A Complete Site

*cough* Arianna here. Um, hey
Why so hesitant? You ask. Well, because I'm not sure how you guys will react. xP
So, first, let me lay a few things clear.

• This is an idea. Not a plan for the future.
  
• I just wanted to get my opinion out, this could be an idea no one likes
  
• Please, if you don't like it, comment. But don't do it meanly. I hate the idea, will do
  

Okay, so, here we go.
We have a forum. We have, to some extent, blogs. And a front page. We're thinking about starting an adoptables site (great idea, Jade!). We have a cafepress shop.
These are in different locations, but they are all for Twig. Something that has concerned me for a while about the Forumotion TOS (terms of service).

But for any reason, none individual backup or sql dump, database will
be provided. Please do take good note that for any evoked reasons, no
precise safeguard of a forum, dump, backup of the data will be provided.

This basically means that that the databases, including all of our stories, are theirs! Which I don't think is fair.
Um, so, to my real suggestion.
We could get a website. What, you say, this is a website! Well, there you are completely correct. But it's a forumotion website, you see
I was thinking that we could perhaps get a website (eg. iwritersguild.com. Basically anthing, though), and make it the offical website.
There is this great script which can transfer from forumotion to phpBB (a forum software), so that could be used.
We could have an adoptables site as part of it, as there is the opensource script for it. We could have a wordpress blog. A homepage with updates.
This would allow us much more freedom, on how the site is. I shall now weigh the pros and cons.
Pros:
- More customization.
- Everyone can contribute more
- Better features!
- Adoptables, and a blog.
- Perhaps we could have a story database? That'd be awesome!
Cons:
- Money. xP
- Shad may not like the idea
- 2 forumotion features would be lost - the portal (which would be replaced by an amazing homepage) and the chatbox (not that hard to replace, either.)
Now, if we like this idea, what we'd need.

• Money
  
• -- A domain name
  
• -- I could share my hosting
  
• Free stuff
  
• -- phpBB (forum)
  
• -- wordpress (blog)
  
• -- adoptables code (adoptables. xD)
  
• Time
  
• -- Changing the website
  
• -- Adding phpBB, wordpress, web design
  

So, I know what you're thinking. Is Arianna crazy? Well, yes, I probably am. But please consider this idea.
Arianna

Dude, Arianna, this is a GREAT idea. I'd like to help out as much as I could... I have some expierence in coding and such... I'd also be happy to donate some money.

Thank you so much, Avvy!
I'm crossing my fingers that the others at least a fraction as positive of a response as you do.
I'd be willing to donate too, and I have some (quite a lot for my age, quite a little for someone your age) coding experience too.

That is a good idea. xD And it sounds totally worth it. The only problem is that it'd be hard for me to get that time and money in the first place. If I explained to my parents what was going on, I might be able to get more time, but I'm only supposed to be on an hour a day. And money . . . well, as you all know, our family's going through tough times. xP My parents couldn't pay, and I myself don't have enough income yet to be able to support the site through something like that.

But if we switched, would we still have the as-easy-to-use board administrating? Or would everything be done in HTML or CSS or something? Cus I don't know enough of the codes to be able to do something like a forum from scratch. ^^

I agree, I love love love this idea Arianna, if we can come up with the money, I think this would be wwaaayy better!

Maybe. Like, vBulliten-type of forum?

And, would our RP's, stories, post's ect. be lost? *bites nails* xD

Okay, phew! I thought you guys would all hate the idea. xD

Well, I'd be willing to donate money I'm willing to donate up to 100 euros for this, which is like 150 dollars As for time, I am very willing to help, too.
For the codes, I could help. The non-forum/blog/adoptables part of the site would be html/css, but I (and Avvy) know how to do that, so we could help.

Jade, thank you

Amanda, the forum could be transferred over to phpBB All that would be lost would be the passwords (crawlers can't pick that up) and the poll results (you can go into the database and change those.)
As for vBulletin, I don't know. There isn't a vBulletin crawler (it's not opensource), and phpBB has a lot more options. For one, the full vBulletin forum script is like 190 dollars. xP
phpBB3 is really good, and even thought that's what we're using here, we can change it a lot

I, in overall, would be very willing to help get the forum set up. As you know, I have my website, and it says you can host two websites. All we'd need was a new domain name (unless you can get the one we have now back, Shadow), and I could set it up.
The only big problem is that I would probably need to be an admin - unless I could walk you through Well, I don't know how good an idea that is, as it's my hosting, but we could try. Or I could get everything set up, and you could try doing to forum yourself.

Tell me what you think of my extra long post. xD

So all our posts and such would still be up?

Yep, they sure would

I don't know... It kind of seems like a big investment... I like the way the website is run now... And, I don't know... I'm not very good with changes (The name changes are killing me. XD) and it'd be hard for me to learn an entirely new system... Just saying. I like the idea, but I think that if you supplied all of the money and donations and time, then it wouldn't really be Shad's site anymore... You know? I'm not trying to like, put down your idea, because I think your coming from a really good place, but I just don't think that it's applicable to the situation that we have here...

Yeah, I do actually agree with Keri. xD Cus if we could do this, it would be cool. But I'm not really totally willing to pay much, so that right there's an issue, and I am fine with things the way they are.

Maybe it's safe to say, for now, that I think things are fine the way they are and that while I'm considering the idea, I'm probably not going to be switching things over any time soon. xD

Hehe, I responded to your PM, Shad.
Basically what I was saying is that money and time are both covered by me, if you decide to do it
The test site, for anyone who wants to look, is here.
www.pixelpuppy.net/twg

Oh that's a really cool test website Arianna!

Mkay, well, I've concluded that for now we'll leave things be, but when the need arises we can start discussing it again. (Ari knows, hence this brief answer. xD) So for now, I'm going to close this thread.