TIMGUL breaks the 12000 posts curse

[DJ_Omnimaga]

The Past

As you may have noticed, TIMGUL has reached 13000 posts now. This may not seem like much compared to some other forums, but this is a great period of time in TIMGUL history, as it marks the end of an endless struggle that prevented the site from getting past the 12000 posts mark, despite posts being made regularly.

Two and half a year ago, the site was hit by typical internet community disputes during an entire year, in addition to suffering from a database crash that brought the site down during three month and causing a three months database rollback, all of which caused the loss of over 5000 posts and 1000 song attachments over time.

One year afterward, everything returned back to normal, thanks to the help of our administrators that kept the site afloat over time. However, the site needed time to recover, so Early 2010 was marked by two periods of slow forum posting activity, where the site started to be invaded by spambots.


The Present

Over the time, TIMGUL rebuilt a new userbase of MTVMG enthusiasts, and now the site activity, despite not being as high as in 2008, is enjoying a slow increase and several new songs are being posted. This is very good, considering that several Internet forums normally never recover from a long period of inactivity.


The Future

Now come the future. As you remember months ago, we upgraded once again to SMF 2.0. However, we would like to eventually give TIMGUL a customized look, once and for all (in other word, stopping using pre-made forum themes such as the default one), which is something that SMF 2.0 is making extremly hard on us. In addition to that, I find the SMF 2.0 admin panel very hard to navigate compared to SMF 1.1.x, and the extra features offered there are not signifiant enough.

What this means is that TIMGUL will be downgraded from SMF 1.1.14. The Bookmarks feature and custom profile field features will be removed completely, although a different custom profile field feature will eventually return.

Here's a preview of the forum theme that would be used after the downgrade, although the O icons would be replaced with the Music 2000/MTVMG memory card icon (M2):



Also here comes the hosting issue. I would like to eventually get rid of my 1and1 account to only keep my AspiratioHosting one. Recently I cleaned TIMGUL webspace from broken files and unused data, in order to cut the site size from 8 gigabytes to 4. This included moving some videos over Youtube, for example. This would finally allow me to host TIMGUL on the same webspace as Omnimaga website and still have almost 7 GB of diskspace left, three of which would be assigned to TIMGUL song attachments. The only downside is that the maximum attachment file sizes for future uploads would return to 6 MB per file instead of the current 16 MB, which, however, should no longer be a problem, as several websites allowing playing music automatically without having to wait for a download link are now available, including some popular ones used by our members (SounCloud, for example), and Youtube now offers pretty good sound quality.

The major good side if TIMGUL website is moved to my other webspace is that even after downgrading to SMF 1.1.14, it would run faster than where it is now, and it would finally have an extra anti-spambot software to reduce the task of admins.


Possible merge of TIMGUL with Omnimaga

Because Omnimaga website, which I also founded, also includes a music discussion and showcase section, I have considered the possibility of merging both TIMGUL and Omnimaga together. Basically, TIMGUL would replace the Omnimaga music section, although the entire TIMGUL content would pretty much remain intact, even the site portal and the forum theme (when Omnimaga users would open the TIMGUL section, the forum theme would switch to TIMGUL's). It may even be possible to have every mtv-music-generator.com URLs redirect automatically the respective relocated posts. This would allow TIMGUL to gain extra traffic from the userbase there (1000 members), although such website merge is ambitious, as this requires a lot of work in the database. Don't expect such merge to happen very soon if it has to, since it will require some testing prior that.

The only data loss that may result from a site merge are PMs (private messages).

In any case, regardless of if the site merge happens or not, when the downgrade to SMF 1.1.14 and site hosting move happens, cookies settings may be lost, so you may need to login again once if you set your account to login automatically on each visit. This SMF 2.0 copy of TIMGUL would remain online in read-only mode for at least a year, for those who wish to retrive custom profile field and bookmarks that they lost, and if the site merge happens, their private messages. If the site merge occurs and it is possible to setup the MTVMG URL to automatically redirect to appropriate posts and content, you may not even notice that the merge happened, aside from the URL changing to Omni in your address bar and the sudden post count increase from 13K to over 176K.

Don't worry, when the site moves, a lot of backups will be made, in case. We certainly won't take any chance (like the failed 2009 SMF 2.0 upgrade attempt), lol.

I would like to thank everyone who allowed TIMGUL to stay active and for keeping it a friendly environment, and let's hope for a great long-term future.

[Koolassjoe]

Positive vs Negative - A Koolassjoe Opinion...

Positive - TIMGUL 4 Life. Speed is always a good thing even though TIMGUL is rarely slow. Whatever system is best for the mods becomes best for the residents. Scrooge McDuck said "Work Smarter, Not Harder" & I think if customization is too hard then downgrades are best for all of us. With the possibility of enhancements or additional functions, the future TIMGUL is looking really optimistic. The extra spyware is welcomed. The fact that were past 12k means were the base of this program so unless each member of our little community gives up or we all lose our last copies of music, we wont stop. A merger would be helpfull. Increased userbase will definitely add more listeners. Lets hope for a music player.

Negative - Downgrading would take away PS3 functionality that I was so adamant about. This is pretty much my only concern. I do have fears that merging with Omni would take away what makes us "the only place for the MTVMG user" & I got the rocks to say that maybe were better off as a separate entity then to be a piece of a larger pie. Were already kind of like a speciality spot. We just integrated FB functions, added that attachments section to the profile (Love that thing) and getting pretty good at bot destruction as a crew. Losing upgrades always hurts. And starting with 1000 new faces who happen to be involved in an "above my level of understanding" hobby of programming is kinda scary dude! I make beats with games. U make games. The difference will be there.

