The Ultimate Superheroines Forum

Hey everyone,

So I have made a decision to, as the topic headline states, take this forum to the next level. For many years I have tried, unsuccessfully, to marry a blog, forum and gallery together as one cohesive unit. I tried to homebrew this but unfortunately my work on this forum always seems to take a backseat to my day job and shoots and other things that I do to survive.

So , after a lot of research I have found a software package that can provide us with the vision mentioned above.
On top of that, since we have grown as a community, I feel it;s time for this forum to live on it's own dedicated server.

THEREFORE the time has come for us to move to a new platform. I will be sunsetting this forum around May 1st. It will still be available to read and comment but new topics will be disabled.
A brand new shiny forum will be created that will give us all a lot more flexibility and additional features that I am sure we will all appreciate.

The total price for everything will be around $1000. I will be contributing $400 towards this upgrade and I will setup a GoFundMe for the rest.
As Bernie Sanders says, once again I am asking for your support.

I am sure some of you will have questions about this pricetag and I am here to answer them.
Believe it or not the hardware cost is only going to be about $300. You can find good Dell servers on Ebay that are reasonably priced. It doesn't need to be a powerhouse, just better than the shared hosing that we are on now.

The floor is now open.

Happy to contribute to the GoFundMe, MH! Looking forward to some next-level action. And this is the right time to do it because pretty soon there will be some migration over from HM as it 'sunsets' permanently (at least from what I've read). Will the entire content history on this forum (14 years, right?) be preserved on the new server, at least for reference?

MightyHypnotic wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Hey everyone,

So I have made a decision to, as the topic headline states, take this forum to the next level. For many years I have tried, unsuccessfully, to marry a blog, forum and gallery together as one cohesive unit. I tried to homebrew this but unfortunately my work on this forum always seems to take a backseat to my day job and shoots and other things that I do to survive.

So , after a lot of research I have found a software package that can provide us with the vision mentioned above.
On top of that, since we have grown as a community, I feel it;s time for this forum to live on it's own dedicated server.

THEREFORE the time has come for us to move to a new platform. I will be sunsetting this forum around May 1st. It will still be available to read and comment but new topics will be disabled.
A brand new shiny forum will be created that will give us all a lot more flexibility and additional features that I am sure we will all appreciate.

The total price for everything will be around $1000. I will be contributing $400 towards this upgrade and I will setup a GoFundMe for the rest.
As Bernie Sanders says, once again I am asking for your support.

I am sure some of you will have questions about this pricetag and I am here to answer them.
Believe it or not the hardware cost is only going to be about $300. You can find good Dell servers on Ebay that are reasonably priced. It doesn't need to be a powerhouse, just better than the shared hosing that we are on now.

The floor is now open.

Fick that I wouldn't contribute anything past 21 years! this an outrage!!!
um you need my or my wifes credit card?

MightyHypnotic wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Hey everyone,

So I have made a decision to, as the topic headline states, take this forum to the next level. For many years I have tried, unsuccessfully, to marry a blog, forum and gallery together as one cohesive unit. I tried to homebrew this but unfortunately my work on this forum always seems to take a backseat to my day job and shoots and other things that I do to survive.

So , after a lot of research I have found a software package that can provide us with the vision mentioned above.
On top of that, since we have grown as a community, I feel it;s time for this forum to live on it's own dedicated server.

THEREFORE the time has come for us to move to a new platform. I will be sunsetting this forum around May 1st. It will still be available to read and comment but new topics will be disabled.
A brand new shiny forum will be created that will give us all a lot more flexibility and additional features that I am sure we will all appreciate.

The total price for everything will be around $1000. I will be contributing $400 towards this upgrade and I will setup a GoFundMe for the rest.
As Bernie Sanders says, once again I am asking for your support.

I am sure some of you will have questions about this pricetag and I am here to answer them.
Believe it or not the hardware cost is only going to be about $300. You can find good Dell servers on Ebay that are reasonably priced. It doesn't need to be a powerhouse, just better than the shared hosing that we are on now.

The floor is now open.

I hope you'll be posting up the link to the new forum before May 1st

Can people donate anonymously if they want?

