Pitching In

Incenjucar

Software tester, security engineer, and occasional programmer and game dev. I can help find ways to break things in ways that sound stupid until I show you the video.

initiatefailure

I don't know jack about making a forum, but I'm a UX designer with research experience too. I spent the first half of my job life as a graphic and web designer and I've worked with a lot of product dev teams so like... I can certainly be tasked to do something

MNC Dover

I have no technical skills to help, but will provide voice work for our promo video. We’re making one of those, right? 😅

Sir Fabulous

I have no technical or legal skills, but I do manage a small team of around 15 individuals and I have energy and desire to help how I can so whatever that counts for I guess.

Xaquin

MNC Dover wrote: »

I have no technical skills to help, but will provide voice work for our promo video. We’re making one of those, right? 😅

we are now!

minor incident

Fwiw, after debating it a bit, I’m happy to offer up my time where needed. My areas of experience are in project management and purchasing/sourcing for consumer hardware launches, which typically had oppressive budgets and deadlines. Also a few years of community management and just enough web dev experience to be able to roll out a php/mysql forum installation (but enough sense to leave it to people more experienced and better equipped).

Space Pickle

Xaquin wrote: »

MNC Dover wrote: »

I have no technical skills to help, but will provide voice work for our promo video. We’re making one of those, right? 😅

we are now!

I can compose a musical score!

Xaquin

I can watch it!

MNC Dover

We'll put up a Ferris Bueller video with asking the viewer why they're still here. It's over. Go to the new forum.

zagdrob

I know the artistic folk are feeling left out in the cold but can someone do a not quite Geocities 'under construction' sort of thing but maybe something we can put up as an 'under new management'.

Although the Spirit Halloween one is gonna be hard to beat.

Unknown

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zagdrob

jmcdonald wrote: »

zagdrob wrote: »

I know the artistic folk are feeling left out in the cold but can someone do a not quite Geocities 'under construction' sort of thing but maybe something we can put up as an 'under new management'.

Although the Spirit Halloween one is gonna be hard to beat.

The spirit Halloween bit has my vote. It’s pretty much perfect

Definitely needs to keep the bad photoshop look too.

On one hand in afraid we would get sued by Spirit Halloween.

On the other have you seen some of their crazy and cool decorations? I'd love a 30' tall skeleton summoning multiple 14' skeletons yes please.

Xaquin

not sure where to ask this or who to ask, but does any mod know if it's possible to pm every active member with the new forum url

like everyone active within the last couple years?

I'd hate for people like the wook to pop back for his bi yearly visit to a dead url

or crwth or 3c1ips3 or kaplar or magicpink or etc etc etc

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Phyphor

Xaquin wrote: »

not sure where to ask this or who to ask, but does any mod know if it's possible to pm every active member with the new forum url

like everyone active within the last couple years?

I'd hate for people like the wook to pop back for his bi yearly visit to a dead url

or crwth or 3c1ips3 or kaplar or magicpink or etc etc etc

The rate limiting on PMs is the only obstacle to this really. You can do it in a script though and just set it to send the one? message a minute that's allowed. Might take a few days though

101

I don't have relevant technical skills (I work in reporting/dashboarding on business results), but if there's ever a point where you need to throw bodies at a problem I'm more than happy to pitch in.

Gilgaron

Xaquin wrote: »

not sure where to ask this or who to ask, but does any mod know if it's possible to pm every active member with the new forum url

like everyone active within the last couple years?

I'd hate for people like the wook to pop back for his bi yearly visit to a dead url

or crwth or 3c1ips3 or kaplar or magicpink or etc etc etc

My understanding is that first you have to become either a raging anti-Catholic or have a personal beef with the Pope

zagdrob

Xaquin wrote: »

not sure where to ask this or who to ask, but does any mod know if it's possible to pm every active member with the new forum url

like everyone active within the last couple years?

