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Coin Return: A Progress Bar and Timeline
minor incident
publicly subsidized!privately profitable!Registered User, Transition Team regular
publicly subsidized!privately profitable!Registered User, Transition Team regular
Hello!
This thread will serve as a single repository on our progress so far in the move to a new home, in case you don't want to sift through hundreds of pages across dozens of threads to piece together the major bullet points. It will also include our timeline for our next steps (and some major future milestones as well). We want this process to be as transparent and collaborative as possible. But before we get to that, we need a recap...
THE ROAD SO FAR
[cue "Carry On Wayward Son"]
On October 25th 2024 we were informed by PA Corporate that they had decided to end the Penny Arcade Forums, our home. We were told that we would be given until the end of 2025 before they shut the lights off, because of their contract with Vanilla, the hosting/service company the forums run on. But wait! There's a shocking twist! A few days later we were informed that they were wrong about the contract expiration and that we would actually be given the boot on May 21st, 2025 -- more than 6 months sooner than expected. This news kicked a lot of things into high gear. Before long numerous forumers began offering their time and spitballing ideas. After a lot of conversations between some of these intrepid users, a diverse group of volunteers with the time and spoons to devote to the project of standing up a new forum came together and started working in earnest on all the hundreds of projects, small and substantial, that need to be completed before we can have a safe, new home. We refer to ourselves as the Transition Team, and we'll be your guides through this journey. But don't sit back just yet -- we'll eventually need to call on many of you for your own expertise and assistance with some of the jobs to come. And we'll continue to take feedback from the entire community to help guide us through the most complicated decisions in the process.
NOW
With the prologue out of the way, here's what we've accomplished so far:
THE FUTURE
We've made a lot of progress, but there's no rest for the wicked. Here's what's on our plate currently:
THE NEBULOUS
There are about a million other small things that need to be done here. Below is an unsorted, unweighted list of some of those items that we have not yet slotted into a projected timeline. This is all subject to change and over time you will see these items codified further and moves up to the above timeline.
THE 47 MINUTE LONG SAPPY EPILOGUE
That's where we're at! It's all very exciting, and as we move into the later, more collaborative stage of the process, it'll only get more fun. And hectic. And terrifying. But most of us have been here for half of our lives, and I don't believe that any of us are willing to let our collective third space die without a fight. It's daunting, but it's nothing we can't handle together. I'd just like to ask all of you to remember that whether anyone wants to admit it or not, this is a stressful time for everyone. To say nothing of the current political landscape, we're all in danger of losing our internet home and that's bound to stress people out. Please try to keep that in mind as we all work on this and hash out the details together. If you can extend a little grace for a fellow forumer who is clearly Going Through It you'll never get less than you give, eventually.
Lastly, if you ever happen to get conflicting info from two members of your Transition Team, please don't bite our heads off. We're literally in discord for 10 hours a day keeping each other in the loop as best we can as we all work on different things, and coming together to discuss community feedback and big decisions, but even with all that there are bound to be occasional crossed wires. We'll get it right sooner or later, we promise. And if you have concerns about anything in this process, private feedback to share, or just questions you really need answers to, please feel free to reach out to any or all members of your Transition Team privately. We're here for you.
THE POST CREDITS SCENE
Lastly, for anyone who wants to bookmark these things in advance, just in case of an unexpected Vanilla / Penny Arcade shutdown/technical problem/etc, you can keep up on Coin Return news and always have a way to find us here:
XOXO,
Your Transition Team,
@Delzhand
@Dibbit
@minor incident
@syndalis
@Zonugal
This thread will serve as a single repository on our progress so far in the move to a new home, in case you don't want to sift through hundreds of pages across dozens of threads to piece together the major bullet points. It will also include our timeline for our next steps (and some major future milestones as well). We want this process to be as transparent and collaborative as possible. But before we get to that, we need a recap...
