I'm working on things.. Requests?

[xpl0siv]

Hello.

As some of you may have noticed i've been doing a bit of work on bombshock.

Mainly working on having the forums sustain themselves memberwise.. i.e. the forums posts generate interest and clicks from searchengines which then feeds more members and discussion. I've been doing a lot of reading through the forums and there are some very interesting topics, and the funniest thing is that everyone has grown up so much from back in the days when bombshock started.

I thought that it was a great time to put up the bombshock forums archive from back in 2002. some very amusing threads. see my announcement in that forum.

Apart from that, i've installed a very good SEO mod so that your posts will rank much higher in the search engines.

Basically, i've got a bit of time on my hands at the moment and i'm keen on getting as much stuff done while i can.

Please post all requests, suggestions and the like in here - include URLs of mods if you think they will be of use.

Cheers!

Xpl0siv.

[Beyond]

Can you please answer me email? Lol, thanks. That was my request.

[Kaos-theory]

yes a decent way of contacting you would be excellant!

[xpl0siv]

Well, the best way is via PM.

The reality is I havent had teh time to put into bombshock

And I do now.

As for me selling bombshock. NO. I've owned bombshock.com since 2001. It is part of me. I love it and as far as money goes its priceless.

As for making Synch a administrator, or anyone else for that matter. I appreciate the offer, but again, no. sorry.

I'm keen to see an influx in visitors and activity and for everyone to elect some more mods. - i'll be around to admin so as far as i see it. things will be a lot more active.

Xpl0siv

[Random]

X, a question for you:

What plans or dreams do you have for BS? Where would you like to see it go? I'm sure that any ideas or goals you might have, would act as catalyst for suggestions from the body of members, including myself.

Also, on a side note, what are you doing with yourself these days?

[xpl0siv]

Ok,

Basically I see three routes for the forums and for bombshock as a whole.

1. Let the forums run their path - as I have been. Members come, members go, moderators do their thing.. blah blah.

2. Generate more traffic to forums and let them be. Basically we will have another case of why the forums were pulled offline when they were. wars with other forums, dos attacks, fuckin annoying new members etc.

3. Refine the forums. Generate new members through SEO of forums and additional attractions to bombshock. Expand on philisosophies and thoughts sections. Encourage debate. Lead away from bombs and explosives. Leave that to rogue sci. indulge in drug debate and experiances sharing. Encourage free distributiuon of related documents through forums-integrated file distribution. Private forums for members who've "earned their stripes". Move toward interests, hobbies and entertainment - all strictly real world stuff. i.e. no computer games or anything like that as always.

As for bombshock.com the entire website. It is, and has always been an ongoing project of bits and pieces that i like to work on or experiment with. It has always been sort of a personal site, with service elements.

As for me.

Well! thats another story. Been seeing the world. doing a lot of travelling mate, Riding bmx as always, drinking, built a few big projects actually. finished my lifelong dream of building a full suspension offroad buggy powered by fzr 400 engine. Doing a bit of shooting, 4wding as always. basically living out my life. there is always work as usual.. As for now, i've hit a bit of a quiet spot in my life. not quiet like i have nothing to do, but i'd like to shape and grow the forums into something useful for many people.

thats about it!

I'd ask how you, and eveyone else is, but i've read most of the posts everyone writes and i gather everyones more or less well apart from the usual ups and downs. Plus i would like to keep this topic on track.

Cheers,
Xpl0siv

[-inefficiency-]

Hey X, good to see you're around.

Heres a thread that may be of interest:

http://bombshock.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=472

I heard something about a moderator forum, but no mods can see it except Synch. Dunno whether you want to make it visible or not, but it was worth mentioning.

[kbk]

X, it's good to see you around again . Glad you're going to put some time into the site again.. By the way, just as a random question, what do you do for work?

[xpl0siv]

cheers guys.

Yes guest posting is not the best idea.

will disable now.

will look into moderator forum.

