The Future of the Unofficial ASL Forums

[Klaus Fischer]

Hi Don,

thanks for your comments.
First off, a big Thanks for volunteering to take the challenge of the merger.
Looking at the poll in this forum, it looks pretty undecisive, almost 50:50.
After reading your post I took the time and examined Warfare HQ a little closer than I did before (my appologies for missing that before :?

Very nicely done, lots of info, and a very good structure.
The forums itself seem to be pretty fast and look good - a little harder to find, but that's an solvable issue.
I don't know what will happen to the performance when you migrate 650+ users and 12.000 messages, but your system landscape looks fast

Eventhough we sponsored this site (the Forums), and I'm a moderator, we never interfered with Nats conduct of the Forums, and we will not interfere with the final decission. I think it is up to Nat, and off course to all the 650+ users - for what it's worth, you'll have my blessing.

Just a few comments:
* We should migrate the Alias (www.asl-forums.net) directly to the W-HQ ASL Forum (www.warfarehq.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=30) so people don't have to update their bookmarks, and find it easily

* I like your folders for VASL, Opponents, and Tourneys, and therefore suggest the following folder structure:
-General (646 Topics)
-Perry Sez (88 Topics)
-AAR (123 Topics + 33 from W-HQ)
-Rules (457 + 61)
-VASL (53)
-Announcements (194 + Toruneys ( 18 )
-The Depot (189) + Opponents Wanted (42)

I think these are **my** most important points, and I'm sure the others will add more

Once the decission is made, can Don and Nat contact me directly at fischers.design@tesionmail.de so we can discuss further HoB involvement?
Thanks

Klaus

 

[Chas Argent]

I like the idea of merging, and agree with Peter that it would be good to have one less place to keep up with. I think the Ladder and AAR formats of Warfare HQ are very appealing. We need a good Ladder, and Warfare HQ has it!!

Also, I've been going to Warfare HQ for some time now and frankly never even notice that there are other games there; you simply go to the ASL section. It's neither difficult nor distracting.

This is a great opportunity to merge two smaller ASL communities into one bigger and better one; I hope people can see the wisdom of that.

 

[ToxicShock]

I agree with Chas on this matter. I like the atmosphere over at WHQ and renewed my interest in ASL by helping out all the newbies. It certainly will become more interesting if the merger is approved.
A few questions I have are how will the profiles be merged? I have a different username/password profile on WHQ. Which one will take precedence and will I be informed of it?

 

[paul]

In the grand scheme of things I think both solutions have
good benifits for the ASL community.

That stated, I am slightly anit-merger. The major reason is that
having a number of forums allows each forum to take on its own
characteristics (i.e. personality). You know like being able to
read both Newsweek and Time.

I find that the technical details, humor, etc of the current HOB
sponsored forums match my interests closely. In addition I find
the noise to signal ratio is good.

For all intensive purposes we already have one merger with the
cost to use being put in place at consimworld.com. We will be
going from 3 major forum to just 1. I like choice and thus voted
to keep the current ASL forums as it (stand alone).

If the forum is merged, I would urge that carefull consideration is
given to the structure and number of channels available for ASL discussion.

One of the major issues I had with cosimworld was the inability to
follow discussion threads and the noise to signal ratio was terriable.

-Paul

 

[Dr Zaius]

Hi Don,

I don't know what will happen to the performance when you migrate 650+ users and 12.000 messages, but your system landscape looks fast

Performance should not be an issue as there are some massive VBulletin forums out there. Some of the bigger companies have some that have upward of 2,000,000 posts and 100+ users online at any given time. I don't see any way that we would ever even approach that.

We should migrate the Alias (www.asl-forums.net) directly to the W-HQ ASL Forum (www.warfarehq.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=30) so people don't have to update their bookmarks, and find it easily

Agreed. At an absolute minimum, we would leave a page behind pointing to the new link. Your way is better.

