Ongoing Site Upgrades

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Ares
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Posts: 4963
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:40 am

Ongoing Site Upgrades

Post by Ares »

Hey folks. I dropped the ball recently regarding some attempted upgrades to the site. I did all of the communicating via Discord when many folks here don't use the Echoes Discord, and I apologize for any confusion and my lack of communication. I'm going to rectify that now.

So as everyone saw, the site went a bit pear shaped for a day. The reason for that is that I'm having some guys test out how easy it is to implement upgrades for Echoes. Depending on how smoothly they go from here, I may attempted similar upgrades in the future, or I may undo the upgrades and leave Echoes as is.

Right now I'm attempting two relatively simple upgrades to the site.

1) Spoiler Tags. This is one that's been requested for a while now, and if successful you'll be able to create a spoiler code that hides content unless you click on it. You'll even be able to title the spoiler block if all goes well.

2) Google AdSense. This will be the more controversial one, but I want to look into seeing if I can get the site to effectively pay for itself in a way that does not cost any of you anything. There will be non pop-up ads or anything of the kind. This will function more or less exactly like RPG.Net where there's a relatively small, thin bar in a mostly white space underneath the "Board Index" button. It will take up a small amount of space and be easy to scroll past. The ads will also be generic Google ads, though I will look into possibly customizing the ads to be more RPG/geeky if possible.

While the option to donate to the site is available (see my signature), I'm hoping this will be a way for the site to pay for itself. I don't want to do things like have some kind of fundraiser or e-beg, because I don't want anyone to feel obligated to contribute to this place's upkeep. I made this place to keep us together and be a place where we can have fun, not to be a resource drain on anyone. That said, if the ads are too intrusive and actively distract from your enjoyment of Echoes, I will get rid of them immediately.


So that's the deal. The guys I have working on the site should have everything implemented within the next day or so. There shouldn't be any major board disruptions like yesterday, but you can never tell with coding. If things go smoothly enough I might look into other features such as a custom board banner, or even open the board to voting on what improvements you'd like to see made. But if it's too much of a problem, we'll just revert to how things were before and things will be business as usual.

I appreciate your patience, and just ask that you continue to be patient just a little longer so we can get a feel for how things turn out, and then go from there.
"My heart is as light as a child's, a feeling I'd nearly forgotten. And by helping those in need, I will be able to keep that feeling alive."
- Captain Marvel SHAZAM! : Power of Hope (2000)

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mrdent12
Posts: 4215
Joined: Sat Nov 05, 2016 8:10 pm

Re: Ongoing Site Upgrades

Post by mrdent12 »

No worries mate. In software deployments a million things can go wrong. I've worked projects where a new printout was added and it broke everything. Glad the site is around really.
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