To Pattern Spider Members

Ghan

Ghan

Network/Server Admin
Administrator
Greetings, Pattern Spider members.


If you are reading this thread, you are no doubt aware that we have undergone a large number of changes in the past day or two. The largest of these is that we have merged the previous two boards (Discussion and PBP) into one board running an entirely new forum software called Xenforo. Xenforo is a relatively new arrival on the scene of forum software options. It tends to be more flexible and more well built than what the site was running before, phpBB 3.


I hope this introduction thread helps you get acclimated to some of the changes so you can get back to taking part in the community.


So now you may be wondering who this nooblord with the Legolas avatar is. I, unfortunately, don't do any roleplaying and actually know very little about Exalted other than what I have heard from others. My purpose here is to make sure the software and the server are running well and that the users (you) are able to do what you do best and be unmolested by technical issues and the like. I'm a computer geek at heart so if you ever want to talk to me about such topics as computers, servers, video games, software, web hosting, or the like, feel free to drop me a message.


You may be having questions like "how do I do X in this new setup?", and that is good. Feel free to ask any questions you have in this thread and I or someone else will answer to the best of our ability.


One topic I know that people will want to know about is how people are able to join games now. Right now those who were running games in the past have no control over their game. This will change. We'll be setting up a (hopefully) simple system so that those who run games can have moderator control in their forum(s) and be able to get on with creating content while not getting mired in a bunch of forum technical nonsense. Please bear with us while we get this setup.


If you were in charge of a game or moderated a forum or forums before the server and software change, please let us know by posting in the Admin Contact forum located here: http://www.rpdom.com/forums/admin-contact/


It is my hope that everyone will eventually find Xenforo easier to use than phpBB 3 was. Again, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me or the staff in general in Admin Contact.


Sé onr sverdar sitja hvass!


Ghan


P.S.


If you'd like a bit more technical detail into what happened:


We moved the site to a new server and installed a fresh copy of Xenforo. Xenforo comes with a built-in importer for phpBB 3, so we imported the two boards one at a time and then proceeded with a large cleanup operation, the results of which sit before you. Previously the server ran on an Amazon Web Services EC2 Cloud Server instance. (http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/) We now run on a Linode Virtual Private server. (http://www.linode.com) The transition was rather smooth - most of the time that the site was down was the result of some initial cleanup and organization after dumping all of the phpBB 3 data into this Xenforo install.
 
So far the new site looks nice, but it tends to bog down my browser (konqueror) and crash when I have multiple tabs open in rekonq, but that is probibly my fault for using oddball browsers.


I like the way the site responds when posting, and I hope it has good new account sign up controlls. We had a quite a rash of spammers getting on last year until Exalted specific challenge/reponse questions were put in place.
 
Xenforo uses ReCaptcha, which is generally the standard used these days in human verification. We'll certainly keep an eye on the situation and respond accordingly if we have a lot of trouble. :)
 
I've found in the past that even reCaptcha is defeated, because some amount of spam accounts aren't bots - they're humans being paid a couple of cents per click to type in captchas. Anything that a legitimate user would be able to decipher, these guys can too.


In practice, I find that the best method is random question/answer verification. The old site had a list of questions that your average Exalted player would be able to answer easily, or at least look up quickly, but for a non-player would require more extensive research. It seems to be enough to put off the human spammers, and it completely foils bots.


Just my $0.02.
 
Xenforo does have a question/answer system available for use - definitely something to keep in mind.
 
We also have our board hooked up to a few anti spam databases around the world with a collection of every spam bot ever caught. When we ban a spambot it adds it to the database same for other sites.
 
Well, a simple "Which kind of Exalted is described in the Exalted Core Manual?" should block most porn addict solvers and let in any Exalted player worth his d10s.
 
xarvh said:
Also, I'd need to lock a thread in a game I'm STing and unstick it.
Click to expand...
Please post in the admin contact all the games you moderate and we will give you power.
 
Any chance of acquiring a threads you've posted in list, or an option for 'Your Content' that is by thread with indication if there are unread posts... Although I have set it up so I automatically watch any thread I post in, it doesn't seem to work retroactively, and I know for some people that would be hundreds of threads they'd need to manually check and watch since we lost that capacity in the change over.


Also, since this site will be used for play-by-posts, a text wrap that only lets indicated user read the content and a dice roll call, on that can be edited out and rerolled again and again for desired results, would be useful.
 
I like to use the 'What's New?' option to see new posts, but the problem is that it is now flooded with game posts. Can that be set to filter them out so only public posts are shown? I accidentally responded to a game thread because I did not read the small text about which sub-forum it was in.
 
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