I'd hate for people like the wook to pop back for his bi yearly visit to a dead url

or crwth or 3c1ips3 or kaplar or magicpink or etc etc etc

I think for planning the cut-over this is definitely something that should be considered, as well as stickies in every subforum, banners wherever possible, and maybe even a brief email campaign while we still have access to everyone's registration emails here on the forum (if that's PII we can't take with us / PA approves us using).

People interact with the forums differently - through profiles, bookmarks, favoriting specific threads, etc so we can't assume the standard 'Read This' announcement banner is going to be something they see.

During the transition period we might even want a 'straggler' thread where people can be made aware which fellow posters haven't yet made the transition so they can be gently prooded through on-forum interaction or maybe even other off-forum spaces where people have friendships / networks with them to make sure they are aware of the change and new forum locations.

I know I'm in a few of the Penny Arcade Steam groups and there are members of those who probably haven't interacted with the forums for a decade, I assume once we have the new site up and running we'll want to blanket those peripheral spaces (at least the ones that aren't 'official') where we can with the new forum information.

Might I suggest @Zibblsnrt - we might even want to add a 'Marketing / Communication Planning' thread to this Planning Center sub-forum where we can start categorizing communication channels we have to reach as many active members of the forum, and possibly even plan outreach to lapsed / inactive members of the forum who might poke their heads in and potentially stick around after our move to a new space.

syndalis

I love the idea of doing a bulk email announcement, but only if Vanilla can do that for us.

I am super uncomfortable with porting a decades-old email list into a new system without explicit consent having been given for PA/Vanilla to share your email with third parties... and honestly I doubt whoever signed up back in 2003 went through that kind of clickwrap.

syndalis

Also they may not want to do it, because I am guessing well over 20% of the emails, especially the ones for aol, college addresses, hotmail, etc. will bounce and it will fuck their reliability.

zagdrob

syndalis wrote: »

Also they may not want to do it, because I am guessing well over 20% of the emails, especially the ones for aol, college addresses, hotmail, etc. will bounce and it will fuck their reliability.

Oh for sure. I would figure we wouldn't mass spam everyone who ever registered an account the past 20+ years, and even if we did I'm sure there would be a ton of bounce-backs. And I agree with the previous post and your other posts about exporting or migrating those email lists to another system without explicit consent, and the concerns about having that PII for everyone on here since it's not something that's publicly visible.

But if we could use that registered email to communicate once with everyone who has logged into the forums in a reasonable timeframe (like past 18-24 months or something) we could probably pick up a few people who might otherwise miss the announcements or not see them in our limited time window. If it gets us even five people to poke their heads in who otherwise would have fallen off, it seems like it would be worth the effort.

BSoB

None of my technical skills, which are mostly based around AD and network hardware and hardening those things, would be of much use.

But my other skill is teaching myself something from the ground up because nobody knows how to do it and nobody knew it needed to be done. So I vollenteer that in the most helpful way I can think of.

akThera

Out-of-the-game for a good while IT professional, graphic design, currently a payroll admin.

Willing to help out with tedious technical tasks like “all these user accounts came over with an extra space in them, we need that deleted manually” and other data entry grunt work.

Also if there’s gonna be a payroll I know how to do it.

Oh, and I have a lot of free time

akThera

silence1186 wrote: »

I don't have any technical training or experience, but I'm a concierge in an apartment building, so I answer the phone all day, and serve as a barrier and relay between my boss and the staff who work in the building and the residents and vendors who live and visit the building, and coordinate that people who do things get in touch with people who need things.

If you need someone to make phone calls, I could supply some hours. Basically "Hi, I'm silence1186, calling on behalf of person/organization. I was hoping to speak with person at organization about issue. I need to schedule something for this date./Where are we on that?" Ad infinitum.

Then I take notes on the conversation so I can refer back to it. At my job I do it on paper or over emails, but I'm assuming there'd be a google doc or email chain or something here.

I love you, Can Make Phone Calls Guy.

iolo

zagdrob wrote: »

Xaquin wrote: »

not sure where to ask this or who to ask, but does any mod know if it's possible to pm every active member with the new forum url

like everyone active within the last couple years?