Will there still be a vgallery? (not used it yet, but thinking about it)

count me in. I'll pony up some money.

Good questions! And thank you to all who have pledged donations! I will be posting that link very soon.
@shevek
Yes, this forum will most likely exist on a subdomain -- archive.superheroineforum.com and the current will live on superheroineforum,.com with links to the archive.
I will most likely import the more popular topics to the new site for the sake of continuity. So all the stories and images and all that will still live on the other server. I know stories are a big attraction so those will get moved to the new server for sure.

@jimbobklyn5 Most likely. It will be a swift changeover and not a ramp-up.

@theScribbler
Yes to anonymous donations. I know we are in trying times these days and small amounts are welcome. We'll get there eventually.
You also bring up a good point about the vGallery and actually this was a reason why I decided to make the change.

The video gallery is an idea I've wanted to implement for a while. The problem with video galleries is it's a huge bandwidth issue if not implemented correctly and unfortunately this one wasn't. Plus there are other issues with this plugin cosmetically that needed to be changed.
I brought my concerns to the developer whose responses have been rather surly and condescending. Not that my feelings were hurt but this is indicative of a lot of the open source developers in the PHPBB universe these days. A lot of the plugins start off as great ideas and they either become abandoned or not coded very well and the updates are slow in coming.

The perfect example is a Facebook-style "like" button. There have been several attempts at coding one that have all dropped off and the one that seems to work, which is on this site, is a bit clunky. Clicking a like button should be a quick and easy experience.
The package we will be switching to is actively developed with lots of features like a real working video gallery (and a like button!) and all that development has a cost. It also has an awesome image gallery so for those who like sites that are more image focused, we will be able to offer that too. Plus users can curate their own image galleries.

The one thing that really sold me on the new system was the article feature where a user can create an article with a featured image and associated gallery. This will be great for producers, artists or anyone that has something to announce or present. The article discussions will be integrated with the forum and that will be really convenient and a lot more organized than this current system.

I know that was a very long answer to a simple question but I thought it was a good opportunity to lets you guys know some of the issues that have been plaguing the current system for a while now.

the123 wrote: ↑

3 years ago

the123 wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Would you care to elaborate?

You haven't posted a way to donate yet, right? I'm not just being super thick and blind?

Philo Hunter wrote: ↑

3 years ago

You haven't posted a way to donate yet, right? I'm not just being super thick and blind?

No not yet, I will be doing that either tonight or tomorrow.

I'm willing to donate to the cause here. Will I get a "I donated to my favorite SHIP site" sticker or button?

I should do stickers!

Sorry guys, some new work projects got me a bit backed up but I haven't forgotten. I will make it by the weekend

This exciting news. Fingers crossed for a really good instant messaging mechanic.

I like the idea of a users own gallery.
Will we have to re-register when the old site is closed down or will accounts be migrated?

I am looking into that. Most likely you will have to re-register since the whole system is different. Its more advanced that's for sure.

Just an update on this, I will be posting GoFundMe and all that on the 1st. I am working on getting the server set up and I also have some releases that I am working on for the end of the month. Once that's done we will work on this and then I have some interesting Hypnotics World news to drop on the 1st as well!

VictorBlack95 wrote: ↑

3 years ago

This exciting news. Fingers crossed for a really good instant messaging mechanic.

There will be.

Hi everyone,

This is still on track! Some time this week I will be disabling the blog and returning this forum to the main domain so it will be reachable at

https://www.superheroineforum.com


Right now I am ordering hardware and racking it so this site will be speedier than ever.


In response to the chat , the software will be just like you were used to before... an FB styled chat.

I am still on this, give me a week or so to get settled and I plan to pick it back up.

Is the site still moving /migrating or is it staying 'as is' at this stage?
Was looking forward to having a gallery on here as well as DA and Pixiv.

Yes, I am actually in talks with the hardware people to set up a new faster server and that migration day will be coming in a couple of weeks. I will update everyone as the site will be down for a day. Once that's done then the software will be implemented and we will defintiely set you up with everything you need.

Awesome thanks for the update!