature.

So here's the problem. Every user, post, topic, category, forum, private message etc has a unique ID in the database.
For example, this is the first topic on Druchii.net with an id over 9000:
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=9001
This number is automatically increased for every topic. There is such a unique sequence for users, topics, forums, posts, usergroups etc. These ids are referenced throughout the database, so that topic 9001 has a list of post ids for all the posts it contains.

But... every forum assigns these ids individually. This means that Asrai has its own sequence of ids, and by consequence is likely to have its own topic with an id just over 9000:
http://asrai.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=9001
Ulthuan doesn't have a topic 9001 but there's no guarantee it won't have a conflict for other ids.

So before 2 forums can be brought together into 1, we need to make all these ids unique across both forums and update any and all references to it. These references are just as important, since otherwise topic 9001 from druchii.net might suddenly contain posts from topic 9001 from asrai.org.

Unfortunately, phpBB doesn't tell the database where all the references are (common practice through foreign keys or contraints) and so we need to discover every reference by hand.

Once the list of ids and references is built, we can make a consolidation strategy.

Typically, we'd divide our forum into 4 segments. For example:
1. ID's 0 to 999.999 will be reserved for Asrai.org
2. ID's 1.000.000 to 1.999.999 will be reserved for Druchii.net. We increase all id's by 1.000.000. IE: Topic 9001 will become 1009001.
3. ID's 2.000.000 to 2.999.999 will be reserved for Ulthuan.net (if we want to project an imminent migration).
4. ID's 3.000.000 and above are used for new data after the migration.

Strangely enough, this is a reversible process. In theory we can still distinguish between topics from asrai and druchii and so we could split again. We'll have to fight over the custody of the kids, I mean.. new posts, but this could be solved by copying them for both.

Shared roles and conflicting configuration

Some data can not be merged. IE: there can not be 2 default admin roles. Usergroups and custom roles may be copied, but their permissions may prove incompatible with the forum's new structure.
It may very well be that some configurations simply can not be merged and need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

There is no "solution" but elbow grease and patience to tackle the configuration. This is also an irreversible process.


Internal references

After solving the above challenges, we're presented with a nigh unsolvable solution. Inside our forum, we have frequently referenced to topics from the elven forums themselves. Our beloved DRAICH topic is a prime example.

Imagine moving to a new forum, but having all such links still point at the old forum. In some cases, phpBB helps out: local links don't include the domain name and will automatically point to our new site.
But in many cases, these links won't point to our new site. Links on Druchii.net to Asrai.org and back should point to their respective topics on the new forum.

There is no program that scans these posts and allows such corrections. Except....... I may have found one that does just that. PHPBB 3.1 has an upgrade process that modifies posts for its BB code which includes links. Perhaps it can be hacked, so that it treats local links, and links Druchii.net or Asrai.org differently.

In a way we'd be using the phpBB3.1 upgrade to help us fix a migration problem. It's not a clean solution, but it's the result that counts ;)


External references

Unfortunately, with a new domain name and new topic IDs, we invalidate any and all external links to Asrai or Druchii. To help out, we can set up a redirect service. This redirection needs to take into account the above migration strategy. After all, we want a link to Dnet's topic 9001 to be redirected to that very same topic, and not to Asrai's topic 9001.

But I do fear that this migration will lead to broken links over time.

Other stuff

Aside from these technical challenges, there is of course the new forum stuff:
- Styling
- New layout
- New management
etc.

That's the part where I delegate to you all ;) (well perhaps I'll help out)

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 3:43 pm
by cultofkhaine
That sounds like a lifetime of work Daeron!

I think before you tackle all that we would all be happy with just a new forum.

Aside from these technical challenges, there is of course the new forum stuff:
- Styling
- New layout
- New management
etc.
That's the part where I delegate to you all ;) (well perhaps I'll help out)


I think the above should be our first priority - as much as I hate to say it DNet is dead, a ghost of what it use to be. A new forum could be just what many of us need to spark the hobby for us again. We can migrate the old sites into it further down the track - my feeling is most people are unlikely to contribute to something that is dead. The problem is until we have a new forum up an running there is very little many of us can do, but sit and wait.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2017 5:40 pm
by Calisson
Deep thanks for the update.
Daeron wrote:Internal references moving to a new forum, but having all such links still point at the old forum.
Couldn't this be solved by a specific tool?
Something like a "Search old link" button, where you would copy/paste the link you have found in the DRAICH or anywhere else, and the "Search old link" button would provide the updated address (i.e. add 1 million somewhere in the address)?
That could be much quicker than reviewing decades of archives and updating all the links, nearly all of them having very remote chance to be ever read again.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 1:42 am
by cultofkhaine
What about locking the two/three old forums and making them read only (they are still live and can be navigated to and read) they can then be liked to from the new forum and we simple have some links to them from there.

I agree with Calisson it unlikely people will be commenting on them going forward and if they do it can be referenced from a new thread in the new forum.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 10:16 am
by Daeron
Search old link could work, but for the record, I don't plan to review old posts. I'm trying to make an automated process from the upgrade tool (upgrading to phpbb 3.1) do the work for us.
That's the catch: either we do it during upgrade, or we don't. If we don't, it'll be a problem in the future. "never fixable".

We can postpone only part of the consolidation of old information as you suggest CoK:
- User accounts need to be transferred and merged.
- To support the consolidation in the future we need to reserve the required slots and ids for it, which means that preparation needs to be done anyhow.


This also begs the question; would you like to start a new site with a clean slate, or do you want it to feel like home? For the latter, I think keeping the history is important.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 7:20 pm
by Noble korhedron
As long as we get kept update, I'm fine with following this thread.

How exactly is the new site gonna work; will it be mainly for AoS, or will it serve WHFB as well, even though G.W have technically killed it off....?

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 8:19 pm
by Daeron
It should serve 9th Age, AoS and WFB.

Re: Project: the future pan-elven website

Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 8:22 pm
by Noble korhedron
Daeron wrote:It should serve 9th Age, AoS and WFB.
Thanks; I was wondering about that. I assume there will be a thing for 'Other Armies Discussion', similar to what there is now...? T.B.H, the open-ness to non-Elven discussion is what drew me to D.net in the first place; that and the site being in White Dwarf 2xx, at the time of the revision of the 6th Ed. Dark Elf book.....