THE ROAD SO FAR
[cue "Carry On Wayward Son"]
On October 25th 2024 we were informed by PA Corporate that they had decided to end the Penny Arcade Forums, our home. We were told that we would be given until the end of 2025 before they shut the lights off, because of their contract with Vanilla, the hosting/service company the forums run on. But wait! There's a shocking twist! A few days later we were informed that they were wrong about the contract expiration and that we would actually be given the boot on May 21st, 2025 -- more than 6 months sooner than expected. This news kicked a lot of things into high gear. Before long numerous forumers began offering their time and spitballing ideas. After a lot of conversations between some of these intrepid users, a diverse group of volunteers with the time and spoons to devote to the project of standing up a new forum came together and started working in earnest on all the hundreds of projects, small and substantial, that need to be completed before we can have a safe, new home. We refer to ourselves as the Transition Team, and we'll be your guides through this journey. But don't sit back just yet -- we'll eventually need to call on many of you for your own expertise and assistance with some of the jobs to come. And we'll continue to take feedback from the entire community to help guide us through the most complicated decisions in the process.
NOW
With the prologue out of the way, here's what we've accomplished so far:
- Survey the Community - Done. With almost 750 responses from the entire community, we've gathered feedback on all manner of important desires, wants, and dealbreakers for the community.
- Design New Community Rules - Our new rules (along with some of our guiding principles) were published recently and set to go into effect on November 25th. These are designed as an interim set of additional/changed rules sitting on top of the current forum rules. You can check those out here. We will, of course, have a more complete and exhaustive code of conduct as well as full forum rules upon the launch of the new forum.
- Decide on a Name - Also based on a community poll, we chose the moniker for our new home: Coin Return
- Choose a Software Platform for the New Forums - We're happy to announce we've chosen Xenforo as the foundation for Coin Return. It's deeply extensible, widely used, fully featured, and incredibly modern compared to what we have now.
- Set up a Test Environment to begin Developing on Xenforo - The Transition Team has purchased a Xenforo license and set up a test environment. Members of the team have already begun kicking the tires so that we can have a solid grasp of everything Xenforo has to offer, and begin developing our own tweaks and customizations.
- File for Incorporation - In order for Coin Return to get off the ground, we need a legal entity to stand behind it (for tax reasons, as we will be funding this via user donations, as well as for liability, etc). We are nearing a final decision on where and how to incorporate, and this will be discussed shortly in the Legal Thread here. We hope to have this in progress by November 30th. UPDATE Dec 2 2024: This is in progress after a couple of hiccups, hoping to be completed by end of this week] After another big setback (detailed below), we've finally got this moving again and it's estimated to be completed by New Year's Eve. UPDATE: Completed on 12/27/2024
- Recruiting Community Members to Workshop Code of Conduct, Values, and Principles for the New Forum - Done. Values and Code of Conduct have been ratified by the community.
- Determine a Structure for the Forum - While porting things over exactly as-is with our forum/subforum structure isn't 100% out of the question, there's been great interest shown in reworking some of our forum layout to allow certain niches to better flourish, and to better promote safe and healthy conversation on various topics. We're actively working on some ideas (all based on direct community feedback) and this will be presented and discussed with the community before any final decisions are made. DONE - 1/21/2025: Our new forum structure and layout has been decided.
- Open Financial Accounts - The new company behind the forum will need a bank account, and likely a paypal account and other services for receiving donations, making necessary purchases, etc. We hope to do this immediately after the business is registered, end of November/beginning of December. This was held up by the issues with incorporation mentioned above. This should be done within 2 business days of incorporation (January 2nd - 3rd, if incorporation sees no further delays). UPDATE: Necessary accounts are open or in the process of being opened as of 1/3/2025. Should be fully wrapped up within about a week. UPDATE - 1/20/2025: All necessary financial accounts are now open (Bank, Paypal, Patreon) and ready to use.
- Launch an Initial One-Off Fundraise - We decided early on that Coin Return would be 100% community funded. We all hate ads, and we all want to build something of our own, and this is the best way to do that. In order to pay for all the costs involved (hosting/service contract with Xenforo, legal fees for incorporation and any attorney consultations, fees for dev environment staging, fees for other project management software, email, domain name registration, etc). The money raised in this kickstart will allow us to cover those startup and initial month(s) fees so that we can get off the ground. We hope to launch this in early to mid December. It will likely run for several weeks. Because of the delays in incorporation, this will likely launch in the first half of January. UPDATE 1/28/2025 - The fundraiser has been running for about 4 days now and has already blown through all of our wildest goals. You all kick so much ass it's not even funny. GOOD WORK. UPDATE 2/18/2025 - At the close of the fundraiser, you people had kicked in a frankly absurd total of more than $18,000. Your generosity will ensure our new home stays safe and stable for a long while. Thank you.
