A friendly recommendation.

LA wrote:Imagine being guaranteed to take Market Square to another host.

I'm not sure what this means. Does it mean what I think it means?

LA wrote:I'm more interested in a forum/community.

This is the key. Too many forums have moved away from this line of thinking.

LA wrote:N8R, this forum software seems to run pretty well. I wonder what it is and what their hosting options are? I also wonder if they will support using a dot com name directly instead of needing the "Youneed.us" part.

I am admin-ing this current board, as it seemed easy enough to get started. I'm not completely useless when it comes to computers!

The forum software is phpbb3. And you're right, it does seem to run really nicely. The problem is that it is provided through "forumotion.com", and so I'm limited in what I'm able to do based upon whatever forumotion grants its users. For example, as far as skin customization goes, my admin panel only allows me to select skins from hitskin.com. But, if you were to take this software out on your own, I'm sure you'd have much more opportunity for customization.

Also with forumotion, they force you into some creative little blurb at the end instead of a standard .com address. Youneed.us seemed like the easiest one to remember, so I went ahead and selected it. There were other options, all provided by forumotion - but they weren't as simple (IMO). From what little I've read, you are able to take a forumotion board like this, and transfer it to a .com address.

-------------------

To branch off and speak to TA's concerns, I'm on par with Trader Joe. I think we can all agree that a nicer board with at least the potential to add a few more members here and there wouldn't be a bad thing. And out of all of us, LA seems to have a vision, the creativity, and know-how (and money, apparently!) to do it. I'm pretty confident in everyone here that we share similar philosophies as to how a forum should be run - and I think that is why most of us are here in the first place.

I'm looking forward to it!

Phpbb is opensource so it doesn't cost anything to use. I don't really know the advantages or disadvantages of it, but I've used it before.

http://www.phpbb.com

Los Angeles wrote:

CGG wrote:+===================================+
| New Account Info |
+===================================+
| Domain: thesolidlife.com
| Ip: 67.225.241.253 (n)
| HasCgi: y
| UserName:
| PassWord:
| CpanelMod: x3
| HomeRoot: /home
| Quota: 0 Meg
| NameServer1: ns1.tecwaves.com
| NameServer2: ns2.tecwaves.com
| NameServer3:
| NameServer4:
| Contact Email: chris@chrisjgregory.com
| Package: No Restrictions
| Feature List: default
| Language: en
+===================================+

What does this mean, You just bought the domain? Tell me what's going on here.

That's just what the server says when I create an account.

balloon wrote:

LA wrote:Imagine being guaranteed to take Market Square to another host.

I'm not sure what this means. Does it mean what I think it means?

It means they allow you to "export" your forum database and user profiles and take it elsewhere. They declare proudly that "you own your own data and can take it with you when you are done with our service." That's pretty f'in awesome.

MarketSquare was under someone else's control, and they controlled everything and will forever keep the data. Bummer for us.

We saw many other mishaps along the way, including forum crashes, random and unannounced forum merging and renaming and other minor disasters that did more to disrupt the community than help the community.

CGG wrote:

Los Angeles wrote:

CGG wrote:+===================================+
| New Account Info |
+===================================+
| Domain: thesolidlife.com
| Ip: 67.225.241.253 (n)
| HasCgi: y
| UserName:
| PassWord:
| CpanelMod: x3
| HomeRoot: /home
| Quota: 0 Meg
| NameServer1: ns1.tecwaves.com
| NameServer2: ns2.tecwaves.com
| NameServer3:
| NameServer4:
| Contact Email: chris@chrisjgregory.com
| Package: No Restrictions
| Feature List: default
| Language: en
+===================================+

What does this mean, You just bought the domain? Tell me what's going on here.

That's just what the server says when I create an account.

Thank you so much for reserving that space for us!

Let's do a little more research and discussion, and make a move together when the time is right.

How do we get the womenz to join our forum?

Does btown still have his van?

Trader Joe wrote:How do we get the womenz to join our forum?

Does btown still have his van?

I think keeping a certain respectable but not overbearing NSFW standard is important. Some bars and restaurants have a masculine feel but make girls feel comfortable, welcome and safe. Strip clubs don't. Let's aim for the feel of the former and not the latter.

Second, I think I'll invite a woman or two from other circles of mine to join and see if they like the setting. One is a fitness freak and might like the environment.

On a side note, It would be great to hear from Kat on PD - she was always a good read.

