Insane Difficulty: The state of insanedifficulty.com - Insane Difficulty

I'd love to move everyone over to a forum setup that is more mobile friendly, more secure from spambots, has access to people able to do maintenance, and... actually allows people to register.

There are a few concerns:

1: What would be in place to prevent 'new' ID from becoming deprecated if the main people that run it lose interest in maintaining the site?
2. How would we be able to do the move without causing a significant split in the community?
3. What would happen with the 'archives'? Old discussions/polls/user IDs and all that.

Perhaps a new name that implies the dedication to hard mods/rebalances in here, or a slogan that gives it away along with a completely new and original name, is what Kaffe could've meant. (I'm drunk right now, so I could be misreading a bit) And of course, a new site that comes with it, so that we can actually have the new members to add up to the content in here, whether it is by posting about their LPs, or their ideas for possible mod updates... We'd be the same difficulty (or rebalance) loving community, although faces will come and go sadly.

Nowea, on 16 October 2016 - 02:06 AM, said:

1. The details of how it would be done must be discussed, of course, but in not so many words, it can't rest on any one person. We need a handful of skilled-enough people to help out maintaining the site, and if someone leaves, that position is open and should be filled. You get the gist.
2. Naturally, we would need the actively developed mods to move there as well, as the community is based around them. If I get Darkkefka and BTB and Synchysi and Hart-Hunt and the other modders to come onboard, the people interested in the development of their mods will find their way to the new site. It's the center point and any move would be moot without it.
3. Nothing. It will remain here until Archael shuts down the site in one way or the other. We could scrape all information and save an archived version, of course. Something to look into if a move actually happens.

Regarding possible community split: The only thing I can think of that would lead to a split is if Archael gets stirred and decides to work on ID actively again. In that scenario, I guess we make some demands on maintenance (basically, that more people with enough know-how need administrative privileges) and then close the new website. We don't have a community issue, we have technical issues. I've been pointing it out for such a long time that I no longer can sit back and wait, is all. I wanna be where the community can live and thrive, I have neither interest nor room for any drama.

Laith, on 16 October 2016 - 02:16 AM, said:

Yeah, I just want to save what we have and give it a chance to grow, but without unnecessary hassle. The new site can be named insanedifficulty.net instead of .com for all that I care, even if I have opinions on that matter as well. I would prefer a name change (Insane Difficulty is Archael's legacy, don't want to step on that), but just changing .com to .net or .org works just fine, if another name would alienate people. If we use a new name, then it will be clear in one way or the other (slogan, small description on the front page, a "history" sub-page or whatever) where the community came from and that it is a continuation of it, just not under Archael's lead.

All I can say is: Let's make sure we have something in place in time for Secret Santa.

Or we could make a new site somebody's Secret Santa gift.

Kaffe Myers, on 16 October 2016 - 03:51 AM, said:

Kaffe Myers, on 16 October 2016 - 03:51 AM, said:

Sigh. I hate it, but that's simply the case here. I love ID, and I don't want it to change, but as you said, this is a technical issue, not a community one. The fact that Arch hasn't even said a word in this very thread so far, speaks for itself. Hell, I've messaged him on Discord a while ago about some other matter and I didn't even had a reply.

It's not easy in my head, but we either do this, or risk losing the community altogether, because right now not even new members can register to the forums.

Hell, we can't even know what the new users think because they can't register to the forums. Here's what one of them has to say, he's asked me to copy paste this. Just so anyone can voice their opinions. If any user with no accounts wants to do the same, you may find me on Discord.

Yuyu (MeiYukiZero) said:

I have scattered thoughts around user behavior and a trend towards short attention spans but none of those relate to solving technical issues. So those go towards an editorial for another time and place.

I have no real attachment to the name of the site. Insane Difficulty has value as a brand though I can't say for how much longer until the first thing that people associate it with is "registration doesn't work." Having a .com site is valuable for a commercial site since that's what will come most readily to people's heads. As a fansite, we can be more flexible with regards to domain names.

