Neverside

Honestly, I think it is retarded to try and get the current NS alive again in the current state its in. It wouldn't make sense and I think it would seriously give people the wrong impression when they first come to a site and its dead.

It'd be cool to have a newly designed site with features that work when going and recruiting people.

I agree with Nykoelle about breathing life back into the forums. I'm willing to post/respond as much as I can. Really need a good variety of topics with someone overseeing the content and posting news of related articles, releases, etc. I also agree with Rider. I don't really see Neverside as a tainted name but some may. Even if we start to re-assemble this site people might just read "Neverside" and think "oh yeah, that place is dead." I think it could be done but we'd really have to have a fully completed system at launch with a good base amount of member activity. Either way, I wouldn't mind. We could always just start from scratch. Also, Cross, I do like the idea of using Drupal. Right now it's one of the best CMS out there. Thinking of using it for my new website.

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Warning: Dangerous if taken seriously.

defective: Yep I love Drupal more every day I use it... it was a bit hard to learn, but well worth it. Not until after NS (or at least until it's closer to completion) but I plan to move absolutecross.com to it as well. I already planned it all out (features, content types/fields, etc), and I think I could do it in a few days work at this point (would have taken weeks or months as of a while back, but I'm getting pretty good at it haha). It's a lot more simple than NS though. Heck maybe I'll do it one day when I'm bored haha... actually might not be a half bad idea - would get to see Drupal under a relatively heavy load (AC still gets a few thousand visits/day). I'd probably save the theme redesign for a later date though.

If you happen to be pretty good with Drupal (or PHP in general) I'd be interested in chatting with you about it... perhaps we can work on a few things together and get this movin' along

So far as the name of Neverside, I've decided for sure that the name will be changed - I've already come up with several new name candidates - though I don't want to post them publicly so far in advance of the release, and until I post a synopsis of my crazy idea for the new site (or else the name won't make as much sense). When I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I'll post about the new name (all the main candidates are registered just in case). There's one name in particular I'm leaning towards since it communicates best about the new "future" purpose of the site, though I'll post a few names so people can toss their feedback around on it before I commit to it. I actually came up with several "hundred" domain candidates a long while back, though 80% or more were already reserved.

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-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

Last edited by AbsoluteCross, November 3rd, 2007 08:47 AM (Edited 2 times)

Oh, if only I were that experienced with it. In time, perhaps I will be. I recall testing it out at one point a year or so ago but I wasn't really blown away. I ended up going with Movable Type. Now that the new Beta 2 is out for Drupal, I'm actually starting to become impressed. Seems pretty flexible. I'm still working with PHP at the moment, as I am most likely not even considered a novice. More like a "noob." Plenty of experience with XHTML/CSS, though. Been doing graphic design for years now. I've been hearing great things about Ruby (ruby-lang.org) so I've been thinking about sitting down to hash it out. Anyway, I'm always available to help in whatever way I can.

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Warning: Dangerous if taken seriously.

Yeah a year or so ago would have been Drupal 4.x still, which I agree wasn't very impressive on the surface (of course it was still good code under the hood, a lot the same as in the current version, but it had a very unfriendly interface, the default themes were terrible, etc). I merely chose it at first because it had reasonably good integration options with vBulletin (which at the time I wanted to power the forum section with - though I've changed my mind now and plan to invest time and money into the Drupal forum improvements instead). Once 5 came out though, it was finally presented in a way that let me see the possibilities. Once I learned how to use CCK and Views (and now Panels, which has some amazing features in the alpha version they're working on) it seems like almost anything I can imagine is possible, with little to no custom PHP needed, and a bit of theming work. I know the programming gurus can get even more flexibility and performance by writing their own code, though I'm not a programmer

Anyhow, you'll get there... if you have any questions feel free to ask. I'm on the Drupal documentation team actually

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-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

Originally posted by SRV:

And what feature list are you guys looking to see?

It isn't so much about what specific features there are as it is about the emphasis put on them. You want to make it as easy and as enticing as possible for someone to sign up and start using the features of the site. For example: first, you show them all the other cool stuff people have put in their profiles, then you show them how they can make their own profile and start adding content. Once they have signed up and have their own content, you show them how they can share it with other people and communicate with other users on the forum.

When you first visit neverside.com right now, you do see some stuff other people have uploaded, but because it is just the most recent (rather than hand picked featured work), it isn't that impressive. Signing up seems completely secondary, and the place looks like a ghost town.

Looking at other graphics communities like DeviantArt or Behance, users are attracted to the site by the powerful profiles, galleries, and user created groups. Rather than relying on a centralized forum as the primary mode of communication, these communities tend to push communication between individuals or within smaller groups. Design a way for groups to function as cohesive unit in a similar way to a forum, and you have the best of both worlds.