- Launch a Patreon/Other Recurring Donation Service - Due to blowing out our one-off fundraising goals and popular demand, we've also gone live with our recurring donation options ahead of schedule (nice to be early on one of these goals, for a change!). We officially have three options for recurring donations for folks who want to kick in a few bucks a month to help offset our recurring operating expenses. For now, you can donate monthly via PayPal, Ko-fi, or our new Patreon.
- Recruiting Community Members to Code Xenforo Plugins - We'll need talented and willing devs to help distribute some of the load of custom coding and plugins we have plans to develop. If you have experience in this arena, we'd love to hear from you. Update 1/13/2025 - @Delzhand has begun working with a few folks to code some essential features and add-ons for the new forum. This may expand as we get closer to move-in day, but this team has our new home close to feature-complete for launch.
- Removing the Forums link from the PA Main Page - At some point, PA will remove the Forums link from the main page of the site. We have asked them to delay this as long as possible, but there is no deadline set for this event.
- Redirect link for Coin Return - One of the things that we've asked for is a page on forums.penny-arcade.com after we move that tells people where we went. Response was positive on this.
- Recruiting Community Members to QA Test the New Forum - We'll need folks willing to make accounts and poke around on Xenforo before we go live. You'll need to be willing to give the tires a thorough kicking and see what breaks. This is still some ways out, but obviously before we go live. UPDATE 1/3/2025 - Around 20 or so community members have been recruited and have spent the last two weeks testing the new forum software, filing bug reports, and requesting new features.
THE FUTURE
We've made a lot of progress, but there's no rest for the wicked. Here's what's on our plate currently:
- Move in Day for the New Forums - We plan to open the doors and begin letting folks move over to the brand new Coin Return Forums at least a couple of months before the lights go out on the PA forums. We'll need time to ensure all users who want to claim their username on the new forum can be properly authenticated, and there are bound to be some initial hiccups as we onboard hundreds, or potentially thousands of users. We do not want to cut this too close. This is currently planned for April 1st. UPDATE 3/16/2025 - Preregistration of existing PA forum names has begun.
- Full Code of Conduct and Forum Rules - The new home will have a fully expanded Code of Conduct detailing what we strive for and what we expect of our community. There will also be a proper rules list once we are no longer beholden to PA Corporate's rules on these forums. UPDATE 1/3/2025 - Values and Code of Conduct have been written and ratified by the community. Forum Rules are in progress, with an expanded team being added to this process in the next few days. UPDATE 1/13/2025 - A committee has been assembled to author the proper Forum Rules document and they have already begun work. Details in the update below. No specific ETA on completion, as this is one of the most important parts of our community's founding and has a firm policy of "when it's ready, it's ready". That said, we will provide a feedback review just as was done with the Values/CoC as soon as a draft is ready for the community to dive into. UPDATE 2/18/2025 - The Forum Rules are just about ready, and will be presented this Friday (Feb 21st) for community feedback. UPDATE 3/11/2025 - After a round of excellent, mostly positive feedback, the final draft of the Forum Rules is nearly ready to be presented to the community for ratification. This should be posted within the next week or so.
- Forum Governance Decisions - Our Governance Subcommittee (consisting of @Tef @Feral @Chanus @zerzhul and @Gereg ) will be making some posts very soon to present governance proposals to the community. These will cover a wide range of decisions about how the forums and the company operate, from moderator selection, to rules enforcement, to company spending, and tons more. The community will have time to give feedback and approve these proposals which will function as, essentially, the Coin Return Society Constitution. This should be starting in the last week of January / first week of February and will likely take several weeks to complete. UPDATE 2/18/2025 - After reviewing the feedback on the first Governance proposal (KD01), the team has incorporated more of the community's input to revise this proposal, and also inform the next few proposals. Several of these should be ready to be presented/re-presented to the community this week. UPDATE 3/11/2025 - After a very positive round of feedback, the next batch of Governance proposals should be ready to present to the community within the next week or two.
