New dedicated blitz forum - any interest?

I've been reading about classic alternate Blitz forums vanishing and I thought I'd pass this proposal.

I'm willing to set up a blitz only related forum to include Forums, Gallery, Code Archives, Worklogs, file hosting, live chat.

I am serious about this if there is genuine interest and it would not be a cowboy here one day, gone the next venture. I have plenty of bandwith and drive space available so the set up cost would only be for me to purchase a domain name and link it to my current hosting.

If you are interested or have any idea's on what you would like to see then please post away.

As mentioned, I am serious about this and would not mind putting in the work getting it all together if there is genuine interest.

What?

Which part don't you understand puki?

I own blitzcoder.net and this is something I have been thinking about.

I have plenty of bandwidth, disk space but lack the full knowledge on how to go about setting up a website like BlitzCoder.

Amon, knowledge is no problems, I do this sort of stuff for a living :)

I was thinking that perhaps it was time for a new dedicated forum where everything was in one place, easy to do and not heavy on the moderation side (ie, a real off topic section for members).

If there is interest I'll do it :)

You just got my vote! ;O)

Arrrgh! Lost my post! Rassum frassum...

Okay short (and probably a lil abrupt - sorry!) version:

- Combine your efforts with DevCrunch.
- If you would rather remain independent in your contributions, rather than creating more unofficial forums (that imho would spread our community too thinly) I suggest you use your other suggestions (Gallery, Code Archives, File hosting, Live chat) to patch a hole in the Fabric Of Our Community® - and help ensure the success of your efforts.

Either way, thankyou for the thought, if nothing else. :o)

Do you have any examples of your work?

It could be interesting, but my worries are comparible with the blitz IDE: 'in the end you keep using the supplied one' ... (well, for some ppl :P)

I dunno whether ppl want 2 forums or one 'total forum'

I actually think a better option would be for you to volunteer for this forum, for example to take over moderation duties. Perhaps add sections here and there. It seems that current mods are mainly Blitz developers who should actually keep on developing, rather than moderating every peanut away. If someone could take over that task..?

The alternative, your own forum could be nice, but has disadvantages:
- many ppl still prefer one forum for everything, and as ppl get their updates here, interaction with BRL concerning bugs here.. I dunno if ppl would just go to a 2nd forum.
- you need quite a lot of ppl before ppl will accept you as a big/major forum
- you need BRL ppl on your forum too then.. would they do just that?

People want Off Topic. You build that and they will come.

Im here for support, HTML coding, general graphics.

I was talking about doing this sometime ago and people got their panties in a bunch with talk about "This site is fine and no other one is needed".

PSshhh. I've been morning the loss of BlitzCoder since that aweful day. And PLENTY OF YOU GUYS HAVE TO!

In short...
I'm all for it.

If you need any help, give me a shout. Skills I have include:

* PHP
* ASP
* MySQL
* CSS
* HTML/XHTML
* Javascript
* XML
* Graphics

I agree with CS_TBL; I like to only check one forum.

I built and still maintain (admin) one of the most popular model railroading forums on the net. Nothing blitz related, but it's been going strong for over 2 years - "All Model Railroading" (google it). Currently at 1050 members. I've used that as an example because it shows that I'm not in it for 5 minutes before getting bored.



That would be idea, but I doubt any BRL staff would be associated with any other forum which they have no control over. However it would be good, even in an un-official capacity.



Game Boy, I'd be interested in graphical skills to give the place a unique feel. If you are interested the please email me (addy in my profile).



That is what I was wondering about, but I feel a new forum could be worth while if it is done correctly and people feel it is not a 5 minute venture.

The only reasons to setup alternative blitz forums are;
1) You love warez Kids
2) Your name is Noel or Red

Thats a bit short sighted H&K. These forums as an example are missing a proper search system, PM system, a way to view the new posts in one go, ability to ignore members they dont want to hear from etc etc.

*edit* can not upload their media / files for others, but instead have to rely on 3rd party hosting. Some complain about missing off-topic and heavy moderation.

