A mirror of the eeesite "A Song of Ice and Fire"

This is a mirror of the now defunct eesite ASOIAF webboard.

The discussions for G.R.R. Martin's awesome series "A Song of Ice and Fire" are now being held at: Current ASoIaF Webboard

You cannot post new messages to this board. Go to the Current ASoIaF Webboard for the most current discussions.

A Song of Ice and Fire / Announcements / Why is the SOS II-board still down?

Next 20 Messages

hal9000
User ID: 9906923 Sep 11th 11:56 AM
The board has been down for several days now. I presume EESite.com knows about the problem?

Is the SOS II-board declared 'dead', and are we supposed to post SOS-related material in the new Dance With Dragons-board?

Ran
User ID: 0743024 Sep 11th 12:02 PM
They've been notified, but no response. Eesite was bought out by Swive.com awhile ago, and it seems what little forum support they had before that time is pretty much gone.

Which means, in all probability, that the SoS II board is gone. Feel free to post to ADwD.

hal9000
User ID: 9906923 Sep 11th 3:26 PM
Hmm, that's sad, because there were many interesting threads in that forum.

I'd like to ask you a few questions and provide some constructive criticism:

a) Do you often experience problems related to disappearing boards and messages? Sometimes only parts of the original messages appear on the board.

b) Another annoying problem is that there seems to be a limit to the length of threads: 100 posts or a given amount of data. New threads have to be created manually in order to continue the discussion.

I know that you're not to blame for these problems, it's the responsibility of the board provider to solve these problems for us after all (in my opinion, some of these problems shouldn't occur in the first place).

In my opinion, it's unacceptable that their messageboards suddenly disappear in this way, and if their forum support is gone then I'd strongly suggest that you look for a new board-provider. What if we experience similar problems later?

Have you considered looking for a new provider? I think http://www.ezboard.com/ is one of the best providers out there. What's your thoughts on this issue?

Ran
User ID: 0743024 Sep 11th 3:51 PM
Thanks for the post, hal.

A) This issue crops up with some regularity. In general, we've never lost an entire board before (re: SoSII). This is the first time its happened. In the past, I would have expected Echelon to repair this issue. However, it now seems that Swirve has removed all support for forums, so I don't expect anything to be done about this.

This _does_ mean that eesite is an increasingly less likeable system for these discussions, and if we ever get a complete crash, we're likely pretty well stuck.

B) This issue ... it's a minor annoyance. I admit, I rather like having to break things up so that 100 posts to the thread is the maximum. Makes it easier to search through messages. But yes, it's part of the board, and it can be rather annoying.

As far as the issues overall ... well, beggars can't be choosers, but there's certainly a lot of free options out there. There have been small attempts to get people to move over to Dragonsworn, with all of its bells and whistles, but Eesite has done long and faithful service for the community, and it contains all the archvies of past discussions (at least ... those that have survived.)

We did use Ezboard in the past, for the purpose of discussing the four early chapters that some 40-odd board members got in advanced. It seems to be the free bulliten board system most like Eesite, and it does have some added bells-and-whistles which don't slow it down quite so much as, say, Dragonsworn's UBB system with its dynamic HTML generation.

I don't know. Ultimately, I can't just tell people to go somewhere else. If people want to continue to use Eesite, I'll continue to maintain it as best I can. I think I'll look into options, however, and perhaps conduct a straw poll on Announcements with the findings.

hal9000
User ID: 9906923 Sep 11th 4:37 PM
Thanks for your input :)

I forgot to mention in my first post that I really appreciate your presence here on this forum: I don't take active, helpful board-admins for granted.

I understand your dilemma about trying to move people over to new boards. I believe you could either 'force' them over to a new board by shutting down the old one, or try a slower approach by letting people transition from one board to another.

I believe that the first, abrupt approach won't scare away or disorient users as long as you make proper preparations and let people know about it in time. Creating links pointing to the new board would help a lot for those users who haven't visited the board for a while.

Some users may feel skeptical about registering on a new forum. I know about one community in which the users had to register in order to *post* (their old board didn't support accounts) and some people felt uncomfortable about it, but they got used to it and understood that it was only for their own good (higher security, better admin-control).

