I'm not opposed to each site hosting their own hub page. I'm not sure if that would be sufficent because it wouldn't really be any different then affiliate pages that we have now, thus defeating the purpose of doing anything in the first place.
General Ceel & Unity
I thought you meant as in will a specific site be the host for this hub as in server host
We could do both, having a central neutral site and the board-local mirror. Hell, we could have each board host their own banners, thus ensuring that at least that content is board controlled.
As for high bandwidth: www.dreamhost.com Just don't do anything very CPU intensive like hosting a message board on it. ;)
As for high bandwidth: www.dreamhost.com Just don't do anything very CPU intensive like hosting a message board on it. ;)
The pro of each site having a hub page is that each site can pick and choose whom they do and do not want in the hub. And you can have more than just a few in it (we currently limit our affiliate list for the sole purpose that it looks tacky to have more than say, 5 buttons -- we'd love to have more).
The con is, it's just like an affiliate page on any site; subject to the various keywords and search engine optimization that the respective owners see fit to install upon it. And a mirror is just doubling the effort IMO.
For Beff's sake, Let's not call it a Portal anymore. Let's call it a link directory.
http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/demo/
EDIT: I just looked around our host package and we can host an "add on domain" that I guess looks separate from us. And our host also offers a oneclick-to-install directory like what I linked above.
I know that sounds stupid since I just said I didn't want any one site hosting it, but my main beef was that I preferred it not be KNOWN that one site was hosting it. If sw-fans or TRF can offer the same thing from their host I would be amenable to that. Especially if it means that we don't have to get a whole new host. I'm really just throwing out ideas.
The con is, it's just like an affiliate page on any site; subject to the various keywords and search engine optimization that the respective owners see fit to install upon it. And a mirror is just doubling the effort IMO.
For Beff's sake, Let's not call it a Portal anymore. Let's call it a link directory.
http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/demo/
EDIT: I just looked around our host package and we can host an "add on domain" that I guess looks separate from us. And our host also offers a oneclick-to-install directory like what I linked above.
I know that sounds stupid since I just said I didn't want any one site hosting it, but my main beef was that I preferred it not be KNOWN that one site was hosting it. If sw-fans or TRF can offer the same thing from their host I would be amenable to that. Especially if it means that we don't have to get a whole new host. I'm really just throwing out ideas.
That's why I think it would be a good idea to have both local pages and the link directory. It does actually advance page ranks. It maintains a friendly affiliate system. The neutral link site is just that, a link site. It's got the advantage of being faceless and open.
That's probably more of what I would go with, but that's just me. *shrug*
If we do timeline and history descriptions for each of the boards linked, should we list only a timeline concrening that boards in character history, or should we also include a timeline concerning that boards out of character history, in other words, when the board was created, how it was created, etc?
Considering how several of the boards in question split off from other RPG sites (some under less-than-friendly circumstances), I think that idea has potential to stir up quite a bit of drama, even if it is unintentional. Besides, are those details really relevant ?
I just have one question...
...who the hell is Bob?
O.o
...who the hell is Bob?
O.o
I have a reseller account I could use to set up a hosting bit for this, if needed. My clients are not even getting close to taxing its resources.
I'm kinda mixed on the idea of having everyone host their own version of the directory, for several reasons.
1 - Lots of these boards are ezBoard hosted. Unless ezBoard finally came through with that promise that 'personal hosting is really close guys', it could be troublesome for the people hosting with ez to keep their page up. Just from memory, most ezBoard'ers had trouble keeping a signature online for longer than six months.
2 - Why would we want people hosting variants of a page? What advantage, other than letting them filter out sites they dislike, would it give us? There might be something to be said about possible Google pagerank gains, but I doubt it will be significant.
3 - What's to keep people from removing groups they don't like off of their list, thusly causing group #2 to censor group #1, and group #3 who's friends with group #1 also censors group #2... ... that's basically what we have now. I thought we were going for 'unity', not 'affiliates list on caffeine'. Sometimes unity means unwillingly associating with people you don't like.
I'm kinda mixed on the idea of having everyone host their own version of the directory, for several reasons.
1 - Lots of these boards are ezBoard hosted. Unless ezBoard finally came through with that promise that 'personal hosting is really close guys', it could be troublesome for the people hosting with ez to keep their page up. Just from memory, most ezBoard'ers had trouble keeping a signature online for longer than six months.
2 - Why would we want people hosting variants of a page? What advantage, other than letting them filter out sites they dislike, would it give us? There might be something to be said about possible Google pagerank gains, but I doubt it will be significant.
3 - What's to keep people from removing groups they don't like off of their list, thusly causing group #2 to censor group #1, and group #3 who's friends with group #1 also censors group #2... ... that's basically what we have now. I thought we were going for 'unity', not 'affiliates list on caffeine'. Sometimes unity means unwillingly associating with people you don't like.