Opinion complete. Game on.

[DJ_Omnimaga]

Oh right I rememebr about the PS3 issue now... I guess maybe a downgrade would be out of the question then.

However, then the site would most likely keep the same default theme forever, since I have no clue how to edit it. One big issue with the forum theme is that I am unable to get rid of the background, for example, so you only see a few bits of the MTVMG CD pockets at the top and bottom.

One thing I could do before downgrading is to post a link to a forum attachment on the other site, to check if you can use them fine, and if not, then I guess we might have to stick with SMF 2.0.

However the site move is probably gonna be inevitable.

I should try to ask on SMF support to see if it's possible to use SMF 1.1.14 on a PS3 and if there are any mods to fix issues.

As for the users on the other site, I don't think their level of knowledge should be a problem, because the entire programming discussion is kept outside the music sections, (Unless somebody ever decided to write a new MTVMG clone or something), and the people there are nice with people who are not into technology. I myself barely understand the discussion there too because I don't program anymore. XD I could understand the issue about the site not being exclusive about music, though.

Anyway, before any downgrade or merge occur, I would like to continue hearing your opinions.

[Fear 2 Stop®]

I do have fears that merging with Omni would take away what makes us "the only place for the MTVMG user" & I got the rocks to say that maybe were better off as a separate entity then to be a piece of a larger pie. Were already kind of like a speciality spot. We just integrated FB functions, added that attachments section to the profile (Love that thing) and getting pretty good at bot destruction as a crew. Losing upgrades always hurts. And starting with 1000 new faces who happen to be involved in an "above my level of understanding" hobby of programming is kinda scary dude! I make beats with games. U make games. The difference will be there.

I'm with you there. However, maybe this will be a way to expose our music to other people who may not have heard it anyway...?

[DJ_Omnimaga]

Well, about the MTVMG-only thing, we kinda lost this status two years ago after the addition of entire non-MTVMG (FL Studio/Ableton Live) sections to the site, so it wouldn't be very different. In fact, when you would browse music sections, the entire Omnimaga forum theme (and site navigation) would automatically switch to TIMGUL's, and the Omnimaga shoutbox would be disabled there too. The only difference would be that logging in/out would redirect you to Omnimaga front page.

However, yeah we would lose our status of being only a music creation discussion place.

(Note, if a merge/downgrade would cause us to lose users due to being unable to use the site or if most people are against such move, I would rather not do it, since the users count more)

[DJ_Omnimaga]

By the way, even if a merge doesn't occur, Omnimaga radio will open its door for TIMGUL music. Basically any artist member here would be free to PM Juju2143 (who runs the radio) to get their songs added to http://radio.57o9.org or http://radio.57o9.org/omnimaga.m3u and they would play there almost everyday.

Non-MTV songs would be allowed too. For DJ mixes, the DJ mix author would need to ask each artist permission, though, to get the song added there.

I remember some people wanted a radio here before, so I thought it might be nice now that we got someone who got the server to do it

[juju2143]

Yeah, a merger would be nice, there's lots of Omnimaga members who does music, some of them already signed up here.

And feel free to submit me your songs via PM, I'll add them to the radio

[Koolassjoe]

Kool. I kinda thought Omni got mad at me there for a second. Lol. Sorry Dude. Im all for it if it allows us to keep doing what were doing!

[DJ_Omnimaga]

Lol nah don't worry. I wanted to announce the possible move/merges in advance, to make sure people are ok with it. The merge would not cause clashes between userbases, since the other forum members are also pretty nice. The only thing to keep in mind is that we would need to avoid adult material lol, since a lot of people there are behind school and parental filters.

However, the other forum is stuck on SMF 1.1.14, so a merge would force a downgrade of TIMGUL, and if a downgrade cause TIMGUL to be unuseable by some members here, I would rather keep TIMGUL independent from the other site. I mean you are one of the greatest member around, for example, and it would suck if you would not be able to download songs anymore.

[RSCONCEPTIONS©]

Use the new logo I maddddddddddddddddddddddddde

[Қлөщłєşү[¤¤]]

Im all for it if it allows us to keep doing what were doing!

Pretty much the jist of what I was gonna say.

[DJ Eddy]

Sounds like a decent idea to me...I have an account on Omnimaga.org anyway lol. The music player would be brilliant for everyones songs to.

[DJ_Omnimaga]

Finally it looks like we'll probably remaining an independent site for a while. In the future, however, if I change my mind, I'll probably ask everyone to visit a certain topic I will link to on the other forums and attempt at downloading an attachment or something there, to see if it actually works, to be certain it will.

Anyway for now what might happen, however, is the return of a shoutbox. It would be linked to IRC, but you would chat from your forum account. HOWEVER, I would probably make it opt-in: You would go to your profile then manually join a special usergroup, allowing you to use the chatroom. If, eventually, everybody happens to be able to get the shoutbox to work in their browser, then I'll make it so everyone have it enabled, while keeping a group around for those who wants to disable it completely.

The shoutbox would most likely notify of new forum posts in real time, too, but it would remain invisible to guests and be restricted to 20 post users or something, so we don't get the same thing as what happened 4 years ago happening again (lots of people joined the chat requesting warez/torrent links then ragequitted when they did not get a response in the first 8 seconds).

[Master Dutch]

Cool! i like the new logo too!