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Yeah... the character transfer thing they do from time to time isn't so much for social reasons, as to balance out the populations. When a server gets overcrowded, they sometimes offer people a chance to move from that specific high population server to another, single, low population server. Then there are games like Eve Online (and a few others) where you can pay a fee and have your character transfered to whatever server you want. I think that's a gyp for a game you're already paying a subscription for.

Howdy all!

Yeah, well, you didn't have to clean up the weekly hacking attempts that phpBB kept letting in.

That's the one of the few complaints I have with WoW... Since it takes so long to get a character up to high levels, you're pretty much stuck with that character if you don't play ALL the time. Then when you meet other people who play WoW (like here) the odds that you're both on the same server are nil. Anything but an MMO, and you can just say "hey, let's go play on server ____ for a few rounds." I try to create characters on servers with people I know, but I run into the same problem as Fyre. By the time I get a few levels, they give up and I don't see them for months. Then I find some new people "Come to Shadow Moon, it's great!" and then they give up those chars by the time I make 20... Grrr!

Ashley, how is CoH? I hear good things, but I'm not that big of a fan of most comic books, though I do like a few.

Heheh. Leroy was hilarious. Notice that they had that many people, all organized, and chatting using teamspeak? I hate those people. I don't have time to devote my life to the game, but people like that go and get all this stuff, drive prices up, slaughter all the important spawns, etc... Before us part-time players ever get a chance at it.

The second video was corrupted when I tried to view it. It chopped a lot, then the sound just died. Oh well.

Ah, I see by your quote there, that you went and saw Sky High! Cheesy, but pretty good, eh? I need to get a copy of the new Mest album that has that cover of "Melt With You" on it. For those who haven't see the movie... not too bad. A little heavy on the disney cheese, but it does have a superhero bus driver (the guy who played Farva in Super Troopers) in it, so that's a win.

When it asks for a name server, you have to get it an address for a DNS server that is going to the "authority" for your domain. I do run DNS here, and since you're in Phase 2, it's easy for me to add, then all you have to do is point the nameserver bits at ns1.xepher.net and ns2.xepher.net

One problem though, your xepher.net site STILL doesn't have the (mandatory) newsbox, and as far as I can tell, hasn't been updated in many months. Looking at your old application, the impression that I got was that you were going to be running a comic here, and updating it regularly. I understand that things come up and people get sidetracked and delayed, but I would like to know what you plan for your site here in the future. Since you're getting a domain, I would imagine you're busy working on something at least. :-)

I don't know about a solenoid, but standard PCV valves get replaced all the time... pretty much anytime you do a tune up you swap out that and the spark plugs. Don't know if "PCV valve" is the same as "PCV solenoid" though. I am really surprised no one carried that... jeep wranglers are quite popular vechicles, and also tend to be kept around for ages. I see dozens of jeeps much older than yours still running.

I'm personally a big fan of older trucks and suvs. I got an '87 suburban when I turned 15, and I drove it through the end of college. (Now I've got a '99 suburban!) I loved the old beast because I could do most of the work on it myself. The water pump blew on me one day, and it cost me a total of $50 to fix it, $30 of which was new hoses, which I replaced just because I was gonna be in there anyway. Took me about 2 hours and one bloody knuckle. Another time the A/C compressor clutch siezed, and it burned up the belt on it in about 3 seconds. (Now THAT was a sound and sight to remember.) Thing was, I just ripped out the belt, started it back up, and drove on. Bought a new belt for 5 bucks and spent 30 minutes getting it installed in an fast food parking lot. :-) The new 'burb, while a lot more powerful and coushy on the inside... well, I can't even BUY a belt for less than $80, and installing it would be nigh on impossible in a parking lot. And just forget "going on" without it. Serpentine belt goes bye-bye, and I don't even have an alternator or power brakes, let alone A/C!

I sold the old 'burb for $1500. I would've kept it, save that it's rather hard to drive two cars across the country when you don't even know where you're gonna be living.

I will shortly here. For now, it's a good honeypot to see who doesn't pay much attention. :-)

Or optical illusions...

I saw this and thought "ouch, eye-bleedy!"



I want to get that as a huge poster for my wall.

Here's a site full of similar fun stuff. http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

Also, although this might get (more) complicated, but what if you had to sign up for a visitor account first, and then the invitation would be sent to the account which, when activated, unlocked certain features if you agreed.