- Identifying Content to Port Over - While we will not be doing a bulk, indiscriminate migration of all post data, we agree that some threads absolutely have value and we're looking into ways to ensure we can effectively preserve certain threads on a case by case basis. Some of this work will continue after we go live on our new home. UPDATE 3/11/2025 - this is currently in progress here: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/253677/that-belongs-in-a-museum-archiving-pa-history-on-core/p1
- New Moderators - The open call for Moderator candidates is now live and will close on March 28. See here: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/253801/open-call-for-board-member-and-moderator-candidates-until-friday-march-28th-2025/p1
THE NEBULOUS
There are about a million other small things that need to be done here. Below is an unsorted, unweighted list of some of those items that we have not yet slotted into a projected timeline. This is all subject to change and over time you will see these items codified further and moves up to the above timeline.
- Graphic Design - We'll likely recruit members of the community to handle logo design, assist with website design, and possibly even... merch?!?
- Unmask Bizzaro Stormy - I don't know when, but we'll catch that fiend some day.
THE 47 MINUTE LONG SAPPY EPILOGUE
That's where we're at! It's all very exciting, and as we move into the later, more collaborative stage of the process, it'll only get more fun. And hectic. And terrifying. But most of us have been here for half of our lives, and I don't believe that any of us are willing to let our collective third space die without a fight. It's daunting, but it's nothing we can't handle together. I'd just like to ask all of you to remember that whether anyone wants to admit it or not, this is a stressful time for everyone. To say nothing of the current political landscape, we're all in danger of losing our internet home and that's bound to stress people out. Please try to keep that in mind as we all work on this and hash out the details together. If you can extend a little grace for a fellow forumer who is clearly Going Through It you'll never get less than you give, eventually.
Lastly, if you ever happen to get conflicting info from two members of your Transition Team, please don't bite our heads off. We're literally in discord for 10 hours a day keeping each other in the loop as best we can as we all work on different things, and coming together to discuss community feedback and big decisions, but even with all that there are bound to be occasional crossed wires. We'll get it right sooner or later, we promise. And if you have concerns about anything in this process, private feedback to share, or just questions you really need answers to, please feel free to reach out to any or all members of your Transition Team privately. We're here for you.
THE POST CREDITS SCENE
Lastly, for anyone who wants to bookmark these things in advance, just in case of an unexpected Vanilla / Penny Arcade shutdown/technical problem/etc, you can keep up on Coin Return news and always have a way to find us here:
- Patreon: https://patreon.com/CoinReturn
- Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/coinreturn
- PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=ZAQZC6KJX4RGU
- Twitter: https://x.com/coin_return
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/coinreturn.bsky.social
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CoinReturnSociety
XOXO,
Your Transition Team,
@Delzhand
@Dibbit
@minor incident
@syndalis
@Zonugal
Hell, New Jersey, it said on the letter. Delivered without comment. So be it!
Dibbit on
+154
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Alongside the Values/CoC proposal that you are all currently reviewing, we thought it a good idea to let you know about what we are doing around codifying how these things are going to be applied in a consistent, transparent, and equitable way, aka governance of the forum.
We have a governance subcommittee who are drafting up what they are calling Key Decisions. Some examples of these Key Decisions are, “the dispute resolution process” and, “types of infractions and how they’re applied” (just two examples).
These key decisions are being written up, and as they come available, after the review of the values/CoC proposal, they will be posted here on the planning forum in their own threads for you to have your say. Your feedback will be gathered, any adjustments required of the Key Decisions will be made, and then the TT will select which version is best and sign it off.
A record of the Key Decision will be kept and will be used as a reference point ongoing over at Coin Return. Having clear reference points like these will be invaluable for new mods coming on board or for when conversations come up about changing a process in the future.
