sollord said:
If anyone didn't know I own the domains for both anifics and ranmafics.com. I'm currently looking into restoring what I have of an old anifics back up dating form 2005 after that I'm not sure where to go. As it stands I'm going to need to find a better host for anifics.com probably a VPS some place in the next few months or so.
Ranmafics.com is semi alive but never really gets any updates. I'm hoping (big hope) to find a way to convert the site into a dynamic self updating archive in the future. It also needs to start accepting non-crossover fanfics in the future
I also own two other fiction related domains animefanfics.com and ourfics.com. Animefanfics.com was meant to be a ffnet clone and had some prototypes up for a time before it was pulled and ourfics well I don't remember why I have that anymore -.-
If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please feel free to let me know
Well... not too much in way of advice, but here are my thoughts and a bit of a rundown.
For forum software, I am aware of the following:
- Beehive, what on now, and you are leaving.
- Delphi, what we were on, and generally not wanted.
- Invision/Zetaboards, likely not a valid solution, as you would be stuck with their servers and domain, unless anifics simply redirected you there. Then there is the broke search functionality.
- MXBoards. We tried it briefly, and recall you and one other at the time stating what a disaster the code was for it.
- Vbulletin, not a fan of the interface, but the forums I've come across using it seem stable. I know it is used by Sanjiyans.
- PHP, Fukufics is on this. I happen to like it a bit better than Invision. At least with Fukufics though it has displayed some small annoyances, especially under IE.
- MyBB, afraid I know little about, looked into it briefly, seems flexible though, BBCode support, search, can use any of a few different database engines. Most of the below features I'd like to see seem supported.
- SMF, heard of it a few times over the years, not seen it. Like MyBB, seems to have potential, and support of most of the below features I'd like to see,
For forum features I'd like to see:
- Support for BBCode in posts. Most of the popular ones these days do, including here, Vbulletin, and PHP based forums.
- Support for file attachments, either as a limited group, or to everyone, perhaps 4 attachments max per post, maybe 300kb or more each.
- Support for PM's, not a big deal, since nearly all have it.
- A default or alternate skin that is not buggy. This is gripe with PHP, at least with Fukufics. The alternate skin, which I and some others think is more user friendly and intuitive, also has more bugs. I dislike their default skin, a lot.
- Working search. Single biggest gripe with Invision, as it is worthless and permanently broke, and one reason we left elphi when they limited the search functionality.
- IE compatible, this is a must for me, I refuse to use the crappy Mozilla FireFox. Opera is acceptable. There are a couple slight issues with Fukufics under IE, mostly with the post window. It occasionally will jump line on longer posts. as you type.
- I do not think you can swing it, as it is dubius how effective it is in forums, but RSS feed support would be nice.
- I know some like chat functionality, I dislike it myself except at work, and there it is a pain. I suggest any chat you set up be compatible with Trillian and Pidgin, two of the best chat programs I've tried and set up for clients over the years.
EDIT:
As for archiving. I found eFiction (
http://efiction.org/ ). Here is a bit of their features page:
General
eFiction is open source, php, MySQL database driven software that is simple to use and customize.
"Hooks" written into the code to allow for easy integration with other software and easy mod creation.
News system built in to keep your users updated.
TinyMCE rich text editor that is selectable at both the user and admin levels.
Save story text as flat files or in the database.
Image uploads can be turned off by admin.
Maintenance mode allowed you to "turn off" site while making code changes or upgrading.
Choose php send mail() or SMTP to send out site emails.
Email notification of submissions, updates and reviews. (Can be turned off by admin)
Display "top tens" and create custom tens.
Templating
Fully customizable HTML and CSS based templating system. No PHP knowledge required to customize your layout.
Hide skins you are working on from users.
Customization
Create new classifications, panels, and page links and choose what user-level has access to them.
Create custom pages that integrate into your layouts.
Create custom welcome message, copyright notices, submission rules, and acceptance/rejection letters.
Create custom profile fields to display in users profile.
Security
Multiple admin levels.
Ban users
"Action Log" logs user name and IP for certain actions, including registration, and editing.
Captcha script built in. (May be turned off by admin.)
Language censor to ban certain words.
Stories
Set minimum and maximum word counts on stories
Specify allowed HTML tags in story text.
Sort alphabetically or by most recent.
Review and rate stories independently (depending on admin settings).
Upload HTML files or copy text into submission form.
EDIT2:
As a final note on eFiction, there are sites that have a number of skins for it you can choose from.
As for features in a archive site I'd like to see
- RSS feeds for author, story, and category
- IE compatibility
- users/memeber/author profile page
- search
- sort alphabetically, or by date upadted.
- tags for content, and matches
- some like ratings for users to see. I do not, as I prefer to judge myself. A ratings during review/commenting might be nice for the author though.
Your prototypes, from what I remeber, were going in the right direction, though I remember issues with font sizes, and IE issues.