As for work kbk.. bit of this, bit of that....
mainly freelance web design - coding, internet marketing stuff. ocassional bit of building/engineering. i run a few affilliate websites, as in, i am an affiliate and get paid for referrals.

Erm.. help out at nodoze networks where i can.

Xpl0siv

[Random]

Haha...apparently I'm not allowed in the moderator forum...

Still a work in progress, I'm guessing?

[practicaljoker]

hey X,

bombshock is filling up with people and some are messing with forums( mods ur doin a great job) in my opinion i think it would be a good idea so you just cant add yourself to the forum. some one has to invite you. because you know theres always some dick out there that wants to always mess things up for attention.. well its just a thought. think about it if you want.

[Beyond]

Liking the phpbb setup X. You won't be disappointed using it.

[Random]

Originally Posted by practicaljoker

hey X,

bombshock is filling up with people and some are messing with forums( mods ur doin a great job) in my opinion i think it would be a good idea so you just cant add yourself to the forum. some one has to invite you. because you know theres always some dick out there that wants to always mess things up for attention.. well its just a thought. think about it if you want.

I understand what you are saying, but I would consider it to be the job of the moderator to remove any troublemakers from their forums. Continued abuse would require X to ban them, since the moderators can't do that. Fortunately, X is around more often (apparently), and X can act as a moderator if needed anyway.

[Synchronium]

Originally Posted by Beyond

Liking the phpbb setup X. You won't be disappointed using it.

From a security standpoint, SMF is probably the best forum out there, but PHPBB is nice 'n' friendly. I used to use PHPBB until I discovered SMF, which is what I use now at Coffeesh0p.

[Kaos-theory]

How about some sort of warning system, refering to Points for say asking for certain things, and not searching before posting etc. and 100% points leads to a 1 month ban or something...

[DIzzIE]

With regard to the articles area, mayhap increase the width of the actual article column, as with all of the menus the textfile itself is unfortunately relegated to only about one fourth of the screen :-/...

Also, the current new posts/no new posts icons seem to me to be a tad counterintuitive. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the brightly-coloured icon signify a new post as opposed to the dull-coloured one (if that's not too much trouble to swap)?

[xpl0siv]

thanks dizzie.

I'll have this fixed asap

[James]

Would it be possible to separate the stickies from the main forum topic bulk?

I personally think that in some of the forums [pyro especially] it looks untidy with all the stickies just bunched up before the new topics; would it be able to just stick a divider between the stickies and new threads?

[-inefficiency-]

Good idea, I agree.

Just a horizontal bar across the screen seperating the stickies from the rest of he posts...

[Bahr]

I know that this is a old topic but I have a idea. Ive been seeing alot of people arguing you should put up a debate forum so people with problems can go off on their own and argue till they feel better. Thanks for listining X.

[Synchronium]

An interesting idea actually. Quite "Roman".

I say, if there's ever an argument brewing somewhere, take both members and put them in a debatre thread that only they can post in. There, they both argue unchecked until a specified date or say 10 posts each. Then, we all vote for the winner via some kind of poll and the loser gets banned. At least for a bit.

That's a well entertaining idea as well as removing the clutter from actual threads and weeding out the forum a bit.

If an argument starts and people do not want to take it up a notch, they both have to cease and apologise immediately or both face a ban.

Thoughts?

[General Grim]

Thoughts?

An incredibly stupid idea. Using a tool that's used as a deterrent for rule violations as a form of "entertainment" will make it lose any value it has. Why should only the loser get banned when the "winner" could have been the antagonist?

[Synchronium]

Because I respect the power of logic and argument.

If they're in that situation in the first place, both members would normally be looking at a ban. This way, if they're smart enough to argue their way out of a hole, at the expense of their opponent, they get to live for a little bit longer.

If the winner (and better arguer) is actually in the wrong, that means that:
a) He's a twat, so will probably piss someone else off sooner rather than later and end up in the same position
b) if the loser can't win an argument even though he's right, he's a moron and would probably be of little use to the community anyway.

