My Adopts Clone

[Nemesis]

Well is MyAdopts gone for good? been getting a blank page for days now...

Anyway HOF do you think we/ you/ whoever, could make a clone of my adopts?

What I mean is can we get a forum going or use this one, but have a script on a vps that will automatically install and host adopt sites for people?

I am still plowing my way through PHP and MySQL myself and have never made an install script... but could this be feasible?

[Abronsyth]

Yes, Myadopts is officially closed. Brandon did post an announcement on MA a month before closing, and it was a month or three ago that it closed for good.

While that would be a neat idea, I think their is a problem with how much funding it'd require and how much of a strain it'd put on resources. If payed for services were offered such as domain names, different features (such as making the day care a payed for feature, the pound, etc) it could be possible to provide funding, but I'm not sure. All I know is funding is one of the main problem a host would run into.

[Hall of Famer]

Well if I know how to do it, Id probably give it a try. As you see, my current hosting service already has a dedicated server, while right the server load is usually not more than 5-10% due to lack of activity. So funding is not a problem, its more of technical and maintenance considerations. I wonder how BMR did that though, perhaps theres an easy way.

[Kesstryl]

Basically what you would be doing is cloning a copy of mysidia for people who register as site owners to their account, each clone is an instance of mysidia complete with an admin panel for each site owner that they can develop on your server for their pet game. As you change the parent script, those changes automatically apply for each child site, and this could be good for implementing bug fixes for all sites at the same time too. There could be a premium features that site owners could purchase from you to add to their site, and/or allow site owners and modders to upload mods for server wide currency or credits that site owners can then spend credits to add to their own site. Obviously you will want adds for free users which can be turned off for those who upgrade to premium. I'm giving you these ideas because right now I'm alpha testing another site who is doing this very same thing and letting you know how the features and cost upkeep are working on their site.

[Nemesis]

So is this a project we should take on? Also would Brandon release the source code for myadopts? seems a waste to let it die like that.

I think we could display ads like myadopts did and offer like a 10$ year subscription to remove them.

I recommend this host https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing

Been using them for some time now, very reliable and scalable. Starting on the smallest 5$ package I now use the 20$ one. I needed the RAM but currently my CPU load is generally at 5% unless my game servers are full or rendering maps.

The script to do this would need to create a new directory, copy over mysidia script, create a sql database, and edit the config.php.

This seems doable to me and I have an idea how to start. One thing im not sure on is ftp access for users. Not sure how to set that up or if their is software for that, that can also be set up by a script automatically for user. Mainly for changing site design, or each site could look the same...

[Nemesis]

Further researching this. We can install virtualmin on a vps to be a free whm/cpanel solution.

http://www.webmin.com/virtualmin.html

for now we can forget the auto install junk. mysidia takes less than 5 min to install and can be managed by admin/moderators or even other community members that know how.

For these services, hosting/installations. We will use the post to host model. Or rather each post gets you a credit/point. You can then spend points at the shop for services. Hosting/Installs/code/art/members etc... This could really strengthen the community and hopefully advertisements on forum would cover all server costs. Each member can offer operate their own shop/services.

Project budget would start at 5$ a month for vps. Which I am sure will scale quickly but won't be a problem. then we would need a domain. so 10$ + 5$ = 15$ start up plus we need members.

So who is interested in joining the moderating team?

And we also need to find clients or get a petition to see if anyone would actually use this service like they did with my adopts.

My goal is to keep ads off myadopts sites and only on the forums.

And the forums should stay active as members will be using points to trade for code/ installs/ and art with other members.

[Abronsyth]

If y'all are serious about this then I can ask around and see if it'd be possible to get a big member base...I know a few sites where a lot of users exist wanting to create their own sites but turning to EasyRPG because they have no other option. In regards to activity...if you require posting on the/a forum for users to gain points to use to buy features/etc for their sites then that'd really boost forum activity.

In regards to the Moderating team, it depends, for me, on what sort of knowledge would be necessary to be a moderator for this sort of thing. I for one have a pretty secure knowledge of HTML and CSS, but PHP and Javascript (amongst others) escape me. However, despite my lack of coding knowledge, I do have a good understanding of how to deal with confused users in the sort of situation that creating a sort of Adopts-Site-Host would create. You will need good moderators for this sort of thing to deal with the various problems that arise from hosting adoptable sites...art theft being the most notable problem, but bickering between members also occurs...also one of the major problems that occurred for Myadopts for certain users was "hacking" aka easy passwords getting guessed...I think the best way to prevent this would be to require users have a secure password containing a min. amount of characters and lower case and upper case letters as well as numbers and possibly symbols.

Sorry, that's a whole lot of nonsense up there! Basically if this is something y'all are seriously wanting to attempt, then I want to help in any way I can...I honestly miss being a part of a community like Myadopts, I met some really cool people there and it was upsetting to see the activity drop like it did.

[Nemesis]

Abronsyth thank you for your reply. This is exactly what I am interested in and looking for. Anyone willing to put forth the time and effort, and is willing to learn can be apart of the moderating team.

As you mentioned you have HTML/CSS skills which is great you could trade those skills on the forum for points and hopefully use them to pay for a coder if you needed.

For art theft if that does occur and is brought to our attention, we can shut down the sites easily if they're hosted with us. And any problematic members can be warned/banned. Is true for any community.

And since you brought up weak passwords we can definitely put out a warning and try to require strong passwords.

I see that myadopts.org is available for $6.99

But I am wondering if we should expand our site to include more than just adopt sites.

We could support a ton of different artists, coders, writers, and provide hosting and support for other scripts than just mysidia.

We would just make adoptables its own sub forums but it would be apart of something much bigger and a good start!

[Abronsyth]

I honestly don't like the thought of having "myadopts" in the URL simply because it could possibly confuse people...while it is/was a good name, I think it might be good to start over fresh...something new that'll get more attention. Oh boy, you certainly have some big plans, Nemesis! Baby steps, baby steps (haha)!

Anyways, I was actually talking to my little sister about the possibility of it, and she did make the comment that she would love to create her own adoptables site (she'd been working on one when MA shut down) but she doesn't want to put up with finding a good host and getting it set up. I think a lot of people, really a lot in her age group (12-16) are probably interested in creating their own adoptables sites, but are also lose interest for the same reasons. So, basically what I'm saying is, well, it could work out very well, and y'all likely wouldn't have problem finding interest.

Ah, well, I should be off to continue studying for regents...June might bring a lot of good things (summer vacation, my birthday aka: new laptop and photoshop Cs5) but the regents testing kills.

[Nemesis]

Update on this:

I agree with you on the domain Abronsyth. So the domain will be 99webs.org.

For the control panel i am switching to zpanel as webmin/virtualmin is not making me happy.

This should be ready in a few days. What forum software should we use? I am leaning towards myBB.

Also HOF what are you thinking about all this?