Replacing Go Discussions
Table of contents |
This is an old discussion the new site is Life in 19 x 19
It seems like there is a consensus, or near-consensus that it's time to move away from godiscussions.com. This page is for discussion of such a move.
There are currently two main alternatives that are attracting users as we speak:
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http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/ by Jordus?
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http://igodojo.org/ by Chuck Thomas?
Both of these sites are working now, and the owners have shown that they are willing to work with the community to guarantee that a situation as we have encountered with GoDiscussions does not happen again.
Discussion
Chuck Thomas?: I'm putting finishing touches on Dojo, which will soon be known as http://igodojo.org (after DNS updates in 24 - 48 hrs) instead of
http://shodanimports.com/dojo
A number of people in the Go forums communities have expressed concerns about what happens when a forum starts having problems. How can the user base be assured that their community, which has its own history and culture, isn't wiped out by hardware disaster or a (metaphorical) speeding pickup truck?
To address this problem, I've made an automated system of weekly database backups of the forum which are available to the forum admins (currently Brian Kirby). This way, if the unthinkable should happen, it will be possible to simply set up shop elsewhere, bringing the entire community and its history with it.
I'll be stepping back into The Wiring Closet soon, so if anybody has questions or suggestions about how Dojo could better serve the community, please contact Brian at dojo@shodanimports.com
tealeaf: From everything that I've seen, I'm happy to support this effort. Most importantly for the immediate case, the site is up and running right now. Other efforts are fine, but are already beginning to die by committee. In the longer view, the open database and attitude that's been put forward here is exactly the kind of thing that I was hoping to create at GoDiscussions when I ran into the "organisational" issues that stopped me wanting to contribute my time there. One way or another, I've registered with IgoDojo? for now. :)
xedover: running?! if you call that running. its still almost as bad as the original 503 error problem.
tealeaf: How so? It seems to work fine for me, although the DNS record won't have fully propagated yet. I haven't used it extensively, but it's been responsive and functional so far. What's the problem you're seeing?
ah, I think I've misunderstood. I thought you were speaking of GoDiscussions, which is only half running now.
Fwiffo: My thoughts are that it should be something completely community owned. I think there should be more than one person who have access to fix any problem when something goes wrong. The biggest problem with godiscussions.com is that it has a truck number of 1. And for all we know, given his unavailability, Don may well have been hit by a truck already.
Joaz Banbeck: Actually, it has a truck number of zero now. :(
So, while I appreciate Mr. Thomas's generous offer, having the site hosted by Shodan Imports has the same potential problem. If we have, say, three administrators with sysadmin access, we would still have Mary around to fix things if Peter is too busy robbing Paul.
tapir: Any replacement should be compatible to the old GD. It may be well possible to recover the historical contents.
Aphelion? Agreed. I hope just because GD is back up again that this initiative will die out. The problem wasn't that the website crashed, its that there's simply no mechanism to fix it beyond an owner who is too uninterested in the website. Is there any way we can pick back up on where tealeaf left behind in the search for an alternative?
tealeaf I can give you all the information that I had when I was about to do the move myself. I think that a separate effort, which I fully support, should start from scratch with respect to posts and membership. I did have a copy of the posting and membership database, but I deliberately deleted it when I "resigned" from rebuilding the site.
I completely agree with the community approach. One person will ultimately have to be the contact point for a new site, but I would suggest that a small number of people should have root access (including passwords for the domain name registration) so that no one person has the ability to make unilateral decisions.
I wish that I could do this myself but, apart from the amount of time I'm choosing to dedicate to work, I am also about to become father of a pair of twins. :) Having said that, I'm very willing to help. Feel free to contact me via email or IM.
As with the proposal I had for GoDiscussions, I would suggest a voluntary donation scheme to pay the server costs. It's been demonstrated that this can easily raise the costs. I would also suggest a blanket "no advertisement" policy, even for free community adverts, to keep things simple.