Another question for everyone - does the proposed name suck? Please offer more suggestions - nothing is set in stone until we form a plan.

I'll be honest LA, the marketer in me likes, but doesn't LOVE "The Solid Life", but then again I don't have any better suggestions so who am I to judge?

I've always been kind of a tomboy, so guy talk doesn't bother me that much, but I some girls out there are different.

I like LA's comments on the matter...just make it enough that girls can feel comfortable in this sausage-fest of a forum and try not to sound like too much of a perv when you're talking to her and I think girls wouldn't mind joining up.

I mean yeah it's a guy's forum, but I mean I'm a girl and I like reading through everyone's recipes/food talk and who doesn't love to talk about their music and movie tastes?

I don't think LA is saying it's going to be a "guy's forum" in the sense that everything will be related to boobs, beer, and sports.

But I think what he is getting at requires us to move away from the standard trope which presents "guys" as living-moral-zombies who want nothing more from life than a hot chick, cheap beer, and "the game" on TV.

Instead, what he's advocating is for us to stop pretending as if we don't reflect upon who we want to be and what we want to experience (in the name of being a true 'man'). What is it that brings us true happiness? And for Soup, one of those things might be poetry . . . and for Trader, one of those things might be cooking . . . and for me, one of those things might be philosophy . . . all of which are topics that can be spoken at length by anyone! It's inclusive.

At least that's how I understand it, at least - but I could be off

Sounds like you understand it. I will just be the resident counter, game player, and animal expert

Also, I like the name "The Solid Life".

balloon wrote:I don't think LA is saying it's going to be a "guy's forum" in the sense that everything will be related to boobs, beer, and sports.

But I think what he is getting at requires us to move away from the standard trope which presents "guys" as living-moral-zombies who want nothing more from life than a hot chick, cheap beer, and "the game" on TV.

Instead, what he's advocating is for us to stop pretending as if we don't reflect upon who we want to be and what we want to experience (in the name of being a true 'man'). What is it that brings us true happiness? And for Soup, one of those things might be poetry . . . and for Trader, one of those things might be cooking . . . and for me, one of those things might be philosophy . . . all of which are topics that can be spoken at length by anyone! It's inclusive.

At least that's how I understand it, at least - but I could be off

Well put.

balloon wrote:I don't think LA is saying it's going to be a "guy's forum" in the sense that everything will be related to boobs, beer, and sports.

But I think what he is getting at requires us to move away from the standard trope which presents "guys" as living-moral-zombies who want nothing more from life than a hot chick, cheap beer, and "the game" on TV.

Yeah I agree sweabs. I need more than that. I need a hot chick, expensive beer, and the games on TVs.

Ms. Piggy wrote:Sounds like you understand it. I will just be the resident counter, game player, and animal expert

Also, I like the name "The Solid Life".

I think animals are a huge part of the "finer life." And Nature.

This whole thing is especially fascinating in the context of my curiousity re attention, as much of what people consider to be the "finer life" involves selecting aspects of your life that you value most and that give you the most joy, and learning to devote mental energy (attention) until the activity becomes more challenging, complex, and intrinsically rewarding. [In fact, I think you could define "the finer life" simply as the art of intrinsic reward.] For example, someone who likes beer starts off drinking your standard megacorporate beers—Coors, Busch, whatever—and the rewards remain most extrinsic: the slight inebriation, the most general elements of its taste, the feeling of participating in something much larger. As one continues to explore beer, however, the rewards come more and more from the mental energy you put into it. Can you distinguish between matters of taste/quality/etc.? And of course many of these things ultimately involve going from consumer/spectator to creator: setting up your own in-house brewery, eventually setting up your own pub, etc.

In fact, at some point we should all collaborate on a list of what we think the "finer life" does or can include. Obviously not every part has to be a focus of the forum, but it would help us keep our eyes open.

I'll post right now what comes to me off the top of my head—

-Beer/wine/liquor
-Food + Drink
-Exercise and physical fitness
-Mental exercise and the myriad forms of meditation (from Western to Eastern practices)
-Philosophy
-Music (listening, creating)
-Art
-Literature
-Making/breaking habits, time "management" (hate that term)
-Sex, love, romantic relations
-Home improvement? Other he-man mechanical stuff? Out of my area here. . .
-Film
-Pets, the natural world
-news and "politics" (though I suggest a way to separate discussion of the day-to-day political power-games between opposing parties and more abstracted discussion of policy, eg discussion of Obama's impromptu speech last friday vs. a discussion of the viability of nuclear power as a source of long-term alt energy. I know at some level these distinctions collapse, but I think it could be helpful nonetheless.