It would also serve as a warning, since no one wants to be in that position. The more people piss others off, the more frequently they get threatened with a ban and have to work to avoid it, so even if the winner of one argument may have been in the wrong, soon enough he'll piss off someone with more arguing skills than an inanimate object.


That's not even touching on the entertainment factor.

[General Grim]

If they are in that position in a first place it could purely be a difference of opinion on a certain subject matter. To help make the following comprehensible I'll use an example:

Two people disagree about whether boxing is a martial art or sport, in order to settle their differences they start to debate. It's safe to assume that this debate would not be moved to the proposed forum because they'd both producing information for others to learn from. If however, they begin to insult each other rather than make relevant points then that would become a flamewar- which under your proposal would be put into the new forum.

So they flame, the more coherent person is never necessarily the winner as it's more likely to be the person who either:

1. Has the most endurance
2. Is liked more by the community
3. Is able to make the other person sound more stupid
4. Brings up more irrelevant points about the opponent's past
5. The most comical

As you also proposed a voting system this just further increases the chances of the person who is least liked (least liked by the majority, not necessarily the least useful member) to be banned.

So would it not make more sense to encourage debate and discourage flaming by warning both members of the consequences? If anything, by allowing members to flame freely inside a forum there will be more flaming going on as the general population will know that there's a 50% chance of them being on the receiving end of a ban rather than both of them being banned for flaming. I don't understand why any one would want to encourage it.

The system of both participants being warned/banned for flaming means that the moderators do less work, no new forum needs to be introduced and ultimately no flaming is prolonged. If someone pisses everyone off, then he should be banned regardless of having to enter into a mud-slinging competition with someone more logical than him first.

Touching on one more point:

b) if the loser can't win an argument even though he's right, he's a moron and would probably be of little use to the community anyway.

That's incredibly reckless as after a while there will only be a bunch of idiots who know how to flame well.

[paininvmuthafuckinass]

That's fine with me, I'm a genius and I can flame well

PS make the amount of characters in a post more or unlimited, seriously I'm sick of trying to post my carding textfiles and them being too long.

[Random]

If there was to be a debate / argument / bitching-wait-let-me-get-my-violin forum, it would be inappropriate to make it public. Appropriate intellectual debate is welcome on the forums, and thus it wouldn't need to be touched.

All that would be moved to a debate forum is bitching and crying that would be inappropriate for the general forums, and thus it would be inappropriate for general viewing. If it is inappropriate for the forums, why glorify it?

As far as I can be bothered posting, the only way to settle a dispute or to make a valid intellectual argument is not only to produce a detailed and coherent case, but also to support that case with third-party references as appropriate. If a person can't do that (and unfortunately, many of our members don't (or can't) ), then in the event of an argument they should be banned until they do learn to support their argument with third party references.

Regardless of what experience or qualifications one has in the real world, you're a nobody on the Internet. A PhD could be seen to be just as wrong as an 8 year old who can't spell any word longer than six letters. If you think you're right, prove it by showing evidence of other sources agreeing with you.

[S7@1T3D]

M aybe just a Flame lounge like rorta.net??

[Synchronium]

Ok, a private forum then, only accessible to mods and those arguing.

Then only mods vote, to eliminate favouritism and anyone else getting involved.

And Random, that's how I see this working. Not for stupid shit like the "Sport/martial art" scenario above, but things that can be backed up with the appropriate references. So if people want to start flaming each other about a particular issue, they better have the references to back them up. Unreferencable, subjective arguments could just be dealt with as they are now.

[General Grim]

I have two suggestions:

1. Remove all the stickies and create one main sticky per forum which links to the rest of them.

2. Trash forum, not for flaming, just to dump useless posts you may need later (such as evidence if someone's persistantly troublesome who denies his actions).

[Synchronium]

Originally Posted by General Grim

I
2. Trash forum, not for flaming, just to dump useless posts you may need later (such as evidence if someone's persistantly troublesome who denies his actions).

We've got one. Peons just can't see it.