I would also advise a general principle of keeping things simple. Make a forum, either PHPBB or VBulletin, and get Eidogo working as a game viewer. Avoid trying to add any new features over GD, at least until the site is established.
unkx80: As indicated in the main page, I am for a move. Fwiffo's justification is exactly the kind of reason why I would suggest having a domain name dedicated to the forum, not just a subdirectory of some domain hosting other things as well (e.g., Shodan Imports). It's well known that maintaining such a beast is a difficult job, and people do get burnt out doing all these administrative work. Therefore the key is to have multiple maintainers, and to make it easy to transfer maintainership among people.
Fwiffo: This was a very frustrating go weekend for me. Just as I'm getting excited about go again, godiscussions.com goes down and my local go club more-or-less dissolved. But that does mean I suddenly have 3-4 weekend hours that I used to devote to club meetings that I now have free for other go related program activities. So while I can't guarantee a lot of time in the long-term, I am willing to do some of the work getting us up and running in the short term. I'm experienced with stuff like domain registration, PHP, setting up mysql, etc.
I may (have to check with the boss) be able to provide a temporary home for a new forum until we get up and running at a permanent host. I have some server space I can use to get a forum up and configured under a new domain name, though it can't be a permanent space since I can't offer anyone else root access or anything.
kirkmc? So far, there aren't a whole lot of us here discussing this. While it may be best for the most motivated people to just go ahead and make something, would it be better to get more people aware of the issue? Posting to rec.games.go, for example, or even someone posting something in the Go Discussions room on KGS?
Jordus?: Great news!! Thanks to Kirby, lifein19x19.com has diagrams working now! I believe it is the same version that GD was running. We are working on upgrading to the latest version. But anyways... Malkovich games? can make a return. I am kind of excited....
Hosting
Some folks looked into this the last time godiscussions was having trouble...
kirkmc? Why not have it hosted here at Sensei's? Would there be any downside to that?
PeterHB: The SL discussion pages are there to be used. Its just a question of people using them. Things are not exactly the same as a bulletin board, but pretty close. (e.g. using the forum's available with every page ).
tealeaf: A real forum is very different to SL's discussion pages. It's possible to discuss things here, but I couldn't see it replacing GD.
kirkmc? Neither do I. I wiki is very different form a forum, and not everyone feels comfortable editing wikis.
tapir: Just for notice. I have some doubt, whether SL has all the functionality required (e.g. for malkovich games) myself. But if you need a smaller forum, you always can create a page and turn the page itself into a forum by changing pagetype to forum and adding !%%Forum%% to the page. Editing such pages has not much in common with general wiki editing. (How Forums Work)
kirkmc? Well, I tried to register on life in 19x19, and there's a captcha problem. No matter how many times I type the correct letters and numbers, it fails, and just displays a new one. It turns out that pressing return after typing the captcha activates the Refresh Code function rather than the Submit. That should be fixed. But then when I tried to log in, it failed, with a 500 Internal Server Error. Not very promising...
Marcus: I have a hosting plan with Dreamhost. I'm not sure how much traffic it can handle (it's a shared server plan; mySQL and PHP), but it has unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth, theoretically. The hosting gives me the ability to host any number of domains and I can provide shell and ftp access by account (easy enough to provide a single account, but I believe I can also create multiple shell users with access).
I may not have much time to help out with the actual development of the community, but I don't mind providing space. If downtime is a worry, Dreamhost is at least communicative when they have outages.
In regards to keeping communication open, perhaps it would be best to have one host for the actual forum, and another host and domain for news and status.
Fwiffo: I don't think we need a whole separate host for server status. If the host burns down or something communication can be done at Sensei's StatusPages. The problem with communication at godiscussions when it's down is that Don... doesn't.
Marcus: Was just a thought. :D The StatusPages is cool. I'm a Sensei's n00b, so I'd never seen that before. Anyways, if some hosting is needed, I can provide at least a temporary home, if not more.
