So where to now?

Since it's more or less been said that these forums are going south permanently soon, where are we going to go?

In many ways, I won't miss this forum, primarily because of the Resident Bashers forum and it's never ending 'just ignore...' thread that will FINALLY die. However, the building, texturing and especially scripting forums have always tended to attract a higher-than-a-prim IQ type of poster, and those sections of this forum will be missed (by me at least).

The new Resident Answers forum doesn't seem to have a specific scripters section, and while it is feature rich with some neat stuff, like the ability to branch threads, it's also clunky, slow, and it posts threads backwards (go figure), not to mention it auto-subscribes you to the thread that you have to manually unsubscribe from (that's a super pain in the ass). Probably the best feature to it is that it seems to actually be moderated, and it looks like LL bashing and flame wars are going to be out (thankfully). However, I'm already seeing some of that, but there are warnings being issued too.

In the end, I don't think that it will be a good spot for a scripter specific forum, so what's the plan? Does anyone have any ideas?

You're looking for volunteers to admin a script forum? Well I think I'll pass because it's not really my thing, last time I made one it ended with lot of porns spam (not even good) then i took it down. I could eventually host one but it could be only temporary, since I'm going to use the spare site I have soon and there are better solutions available anyways.

Now if you are just looking for ideas, I'd suggest something like this:

http://www.swordofthenewworldwiki.com/page/Quests+-+Level+32

As you can see it's a wiki + it allows for comments and discussions that go to a forum (not a blog).

So it's a forum+wiki, exactly what we need imho.

honestly, I think many of us long timers will quit (a few have already because of the impending doom), some will gravitate to places that already have a decent LS user base, and a few will try to deal with the disaster that is the blogorums...

I think the amount of helpers and questions in any of those place (or any newly started ones) will never get up to the level of this forum, because LL won't be directing traffic to it.

me, I've considered moving to the blogorums (masochist much? uhuh)... I've even considered setting up a forum (but I'm more of a technician than a manger, though I had some ideas for signing up for it via SL)... I really enjoy the content forums, but at his point I don't know...

I'll probably make a wiki page for the portal, for people to list helpful forums, so that perhaps that at least would drive some traffic towards the people that can help.

No, wasn't looking for admins. Just was wondering what a good spot for content creators to go since the new Resident Answers blog/forum thingy doesn't look like it's going to cut it. Honestly, if I had more time/money, I'd setup a forum on one of several sites I'd probably have (if I had the time). However, the point of the topic was to just throw out the question as to what we're going to do after the forum here dies.

Like the idea of a forum/wiki too though.

Unless a definitive announcement has already been made and I've missed it, I'll wait until one is made before considering my future forum - or whatever - afilliation.

And after a definitive announcement is made I'll wait until it's implemented before I abandon Scripting Tips.

I'm kinda reluctant to make specific plans based on speculation.

My guiding principle will be to go where the best advice can be found, whatever the format. I guess I'm old enough (in RL) to have gone through many changes to many things that directly and closely affect me to know that I'm adaptable enough to cope with it.

The Content creation forums will probably be preserved in some way.

http://develop.secondlife.com/?

I'm going with Pete on this one too.
But I still visit other forums anyway.

I agree with Pete. I've seen too many great ideas come and go in my lifetime to get panicky about yet another upheaval, although I will definitely miss these content forums when Armageddon comes. I can easily say that I have learned more here than anywhere else in my SL years, and have enjoyed being able to trade ideas with a pretty smart crowd of creative people. SL's new blog just doesn't cut it, I'm afraid. So, until someone actually pulls the plug, I'm staying right here.

No strong feelings. Following Jesse Barnett's suggestion a while back, I headed over to SLU (which I like because a lot of my SL friends hang out there anyway), and I can see their scripting forum getting pretty good if it attracts sufficient regulars. I really don't like the blogorum (if the cool formatting features include a way of formatting code, I can't see it, for example), but I'm content to wait and see and hope they've forgotten about us.

Yeah, I tried out SLU but didn't care for it. It may be the best of the choices out there, but it's not much of a substitute for this forum, IMHO

Yup. I see no advantage in thinking lots about where to go next while I'm still relatively comfy here.

That said, I'm reluctant to venture outside secondlife.com so it may turn out to be blogrums or go poof, if LL forces it to that.

When these forums close, it will be the end of my participation in any kind of SL-related forums. No other forums out there so far look particularly inviting enough to bother. Probably will make people happy anyway. <.<

I should mention I intend to stay and fight it to the bitter end... it aint over until I can't post

Yay, Void.

so of course on the next post after that one I got "wesite could not be found" and my eyes went big... looked over... the cable modem had reset..... those woulda been some ironic last words...