Now I as type this out, it occurred to me that if solving the technical issues involves moving the site (so to speak), it's appears better to change the name. Thoughts? I'd be happier if the maintenance here was up to snuff and there's no incentive to move but there's been much waiting already.

I'm pretty much in full support of what Kaffe wants to do. It's not the best solution. The best solution is to have Arch either fix ID or hand over the ability to fix it to someone who can fix it. But if new people can't even register or post, then the forum is essentially dead. New traffic is what keeps the community from stagnating imo.

I think it's pretty safe to say that the place would be extremely dead without our use of Discord as a tool to actively communicate.

I'm not sure what I can really add here, but I agree with the points presented here.

The Discord chat is nice for giving instant quick feedback on things, and for just generally hanging around.
But it's harder to have a long term discussion on something there as opposed to the forum where we can have whole threads for specific topics.

And there is the main big problem here of new people not being able to even sign into the forums now, which is limiting the amount of fresh feedback we can get on mods.

I don't want to just jump ship from here if it can be helped, but I think at least some kind of temporary sub-domain would help until things are fixed back here.
But as Hart-Hunt said earlier, the main draw of this website is the mods themselves, and we would need the active modders to be on board with the move for it to really work.

Insanerdifficulty.com?


In all seriousness, the possibility of moving to a new site is a discussion worth having. I wonder what the logistics are of making something new...I know its possible to code your own site but there are also templates for forums out there. There are also hosting fees and such to take into account. I don't think the fees are extreme but we would have to think on how to get funding for this.

I'm sure i'm missing some stuff here, these are just my thoughts on the situation at the moment.

As for funding, I'm thinking of pitching in myself from my own pocket to make sure this is kept alive. If this is how we finance the site, then I will probably add a donation-button somewhere if people want to help me fund the site (making it totally optional). This will of course only work as long as I feel like paying, alternatively if people actually feel like helping out. A yearly plead might work to ensure people know that nothing comes for free, someone always has to pay (albeit not very much in this case, if we only talk about hard cash and not the work behind the site).

In shorter words, don't worry about funding just yet. I'll take care of it initially if it comes to that, but any help is of course welcome (but in any case, monetary help can wait until we have a working site in place). I will also see if I can create something myself with the help of some pre-made forum software that I tweak to our liking. I've made homepages in the past, I would be surprised if I can't throw something together myself. However, if it just so happens to be that I can't create a satisfactory alternative myself, there are, as you say, more options out there that we can look at. Just keep in mind: less work usually means that one needs more money to keep the site going.

Now when the discussion has started for real (thanks everyone! All input, even redundant, is welcome as it shows support), motivation to actually do this is creeping up on me.

I am more than willing to chip in in any way that is needed being time or money. More likely it will be money since I have no website development knowledge

I'd be willing to pay for, create, and host the website, no problem. I'd rather not remake the website, though. That seems a bit extreme. I'll call Archael tomorrow to see what we can do and also get more involved with the back end of the site.

I don't really feel like I have much to add that hasn't been said, but since it's been mentioned to me that an important part of whatever ends up happening is getting the modders on board... I'm down for whatever.

FFTA, on 17 October 2016 - 04:26 PM, said:

Looking forward to this.

FFTA, on 17 October 2016 - 04:26 PM, said:

It's only extreme if current ID is in active development. I off course think it is best if ID remains, as long as it works!

Great news!

Agreed. All hail FFTA.

FFTA, on 17 October 2016 - 04:26 PM, said:

I was hoping for a post like this, which is why I was holding off making a real post on this topic.

A big thanks from everyone.

Contacted Archael. We are working on a new captcha, as clearly the old one is having problems.

I forget what forum, but I know there are quite a few that require verification from an Admin before the user can join. If we can't get a working captcha it may be the only option.

Any ideas are welcome!