Hi Everyone,
We wanted to check in with you all with a bit of an update. Several of you have noticed that we're running a bit behind our proposed timeline for business registration and fundraising, and some of you have even reached out to ask about an update. This is a bit of a tricky thing to discuss, and we've been quiet about it for a little while, but now we feel that it's incumbent on us to fill you all in.
Essentially, one member of the Transition Team who had been leading the business registration process has gone completely dark. At first we assumed they had some personal issues come up and had to step away for a couple of days, although we received no word from them whatsoever, so we were mostly left in the dark. At the time we lost communication with them, they were in the process of registering the business, and the last word we had from them was indicating that it was moving and should be done shortly. After that we have not heard from them in more than two weeks. Various members of the team have reached out to them via discord, forum PMs, and even direct email, and we have received no response. I wish we had more to explain to you all about what's going on, but we're just as confused as you probably are.
Unfortunately this person had also been handling a few other aspects of the transition, and we now need to restart or change course on some of those things. That said, we have enough runway that the project isn't in danger of not being ready on time. We're mostly just concerned for our teammate and hope that nothing horrible has happened to them. At this point it's been over 2 weeks with zero contact, so we're forced to start moving on without them. We don't want to specifically name them and draw more undue attention because if this is a life-and-death personal issue that we don't know the details of then the last thing we want is to add any additional stress or pressure on them. It might be possible to suss out who we're talking about, but if you do so we please ask for their sake/privacy that you keep it to yourself.
This does mean we're beginning the business registration process anew. And unfortunately, the person handling it was also generously able to float or fully fund the registration process themself, and with them no longer in the picture it puts a bit more strain on us financially in the short term. We've already collectively spent or committed quite a bit of our funds personally to the process. We would prefer not to have to openly solicit any donations before the business registration is completed, and after checking a few quotes, it looks like we may be able to handle the cost on our own, but if we encounter any additional unexpected costs, we may need to reach out publicly for additional funding, whether as a donation or an amount to be repaid once fundraising is started in earnest. We'll keep you all updated on this over the next few days. In the meantime, if anyone wants to privately volunteer to be on the call sheet for pre-incorporation funding, feel free to reach out privately and we'll speak to you first.
We will also likely need additional folks coming on before long to help us pick up some of the slack this situation has left us with, but we'd like to ensure the business is registered and financial accounts are opened so that we can properly put everything in the shared business name first and foremost. Once we get over this hump, we'll be back to talk in more depth about that kind of help.
Thanks all.
Appreciate everyone's patience as we overcame some hiccups and worked through the holidays to make some serious progress here. We'll probably have some big stuff happening pretty quickly over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned.
Updated the timeline to reflect that work has begun in earnest on our Forum Rules. The team that will be authoring the forum rules is lead by @Gnizmo and she has assembled a team to assist in the process: @Vixx @Hahnsoo1 and myself. This process will play out similarly to how the Values and Code of Conduct were handled: Using our current rules as a very basic starting point, and utilizing the general feedback we've seen from the community in various threads here in the planning center (especially the feedback offered during the Values/CoC process that pertained more to Rules then the CoC), this team will work on a proper Forum Rules document and revise it to the point that it's ready to be presented to the community for open review and feedback in a new thread. Using the feedback provided in this thread, the team will further revise the Forum Rules as necessary to get them to a state that they are confident in. At that point they will be presented for a community vote for ratification with a 2/3rds supermajority of voters required to pass. If it passes, the rules are confirmed. If not, then another round of revisions will be repeated before presenting again.
If you have any immediate concerns or questions about the Rules or this process before we get to the open feedback round, reach out to @Gnizmo @Vixx @Hahnsoo1 or myself.
Just want to take a moment and brag about all of you by calling out this addition specifically:
I know it's been a long, difficult process so far, and it's easy to feel like our looming deadlines are getting more and more imposing by the day, but I believe we're on a great path to get everything we need done in time, so how about we take a minute to appreciate that ever-growing list of completed tasks. That's a whole lot of work completed by a team of dedicated volunteers, all with the help of this fantastic community pitching in together.
You're all kicking ass, and don't let anyone tell you different.