The key issue was to let them register without having to reveal personal info in public, such as email- and IP-addresses. Many free boards support this privacy feature.

Jeff
User ID: 1536664 Sep 11th 4:48 PM
I would not disfavor moving to another site that is more technically sound. This Board really is the people who contribute (and who lurk), not this particular realm of cyberspace. "Home is where you hang your hat." So, Ran, if you think there's a better option, maybe we take a vote or survey. I wouldn't want to move unless I knew that most of the others (not the Others) were going as well.

Relic
User ID: 9308123 Sep 11th 7:43 PM
Im with Jeff on this one. Discussing ASOIAF isnt have as fun as just getting to know all the people here. As for the ASOS II board, is it possbile we filled it up too quickly? It was almost up to 5000 posts i think, all in under a month...

hal9000
User ID: 9906923 Sep 11th 8:06 PM
Reply to Jeff:

You wrote:
"This Board really is the people who contribute (and who lurk), not this particular realm of cyberspace."

Of course, what's a messageboard worth without a community of users? :)

"I wouldn't want to move unless I knew that most of the others (not the Others) were going as well."

Frankly, I believe that if Ran simply shuts down this board after creating a new board and making proper arrangements in advance, people would simply start using the new board.

I know that from experience from other boards: As long as they know where to turn next, they'll start using the new board. Some people will complain and feel uncomfortable with their new surroundings at first but they'll get used to it.

There's a strong community-feeling here, and I think if Ran decides to move over to a new board, people will follow him. As an admin and board-operator here, I believe he has the right to do so, even without full support from its users.

The fundamental problem is that this board can be technically unstable, and if something goes wrong it seems nobody will be able to fix it (according to Ran).

Here's an analogy:
We're a biiiig family living in the same house under the same roof. But the problem is that the walls are falling apart, the drinking water is poisonous, the telly is damaged and the toilets are stuffed. The roof may fall down upon our heads any day and kill us all... However, we still want to be together, it's the house that causes problems after all, so we simply need to find another house with higher living standards :)

LindaElane
User ID: 0276214 Sep 11th 8:59 PM
Final decision is up to board-admin, but I assume he wants to know opinions. I support moving for the purpose of posts dealing with A Song of Swords (with spoilers) and later books. We could keep this as an archive board and people who start reading the series may want to come here for spoiler free discussion. I was here when we moved the board before and things worked out ok. I do forsee that we will eventually have to move as I think there will be a problem keeping up with years and years of threads for six books. The time a new book is coming out is a good time if we are going to do it. Well, mho on something that is not my decision.

Btw, in a parallel situation, I recentally, finally, started reading WOT and I would like it if there were archive boards on the web where I could go where only the first two books are discussed. Anyone know any?

LindaElane
User ID: 0276214 Sep 11th 9:00 PM
Final decision is up to board-admin, but I assume he wants to know opinions. I support moving for the purpose of posts dealing with A Song of Swords (with spoilers) and later books. We could keep this as an archive board and people who start reading the series may want to come here for spoiler free discussion. I was here when we moved the board before and things worked out ok. I do forsee that we will eventually have to move as I think there will be a problem keeping up with years and years of threads for six books. The time a new book is coming out is a good time if we are going to do it. Well, mho on something that is not my decision.

Btw, in a parallel situation, I recentally, finally, started reading WOT and I would like it if there were archive boards on the web where I could go where only the first two books are discussed. Anyone know any?

LindaElane
User ID: 0276214 Sep 11th 9:07 PM
Not to complain too much, but the animation and blinking ads on this board since it was bought out are very distracting and bothersome. I assume Ran has no control and must allow them at this site. They are not at ezboard as far as I know. Ezboard also lets you edit posts, which might be helpful if someone is sorry they flamed someone :-) Well, actually, this group is awfully good about not flaming each other. The ezboard is a nice black one with white letters like this one.

My only problem with ezboard was the fact that it did support over 100 posts. That got simply horrid and I think I stopped posting for that reason. I mean, when "Sansa" has 600 posts and you haven't read the thread in a while....it can get brutal. Also, we only developed about 8 topics because everything seemed to fit the title of a character name and maybe a few other things. So, if we go there, I would politely suggest that people be asked to start a new thread when posts reach 100, or maybe threads could be cloased at that point out of kindness to other board members who do not want to read so much.