I'd hate for people like the wook to pop back for his bi yearly visit to a dead url

or crwth or 3c1ips3 or kaplar or magicpink or etc etc etc

I think for planning the cut-over this is definitely something that should be considered, as well as stickies in every subforum, banners wherever possible, and maybe even a brief email campaign while we still have access to everyone's registration emails here on the forum (if that's PII we can't take with us / PA approves us using).

People interact with the forums differently - through profiles, bookmarks, favoriting specific threads, etc so we can't assume the standard 'Read This' announcement banner is going to be something they see.

During the transition period we might even want a 'straggler' thread where people can be made aware which fellow posters haven't yet made the transition so they can be gently prooded through on-forum interaction or maybe even other off-forum spaces where people have friendships / networks with them to make sure they are aware of the change and new forum locations.

I know I'm in a few of the Penny Arcade Steam groups and there are members of those who probably haven't interacted with the forums for a decade, I assume once we have the new site up and running we'll want to blanket those peripheral spaces (at least the ones that aren't 'official') where we can with the new forum information.

Might I suggest Zibblsnrt - we might even want to add a 'Marketing / Communication Planning' thread to this Planning Center sub-forum where we can start categorizing communication channels we have to reach as many active members of the forum, and possibly even plan outreach to lapsed / inactive members of the forum who might poke their heads in and potentially stick around after our move to a new space.

Wooo something (tiny) I can do! I have no relevant technical skills, and have been scrolling these pages in awe of all of you who do.

But I am an admin on three of the larger PA Steam groups - Penny Arcade (1804), PA G&T Adventure Team (731) and Wangs Without Borders (415). When the time comes, I'm happy to help push out approved communication to those communities.

Delzhand

I'll consult with one of my offline contacts, but I believe that emailing everyone on the panel currently would fall under account notifications and be exempt from opt-in laws. There's no need to opt-out because it's a one-time thing.

Elvenshae

Delzhand wrote: »

I'll consult with one of my offline contacts, but I believe that emailing everyone on the panel currently would fall under account notifications and be exempt from opt-in laws. There's no need to opt-out because it's a one-time thing.

Yeah, service messages are generally considered to be approved business usage, but we do need to make sure that they don't slip over into marketing something, because then they aren't pure service messages.

Heffling

Could we ask PA if we could buy the forums.penny-arcade.com address for a year and have it redirect to the landing page for the new site with a big disclaimer that we're not affiliated with PA, the rules, and a registration link?

Vitari

Heffling wrote: »

Could we ask PA if we could buy the forums.penny-arcade.com address for a year and have it redirect to the landing page for the new site with a big disclaimer that we're not affiliated with PA, the rules, and a registration link?

Sounds like they want a clean break.

Space Pickle

Elvenshae wrote: »

Delzhand wrote: »

I'll consult with one of my offline contacts, but I believe that emailing everyone on the panel currently would fall under account notifications and be exempt from opt-in laws. There's no need to opt-out because it's a one-time thing.

Yeah, service messages are generally considered to be approved business usage, but we do need to make sure that they don't slip over into marketing something, because then they aren't pure service messages.

Delzhand wrote: »

I'll consult with one of my offline contacts, but I believe that emailing everyone on the panel currently would fall under account notifications and be exempt from opt-in laws. There's no need to opt-out because it's a one-time thing.

I think this would be allowed, I get mass email notifications on some of the other forums I participate in.

Mercade wrote: »

Heffling wrote: »

Could we ask PA if we could buy the forums.penny-arcade.com address for a year and have it redirect to the landing page for the new site with a big disclaimer that we're not affiliated with PA, the rules, and a registration link?

Sounds like they want a clean break.

Yep, I would think the answer is probably no but it's worth asking.

Delzhand

Elvenshae wrote: »

Delzhand wrote: »

I'll consult with one of my offline contacts, but I believe that emailing everyone on the panel currently would fall under account notifications and be exempt from opt-in laws. There's no need to opt-out because it's a one-time thing.