* I like your folders for VASL, Opponents, and Tourneys, and therefore suggest the following folder structure:
-General (646 Topics)
-Perry Sez (88 Topics)
-AAR (123 Topics + 33 from W-HQ)
-Rules (457 + 61)
-VASL (53)
-Announcements (194 + Toruneys ( 18 )
-The Depot (189) + Opponents Wanted (42)

Very similar to what I already had in mind. The aim would be to keep the existing structure more or less intact and improve from there.

Once the decission is made, can Don and Nat contact me directly at fischers.design@tesionmail.de so we can discuss further HoB involvement?
Thanks

Yes. This is Nat's decision, not mine.

 

[Dr Zaius]

I agree with Chas on this matter. I like the atmosphere over at WHQ and renewed my interest in ASL by helping out all the newbies. It certainly will become more interesting if the merger is approved.
A few questions I have are how will the profiles be merged? I have a different username/password profile on WHQ. Which one will take precedence and will I be informed of it?

The VBulletin importer can merge this type forum software (phpBB) with VBulletin v3.01. Since the forums are not identical, the script imports as much data as it can get for each user. I don't believe it will automatically combine two users, even if the have the same username (I could be wrong about that). In the event the forums are merged, what is more likely is that users with duel accounts would have to send us a message and request to have them combined. They would just have to tell us which one to keep and all the posts from the other one would get rolled into it.

I do think it is fair to discuss one other thing. I mentioned Armchair General Magazine earlier. For some time now we've been discussing the concept of sharing some resources with them. We're already sharing some of our articles with them and vice-versa. We have talked about the concept of structuring the forums so that our current military history and general warfare sub-forums become the Armchair General forums. What would that mean for our forum? Essentially, not much. The basic structure of the forums as you currently see them at Warfare HQ would remain in tact. The main difference is that there would simply be a lot more activity in the military history sections, and there would be both a Warfare HQ logo and an ACG logo at the top of the forum. Most of these guys are already wargamers anyway, but a few are not. This would help expose those people to wargames as well as ASL. This isn't a done deal though, as we're still contemplating the concept. Rest assured, if we do it, the forum structure will be a top concern! Warfare HQ will not allow itself to be submerged into some nameless corporate entity. No way. The forums will remain user friendly and oriented toward wargaming and military history. As someone already mentioned, a low "signal to noise ratio" is a top prioity for us.

 

[TankDawg]

Greetings from Baghdad

Hi Guys,

First post here or anywhere in about 6 months - pretty pathetic for a moderator of this forum. Hope you all are well. It is hot here.

Nat - congrats on life.

And what a small world. I am a member of HOB gang and facilitated the link between them and the ASL Forums. I have corresponded a lot with Mark Walker of Lock and Load and now the Armchair General. And before I shipped off to IRaq, I breifly corresponded with Don at Warfare HQ.

So what the hell is my point? These are ALL good people and perhaps a meeting of the minds will benefit all of us.

I am proud of what the forum has become. I always knew if the ASL crowd joined the 1990s and saw a good forum, they would realize the benefits of it, especially compared to non-user friendly and flame-filled mailing list and horrible thread format of consimworld. And the ASL Forums prooved that. Now we can not afford to squander this database of info. It is user friendly, searchable and an asset to the community. What ever preserves that is hopefully the route we go. The link to Armchair will bring in some new players - i am sure of that becuase of the broad audience it caters too. (on a related note, am teaching wargaming to as many soldiers as I can over here)

Klaus, thanks for stepping in and helping on this.

Let me know if in any limited capacity I can assist. If not, I still have power to delete posts and will delete you all.

PS - Klaus, can you 'promote' my avatar to 'CPT'? :lol:

 

[Gunner Scott]

Jeff-

good to hear from ya, how's that beat up old jalopy called the M1 Abrams running? Are you guys going to be boots on ground for the full year? If not, hopefully I'll see ya at ASLOK.

Arnt you were a PV2 going to PFC ? ; )

Congrats on your promotion to Capt!


Scott

 

[Chris Milne]

Good to hear you're OK, Jeff (and that you've got time to be teaching the noble art!)

