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Whats the (non technical) difference between radio.tmunderground.com and tmunderground.com/radio?
Server Move
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Ken White
, May 28 2015 07:06 PM
43 replies to this topic
#22
Zeke365
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Posted 19 June 2015 - 02:21 PM
will we have a rating system like PG, PG-13 sort of rating system for the movies, plus the five stars and comments as well and will certain movies be one channel like The MOvies movies in one section, moviestorm in another and iclone in another?
#23
Ken White
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Posted 19 June 2015 - 02:49 PM
Whats the (non technical) difference between radio.tmunderground.com and tmunderground.com/radio?
From a user perspective, not a whole helluva lot. Since, in 90+% of the time, the user will be either following a link (internal or external) or using a bookmark to get to what they want, the actual URL of the site (movies.tmunderground.com vs. tmunderground.com/movies) is unimportant. Though as Riley said, movies.tmunderground.com is better visually and is more "nifty" than the alternative.
From a site perspective, probably the biggest thing is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). And that can be huge. Because each subdomain is, literally, a separate website, Google (for example) treats each as a separate website in the way it ranks pages, responds to queries, etc. So rather than one Tmunderground site, there are multiple. all showing up in the search results.
I know how SEO works, more or less, but haven't really spent a lot of time on it with the existing sites. But going with subdomains is the best move for visibility in search engines. In the real world of community members, people will normally go to the tmunderground.com landing page and then go where they will (movies, forums, etc.) or they'll use bookmarks/browser suggestions based on history/whatever to go directly. Since everything will have backlinks (so when you're on the movie site, there are easy links to the forums, radio, whatever), the more exposure of each individual part of the TMUniverse translates to more exposure of the whole.
Didn't understand half of what Riley said, but I've done subdomains off the tmoaradio site a few times for community members who wanted their own website (usually for shows) and it's pretty basic and easy. The only place there might be an issue (though probably not) is my desire to incorporate movie site comments into the forum. Hopefully the IP Board API will handle that without issue (pretty sure it will, but that requires more research than I have time at the moment).
After I finish here, gonna put together the blueprint of what we want to subhosting, and I'll pass that along here for discussion and/or community suggested revision.
#24
Ken White
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Posted 19 June 2015 - 03:04 PM
Check out the Viewshark (movie script we'll be using) demo at http://demo.viewshark.com/ (btw, that's a subdomain in action :001_tongue:) to get an idea of what's available out of the box. They have better channel functionality than we have now (for example, in the ability to sort by director channels or in our case, engine channels), and all the existing channels will come over to the new script - obviously at that point, it's all about massaging them, as well as adding new channels.will we have a rating system like PG, PG-13 sort of rating system for the movies, plus the five stars and comments as well and will certain movies be one channel like The MOvies movies in one section, moviestorm in another and iclone in another?
As for a rating system (whether for age appropriateness or opinion), they don't have the ability to flag a movie as "adult" or whatever, like we do now, but that's all but useless anyway in terms of actually keeping people from seeing every movie on the site. A signed in user can put down any age they want and the system accepts it, so it only really affects people who aren't signed in. If people want it as a "guideline" that the director can stick on a film, we can probably add that as some metadata that's added to the film when uploaded, and display it. Though one man's PG13 is another woman's G...or R, for that matter. All subjective. We are not the MPAA.
Out of the box, they seem to have a thumbs up/thumbs down rating system (thank you, Facebook). We can almost certainly change that and put in a star system or whatever if wanted, though there're a good number of people who don't give a rat's ass about rating. The meat is in the comments, and yes, they have comments.
#25
Johnny Ex
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Posted 20 June 2015 - 12:18 AM
I like stars and ratings, in fact I think an abundance of positive ones should warrant some kind of positive ''reward'' even if its a ''featured'' film or whatever.
5 star hobos are a thing of the past, that said, yeah keep that goin if possible.
Editors choices and film of the day/week/month/year/decade are important things on a buncha levels.
Voting systems yada yada, keep the competetive current state of affairs in order methinks.
Just opinions here.
5 star hobos are a thing of the past, that said, yeah keep that goin if possible.
Editors choices and film of the day/week/month/year/decade are important things on a buncha levels.
Voting systems yada yada, keep the competetive current state of affairs in order methinks.
Just opinions here.
#27
Ken White
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Posted 20 June 2015 - 03:36 PM
I do agree with both of ya's - thumbs up/thumbs down are very binary, very black and white. Good/bad. No in between. No three stars, with some good stuff, but some problems. Is that thumbs up or thumbs down? And if up, how does that reflect the problems? Are you recommending a three star movie with your thumbs up?
So the rating system is probably something we're going to have to look at in the development phase, before deployment, when we're just playing with it off the grid, so to speak. I still, personally, don't pay a lot of attention to simple ratings, whether stars or thumbs, on TMU or on YouTube or anywhere else (even Facebook, for that matter - likes on a newsfeed post don't mean squat). But if we're going to have a rating system (which has been discussed to death here), then it needs to reflect the rater's opinion properly.
(Btw, just a thought - what if we removed ratings entirely, and just went with comments - movie and comments, no thumbs, no stars, nuttin. Would that matter? Would you care, as a viewer, as the filmmaker?)
We will certainly have featured films of various kinds - right now, Biz handles that stuff because he has the interest, time, AND good taste, and he's certainly welcome to continue that role with the new script - certainly I have none of those attributes - Sharemixer also has a Feature request flag, which is hidden under the Flag/Interact tab for each movie. It's little used (only slightly more than the flag inappropriate function - last one flagged as inappropriate was one of Harb's Passion Comp Promos in 2013, for some unknown reason...), though both flags (pro and con) are anonymous, so there's no way to tell who's complaining and who's proclaiming. Not sure if Biz even looks at those things.
Viewshark has an inappropriate flag, but no "feature" flag that I see - probably wouldn't be hard to add one - but we'd need to make people aware of it, so it gets some use. (and to be honest, looking at the backend demo, I don't even see where you can see the inappropriate flags...)
So the rating system is probably something we're going to have to look at in the development phase, before deployment, when we're just playing with it off the grid, so to speak. I still, personally, don't pay a lot of attention to simple ratings, whether stars or thumbs, on TMU or on YouTube or anywhere else (even Facebook, for that matter - likes on a newsfeed post don't mean squat). But if we're going to have a rating system (which has been discussed to death here), then it needs to reflect the rater's opinion properly.
(Btw, just a thought - what if we removed ratings entirely, and just went with comments - movie and comments, no thumbs, no stars, nuttin. Would that matter? Would you care, as a viewer, as the filmmaker?)
We will certainly have featured films of various kinds - right now, Biz handles that stuff because he has the interest, time, AND good taste, and he's certainly welcome to continue that role with the new script - certainly I have none of those attributes - Sharemixer also has a Feature request flag, which is hidden under the Flag/Interact tab for each movie. It's little used (only slightly more than the flag inappropriate function - last one flagged as inappropriate was one of Harb's Passion Comp Promos in 2013, for some unknown reason...), though both flags (pro and con) are anonymous, so there's no way to tell who's complaining and who's proclaiming. Not sure if Biz even looks at those things.
Viewshark has an inappropriate flag, but no "feature" flag that I see - probably wouldn't be hard to add one - but we'd need to make people aware of it, so it gets some use. (and to be honest, looking at the backend demo, I don't even see where you can see the inappropriate flags...)
#28
Zeke365
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Posted 21 June 2015 - 03:10 PM
I do have suggestion here that I like to see on the one the new server. Right now all the movies are compiled into one not say we could keep this way but I like to see a section on movie engines for example if one wanted to look up only The Movies games movies they could look they could search the engine for The Movies and all movies made using the movies would be up there same for iclone and moviestorm though I suggest just keeping the engines that have the most movies in the filter in then add to them.
We will have that type of engine it would have the ability to have top favorites from the movies, recent, etc. and all this featured in each filter then have one where all is combined into one.
The reason I suggest this is because say if someone is working moviestorm or The Movies then can see what types films have been made and how to utilize it.
what are your thoughts on this?
We will have that type of engine it would have the ability to have top favorites from the movies, recent, etc. and all this featured in each filter then have one where all is combined into one.
The reason I suggest this is because say if someone is working moviestorm or The Movies then can see what types films have been made and how to utilize it.
what are your thoughts on this?
#29
Ken White
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Posted 21 June 2015 - 05:24 PM
I'm all for giving community members the ability to use the site anyway they choose, and none of the stuff you mentioned would be particularly difficult to design and implement. We can do most with metadata, and if we add a field for movies on upload, or do it through tags, it will be easy enough to sort movies by engine, etc.
I am, however, reluctant to do anything that divides us and segregates us by the software engine we choose. TMU is all about the philosophy that it's NOT the engine, it's the movie. Platforms generally have their own forum communities, so people can go there if they want to be surrounded only by others using their chosen engine. That isn't what we're about.
The only gray area engine is The Movies. We are, for all intents and purposes, the only game in town if somebody wants the fellowship of other The Movies users. This community came from The Movies, and after Lionhead shut off the old games forums, including The Movies, we became pretty much it (I know Mort's Dead Hamster site provided some limited support to TM users, but it's undergoing a redesign and relaunch that seems to be taking quite a while. It was supposed to relaunch during E3, which is over...who knows when it will be back).
So I always have The Movies in the back of my head, and understand the need to go the extra yard for the platform. But I have to balance that with the need to remain true to our philosophy of inclusion and focus on film, rather than engine. Once the new movie script goes live, and we have the opportunity to see what it can do out of the box, and what needs to be changed.
I am, however, reluctant to do anything that divides us and segregates us by the software engine we choose. TMU is all about the philosophy that it's NOT the engine, it's the movie. Platforms generally have their own forum communities, so people can go there if they want to be surrounded only by others using their chosen engine. That isn't what we're about.
The only gray area engine is The Movies. We are, for all intents and purposes, the only game in town if somebody wants the fellowship of other The Movies users. This community came from The Movies, and after Lionhead shut off the old games forums, including The Movies, we became pretty much it (I know Mort's Dead Hamster site provided some limited support to TM users, but it's undergoing a redesign and relaunch that seems to be taking quite a while. It was supposed to relaunch during E3, which is over...who knows when it will be back).
So I always have The Movies in the back of my head, and understand the need to go the extra yard for the platform. But I have to balance that with the need to remain true to our philosophy of inclusion and focus on film, rather than engine. Once the new movie script goes live, and we have the opportunity to see what it can do out of the box, and what needs to be changed.
Edited by kuroken, 23 July 2015 - 03:02 PM.
#30
Ken White
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Posted 25 June 2015 - 03:39 PM
Okey-doke, here's where we are...
Talked to Ivan this morning - he's just waiting for his main Sharemixer guy to get back from vacation, since he'll be directing the movie site move to the new servers next week. He'll be back, I believe on Monday, and Tuesday we'll have an answer to the whole subdomain thing mentioned above (and in my email to them here)
Ivan says the servers will be ready and deployed by Monday, so everything will be ready for the data move in the middle of the week (which should be pretty quick, since it's all
in the same datacenter - no internet to slow it down...)
When we get to "Move Day", there will be some downtime, on both the forum site and the movie site. I first lock it all down, then move the databases to the new servers, then unlock it. And we wait a couple of hours while the new domain/IP propagates. I checked out moving the forums from the existing domain (www.tmoaradio.com/vb/) to forums.tmunderground.com and that shouldn't be a problem. Most of the database stuff is done with variables, so plug in the new domain/location, and the database will be happy.
The larger problem that I'm thinking about is external links (i.e. outside the TMUniverse) - since I'm keeping the tmoaradio.com domain (obviously - it's my main email domain), it should be easy enough to put in a forward, so when one clicks an older link, it automatically forwards them to the new forum subdomain, so at least they get to the right place. Whether the link itself remains good, and they go to the thread or post they want, I can't say at the moment. Probably a way to do it, but that will take a little research.
I'm not exactly sure, though, how external links to TMU movies are going to work, since the movie script will be moving into a subdomain of its own, not at the top level of tmunderground.com. That top level, as I said, should be the landing page, so to speak, for the TMUniverse, with an overview of what's happening everywhere in TMUland. So I can't just do a straight forward from tmunderground.com to movies.tmunderground.com. It's something that's going to require a little thought (and probably some guidance from Ivan's crew).
So that's where we stand - everything is moving along, pretty much on schedule. Once we're moved, and everything is working properly, it should be time to move on to phase two - new movie software, new forum software - in the middle of July, with the forum software deploying pretty fast and the move software deploying sometime in August, I would assume.
After we're moved next week, I will probably want to do the forum reorganization, so it's in the format we want before we change software. And I'll be looking for suggestions and opinions. But more about that when we're moved and things are working....
Talked to Ivan this morning - he's just waiting for his main Sharemixer guy to get back from vacation, since he'll be directing the movie site move to the new servers next week. He'll be back, I believe on Monday, and Tuesday we'll have an answer to the whole subdomain thing mentioned above (and in my email to them here)
Ivan says the servers will be ready and deployed by Monday, so everything will be ready for the data move in the middle of the week (which should be pretty quick, since it's all
in the same datacenter - no internet to slow it down...)
When we get to "Move Day", there will be some downtime, on both the forum site and the movie site. I first lock it all down, then move the databases to the new servers, then unlock it. And we wait a couple of hours while the new domain/IP propagates. I checked out moving the forums from the existing domain (www.tmoaradio.com/vb/) to forums.tmunderground.com and that shouldn't be a problem. Most of the database stuff is done with variables, so plug in the new domain/location, and the database will be happy.
The larger problem that I'm thinking about is external links (i.e. outside the TMUniverse) - since I'm keeping the tmoaradio.com domain (obviously - it's my main email domain), it should be easy enough to put in a forward, so when one clicks an older link, it automatically forwards them to the new forum subdomain, so at least they get to the right place. Whether the link itself remains good, and they go to the thread or post they want, I can't say at the moment. Probably a way to do it, but that will take a little research.
I'm not exactly sure, though, how external links to TMU movies are going to work, since the movie script will be moving into a subdomain of its own, not at the top level of tmunderground.com. That top level, as I said, should be the landing page, so to speak, for the TMUniverse, with an overview of what's happening everywhere in TMUland. So I can't just do a straight forward from tmunderground.com to movies.tmunderground.com. It's something that's going to require a little thought (and probably some guidance from Ivan's crew).
So that's where we stand - everything is moving along, pretty much on schedule. Once we're moved, and everything is working properly, it should be time to move on to phase two - new movie software, new forum software - in the middle of July, with the forum software deploying pretty fast and the move software deploying sometime in August, I would assume.
After we're moved next week, I will probably want to do the forum reorganization, so it's in the format we want before we change software. And I'll be looking for suggestions and opinions. But more about that when we're moved and things are working....
#31
Ken White
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Posted 30 June 2015 - 05:10 PM
Today's update -
The servers are in place and are undergoing load stress testing. Assuming there are no issues, tomorrow or Thursday we'll have some downtime on both forums and movie sites as I put them into maintenance mode, to freeze the databases, then move the databases to the new server. (So when you see we're in maintenance mode in either place, you'll know the final part of the initial move is in progress)
After that, we'll have a couple of weeks to shake it all out - find anything that's not working, etc. - then on the 15th of July, assuming Social Security tosses money into my bank account, I'll buy the new forum software and movie site software, and away we goooooo.
The servers are in place and are undergoing load stress testing. Assuming there are no issues, tomorrow or Thursday we'll have some downtime on both forums and movie sites as I put them into maintenance mode, to freeze the databases, then move the databases to the new server. (So when you see we're in maintenance mode in either place, you'll know the final part of the initial move is in progress)
After that, we'll have a couple of weeks to shake it all out - find anything that's not working, etc. - then on the 15th of July, assuming Social Security tosses money into my bank account, I'll buy the new forum software and movie site software, and away we goooooo.
#32
Ken White
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Posted 03 July 2015 - 03:00 PM
Servers are up and running, I have the login details (though there's currently nothing on them as they figure out what will be going where, based on anticipated server load, etc.). Still hashing things out with their tech guys, answering questions and so on. You can check out the actual details in the Nitty Gritty thread if you're interested.
It may take a couple of days, since our needs are kind of complex compared to what we have now, but it's in motion.
It may take a couple of days, since our needs are kind of complex compared to what we have now, but it's in motion.
#37
Ken White
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Posted 12 July 2015 - 09:42 PM
Will check with them in the morning - God only knows what they had to do to get the movie site from the tmunderground.com domain to the movies.tmunderground.com subdomain. My guess is that's the problem, the amount of work and possibly rewriting of code.
Will let everyone know what I find out tomorrow morning.
Will let everyone know what I find out tomorrow morning.
#39
Ken White
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Posted 13 July 2015 - 01:22 AM
Okay, TMUnderground.com is back up, though it will probably go down again later in the week when everything is moved - though hopefully that downtime will be shorter.
As for why it went down, I believe they were "fiddling" as they figure out where things are going to go between the two new servers, and possibly fiddled with the wrong thing, or didn't reset something when they were done fiddling.
The right kind of fiddling:
As for why it went down, I believe they were "fiddling" as they figure out where things are going to go between the two new servers, and possibly fiddled with the wrong thing, or didn't reset something when they were done fiddling.
The right kind of fiddling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-Mj1mZiDRc
Edited by kuroken, 13 July 2015 - 12:36 PM.
#40
Ken White
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Posted 16 July 2015 - 06:22 PM
Latest from Subhosting in the nitty-gritty thread. Basically just hashing out the final details of what goes to what server. Though my need for CPanel to actually manage this easily (which I apparently hadn't made clear to Ivan in the quote phase) is going to add another $60 to the price, so $430 instead of $370 - a glancing kick in the 'nads, as they say, but still within my means and I'll grudgingly pay it.
I have a couple more things to say about them concerning tmoaradio.com (which currently holds the archives of TMOA - though once we make the software move for the movie site, all of the shows will be moved to that, so people can stream or download them as they choose) and a couple of my own sites that he didn't mention, but it looks okay to me at the moment. Still need a little time to digest it and think about it.
I have a couple more things to say about them concerning tmoaradio.com (which currently holds the archives of TMOA - though once we make the software move for the movie site, all of the shows will be moved to that, so people can stream or download them as they choose) and a couple of my own sites that he didn't mention, but it looks okay to me at the moment. Still need a little time to digest it and think about it.
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