We often summarize what we said in "the last 100 posts" when we start a part 2 thread, after all.

To summarize: I favor moving. I am not sure ezboard is the place because of the threads getting very, very long. However, if ezboard is choosen, we could manage if we just tried to keep the number of posts in a thread down to something reasonable.

Ants
User ID: 2240694 Sep 11th 10:43 PM
I must admit I haven't seen ezboards. But I have seen dragonsworn, legends and a few others with a similar format to legends.

Overall, I think this is the best of them. The format is easy - what with the overall different areas with information on them underneath, the white writing on black is clear and there is no passwords or anything.

Also there isn't much of that personal crap which appears with lots of posts at dragonstone (at least in the WOT part). I like the way the messages flow right from each other here.

On another note, hit the reload button here and you can see your post. At dragonsworn, my message didn't appear for me to see it for hours.

Well, by now you've probably figured out I would like to stay, even with the technical problems. However if everyone moved, I would go with them.

hal9000
User ID: 9906923 Sep 11th 10:55 PM
Reply to LindaElaine:

You wrote:
"We could keep this as an archive board and people who start reading the series may want to come here for spoiler free discussion."

Yes, I think that's a good suggestion (if the board providers will let this board stay available for reading).

"The time a new book is coming out is a good time if we are going to do it."

Or when this board breaks down or gets shut down by the provider :)

"Not to complain too much, but the animation and
blinking ads on this board since it was bought out are very distracting and bothersome."

I don't have problems with it. I don't find it distracting and it doesn't seem to slow down the connection: All the pages load instantly (one of the reasons why I like this board).

"My only problem with ezboard was the fact that it
did support over 100 posts. .... I would politely suggest that people be asked to start a new thread when posts reach 100, ... of kindness to other board members who do not want to read so much."

Sorry, but I strongly disagree:

You make it sound like people are forced to read the entire thread. I think it's silly to put an artificial stop at 100 posts: I've seen several active threads which have been abruptly interrupted by this "100-post" limit. It only causes more manual work, because an active thread which have been stopped tends to "generate" a followup-thread anyway. The "limiter" might as well have been removed in the first place, saving us for unnecessary manual work.

If people won't bother to read the entire thread in order to follow the discussion because they're losing interest or getting bored or whatever, then that's *their* problem. We can't tell people to stop at 100 posts, start a new related thread and write summaries simply because other people haven't read the thread in a while or doesn't bother to read the posts.

I think it's much more important to encourage people to start a new thread if the original thread starts to get *off-topic* (which is standard netiquette after all). Lots of off-topic posts can be confusing. The fundamental problem is not related to length, but to content. If a long thread stays on topic, and if the thread is active, then I see no reason why this thread should be artifically stopped by a "limiter", forcing us to manually create a new thread.

In fact, threads of "limitless" lengths are standard on most boards and newsgroups, and for good reason: Limitless threads support netiquette by encouraging users to post in a single topic-related thread, instead of spreading them over the board. Posting several closely related threads is discouraged on many boards, because it clutters up the main area. It also makes it easier for people later, if they want to read about messages related to a specific topic: They won't need to look for Topic II, Topic III, etc.

"I am not sure ezboard is the place because of the threads getting very, very long."

Most sophisticated newsboards don't have this limiter (fortunately). No offense, but I feel that you're aiming at the wrong target: The fundamental problem is related to off-topic posts and netiquette, not length and limiters.

hal9000
User ID: 9906923 Sep 11th 11:12 PM
Reply to Ants:

You wrote:
"The format is easy - what with the overall different areas with information on them underneath, "

This is standard on larger boards.

"the white writing on black is clear and there is no passwords or anything."

User accounts is very handy for the admin and for your own security.

"Also there isn't much of that personal crap which
appears with lots of posts at dragonstone"

This has more to do with board-operators and content, not technical issues. Besides, the board operators will follow us to the new board: We're not supposed to *leave* the community, only *move* it.

"I like the way the messages flow right from each other here. "

Same here, but again this is also standard on more sophisticated boards.

