Future of Flash-DB

[Ronald Wernecke]

Dont worry, this will not get that far
We are brainstorming

We will have a voice chatroom with presentation ability (not breeze, its far too expensive ).
We can offer all kinds of services, if there is one doing it.

We might cut the level for free service, to give some more detailed and deeper service for paying members.

But there will allways be a free service level - and it will not be limited to one call.

[Mohsin Sumar]

Surely no one calls - what if the first call isn't quite understandable? Or may be requires a rephrase.

There should be a different forum - where only paid members can see (not all members that is). All threads on that forum are given the top most priority - and then the posts in the free forums. I'd say, thats fair.

[Ronald Wernecke]

There was just something comming to my mind:

We are a community, and we live from poaple helping each other.

We could make up some kind of points system, where you get points, when you help someone, and you pay points, when you need help.
And, if you need help, and you aint got no points, you can buy some

The answers will be given a level by the asking party "10 points for very helpful, 5 points for helpful, 3 points for OK, 1 point for ?? "

As I sayd - just brainstorming

[Mohsin Sumar]

That is a nice idea - but then again - do we have that much time to develop something like this? We brainstorm that, and include it later.

I haven't seen a forum or sort of that with this feature - so we'd have to build it ourselves - time will be a factor.

[Ronald Wernecke]

these are the benifits of brainstorming
You can develop what you want - next step is reality, which cuts it down to what is possible.

In this stage I wouldnt say, it is impossible. Even if it is within the next two or three months.
But, if there is the wish and need for it, we can think about how to implement it.

[bpat1434]

Experts-Exchange works like the points system.  Also, most BB systems come with a "Karma" system where you build karma as you post and reply.  The basics are there, it's just a matter of getting the modules to require payment, or whatever.

I'm sure that it is not too hard to code.  Each user has an extra column called points.  When they award points, the script reads who the poster was, and transerfers # points to the other user.  Setting up the purchase script would be easy as you could use PayPal and IPN modules to add # points dependant upon amount donated.

So really we wouldn't be building from scratch, but rather adding on to what is there.  I'm sure if you contacted EE (Experts-Exchange) they would allow you to know if they are using a module or had actually coded it themselves.

~Brett

[Mohsin Sumar]

I agree.

So the list adds up:
- Forum Upgrade or a New Forum
- New Design
- Point System or Yearly Subsciption
- New Services

That's all I think that I could gather for now.

[Mohsin Sumar]

Ok - that's the word - "karma".

phpBB has some hacks for this - haven't tried it but these are the ones I could come across:

- http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/2313
- http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/3299
- http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/3237

According to this post - SMF seems to have Karma too.

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=14444.msg122166#msg122166

I doubt if it will be efficient using these - coding it from scratch would give us the functionality we want to have

[Andresss]

ok that sounds interesting, but i disaponting in suscription, i mean, oher communities will then get more users than flash-db, i know, most of the tutorials are well done and should receive some of money help, but then how is flash-db to demonstrate that is one of the best, or maybe it becomes the best, on the other hand, i agree with changing the skin, the current is good, for slow connections, but it could be kind of future or flash futuristic..

[Mohsin Sumar]

We wouldn't want to load up a page with lots of grahics / flash or any other huge files - that's for sure.

Personally, I hardly visit flash-kit as its pretty slow loading site for me. And I'd hate if this site would turn up to be the same.

Regarding subscription - its not for all - those who wish to subscribe and receive some sort of dedicated support or priority support. Though, we'll be supporting the free users as well.

[bpat1434]

Well I'm glad that I could atleast help point us in the correct direction as far as the "points sytem" goes. (Yay for Karma).

As for the premium/subscription versus free service:
Perhaps it would benefit flash-db to separate the two boards.  Have the regular www.flash-db.com and then from there users can view tutorials, help files, and the regular stuff.  Then you have two (2) sub-domains.  The first would be for premium members (http://premium.flash-db.com or http://members.flash-db.com).  The other would be the free forum (http://community.flash-db.com or http://forum.flash-db.com).   This would provide us with the necessary autonomy to allow both free-users and premium users.  We could also keep our basic structure of everything (with the exception of upgrading to phpBB or SMF (<-- my choice)).  

Potential draw-backs of the system are this:
Integration  Integrating the two forums so that premium users can view the free forum, but the free users can't view the premium is tough.  It can be done.  If you remove the sub-domain idea I know for a FACT that SMF has "hidden" boards for members or groups.  This way you could have an area for premium members, and restrict the access.

Maintenance  Using two forms of the same board would be tough because whatever upgrades or additions you do to one, will most likely have to be done to the other.  It would be tough, but it can be done.  It would just be time consuming.

I know that I would be willing to work with other PHP coders to come up with a custom Flash-DB BB.  And hey, if marketed correctly, we could eventually distribute it like phpBB and give the users the options of viewing the forum in flash-form, or html/xhtml/css form.