There are many reasons for an alternate place. I have no intention of supporting warez kiddies at all.

LOL @ H&K

[on-topic]

Great idea as long as it gets feature rich, and not in the long run, but as soon as possible.

One thing to add there should be [code] and [codebox] tags with highlighted functions.

there are a lot of things missing from these forums and I'd be willing to frequent one if it had more general discussion.

I actualy really liked the old blitzcoder, something like that but better organised with some of the unique content that blitzcoder used to have would be great.

proper articles, tutorials, code showcase with and gallery with comments and searchable criteria like source avaliable with showcase would be nice.

Interested to see if anything comes of the thread

..go and make it a live..I'll be there..

IMO Noel and Red were/are OK, and maybe even another forum if it's HQ enough population and content wise. Showcase gallery type of addition would be good?

File hosting would be nice for people who don't have their own.

would prefer to stick to one forum, i.e. here.

Just out of curiousity, what is wrong with the current gallery, code archives, and worklogs? Seems those are just reinventing the wheel as I haven't seen too many complaints about those sections. As for live chat, I would think most people prefer a chat client (IRC, aim, etc) rather than a web-based chat client for 'idle' chit-chat with fellow blitzers. Out of that list I would think file-hosting would be the most welcomed addition.

DevCrunch seems to be making a blitz-oriented forum. Why make another?

"All Model Railroading"

I'm looking at a stock VB forum. What part of it did you "build"? I hope you don't plan on using one of those bloated php portals.

> DevCrunch seems to be making a
> blitz-oriented forum. Why make another?

Why make another? Because many people seem to be disillusioned that the magic words of 'blitzcoder' are going to instantly recreate the good old days of blitzbasic community.

Not gonna happen I'm afraid. Making more new forums is just gonna segment the already existing community into fewer partitions. Surely it's better to have all the people in as fewer forums as possible (ie Don't make any new forums)

I agree, there's nothing wrong with joining devcrunch, it's a forum that already exists, why not use that instead? Instead of complaining about aliased edges on a cube logo.

You mean the aliased edges on the cubes in the devcrunch logo?

2 weeks ago I moved it over to vbulletin but the original had lots of modifications, additions and bridges that were hand coded. So granted there are no visual additions yet.



I won't be using bloaty things no. Why? are you interested or are you just curious about how it will work?

I always think when I see someone setting up a new forum/site is 'why would someone use it?'. I find that the only real reason for people going to other forums now is :
a) if the site has something special to offer (already, eg. a big archive of code etc.)
b) they are not registered here (for some reason!)
c) the site already has a sizable population who can offer help.

I'd like to see blitzcoder back, but only if it brought it's history with it (which ticks off a).
I think Devcrunch is a good idea as it was first off the blocks when CW went down.

I'm not trying to discourage you, it's a free world, if you go for it then best of luck.

How exactly are you going to be able to stop "warez Kiddies"? You have no access to sales information or the such.

Magic :)

Oh, well in that case.......

Couldnt you just magic these forums to be better...
And can you magicup Max3d.

some things I'd like in the BB forums, are a showcase gallery, with searchable fields like source included, demo, game, utility etc, and the ability to leave comments.

The gallery should also allow people to leave comments and constructive critisism.

Public forum with general discussion, so people here can get to know a bit more about one anothers interests. And so that developers that have no interest in coding and do not actualy need to purchase Blitz products to make use of them, can.

At the moment we have a showcase forum, but things soon get lost after a couple of weeks of inactivity, and the search features are awful.

ANother thing would be a checkbox that allows you to recieve notification of replies to threads you are interested in following.

These are all pretty basic community building things that are missing from BB forums, I'm sure there are a lot more, those are the immediate ones that I miss daily.

The only thing I do like about the BB forums is the lack of clutter in the design and layout of the pages. No big fonts and overuse of graphics outside of the threads themselves.