 Or that might be a little over the top. I don't know. I'm shying away from the majority of this coding stuff ^^

Actually, that's how I figured it would work. You definitely don't want to just give artist accounts to someone who's never even taken the time to give comments to other people. I don't do that with X.N because here I'm granting actual machine accounts. For an art site, everything would be web only, and so I can manage user accounts in any way I design the system to do. I won't have to try and integrate all sorts of stuff behind the scenes like I do now, so "upgrading" an account to artist would be easy as pie.

Fyre... to answer your questions:


As to what is "art" or at least what would be allowed. I think that, for a web gallery, we're really talking 2d images... that is to say, jpegs, pngs, gifs. No flash animations, no movies, no writings... I don't think I'd be opposed to someone posting a photo of a sculpture they made, same way I don't have a problem with scans of paintings. But I feel DA took a wrong turn when they started letting poems and such be posted as "art." I myself am a writer, many times more than I am an artist, but I have places I go for writing, and places I go for art. Lack of focus dooms most projects. I started Xepher.net with almost no focus at all, and I've been fighting ever since to narrow it down, as I've done so, it's grown tremendously. If I were to try a project like this art site, I'd try and do it correctly from the start, applying all I've learned about building and running a community here with XN.

I feel that the hosting for actual art would be "invite only" but commenting would be allowed for visitors. Whether or not they have to register a "visitor" account to post remains undecided. Mainly this would be for security concerns, because when you don't make people log in, you very quickly garner lots of spam in your comments. Just ask anyone with an open Moveable Type install about comment spam... it actually took down the whole server here a few months ago, before I put safeties in place for such things. The safeties just protect the server resources though, they don't block the spam.

Also, please realize that when I say "invite only" that doesn't mean a direct invite from me neccessarily, but like the gmail model, users will be able to invite their friends. And while they may, in fact, prevent some talented "outsiders" from joining, there's no rule that they can't make friends with a current member and then get an invite. In a sense, it'd be kinda like applications here. If you hang out in the community and start making friends, then it's really easy to get in. This just takes the impetus away from a formalized application process, and puts it directly in the hands of the community.

I actually have a rather complex social model designed for this, one that I've been thinking through over the years that should allow for all sorts of useful stuff. Specifically, because every member would be invited by another, there is a "hiearchy" of responsibility, but also of relationships. This, in a sense, makes for virtual neighborhoods and such... not that such a concept would be a very visible part of the site. Most viewers wouldn't really notice it even... but behind the scenes it allows for some very interesting methods for quality control, dispute resolution, and general jackass prevention. Part of what's sinking DA and Yerf, is that so much responsiblity is falling onto just a few individuals. I mean, Dingo is on a whole assortment of medications for various mental issues now, and according to Lei's post, one of the DA guys is on medication for web-induced stress as well. They're trying to hold the reins to a horse that's gone wild, and they're snapping because of it. Yes, they could (and I think DA does) just appoint a bunch of "admins" to go around and try and manage things, but then you end up trying to manage all the issues between the various admins. Instead of one wild horse, now you've got a team! If, however, you let the community self-select "admins" to speak for them on issues and to keep others in line, the horses are no longer fighting the rider, but are running free... but still a strong community (a herd?) though.

There's a lot of specifics I need to work out for the social model behind it, and the more I think about it, the more I realize I just might be able to do a general site from the get-go... letting the furry and other sub-communities be part as much (or as little) as they want. That would be the real beauty of this social/neighborhood model. At one point I had though about trying to move Xepher.net over to such a model, but I realize that, while some of us really are part of a community here, the majority of sites/users here just do their own thing in their own social circles. Trying to convert this place as it is now to something new would be grossly unfair to most of the people here. A new site though... *ponders* yes, an art site would be the perfect sort of community to use this model in.

For those curious for more details on the social model, I eventually gonna write up a short essay (whitepaper?) on it. For now though, picture it as a blending of absolute democracy, representation, and responsibility. People you invite in are, to some degree, your responsibility. Therefore if someone just sells invites, or brings in a bunch of jackasses, they themselves might be kicked out. Various sub-communities (neighborhoods) will have elected leaders... but those leaders can always be replaced by vote if they're not doing a good job. Anyone will be able to petition for a vote on nearly any issue... from banning a certain member, altering rules, to kicking someone out of office or asking for a changes in features/code. Nearly everything would be run by the community. With any luck, all I'd have to do is keep the server actually running, and maybe make some code changes here and there. I would never have to deal with adding or kicking people, resolving arguments, changing rules, deleting offensive posts, etc.