No doubt! LOL. Yeah, I plan to stay here too. Maybe if we could convince LL to just shut down resident answers (since that's the name of the blog forum now anyways), and keep the content creation forums up here. It would be a better place, and we could continue on indefinitely.

honestly... I expect they'd just move down here... as they did when general discussion went away...

what I'd like to see if the content fora preserved, AND some actual moderation put in place

be nice if they also fixed php/code tagging at least, but I'm not holding my breath for either....


honestly I can't understand why LL would want to kill these fora... it's something they've been trying to avoid lately (outsourcing things to locales not under their control)

guess we'll just see what happens. :hrug::

Selfish much?

maybe... but with a point... LL's general distaste for the forums here is twofold... they don't want to license a newer version and keep doing so plus have to tweak it so much to make logons work with it without exposing security holes.... but they've also made comments about the negative image portrayed in some of the sub fora (like RA) and feel it's too much effort to moderate (because people that do tend to burn out fast).... Johan's suggestion deals with the last half... (as LL has had very little trouble with the content subfora)

all they need to do is just kill the automatic password generation here, and let it have it's own separate password to fix the other problem. why they didn't implement that, I have no clue.

Hooorahhh! "They're going to kill the forums" comes to the saner backwaters at last.

Now, for the hard of thinking - you know who you are - the 'blogrums' or whatever you want to call them are NOT just used for Second Life Answers and the likelyhood is that most of these forums will be MOVED to that software, not just closed down. And discussion IS allowed.

When LL closed the XStreet forums they added the 'Commerce Forums' section on the Clearspace software alongside their own blog-channels and the infamous Second Life Answers. A lot of the old forums were not implemented because they were meant to be provided by these when they merged. They never have though, possibly - don't laugh, it could happen - because even LL have noticed how crap the blogrum software is. So, chances are there will be Linden blogs, Second Life Answers (discussions not allowed), Commerce Forums and ... well, who knows. Content Creation (with the same sub-channels as here) would be one option. No idea what LL will do about Resident Answers, although I notice that the language there is usually a lot more temperate than in the blogs, especially in Commerce Forum where discussion is allowed.

That's what happened to the XStreet forums and what LL said they intended to do with these. That was, of course, all meant to happen "real soon now" (a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ...) so Wallace's impending blog about the future of these forums might spell out something different.

ETA: Oh, and the editor is the very worst thing in that sorry mess of software known as the blogs. It's hard enough to type prose, let alone code. Also note that you can only see the post to which you're replying and none of the rest of the thread.

As somebody who's recently been browsing through SLA and asking/answering a few questions, I can definitely say that they are no more well-behaved than we are. They are less self-moderating and when moderation is needed, the LL-defined process is to "contact Lexie directly."

/me points at https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/7822 and https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/7828.

For those of you who are or were considering Second Citizen, there are Content Forums over there:

http://secondcitizen.net/Forum/forumdisplay.php?f=9

I know they are not as dense with content as here, but they are there if you want to use them.

oh, I saw... I've actually been over there more than a bit on my other account... felt it was better to start raw to look around. You're saint in my book, I'd never be so charitable with certain people.

on the better side code IS printable over there now, if you happen to know how (the blue insert ">>" symbol) although it's god aweful, since it inserts   for EVERY space greater than one (and then tacks on an extra space for good measure) and the viewable space is tiny thanks to the fixed format, plus 40% of that being eaten by useless link clutterbars that belong in top menu and avatar clutterbars...

I intend to stick with these until they're dead. But I bet they will die.

So, let's start to plan. I've seen two suggestions so far:

sluniverse.com
secondcitizen.net

Any other contenders? After we get a good list of candidates, I'll post a vote. Nonbinding of course, but if there's a clear winner, that's where I'll be likely to go. I won't bother visiting a number of them.

SL has a good wiki already, so there's no issue there. But a wiki is different than a forum. We need both.

Lear, you might add slapt.me to your list.


If you're going to check out Second Citizen, just be warned that the sign up works like this:

- register for an account
- start a new thread under the "Ellis Island" forum
- get an avatar picture

Those two steps eliminate most spammers.

If you don't want to post to Ellis Island, just register and send me a PM, and I'll tell one of the admins that you're a real person.


If you sign up at slapt.me, you will have to validate yourself inworld after registering the account.
.