To give you guys reasons why to port to SMF here they are:

• Easily upgrade from YaBBSE to Simple Machines Forum (SMF)
  
• Lots of neat skins/templates to choose from
  
• Normally a fast-loading system
  
• Easy to manipulate code to do as you wish
  
• Already structured Karma system
  
• Great support forums for help with SMF installation, upgrade, or general issues
  
• Integrated "hidden" threads/forums
  

Some reasons to go to phpBB:

• Easily upgrade from yaBBSE to phpBB
  
• Plenty of skins/templates to choose from (some pay-per-use)
  
• Normally fast-loading system
  
• Easy to manipulate code
  
• Karma Module available
  
• Huge community base that grows by the minute
  
• Hidden form/thread feature modules/hacks
  

Yes they seem the same.  But really, YaBBSE has found a home here, and I think that SMF has tried to keep teh same feel as YaBBSE and just changed the name and added a lot more features.

Another BB system that hasn't been mentioned is vBulletin  Yes it costs a few lives to pay for an unlimited license (like $85 /year annually, or $160 forever + $30/year for upgrades after first year).  I think that vBulletin may even better suit our needs because yes you have to pay for it, but there are features you find in there that you can't find anywhere else.  Things like adding your own [BB] Code tags (like ActionScript or PHP or what not).  You can even do things to members, members areas.

I know that if the admins asked me if I would help purchase an owned license for $160 (or 2 for $320 (1 for each sub-domain)), I would help and pay maybe 80 or so bucks for it.  Another thing to keep in mind, is that if we decide to set it up so that there are two autonomous boards, I think vBulletin would be willing to work with us to help automatically get premium users onto the free board.  Of course, someone could always work on a script that checks two different databases for usernames and passwords and email addresses.... ( I may do this tomorrow or today... seems easy enough).

Just some thoughts for you all to sit on....

~Brett

[Ronald Wernecke]

Thanks Brett for giving it so much effort.

I dont think it makes sense to run two systems paralel. All the mentioned boards hav a dedicated rights system where you can assign access rights to usergroups.

It is not only the board we have to watch, we have the front page, the tutorials, the library in futer maybe the life chat room and maybe more to come.

I like, how this discussion develops ideas

Lets collect them in a new thread. This one grows too much

[bpat1434]

Well, I wasn't suggesting that the parallel systems be the way we go, it was just an option of a brainstorm.  And in a brainstorm any idea is a good idea.  It was a good idea until I actually tried to do it.  You could have the registration process done w/o the forum, but then updating a premium members profile would require them to do it twice.  So, kudos to me for thinking, but then take them back cuz it wasn't that good of an idea.

Onto the Front Page
Personally I think that the front page is a little too boxy.  While yes it is very straight forward and puts information at the fingertips of the user, I don't think that it shows the greatness of Flash.  Maybe when this site was started (Yes vesa, I read your history. A++), it was meant as a way to show what flash could do that others would think near impossible, but not it is out dated.  The use of a Flash frontpage is non-existant I think.  If we do wish to have it, I think it should be an option, and should be something that would really kick @$$ and be really cool and eye catching.  Perhaps integrating 3-d effects/designs with curves and colors would be great.

But the front-page I believe should be there to direct people to where they want to go, and the best way is to have something that is like BAM!!, it's loaded.  To me, in my experience, straight HTML used to be the fastest without any style, but now CSS is here and makes it possible to do that.  I think the blue color scheme works, but we can do a lot more.  If you look at my site, you can see how it can really be worked to show what it really is: http://www.bpatterson.net.  Also, all the sites I have listed below my sig (which is huge I realize) are all done in CSS.  The only images are contained in the CSS document, and the pages load quickly.

My best page so far is: http://www.umbcmamasboys.org.  That is really my "baby" and I had fun doing it.  I turned it over to someone else now, but I set it up initially.  You can even see my presence on the php and css forums (phpBuilder.com and csscreator.com).

So if you all need any help with CSS and xHTML I'd be willing to offer it.

~Brett

[bpat1434]

Modify button didn't work....

If you were to ask me at this moment what the easiest to implement BB system was, for no more reason than offering "subscription services" I would say vBulletin:
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/
In the left hand pane it's about 2/3 of the way down.  You'll see:
"Paid Subscriptions"

The vBulletin Subscriptions system allows you to charge your visitors for access to specific areas and services that you may offer.

In general, this is achieved by temporarily making a subscribed user into a member of one or more specific usergroups, which have access to the site areas or services for which they have paid.

Just some extra information

[Mohsin Sumar]

With vBulletin having the paid subscription feature and integrated payment gateway - this should be good enough.

Though, it might be quite expensive having $160 as the initial payment and seeing less than 1% become premium members and pay $2 per year. <-- Just a thought!

Regarding using the other boards - they have user groups and you can define access to them. So we can have hidden boards accessible by premium members and not by free while premium can access both. So I disagree in using two separate boards for two separate user levels.

It would also be good to work on Flash-dB BB and we could market that too.

The frontpage would be good to have flash again - as the site goes - "Flash" "dB" - may be Jeffs way of naming it that way and showing it on the main page was a good idea. Flash can be ported to a dB - and he showed that.

However, we might have a certain problem if we're going to use Flash Player 7 to export our files too.  It doesn't state regarding the 7th version of the player here but just the player - http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/