For anyone that's read "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctorow, you know what Whuffie is... for those who haven't, think of it as karmic currency, or "quantified respect." It's very, very simple. Basically, you give a thumbs up to people you like/respect, and a thumbs down to those you don't. I haven't figured out the exact math... it may be a 1-5 thing or something in the end, but the basics principal is the same. Respect also chains... That is, being respected by someone who is themselves highly respected counts for more than the respect of a bum. Think of it in real life... If Donald Trump calls you a friend, that counts quite a bit compared to the beggar on the street calling you friend. But likewise, for trump... if he hangs out with bums, it's going to hurt is reputation and respect a bit. Not as much as it helps the bum though. In this sense, Whuffie is always being generated. It may hurt your standing a bit to give it to others, but if they're deserving, it's worth more, and once they rise in their status, it will eventually help you to be "friends" with them.


I know a lot of this sounds complicated, but almost all the complication is "optional" or behind the scenes. From the point of view of an actual user, the only real thing they're going to see is the Whuffie scores and the +/- buttons to sort of "rate" people. Just imagine how useful that would be in the average forum though... If you could just "bzzt" a jackass, and so could everyone else. A few stupid posts and by that time tomorrow, the jerk's standing is so low he's not even allowed to post anymore. And yes, I have "safeties" worked in so people can't just team up and abuse such things. Checks and balances throughout.


Okay, this is getting a bit long, so I'm gonna cut it here. Like I said, I'll try and write up a full explanation when I get time, but I am curious to hear your thoughts on what I've presented so far.

I hear ya... I play (or used to) a lot of flightsims and such. Also, had a bit there was I was playing a lot of desertcombat/battlefield. As such, everytime my car crests a hill, I keep trying to pull back on the wheel to lift off. I was driving back in a major storm the other day and it starts hailing. As it hits the car, my first reaction is to look for the guy gunning me, then to relax because "it's only small arms fire, so I'm safe in this vehicle." Another one that happens to me all the time is when I see some stereotypical "target" like a tanker truck or some such. I always find myself trying to switch to the SMAW. Also, I have a bad habit of scanning for snipers anytime I see an obvious place like a bell tower, or a dormer window. I also have a habit of trying to find the most "defensible" table when I eat at a resturant. Then again, I've been doing that last one since I can remember... long before I ever played a video game. Just some instinct in me that says it's stupid to have your back to the crowd or to not have an easy exit planned in advance.

FYI, your title can be set by you to whatever you want.

I don't know too much about the DA situation... mostly secondhand reports and such, but it seems like a clear-cut case of greed to me. Someone decided "hey, we can make money here!" and all other concerns were forgotten. The other art site I used to love was Yerf.com which has now been down for the better half of a year. This is despite Dingo (the admin there) getting around $3000 dollars in donations for a "new server" and many offers of help with acutal coding and such. He just hasn't done it.

On the old forum, where Fyre originally posted this, I mentioned "plans." Truth is, it's not much more than an idea at this point, but for a while now, I've really wanted to run an art community site. Xepher.net gets a lot of applications from artists, but a lot of those have to be denied because the artist knows little to nothing of web design, and can't actually present their works without the website actually detracting from them.

I think that I could pretty easily code a system that would take the best features from yerf and DA. It would take a decent investment of my free time to do so. The question, as always, is would it be worth it? Would enough people be interested, especially given the number of art sites already out there. Honestly, I think I'd probably target it towards the furry market, filling the gap left by yerf, as that genre has a lot less selection. DA already has alternatives like sheezyart and such, whereas yerf's runner up is probably VCL, but... well my problem with VCL is they let anyone in, and have no standards for artwork. Thus, around half the "art" there is just very badly drawn porn. Eventually, if the furry specific one worked out, I'd want to try doing a more general site, and take on DA and such directly. I just don't think that one starting from scratch could compete in that league for a while.

I'm not looking for an elietist community, but I think there should be some minimum standards. I'm thinking about trying to work on an invite system, similar to how gmail was started up. Xepher.net isn't even a unifed site, yet the community here is pretty strong. Because of this, I think an art site that's entirely focused on the community would take of like a rocket. But there's no sure way to know but try... I'm just reluctant to spend that much free time writing such a system until I start finding some other interested people. I've already got the code for uploading, indexing, and auto thumbnailing written, and I could probably borrow a lot of code from xepher.net for things like authentication. In other words, no real challenges in the coding, just time to make it all work nicely together.

Thoughts and suggestions?