Yeah, service messages are generally considered to be approved business usage, but we do need to make sure that they don't slip over into marketing something, because then they aren't pure service messages.

I'm gonna post a followup in a more relevant thread.

https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/46789684/#Comment_46789684

Violet

As mentioned in the previous thread, I am a full stack senior software engineer with 10+ years of experience. Primarily in C#, JS/TS, SQL, etc. Nothing that will matter specifically for this project, but I am quite adaptable and am fairly confident I could figure out any part of a migration like this. Happy to help however I can, though I can probably only guaranteed commit to an evening each week of time (but probably have more than that, just not guaranteed).

Violet

Sorry to double post, but I also typed up everyone's offers of help into a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G9YeXdSl5HOQVMFzApq7iyeh0z6znGAvWIH4h1xffxA/edit?usp=sharing

The organization isn't great, but it's something at least.

Xaquin

you can put me in for week days if need be, but if I'm being honest, if I had mod tools on my phone I'm usually always on

I am efficient at removing spam bots at the least!

Space Pickle

Latentsage wrote: »

Sorry to double post, but I also typed up everyone's offers of help into a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G9YeXdSl5HOQVMFzApq7iyeh0z6znGAvWIH4h1xffxA/edit?usp=sharing

The organization isn't great, but it's something at least.

Wow some of you guys are googlemasters. I put my info in, did it work?

Violet

Space Pickle wrote: »

Latentsage wrote: »

Sorry to double post, but I also typed up everyone's offers of help into a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G9YeXdSl5HOQVMFzApq7iyeh0z6znGAvWIH4h1xffxA/edit?usp=sharing

The organization isn't great, but it's something at least.

Wow some of you guys are googlemasters. I put my info in, did it work?

I put you in already, but I'll update your row with the info you provided

Space Pickle

Latentsage wrote: »

Space Pickle wrote: »

Latentsage wrote: »

Sorry to double post, but I also typed up everyone's offers of help into a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G9YeXdSl5HOQVMFzApq7iyeh0z6znGAvWIH4h1xffxA/edit?usp=sharing

The organization isn't great, but it's something at least.

Wow some of you guys are googlemasters. I put my info in, did it work?

I put you in already, but I'll update your row with the info you provided

Oops, sorry, I misunderstood what you were doing. I thought you wanted us to enter our info into the spreadsheet.

SeñorAmor

Latentsage wrote: »

Sorry to double post, but I also typed up everyone's offers of help into a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G9YeXdSl5HOQVMFzApq7iyeh0z6znGAvWIH4h1xffxA/edit?usp=sharing

The organization isn't great, but it's something at least.

I'm more webdev stuff than sysadmin, though I appreciate you setting this thing up for easy reference.

Also, good god my mangled profile URL

Violet

SeñorAmor wrote: »

Latentsage wrote: »

Sorry to double post, but I also typed up everyone's offers of help into a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G9YeXdSl5HOQVMFzApq7iyeh0z6znGAvWIH4h1xffxA/edit?usp=sharing

The organization isn't great, but it's something at least.

I'm more webdev stuff than sysadmin, though I appreciate you setting this thing up for easy reference.

Also, good god my mangled profile URL

Ah, apologies. You'd mentioned sysadmin so I included you for that as well as Back End Code

jdarksun

Senior Systems Developer. I do everything from architect, design, and develop new services to trace-level debugging of legacy code and hardware troubleshooting. I also enjoy big-picture process optimization. I've got ~25 years of varied experience, with the vast majority of it being writing code in some form or another. I'm mostly write python (...and debug Java, Javascript, and Ruby) these days, but I've got experience writing BASIC, Pascal, LISP, C, C++, Perl, HTML, ColdFusion, Ruby, Java, and Javascript (mostly Typescript via node). Probably a few others that I've forgotten about. I also have a good amount of database experience, ranging from administration (certified Oracle 8i RAC Administrator, for whatever use that is 20 years after EOL) to operations (managing DB fleets) and use (object persistence, SQL debugging, etc).

Happy to help wherever it's needed.