Domain Names
Fwiffo: I just did a whois on a bunch of possible domains: discussgo.com, badukchat.com, goprattle.com, discussbaduk.com, badukdiscussions.com, chataboutgo.com are all available, as well as variations (e.g. with hyphens between words for readability). It makes sense to register variations (e.g. discussgo.org, discuss-go.com, etc.) and have them all redirect to the "correct" domain. Domains are cheap (compared to hosting.)
Any preferences? No reason we can't register one today and get moving forward.
kirkmc? I like discussgo or discuss-go. Maybe go-talk or something like that? What about godiscussions.org... :-)
Herman: I own the domain name goplayers.org, which I am willing to donate to the community, if people want it. the name would certainly be suitable for something run by a group of go players.
Fwiffo: go-talk/gotalk and go-chat/gochat are taken. godiscussions.org is available, but I think it would just cause confusion. Hey, let's vote.
Phelan: I'd prefer something different than discussions, so there's no confusion with GD, but I'm not picky about the domain, so I'm not voting.
Jordus?: I am not picky about the domain either. The reason I chose to use lifein19x19.com was that it seemed unique and easy to remember. (I have no issues giving the domain over if the community decides to start the project elsewhere than the current lifein19x19.com)
JPG: I've added a suggestion below: gosente.com. We should be careful about this. Domains are cheap and can be swallowed up in minutes if someone knows they're in demand.
Aphelion?: Added a new suggestion: 361discussions.com. I like it, because it sounds more universal than go/igo/weiqi/baduk
- discussgo/discuss-go.com/org ++++
- discussbaduk/discuss-baduk.com/org
- badukdiscussions.com/org
- chataboutgo.com/org +
- lifein19x19.com --++?+
- goplayers.org +++
- godiscussions.org ---
- gosente.com
- 361discussions.com +
Fwiffo: It seems that discussgo is the popular choice. If nobody objects, I will go ahead and register discussgo.com, discuss-go.com, discussgo.org and discuss-go.org. I'm going to register them under my account for now for expediency sake, though obviously they're intended to be community owned. A separate account can be set up so that I'm not the only person in charge of the domain, in case I lose interest and/or disappear.
Software
Fwiffo: It seems like there was a consensus of PHPBB3 last time we had this discussion. That's what Jordus has running at Life in 19x19 and Mr. Thomas has running at
http://shodanimports.com/dojo/. Some of the heavy lifting has already been done as far as integration of diagrams and SGF viewers.
Everyone is pretty much used to Sensei's style diagrams; we might as well upgrade to the latest version while we're at it, since it should be a drop-in replacement. For SGF, I like EidoGo, since it doesn't use flash, and is therefore compatible with smartphones and iPads and things. It's also a open source project, so it's possible for anybody to fix bugs or enhance it. I've already done some work on it myself. Mr. Thomas already seems to have it working on his forum.
yoyoma: I don't think diagrams are totally working on lifein19x19, Jordus is asking for technical help: http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=47
Kirby: We're working on that right now. :-)
Jordus?: Is there anyone here who knows about serverside Javascript? We may be able to use your help... (Or anybody that has anyideas for diagrams on a phpbb3 forum) Contact through http://lifein19x19.com
Joaz Banbeck: Jordus has diagrams working now at 19x19.
Coming to a Consensus
Kirby: I think that there are several options available to us in terms of forums that will work. Both Jordus and Mr. Thomas have already given us some options. But Joaz's concern about the community splitting up may still be a valid one. What about making some sort of a poll or something to try to come up with a site for everybody to use (i.e. so that people aren't split up across forums)? We could vote here by using plus signs (like with the KGS wishlist)... I guess I'll start such a poll. If you have a feasible option, add your vote to the list below:
Life in 19x19 (Jordus's site): ++++++++++ (+10 :: -0)
The Dojo (By Shodan Imports): +--+- (+2 :: -3)
Use Senseis Library as a Forum: +---- (+1 :: -4)
Rec.Games.Go: +-------- (+1 :: -8)
The old GD: +------ (+1 :: -6)
TeaLeaf's initiative (i.e. a new, community-owned site): +++++++++++ (+11 :: -0)
kirkmc? Not sure I see how the + signs will work. But I'm in favor of the Tealeaf Initiative, and am willing to work as a mod/admin, and help pay for hosting. Back in the day, I even offered to host it on my server, as I have room for one more domain, but I think a separate domain and hosting plan is better.
Fwiffo: The + thing is a voting system used elsewhere on Sensei's; see Voting Via Plus or Minus.
unkx80: Questions on Jordus's Life in 19x19 site.
1) Is this site hosting only the forum and no other unrelated things?
2) Is Jordus prepared to give up ownership of the domain and administrative access, should he lack the capacity to maintain it?
If yes to both questions, his site gets a + vote from me. Otherwise, I will give it a - vote.
Fwiffo: He didn't seem overly precious about it last time we had this discussion. He's already done a lot of the work of getting SGF files and diagrams working, so maybe we can hit the ground running... My only complaint really is the domain name. I something short, simple, self-explanatory and hard to mistype (e.g. discussgo.com, gochat.com, badukforum.com, whatever, etc.). But I might be being a control-freak. Please, noone let me put myself in charge. I'll be an insufferable bully.
John F. I was in favour of giving Don the benefit of any doubt before, on the principle, widespread in go, that most of the work is done by volunteers and so they need to be given some leeway occasionally (as well as gratitude). But I was disappointed by his response and so I would be willing to back a move elsewhere. Some other headline views: I don't see a problem with splintering - everyone will eventually gravitate to the best site, and at worst they will frequent two or more sites. I'd have no problem with the shodan imports offer as I suspect the guy in charge would not want to risk any adverse publicity for his main business by being unreliable with the forum. I wouldn't care much if previous data was lost in the move. I'd like to see a new sub-section in a new forum that "hides" Malkovitch games as well as rules discussions. Tealeaf's approach in the earlier debate most inspired me with confidence. When it comes to the technical nitty gritty, I'd want to go with his recommendation.
Jordus?: In answer to unkx80, 1) Yes. The hosting service is hosting only that website (Currently on the home page there is a small soduku game available and a 7000+ go game database; depending on community opinion those can be removed.) 2)Yes I am prepared to give ownership to the community. In fact, once the community has decided on a select group of admins, I plan to give full access to the site to those admins.
unkx80: Thanks for the answers. I apologize for not following the discussion when you started your site. Both yours and tealeaf's solutions are acceptable for me, so I've added the + vote to your site as well.
Chew: I like the idea of Jordus's site, because it seems like a community-owned thing with a head start. Since Jordus already has a good handle on things there, he would be a good head mod, since he's open and willing to share on stuff like design decisions.
kirkmc? While Jordus' replies are positive, I have to say that it's not a great domain... I appreciate that John F. has "seen the light" though. A agree that whatever's lost is lost: impermanence is the only thing that is permanent, after all. I thing we should get a core group of mods/admins to start something new and forget about the old. I think enough people will come to a new site from GD to make it live quickly.
Phelan: I don't think Jordus' site and Tealeaf's initiative are self-exclusive. I voted for both, since I think both of them have done awesome work at the time GD started failing, and think they could continue doing so when we start something new. I wouldn't mind Shodan Imports' The Dojo, if Chuck Thomas? would be willing to give unix access to other members in the community. A lot of the previous issues we had with GD before were because of admins not having enough access to properly diagnose and fix things.
Bob McGuigan: I haven't been an active participant at GD but I think it should be mentioned that the GD membership roster has many many usernames on it, maybe even hundreds. Does this current discussion really represent the GD community? Seems like only a few people are involved in the discussion. Shouldn't consideration be given to all the GD users who haven't found this discussion yet? And what of the admin/mods who haven't shown up here?
Fwiffo: I don't know if it matters. I see a lot of the most regular posters in the discussion here. And I think most of us here are irritated enough at this point that we're going to move on regardless of what happens to the existing godiscussions.com. I've posted a message there about this discussion for those who are not yet aware. And if there's some as-yet silent bloc of users who don't feel like moving, they can vote with their feet.
