2381

Technology & Information / Re: Steam on Linux

« on: December 04, 2013, 02:07:09 AM »

libatiuki.so.1 is provided by the non-free AMD video driver. I would recommend using the open-source driver unless you know you need the proprietary one; AMD cards actually have very good open-source driver support. I use it myself with Steam.

Also, upgrading to jessie shouldn't pose a problem for your use case.

2382

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Use CloudFront for serving static content

« on: December 04, 2013, 01:56:51 AM »

I was under the impression CloudFlare's main benefit was denial of service protection, is that not their primary product or is that just a result of what they offer?

The thing with CloudFlare is that they have several "main benefits" that are roughly equal, rolled into the one service. You can use it as a CDN with no DDoS protection at all, or you can use it to keep attackers and spammers away without caching anything. You could even just use it as a DNS provider and nothing else (although that would probably be silly).

Anyway, I've gone with Amazon in the end. So far, I've set up tfes.org in Route 53 for DNS; later, I'll switch that to being our primary domain name. At some point, I'll then be setting up CloudFront backing onto this server for the CMS, the wiki and the forum's static content; as well as CloudFront backed onto S3 for the Flat Earth Library.

2383

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Set up New Relic server monitoring

« on: December 04, 2013, 01:46:49 AM »

That looks like something you have to pay money for.

You don't have to, although you get more features if you do.

2384

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Set up New Relic server monitoring

« on: December 04, 2013, 01:37:52 AM »

Whats new relic?

https://newrelic.com/

2385

Announcements / Re: Comments wanted: Switching domain to tfes.org

« on: December 04, 2013, 01:23:53 AM »

The only thing is that it's handier, I think, to have a domain name that's quite obviously related to the FES. People are more likely to chance upon "flatearthsociety.org" than "tfes.org", and, like Thork said, it affects the Google rankings, which is important as well.

Sure, but we can redirect any number of domains (including flatearthsociety.org) to whichever one we choose as the primary domain. What I'm trying to work out at the moment is which domain should be the primary one, and I like tfes.org because it's short.

2386

Announcements / Re: Temporary admin appointment for Lord Dave

« on: December 04, 2013, 12:30:36 AM »

Until then, please calm down.

Get a sense of humor, super high and mighty super administrator.

I was referring to Thork.

2387

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: The Lounge

« on: December 04, 2013, 12:28:31 AM »

PizzaPlanet will be de-admin'd as soon as I have no use for him anymore. He is a complete disgrace.

2388

Announcements / Re: Temporary admin appointment for Lord Dave

« on: December 04, 2013, 12:19:02 AM »

The only reason Lord Dave specifically was selected for this role was that he's online a lot, and in an appropriate time zone to cover all bases. This is by no means a permanent arrangement.

I'm hoping to discuss a permanent forum staff structure with PizzaPlanet this weekend. Until then, please calm down.

2389

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: The Lounge

« on: December 04, 2013, 12:13:16 AM »

This was intentional. While there is good reason to hide CN/AR from guests, I think opening The Lounge to guests gives better visibility into the fact that it's not all srs bsns here on FES. It's not like those guests can't just register an account and read those threads anyway.

I'd like to gather more opinions on this before we make a final decision, so unlocking.

2390

Announcements / Temporary admin appointment for Lord Dave

« on: December 04, 2013, 12:06:52 AM »

Just a heads up, Lord Dave has been temporarily admin'd to help us approve new users until we get proper spam filtering sorted out. This means we have one admin in each of America, Europe and Australia, which should cover most timezones and minimise wait times for approval.

Thanks for offering to help out, Dave.

2391

Announcements / Re: Comments wanted: Switching domain to tfes.org

« on: December 03, 2013, 11:23:53 PM »

I'm going to go ahead with the switch to tfes.org in the meantime. There's no sense waiting three weeks for a new domain we might not get.

In the event that we do get it, we can always switch again.

2392

Announcements / Re: Comments wanted: Switching domain to tfes.org

« on: December 03, 2013, 11:20:18 PM »

Its worth the wait.

We've loads to do in the mean time. Please lets go for that if its not extortionate.

No, I'm just going to do absolutely nothing on this site for the next 18 days.

2393

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: "newbie", "jr. member"

« on: December 03, 2013, 11:18:38 PM »

I can't help but notice there isn't a lot of society debate on issues here, Parsifal? Can't you just admin and let the society discuss and choose in which direction it goes?

I am just admining. Making this change involved a setting in the admin control panel.

This is when a thread should be locked.

2394

Announcements / Re: Comments wanted: Switching domain to tfes.org

« on: December 03, 2013, 11:16:41 PM »

Looks like it is open for 18 more days.

I was hoping to have the domain issue sorted long before then.

2395

Technology & Information / Re: Adobe pushing McAfee crapware

« on: December 03, 2013, 11:12:20 PM »

It always boggles my mind when people use proprietary bloatware and then act surprised when this kind of thing happens.

2396

Announcements / Re: Comments wanted: Switching domain to tfes.org

« on: December 03, 2013, 11:10:01 PM »

I see 'flatearthsociety.org' is up for auction.  Parsifal, I don't know how you feel about it, but I'd be happy to bid if people think it would be better.

Seems like everyone else is in favour, so if you get that, I'll configure the web server to use it. My main concern would be the length, though; since I want to use subdomains for different sites, forum.flatearthsociety.org is getting quite long.

2397

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: "newbie", "jr. member"

« on: December 03, 2013, 06:51:50 PM »

I don't want this place to be exactly the same as the old FES. There were lots of things that needed improving.

If there's one thing we don't need more of, it's recognising people for the number of times they've spammed The Number Game, which is what post counts often amount to. Post quality, not quantity.

2398

Announcements / Re: Help wanted to make this place better

« on: December 03, 2013, 06:48:34 PM »

Also, if people want more traffic then maybe we should make a video with the site's link and start posting it around. People could write up the script while someone else is the spokesman.

As long as other people are writing the words for him to say, I nominate Thork as the spokesperson.

2399

Announcements / Re: Help wanted to make this place better

« on: December 03, 2013, 06:36:04 PM »

I've put a list of things that need help for the CMS site in the CMS thread.

2400

Announcements / Re: Intention to set up CMS homepage

« on: December 03, 2013, 06:28:27 PM »

Okay, so I've updated the theme and worked out how to use Blaze Blogger a little better:

http://cms.theflatearthsociety.sjm.so/

What I'd like here is:

• an About blurb that isn't just lorem ipsum;
• preferably, an About page with a little more detail;
• an introductory blog post explaining what this site is about;
• a theme that isn't just me dicking around with a generic theme for half an hour to make it look vaguely FES-ish.

I can probably do the first three myself after a bit of sleep, but I'll happily take contributions from others. The last one I'd really like Tintagel to do, but since she doesn't come here anymore, I'll take any volunteers I can get. I suck at web design, as you can probably tell from that page.


Edit: And before you ask, there is a robots.txt protecting this page, so it won't get crawled by Google until we decide we're ready.