"On another note, hit the reload button here and you can see your post.... At dragonsworn, my message didn't appear for me to see it for hours."

Several hours is certainly too long and definitely not standard on more sophisticated boards. During peak hours it can take up to a minute to update the database, but usually the database is updated instantly.

"by now you've probably figured out I would like to stay, even with the technical problems."

I guess you already know my opinion on this matter :)

Relic
User ID: 9308123 Sep 12th 1:14 AM
???

Maeglin
User ID: 0707654 Sep 12th 1:57 AM
I think the best thing about this board is that it is familiar to everyone, people feel comfortable here and this place has remained faithful for years.

Ran
User ID: 0743024 Sep 12th 5:04 AM
I've cooked up an Ezboard ASoIaF board, just to see how setup works. There aren't any topics yet, since I'm still considering things, but if folk want to take a look, try:

pub26.ezboard.com

In setting up the Ezboard, I realized that there are a lot of rather cool features. It can be customized quite a lot in how it looks and works. There are folk who like titles that indicate how many posts one's made, and this supports that. Custom titles as well, for individuals.

Preview features, editing features, mailing features ... well, it's tempting. The one thing I noticed is that Ezboard is moderately slower than Eesite -- a lot more code involved.

In any case, take a look. Feel free to go and set yourself up with an account for posting, though please don't post until I get an idea of how folk will recieve having the board pulled out from under them to point them elsewhere.

brosan
User ID: 7057593 Sep 12th 5:30 AM
Note: on pub26.ezboard.com click on the upper right search space for boards and enter "asoiaf" to get to Ran�s board.

It looks like the real thing, and if you are happy with it, Ran, we should go there. After all, it�s you who has the work with it and so you should use the most convenient way to put up the board.

I think we�d all move with you there, but there�s one thing I�d like to mention: Though you can read the posts freely, participating in the new board will become harder since you have to register. This will keep out a lot of people who just happen to drop by and want to post a message. So the board will become more exclusive. Nothing bad about that, if that�s what we want.

Ran
User ID: 0743024 Sep 12th 6:13 AM
Ahh, yeah, forgot the whole address. Got side-tracked. The proper address is:

pub26.ezboard.com/basoiaf

As far as I can tell, people do not have to register to read or post to the board. I could be wrong, however.

brosan
User ID: 7057593 Sep 12th 6:15 AM
No, you don�t have to register to read, but you have to register if you want participate.