 

[SamB]

First post here or anywhere in about 6 months - pretty pathetic for a moderator of this forum. Hope you all are well. It is hot here.

No, pathetic describes your play... 8) (I should talk).

Seriously, glad to hear you've kept yourself safe and sound and that you're getting some game play in. Be sure and let us know when you're heading back this way and we'll throw a party.

If there's anything we can do to help you or your family, feel free to ask. Please.

Thanks
Sam

 

[Nat Mallet]

Hi Jeff,

Nice to hear from you, and it's even nicer to hear you're safe.

And don't worry about the data on the Forums. They'll be online in some shape or form.

Nat

 

[Dr Zaius]

Re: Greetings from Baghdad

Hi Guys,

First post here or anywhere in about 6 months - pretty pathetic for a moderator of this forum. Hope you all are well. It is hot here.

Hey Dawg, sorry we didn't get to talk more before you left. Are you anywhere near Balad? That's where I was.

Keep your head down and watch out for those Camel Spiders and mutant Ants from Hell. They're a pox on humanity and must be destroyed!

 

[da priest]

Hmmm? Is WarfareHQ down or being worked on or something?

"There seems to have been a slight problem with the database.
Please try again by pressing the refresh button in your browser.

An E-Mail has been dispatched to our Technical Staff, who you can also contact if the problem persists.

We apologise for any inconvenience."

 

[Dr Zaius]

Hmmm? Is WarfareHQ down or being worked on or something?

The forum is doing fine, although there was a hiccup today that made portions of the whole internet unstable.

The regular webpage is being worked on and there is a big announcement to that effect on the main news page. We're doing a massive upgrade to the whole site in order to make it easier to navigate and more useful. It's a very complicated upgrade and it's taking us longer to update all the sections than we origianlly anticipated. Most of the regular sections are now fully operational, however you may encounter some broken links or weird graphics untill we get 100% of the new code uploaded.

I should also mention that we have changed most of our files to php instead of generic html. If you bookmarked a specific page within Warfare HQ, the link is probably no good.

On the subject of the potential merge, the poll currently seems to indicate a desire to stay separate. How scientific that is, I can't say. I will support whatever Nat decides.

 

[sgtono]

Vote for this forum to stay where it is

The main and only reason I voted for this forum to stay as is, as nice looking and informative the WarfareHQ is, the navigation of the site is klunky (this includes now and six months ago) and the log in process does not allow automatic login with cookies.

This forum at least in a one click URL, intuitive navigation (you have plenty of choices to get back to them main page or just the topic). It is not perfect and yes probably somewhat "old shoe".

Just did another visit of WarfareHQ, it could grow on me.

Keith

 

[Reepicheep]

Re: Vote for this forum to stay where it is

and the log in process does not allow automatic login with cookies.

I'm not sure this is correct... I almost never have to log in to WFHQ and I'm pretty sure it's a cookie based automatic login.

 

[sgtono]

Re: Vote for this forum to stay where it is

and the log in process does not allow automatic login with cookies.

I'm not sure this is correct... I almost never have to log in to WFHQ and I'm pretty sure it's a cookie based automatic login.

I stand corrected on that point

Keith

 

[pryoung]

You know, I can't help it, but I just can't get to where I like the WarfareHQ forums. I don't know if it's the interface or just the posters there, but the site just doesn't grab me.

If the merger happens, I suppose we'll adjust, but my vote is to stay here if given a choice. Just IMO.

Pete

 

[sturmovik]

Once you get inside the WH forums, you just have to go in the ASL one who contains a lot of threads in the Main and other sub-forums. In fact its use is quite close to the phpBB we got here. I guess that with a bit of reorganisation the WH ASL forum could work just like this one.

 

[da priest]

I guess that with a bit of reorganisation the WH ASL forum could work just like this one.

G*d, I hope not!

Here ya can go to the last unread post/aka newest post, then tediously scroll back to find other unreads in the same thread. Yuck.. :evil:

There ya can go to the first unread post in a thread, better, and not as slow... :!: