[The Starport News]Server Switch & Site Direction

Huh :)) Secondary the site must be about emulators
Multigame with focus on FL i think. Because good names like Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous will give more visitors and also ppl with classic questions: where to get fl cd, which mod better to play, is there alternative storyline or continue of the game

Source code? well, I don’t think so … as they said they lost it between servers.

Good point it, FL is not the end of this website, And make a game is more easier than old years (So there will(already) be a lot of it).

Don’t limit your sight on web sites like spacesimcentral.com, it’s just (no offense) a small one.

But the topic (Space and science fiction) is huge, and there will be a lot of chance in it.

So keep it up.

BTW: I don’t know much about server, but seems VPS is more cheaper & flexible choice, maybe Linode or DigitalOcean is better than hosting & managing a physical server?

Problem with Linode and Digital Ocean is that when you need lots of storage (and we do because of the TLR download archive which is over 100GB), pricing becomes really bad.

Otherwise I’d be totally in favor of switching to a small VPS like that. I use DO personally for a lot of things.

Well, you guys obviously knowing much better than me about the back of this web site.

On the other hand….

I used to run a small Chinese comunity long before, which share same topic with spacesimcentral.com. And it’s larger than spacesimcentral.com in amount of post & replies. (But quality is low I have to say)

We don’t have staffs at that time, only moderators who also contribute contents like MODs and Tips. But most contents is contributed by users.

I’m not saying the community is healthy, but it shows that web site run by user generated content is workable (Technically, this web site is mostly UGC’ed too). So you may no need that many staffs you expected.

Of course, it will be a quality issue but I think it could be resolved by appropriate community management. (You have to discover it yourself)

Even you need to post news and keep track updates by yourselfs, it’s just cost few hours every week. (Writing news is not rock science, not in this topic)

And … well, Xoops sucks. Article is difficult to categorize and read, download is not easy to use, only thing that relatively useable is the forum…
Lot of good web application come out those years: Wordpress is good one and not just a blog, and Forum application like VanillaForums, esoTalk, Discourse (SEO may sucks), Flarum (SEO sucks), every each one is far better than PHPBB.
Consider to move to another application if you want to change direction of this website maybe?

I know i’ve been absent from the FL community for a number of years now, so my opinions on TSP’s direction maybe of little value (it was quite a relief seeing that it was still online), but IMO branching off into other related games could be a good thing. As NeXoSE said, alot of news and such will be generated by users, and some of the more worthy may even make for suitable staff. A influx of new users from other gaming communities may even help revitalize FL a bit, when they see the large amount of content here and get that nostalgia feeling. However, it will probably take a substantial push to get the momentum going. Of course the focus should probably remain on FL, as the information located here really is quite extensive and most of it is not available anywhere else.

I have serious doubts we’d have any kind of influx. Why would people come here? We have no unique twist, no particular tie to any of those other games people would like to see us cover as well.

It’s a miracle the site still exists, what with barely any active admin and severely outdated software which runs on duct tape and hopes.

SC should be covered imho, as the poll suggests.

“vanilla forum” - mybb please

Very good. Good luck!

Seems to me to be quicker than the old site, which is obviously a good thing

Yeah, I conform it feels little bit faster than the old server, but I think it’s because Cloudflare node is changed ….

And, maybe … enable SSL support that provided by Cloudflare? https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl

EDIT:
Yeah, the node is definitely changed … to some where not belongs to Cloudflare.

AND:
The HTTPS page gives me a ObenVbN login…

If I’m on the new site as of this post, it seems to function well. Also, had some $ left over from last month, something rare of late so, I tossed them this way.

Thanks for keeping the site running, w0dk4.

I will try to make a donation when I finished my current project and got a new job.

Keep it up!

Make it for both