Next 20 Messages

hal9000 User ID: 9906923	Sep 11th 11:56 AM The board has been down for several days now. I presume EESite.com knows about the problem? Is the SOS II-board declared 'dead', and are we supposed to post SOS-related material in the new Dance With Dragons-board?
Ran User ID: 0743024	Sep 11th 12:02 PM They've been notified, but no response. Eesite was bought out by Swive.com awhile ago, and it seems what little forum support they had before that time is pretty much gone. Which means, in all probability, that the SoS II board is gone. Feel free to post to ADwD.
hal9000 User ID: 9906923	Sep 11th 3:26 PM Hmm, that's sad, because there were many interesting threads in that forum. I'd like to ask you a few questions and provide some constructive criticism: a) Do you often experience problems related to disappearing boards and messages? Sometimes only parts of the original messages appear on the board. b) Another annoying problem is that there seems to be a limit to the length of threads: 100 posts or a given amount of data. New threads have to be created manually in order to continue the discussion. I know that you're not to blame for these problems, it's the responsibility of the board provider to solve these problems for us after all (in my opinion, some of these problems shouldn't occur in the first place). In my opinion, it's unacceptable that their messageboards suddenly disappear in this way, and if their forum support is gone then I'd strongly suggest that you look for a new board-provider. What if we experience similar problems later? Have you considered looking for a new provider? I think http://www.ezboard.com/ is one of the best providers out there. What's your thoughts on this issue?
Ran User ID: 0743024	Sep 11th 3:51 PM Thanks for the post, hal. A) This issue crops up with some regularity. In general, we've never lost an entire board before (re: SoSII). This is the first time its happened. In the past, I would have expected Echelon to repair this issue. However, it now seems that Swirve has removed all support for forums, so I don't expect anything to be done about this. This _does_ mean that eesite is an increasingly less likeable system for these discussions, and if we ever get a complete crash, we're likely pretty well stuck. B) This issue ... it's a minor annoyance. I admit, I rather like having to break things up so that 100 posts to the thread is the maximum. Makes it easier to search through messages. But yes, it's part of the board, and it can be rather annoying. As far as the issues overall ... well, beggars can't be choosers, but there's certainly a lot of free options out there. There have been small attempts to get people to move over to Dragonsworn, with all of its bells and whistles, but Eesite has done long and faithful service for the community, and it contains all the archvies of past discussions (at least ... those that have survived.) We did use Ezboard in the past, for the purpose of discussing the four early chapters that some 40-odd board members got in advanced. It seems to be the free bulliten board system most like Eesite, and it does have some added bells-and-whistles which don't slow it down quite so much as, say, Dragonsworn's UBB system with its dynamic HTML generation. I don't know. Ultimately, I can't just tell people to go somewhere else. If people want to continue to use Eesite, I'll continue to maintain it as best I can. I think I'll look into options, however, and perhaps conduct a straw poll on Announcements with the findings.
hal9000 User ID: 9906923	Sep 11th 4:37 PM Thanks for your input :) I forgot to mention in my first post that I really appreciate your presence here on this forum: I don't take active, helpful board-admins for granted. I understand your dilemma about trying to move people over to new boards. I believe you could either 'force' them over to a new board by shutting down the old one, or try a slower approach by letting people transition from one board to another. I believe that the first, abrupt approach won't scare away or disorient users as long as you make proper preparations and let people know about it in time. Creating links pointing to the new board would help a lot for those users who haven't visited the board for a while. Some users may feel skeptical about registering on a new forum. I know about one community in which the users had to register in order to post (their old board didn't support accounts) and some people felt uncomfortable about it, but they got used to it and understood that it was only for their own good (higher security, better admin-control). The key issue was to let them register without having to reveal personal info in public, such as email- and IP-addresses. Many free boards support this privacy feature.
Jeff User ID: 1536664	Sep 11th 4:48 PM I would not disfavor moving to another site that is more technically sound. This Board really is the people who contribute (and who lurk), not this particular realm of cyberspace. "Home is where you hang your hat." So, Ran, if you think there's a better option, maybe we take a vote or survey. I wouldn't want to move unless I knew that most of the others (not the Others) were going as well.
Relic User ID: 9308123	Sep 11th 7:43 PM Im with Jeff on this one. Discussing ASOIAF isnt have as fun as just getting to know all the people here. As for the ASOS II board, is it possbile we filled it up too quickly? It was almost up to 5000 posts i think, all in under a month...