Phelan: could you link to the post here? I can't find it.
Fwiffo: Neither can I. :) The database there is having a few issues...
quantumf: I support the move, and would recommend avoiding a link to a commercial enterprise, although in the long run any system that relies on active volunteers and ongoing donations is at risk, compared to, say, R.G.G. It couldn't be worse than the current system, however! I don't feel that there is much to be gained from trying to migrate the old data. It has some historical value, certainly, but I'm sure more than a few people have archived it.
Jedo?: I definitely support a move too, and I think going with Tealeaf's original plan would be the best idea.
- I favor Jordus' site, simply because it is nearly complete right now. EDIT: He and/or Kirby got diagrams working, so it is usable NOW. He has answered every question that has been posed to him on this page with the most cooperative community-oriented answer possible - including the big issue of giving control to multiple admins.
- I'm not opposed in any way to Tealeaf's idea, but it does take longer, and Tealeaf himself says that he has higher priorities ( "Mom? Why did you let Dad name us Sente and Gote?" )
tealeaf I'd like to pretend that that argument hadn't already happened. :)
- While I appreciate Mr.Thomas' offer, it still is owned and controlled by one peson, which makes it second to 19x19.
Kirby: I've had some communication with Mr. Thomas about the forum he made for us. Regardless of where people end up "migrating" to, the Dojo forums will remain open for the community. From Jordus's previous comments, and based on people's votes here, I think that the same will be true of LifeIn19x19. It's also possible that a third site might emerge when people gather enough money to make a completely community-owned entity. I think that this is a good thing for the go community. Part of the reason we are in this situation to begin with is because GoDiscussions.com was one of a kind. When the service started to decline, we had no other options available to us. Now, we don't have to worry about the same thing happening again... We just have to start posting. Let's work to keep the community alive!
Joaz Banbeck: Jordus has diagrams working now at 19x19. I'm there, Terr is there; we can resume the BigBrotherGo Malkovich? game whenever the others are ready.
mdobbins: LifeIn19x19 is working and an easy transition from GD. Jordus expressed a willingness to transition it to a community owned and operated effort. There seems to be growing core of supporters and feature contributing talent there now. Let's not hesitate and just start moving step by step on this train. The features are there, all we need is to get the word out and we will very quickly surpass the limitations imposed by GD for that past year.
Misc. comments
rubin427?: If other forums are brought online, I'd like to see a self consistent approach to Advertisements. One or two banner adds are no big deal in my opinion, particularly if they are Go related. But if Google advertisements or eBay advertisements get implemented, there needs to be "support" option that makes the ads go away when a donation is provided (preferably anually). One of the things that happened with GD that really annoyed me was that I donated to support the site, but advertisements did not disappeared, and I did not even get a receipt (let alone a thank you). The money just fell into a hole. As far as I can tell GD did not improve because of my donation, nore did my use of GD improve. Very unprofessional.
Fwiffo: The current plan is no advertisements. Probably there will have to be periodic pleas for donations, but that's it. Last time around there were enough donors in just a day or two to cover likely costs.
axd: A bit late maybe, but I vote for durability over flashyness.
IMHO SL is not a discussion medium, and fora are only a thin layer on top of a classical Usenet approach: once you dive in a forum, you find the same endless list of posts. Fora offer many more interactive features, distracting the attention from the essential: use words to communicate.
Fora have this flaw: humans tend to ask the same questions over and over, and other humans try to help but by providing answers that contain only parts of the whole truth. This repetition and overlap of information makes fora become difficult to plod through (and so it becomes even easier just to ask the same question again), so they are a waste of all kinds of resources such as time, disk space and energy.
I am still inclined to believe that a simple and primitive Usenet is a better solution than fora. The problem is that fora look much more sexy than Usenet.