Remember, a lot of links in Blitzcoders showcase section (The old one) were pretty much dead ends. Make sure there's a 'report a broken link' thingy in there! :)

Oh, and for a lot of people, which sometimes refers to me, a 'with or without source' notification will be nice, sometimes, I like to see how somethings are done, like car physics etc etc

Make sure theres a search feature in your 'code archives' section too, god knows why BB.COM havent included it yet!?!

The old Blitzcoder was great, with some great coders, theres two I can fondly remember, Vic-e-babes and theChange. They bent over backwards to help me grasp games creation, and spent a lot of time explaining tilemaps, physics, collision detection, and all that malarkie. Sniff, nearly brings a tear to the auld eyeball.

Mumbling on... I think BlitzCoder (The old one) worked because people didnt need warez, the old Blitzbasic demo didnt have a time limit or uses limit on it, people could spend forever playing with the language without ever needing to actually create an executable. And if they did make something half decent, they were'nt scared to share their source, everyone was a winner! :D

Right, there's my two pence, and good luck, I'm heading back to Imperial City to fix some armour, and somehow sneak into the prison to kill that blokey for the dark brotherhood!

(Honestly, Oblivion has totally ate my life, which is nice)

Bye Bye

Dabz

You can count on me for graphics, php, html, mysql, css (somewhat), java, visual basic (though I dont know why that would be needed of all things) if needed.

I sent you an e-mail Qube.

Thanks - I'll be in touch soon with more info if thats ok? :)



Thanks for the offer :)

I've decided that I will go ahead and see how it turns out. If there are any more idea's on what you'd like to see then I'd be interested to hear.

I'm well aware it could be a dead zone if there are no members, but I think it's worth a shot.

I am not in favor of a new forum: I prefer to check only forum rather than 2, or 3... And it is not a good idea to divide a small community like ours...

Will the forum look something like this?
http://www.blitzcoder.com/worklogs.shtml

Not really, no, I'm not copying the look of it. There will be smilar features though.

Well if you are going for it I guess I can throw out a few ideas:

- some sort of community version control (Subversion perhaps) to help maintain community led projects. For instance, having a repository for max physics with a person in charge of maintaining it. and the community can submit changes/additions to get merged into it. Then anyone can just checkout a working copy and always be up-to-date.

- Maintain a catalog of links to finished (free or commercial) blitzplus/3d/max games. It'd be nice to see see a growing list of actual games made to completion for blitz. If anything, it'd help motivate those to finish their own.

Maybe have a game portal showcase section that allows people to show their games with links to where they can be bought.

What's the story?

Anything happen with this?

Yes Puki, I have bought a domain name, attached it to my hosting and have almost finished creating the site.

It'll be pretty feature rich on its launch and additional features will be added via community requests as it grows.

Interesting how everyone is still awake in the UK tonight - I've just polished of a bottle of vodka and a bottle of Pale Rider, now moved onto a JCB. I guess everyone else is drunk too and watching News 24.

If you are doing it per gratis and the site really is gonna be that good why not offer it to BR as a replacement JV?

I'm not in favour of splitting the community but I too would like to see a real `off topic` forum - just like (err.. almost like) there was here.

Hey I'll join :D Sounds like a good idea to have offtopic, better searching and uploadings etc.

Good luck :P

I'm also available for graphics

> Maintain a catalog of links to finished (free or commercial) blitzplus/3d/max games. It'd be nice to see see a growing list of actual games made to completion for blitz. If anything, it'd help motivate those to finish their own.

I like that idea, Alex!

Good luck, Qube - what is the domain name, if we may ask? ;)

Yeah cmon I wanna post already ;)

The domain name is www.syntaxbomb.com but its not available to public viewing yet :)



Soon... I'm twiddling and testing at the moment but it wont be long now before its ready for abuse. I'll also be changing and adding as it goes as no doubt members will want extra things :)

Hmm, Qube, I must frankly admit that "syntaxbomb" does not sound like a programming forum, much less a Blitz-related forum..

I second that.

Well, the name is a bit, erm, weird for a Blitz forum, but hey, he's doing all the hard work for us, so let's not start complaining! :)

Dabz

Its not that wierd, I mean it has syntax in it? Good enough for me.