hal9000 User ID: 9906923	Sep 11th 8:06 PM Reply to Jeff: You wrote: "This Board really is the people who contribute (and who lurk), not this particular realm of cyberspace." Of course, what's a messageboard worth without a community of users? :) "I wouldn't want to move unless I knew that most of the others (not the Others) were going as well." Frankly, I believe that if Ran simply shuts down this board after creating a new board and making proper arrangements in advance, people would simply start using the new board. I know that from experience from other boards: As long as they know where to turn next, they'll start using the new board. Some people will complain and feel uncomfortable with their new surroundings at first but they'll get used to it. There's a strong community-feeling here, and I think if Ran decides to move over to a new board, people will follow him. As an admin and board-operator here, I believe he has the right to do so, even without full support from its users. The fundamental problem is that this board can be technically unstable, and if something goes wrong it seems nobody will be able to fix it (according to Ran). Here's an analogy: We're a biiiig family living in the same house under the same roof. But the problem is that the walls are falling apart, the drinking water is poisonous, the telly is damaged and the toilets are stuffed. The roof may fall down upon our heads any day and kill us all... However, we still want to be together, it's the house that causes problems after all, so we simply need to find another house with higher living standards :)
LindaElane User ID: 0276214	Sep 11th 8:59 PM Final decision is up to board-admin, but I assume he wants to know opinions. I support moving for the purpose of posts dealing with A Song of Swords (with spoilers) and later books. We could keep this as an archive board and people who start reading the series may want to come here for spoiler free discussion. I was here when we moved the board before and things worked out ok. I do forsee that we will eventually have to move as I think there will be a problem keeping up with years and years of threads for six books. The time a new book is coming out is a good time if we are going to do it. Well, mho on something that is not my decision. Btw, in a parallel situation, I recentally, finally, started reading WOT and I would like it if there were archive boards on the web where I could go where only the first two books are discussed. Anyone know any?
LindaElane User ID: 0276214	Sep 11th 9:00 PM Final decision is up to board-admin, but I assume he wants to know opinions. I support moving for the purpose of posts dealing with A Song of Swords (with spoilers) and later books. We could keep this as an archive board and people who start reading the series may want to come here for spoiler free discussion. I was here when we moved the board before and things worked out ok. I do forsee that we will eventually have to move as I think there will be a problem keeping up with years and years of threads for six books. The time a new book is coming out is a good time if we are going to do it. Well, mho on something that is not my decision. Btw, in a parallel situation, I recentally, finally, started reading WOT and I would like it if there were archive boards on the web where I could go where only the first two books are discussed. Anyone know any?
LindaElane User ID: 0276214	Sep 11th 9:07 PM Not to complain too much, but the animation and blinking ads on this board since it was bought out are very distracting and bothersome. I assume Ran has no control and must allow them at this site. They are not at ezboard as far as I know. Ezboard also lets you edit posts, which might be helpful if someone is sorry they flamed someone :-) Well, actually, this group is awfully good about not flaming each other. The ezboard is a nice black one with white letters like this one. My only problem with ezboard was the fact that it did support over 100 posts. That got simply horrid and I think I stopped posting for that reason. I mean, when "Sansa" has 600 posts and you haven't read the thread in a while....it can get brutal. Also, we only developed about 8 topics because everything seemed to fit the title of a character name and maybe a few other things. So, if we go there, I would politely suggest that people be asked to start a new thread when posts reach 100, or maybe threads could be cloased at that point out of kindness to other board members who do not want to read so much. We often summarize what we said in "the last 100 posts" when we start a part 2 thread, after all. To summarize: I favor moving. I am not sure ezboard is the place because of the threads getting very, very long. However, if ezboard is choosen, we could manage if we just tried to keep the number of posts in a thread down to something reasonable.
Ants User ID: 2240694	Sep 11th 10:43 PM I must admit I haven't seen ezboards. But I have seen dragonsworn, legends and a few others with a similar format to legends. Overall, I think this is the best of them. The format is easy - what with the overall different areas with information on them underneath, the white writing on black is clear and there is no passwords or anything. Also there isn't much of that personal crap which appears with lots of posts at dragonstone (at least in the WOT part). I like the way the messages flow right from each other here. On another note, hit the reload button here and you can see your post. At dragonsworn, my message didn't appear for me to see it for hours. Well, by now you've probably figured out I would like to stay, even with the technical problems. However if everyone moved, I would go with them.