And as LA said, it's most definitely important to maintain a gentlemanly atmosphere. Because if you don't you not only end up with a pervy-porny "sausage fest," but the forum pretty much goes to hell. We can be frank and explicit w/o being trashy.

Trader Joe wrote:I'll be honest LA, the marketer in me likes, but doesn't LOVE "The Solid Life", but then again I don't have any better suggestions so who am I to judge?

This is how I feel about it too. Part of me resent the "solid," as I feel a joyful life entails an openness to change and development. Solid reminds me too much of the calcification of character you see so often in people whom, at some arbitrary point in their life, decide that they have lived enough and will now begin the slow process of becoming a fossil.

Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes; for that for ever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside.

-Emerson

I say we keep brainstorming titles. We have one that works if we can't come up with anything, but more options doesn't hurt. . .

That's a great list of topics sig. I think anyone girl or boy would want to read through topics like that. I'm getting excited about this new forum...just so long as it doesn't get too big and we lose the community feel we have right now.

I don't know if this kind of forum could ever get too big, really. The more mental energy a topic requires the smaller the # of people willing to exert that energy. Take tbird's posts for example. He's probably the greatest unread poster ever, as his posts—while incredible—take an incredible amount of energy to digest, and only people with extreme interest in basketball scouting + X's and O's will be motivated to read those posts consistently.

These same concepts are also what allows a husband and wife to love each other for 60+ years. . . continually applying a kind of joyful attention to the other, they keep on discerning more and more challenges (though of a smaller and finer degree) inherent to the relationship. Thus "Does she like me? Will she sleep with me?" becomes, 50 years later, "She has been mentioning our grandkids a lot lately—should we move closer to them? And why does she always have a glass of OJ immediately after brushing her teeth, even though the taste makes her nearly gag? Why has she stopped painting her toenails? Has that mole behind her ear become raised, or larger?" Except that those later questions exist on a more subconscious, instinctive level.

I like everything. I too like The Solid Life but am not IN like with it. Personally when I hear the word Solid I think I douchebag guys saying man that was solid. Solid life is just not a term I hear...ever. The Good Life is but it is boring. I have no good suggestions for names, personally the name won't really matter to me, it is about the theme, the posters and the general feel of the board.

Prime Living? Superior Living?

On another wavelength:

We Ride Together?

Elevate? Like we're trying to live the good life, and we would be improving? I don't know.

I don't know if these are all available... just that I typed them in and the internet told me "no!"...
I'm sure half of them cost a pretty penny too...
I'm writing them funny so the internetz don't steal our shiz...

beingTheMan[dot]com
beTHEman[dot]com
TheMan[dot]com
TheGentlemen[dot]com
TheGentleman[dot]com
Gentlemen[dot]com
Gentleman[dot]com

I still basically hate the idea but if its going to be done than I want to have a stake in it... so I would want to help design and/or mod and I maintain that there shouldn't EVER be just ONE person in control... even if its just on paper.

I'm not a huge fan of the in-your-face "man" stuff. How about "The Art of Being"?

Toxic,

Unfortunately, none of your name suggestions are available domains. They've all been previously purchased to the last. One of the things I'm worried about regarding your suggestions is that they are all gender specific. I'd prefer something that sounds cool and perhaps masculine without excluding women outright.

Regarding the rest of your post, I don't understand how to make the leap from "I still hate the idea" to "I want to have a stake in it". Why do you want to be an administrative member of an organization you, right from the start, don't believe in? Cant you just come by and goof around as a member?

I think maybe the real issue is one of mistrust? That the "money guy" could just run off and fuck everybody else or act like the holier than thou King Shit? I've already promised that this would be a team effort, administered by committee. I'm just offering to organize it, get it rolling and back it financially. I think that's me being generous, not selfish. We can even have a rule that if I'm not doing a good job on my end, I can get voted out by the other admins, who will then take control of the domain registry and payments (if there are payments).

In the end, I don't know what I can offer other than my word. :shrug:

balloon wrote:I'm not a huge fan of the in-your-face "man" stuff. How about "The Art of Being"?

Taken.