My view is explained in this RGG post: IMHO technological advances will lead to systems becoming more and more rapidly obsolete. I'm convinced that for every site that is running today, the more it is flashy and offers nice features, the less it is future-proof. Because increased technological possibilities will offer more and more ways to share information, at the same time the urge to create "better" websites will increase and the ease to create them will too. The problem is that if these websites cannot/don't absorb existing knowledge, that knowledge will become more and more scattered across short-period archives that risk becoming unreadable or lost.
A solution I can see is that site owners should at the minimum always be offering a simple download format that allows anyone to retrieve the essence of the site anytime in a simple (eg XML) format that can be reintegrated in other systems, archived, backed up, and easily be transformed into new media. So rather than search for a short-term solution (where and how are we going to host a site), time should be devoted to long-term preservation of information. (Nice example: we are living in the period where the floppy is disappearing... we are all walking around with big USB sticks, but we are also permantently trying to figure out how to preserve that information because the stick can fail, there is not enough space, etc ...)
I can understand e.g. the need to present SGF diagrams, and RGG is not handy to read. A thought that comes right now to my mind could be e.g. to focus on browser plugins that can render existing ASCII diagrams on RGG, rather than focus on entire sites that intend to show those same diagrams: the idea is to continue the use of the same primitive medium which stores the essence of the information, and develop throw-away interfaces that will evolve as well as die as much as they like.
I bet in a few years time L19 will be gone. And Usenet will still be there.
Earlier discussion (taken from GoDiscussions page)
Jordus?: Another Alternate site that has been up for a few months (since previous issues with GD)... http://www.lifein19x19.com
also Breakfast has a site at http://Baduk.Pro It is a social networking site for Go Players comparable to Facebook.
Chuck Thomas?:
Hi, I'm the owner and manager of Shodan Imports. I think it's important for Go players to have a reliable forum for their discussions, and I'm happy to host a community forum for this.
I have already made a phpBB installation at http://shodanimports.com/dojo/
After 24 hours, it will be addressable at
http://dojo.shodanimports.com
It's important to establish a strong and independent editorial control by the users - it would not be seen well if a commercial sponsor were interfering in the forum. My role will be as the unix administrator who keeps pays for the rent and keeps the gears churning. Except for a tiny text "hosted by Shodan Imports" link at the bottom, you have my word it will be commercial free.
If you are interested in becoming a global moderator, please register on the site and email dojo@shodanimports.com - I would like to get this staffed and up as soon as possible.
My regards, Chuck Thomas
- @Mr Thomas: I hope that you will pardon me for moving your post. But you put an ad for a replacement under the heading of status.
- @Everyone else: Does anyone who regularly posts on GD know Mr. Thoms?
xedover: while I don't know Mr Thomas personally, I do know he has posted a number of times on GD, and that he was one of the vendors at this last year's Go Congress in DC. I chatted with him a time or two on KGS (though I've forgotten his nickname already) We might also should move Jordus's suggested alternate site up here too. I really hate to see our established community splintered among different sites. Doesn't breakfast also have his new social networking site available too? Any other suggested sites? r.g.g maybe? :)
[rubin427:] I had a lot of opportunity to interact with Mr. Thomas (Chuck) at the last congress (2009). I bought a nice board from him. He was in my bracket during the congress (approx 8 kyu) so we bumped into each other fairly often. Also, he donated some boards to the congress itself for use during an important game (I can't recall if it was the deciding match of the us open-open division or if it was a separate pro game).
Charlie Brown?: Come on guys. What's with all this anxiety over splintering the group? Have we now become a religious cult? Alternatives are being offered and I'm going shopping. Brand loyalty doesn't mean much to me, especially when the product is constantly in the shop and the mechanic is always on vacation. Here's another metaphor. I'm done waiting for the Great Pumpkin in the pumpkin patch. You hang in there Linus.
kirkmc? I got to know Chuck briefly when we had a "disagreement" on the GD forum, and he called me out to settle it over a board. It was all in good fun, and Chuck seems like a fine person.
Fwiffo: I think it's time to create a separate page for discussion of a GD replacement, e.g. ReplacingGoDiscussions.
Ted O'Mari: I agree 100%. We are putting debates in a page that is supposed to be just a definition.