hal9000 User ID: 9906923	Sep 11th 10:55 PM Reply to LindaElaine: You wrote: "We could keep this as an archive board and people who start reading the series may want to come here for spoiler free discussion." Yes, I think that's a good suggestion (if the board providers will let this board stay available for reading). "The time a new book is coming out is a good time if we are going to do it." Or when this board breaks down or gets shut down by the provider :) "Not to complain too much, but the animation and blinking ads on this board since it was bought out are very distracting and bothersome." I don't have problems with it. I don't find it distracting and it doesn't seem to slow down the connection: All the pages load instantly (one of the reasons why I like this board). "My only problem with ezboard was the fact that it did support over 100 posts. .... I would politely suggest that people be asked to start a new thread when posts reach 100, ... of kindness to other board members who do not want to read so much." Sorry, but I strongly disagree: You make it sound like people are forced to read the entire thread. I think it's silly to put an artificial stop at 100 posts: I've seen several active threads which have been abruptly interrupted by this "100-post" limit. It only causes more manual work, because an active thread which have been stopped tends to "generate" a followup-thread anyway. The "limiter" might as well have been removed in the first place, saving us for unnecessary manual work. If people won't bother to read the entire thread in order to follow the discussion because they're losing interest or getting bored or whatever, then that's their problem. We can't tell people to stop at 100 posts, start a new related thread and write summaries simply because other people haven't read the thread in a while or doesn't bother to read the posts. I think it's much more important to encourage people to start a new thread if the original thread starts to get off-topic (which is standard netiquette after all). Lots of off-topic posts can be confusing. The fundamental problem is not related to length, but to content. If a long thread stays on topic, and if the thread is active, then I see no reason why this thread should be artifically stopped by a "limiter", forcing us to manually create a new thread. In fact, threads of "limitless" lengths are standard on most boards and newsgroups, and for good reason: Limitless threads support netiquette by encouraging users to post in a single topic-related thread, instead of spreading them over the board. Posting several closely related threads is discouraged on many boards, because it clutters up the main area. It also makes it easier for people later, if they want to read about messages related to a specific topic: They won't need to look for Topic II, Topic III, etc. "I am not sure ezboard is the place because of the threads getting very, very long." Most sophisticated newsboards don't have this limiter (fortunately). No offense, but I feel that you're aiming at the wrong target: The fundamental problem is related to off-topic posts and netiquette, not length and limiters.
hal9000 User ID: 9906923	Sep 11th 11:12 PM Reply to Ants: You wrote: "The format is easy - what with the overall different areas with information on them underneath, " This is standard on larger boards. "the white writing on black is clear and there is no passwords or anything." User accounts is very handy for the admin and for your own security. "Also there isn't much of that personal crap which appears with lots of posts at dragonstone" This has more to do with board-operators and content, not technical issues. Besides, the board operators will follow us to the new board: We're not supposed to leave the community, only move it. "I like the way the messages flow right from each other here. " Same here, but again this is also standard on more sophisticated boards. "On another note, hit the reload button here and you can see your post.... At dragonsworn, my message didn't appear for me to see it for hours." Several hours is certainly too long and definitely not standard on more sophisticated boards. During peak hours it can take up to a minute to update the database, but usually the database is updated instantly. "by now you've probably figured out I would like to stay, even with the technical problems." I guess you already know my opinion on this matter :)
Relic User ID: 9308123	Sep 12th 1:14 AM ???
Maeglin User ID: 0707654	Sep 12th 1:57 AM I think the best thing about this board is that it is familiar to everyone, people feel comfortable here and this place has remained faithful for years.
Ran User ID: 0743024	Sep 12th 5:04 AM I've cooked up an Ezboard ASoIaF board, just to see how setup works. There aren't any topics yet, since I'm still considering things, but if folk want to take a look, try: pub26.ezboard.com In setting up the Ezboard, I realized that there are a lot of rather cool features. It can be customized quite a lot in how it looks and works. There are folk who like titles that indicate how many posts one's made, and this supports that. Custom titles as well, for individuals. Preview features, editing features, mailing features ... well, it's tempting. The one thing I noticed is that Ezboard is moderately slower than Eesite -- a lot more code involved. In any case, take a look. Feel free to go and set yourself up with an account for posting, though please don't post until I get an idea of how folk will recieve having the board pulled out from under them to point them elsewhere.
brosan User ID: 7057593	Sep 12th 5:30 AM Note: on pub26.ezboard.com click on the upper right search space for boards and enter "asoiaf" to get to Ran�s board. It looks like the real thing, and if you are happy with it, Ran, we should go there. After all, it�s you who has the work with it and so you should use the most convenient way to put up the board. I think we�d all move with you there, but there�s one thing I�d like to mention: Though you can read the posts freely, participating in the new board will become harder since you have to register. This will keep out a lot of people who just happen to drop by and want to post a message. So the board will become more exclusive. Nothing bad about that, if that�s what we want.
Ran User ID: 0743024	Sep 12th 6:13 AM Ahh, yeah, forgot the whole address. Got side-tracked. The proper address is: pub26.ezboard.com/basoiaf As far as I can tell, people do not have to register to read or post to the board. I could be wrong, however.
brosan User ID: 7057593	Sep 12th 6:15 AM No, you don�t have to register to read, but you have to register if you want participate.