Yeah, its a weird name which is why I chose it. I didn't want to call it blitz<whatever> incase it all fails so I can use it for something else entirely.

Nice plan! :D

Dabz

I like it. "Syntax" clearly indicates programming of some kind (to my geek mind, anyway), and if non-Blitz people trip over it, perhaps they can be convinced to jump on the bandwagon. :o)

Cmon Qube whats the latest news?

The latest is that BT have cut off my broadband so I'm doing things bit by bit over slooooow dial-up (when I have the patience) :(

BT assure me my broadband will be back on Friday. Going from 8mbit to 56kbit is the worst thing possible on the internet.

All being well it'll be ready for use sometime over the weekend.

I have the opposite, regarding Tiscali! I've went fat-piped again, and I've been waiting for a ADSL fault on my line to be fixed. Unreal it may sound, but they have spent 158 hours (at present) on the matter, with no clue yet what's wrong!

We can send men into space, we can send men thousands of meters below the oceans, man can split the atom...

But for some strange reason, mankind cannot fix my faulty phone line!

Unreal! :/

Dabz

BlitzCoder.com was great as a second outlet for Blitz talk and showcases.... also they seemed to get more game submissions than this site did. I think it was because the showcases were better organized.

I miss that site so of course I vote yes!

also IMO, blitzcoder.com was a better site than codersworkshop

It's Live!!! www.syntaxbomb.com

I've lots more to do yet, but the forums are up and runing and ready for abuse :)

Tomorrow I'll sort out the homepage news posting for members to announce their goodies. After that we'll see what the requests are for features.

I've registered! Wahoo

Nice looking site Qube, very whitey bluey! :D

Going to post one request though, which to me, is pretty important to me!

Dabz

hehehe..I'm in there too :)

aaaaaaaaaaaaaah... an Off Topic forum.

Qube, you should start a new thread stating your site is open, also, bang it in your sig!

Dabz

blimey it's vBulletun - looking good though, looks very professional the minute you arrive!

SyntaxBomb? ah well it's different that's for sure

Members: 278
Threads: 1,199
Posts: 10,875
Top Poster: Dabz (2,173)

Welcome to our newest member, HotteHC

(that's me!!) (only kidding)

Warez kiddies, endless submarine pictures by Red Oktober, and ten billion crazy posts each day by Powermousey. That's what anyone who sets up - or contributes to - an unofficial blitz forum can look forward to.

Plus, there are already plenty of alternative forums out there on the interweb.

hmmm interesting that a fully respected fella like GfK is on there, I think that says a lot for that site, why are you really so against it Luke?

Powermousey hasn't been there in months - he got himself banned. Anybody who is found to be using warez copies of Blitz will end up getting banned. As for submarine pictures, they're few and far between.

Syntaxbomb has been up and ambling along quite nicely for over a year now and is run by respectable people. I'm starting to think that there isn't much on this planet that JustLuke *does* like. Its not the alternative site for bb.com drop-outs and warezers that JL seems to want it to be.

Powermousey is littering the nuclearglory forums now with his "body building" and "drinking a lot of water, I am very healthy!" shit right now.

Now that just hurts my feelings. I like you, GFK. But, yeah, I'm a hateful little monkey.

Syntax: 4. Computers. the grammatical rules and structural patterns governing the ordered use of appropriate words and symbols for issuing commands, writing code, etc., in a particular software application or programming language.

Bomb: Crap loads. Exploding with.

Syntax + Bomb = Crap loads of code, languages. :)

>Formally Trooper Dave

Don't you mean 'Formerly Trooper Dave' as in previously you were known as Trooper Dave?

He does that wherever he goes. In fairness to JustLuke, warez kiddies and PowerMousey can be the downfall of a forum. More so powermousey. I think the guy is delusional and has serious social problems. That and he gets on me last nerve.

Qube - I say go for it. If it's like blitzcoder it'll be great...something I liked about that site.

He already did, more than a year ago when this thread was started. :)

www.syntaxbomb.com