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Hello. I am Joe Shoop's Portfolio

I vote it gets its old name back...tutorial forums. Why?

1. The meaning of the site is in the name. Plain and simple. That's what attracted me to the site when I first saw it listed at Spoon.com (?)

I don't know who made the name "Neverside" up but I bet he/she/they were smoking some damn good stuff to pull that out of their a...OK back on subject.

AC: Im not in for ANOTHER name change. To much history to explain, to many new subject-matter objectives to create and finally...to much work to get networked with other sites. If it goes back to TF, it will probably be alot easier to accomplish everything I said above.

And if I make no sense it's because I've been awake for 56 hours straight troubleshooting SO PISS OFF. Only joking

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STG2 (SW) in the United States Navy
Nemo is my homeboy!

First of all, to make a list of things, you need multiple items, like I have in this post, else it's kind of useless. Secondly, it's "spoono.com", not "spoon.com". And finally, the name was changed from TutorialForums to Neverside for multiple reasons (good, sense-making reasons), I'll give you the two obvious and unarguable points:

1. It wasn't intended to be "just a forum" anymore (which is why the "forums" part didn't fit, if you didn't catch the point). For what this site was meant to be, "TutorialForums" would make about as much sense as it would to re-name deviantArt to "AritstForums". Actually even that would make more sense than "TutorialForums" would for what this site was supposed to be, this brings me to point number 2.

2. This site isn't a "tutorial site", and that discussed on the forums isn't tutorials either. Most people nowadays don't want tutorials of the old kind anyway, they want guides, articles, tips, and active discussions about subjects from which they can help themselves to discover their own way to whatever they want to achieve. It does make sense, as it's both more helpful in the long run and it's much more interesting. Still however, even if you choose to bluntly call all of this for "tutorials", it's just a tiny part of what this community was supposed to be about.

"Neverside" is a rather random name, but since the site was meant to offer much more than you could (realistically) describe in a single, short, and relatively good-sounding name, it's not that bad. Anything else would probably just have given people a biased pre-exploring opinion regarding what the site was about, which also reminds me of a meaning the name had (although it's highly unlikely that it was anything other than an afterthought as the domain name was given to Locke by someone, if I don't remember it completely wrong). Neverside, as in never picking a side, or being unbiased (a place for both beginners and professionals, artists and coders, etc).

Rolling back to what was TutorialForums, even if it was possible, is just a nostalgic idea. If you answer this question, you will most likely answer "no" (else you're a good liar to yourself, or just not thinking about it close enough): Would you (if you were who you are today, but never were in contact with TF.com) bother going to a forum named "TutorialForums.com" that was nothing more than just another forum?

A site like TF had (and probably still would have) a certain amount of attraction to beginners within various subjects, however, as soon as they reached a certain level the discussions on TF wasn't enough to satisfy anymore. Some stayed and became the teachers themselves, but most left for good to further develop and use their skills elsewhere. This was the leak in TF, and to stop that leak "Neverside" had to happen, a site for both beginners and professionals. The idea of NS isn't the problem, it's just the fact that things never got completed properly.

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Neversidian, your staff is broken.

1. It didn't need a list...the name was a list in itself.

2. I added the "(?)" because i didn't know what it was called; I haven't seen it in over 5 years.

3. From what I remember, there were topics ranging from the most mediocre to the more advanced levels. There were never those who rejected the idea of posting in "just another forum" because it had "Tutorial" in the name. We welcomed ALL levels and gave no one sided judgments to anyones work. TF was complete...the community made it better and contributed a lot of time and effort in making it what it was.

4. NOBODY liked the idea of changing over to Neverside. In fact, it wasn't discussed among anyone in the forums for long at all to get full input. Why change something that was already great as it was? Yes, Never Side is a good name...but nobody stuck onto it like the NS staff was hoping.

5. What THINGS never got completed "properly?" Why was Never Side launched to begin with in the state that it was in!? Even the most novice user would have had that critique run through his/her mind. Taking a fully functional, live website and changing it into a totally new goal oriented site that is nowhere near completion was quite a sudden shift, was it not? I know why you are defending NS, Locke, and the reason why it was made. You helped make it; you and a team of other people helped with the idea amongst you (the team), was going to change everything. I know where you are coming from.

Unfortunately, that idea was shattered, and nobody came. Except for us "Scavengers" who come here wondering what the heck happened.

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STG2 (SW) in the United States Navy
Nemo is my homeboy!

Last edited by hougy, December 3rd, 2007 05:48 AM (Edited 1 times)

Originally posted by hougy:

1. It didn't need a list...the name was a list in itself.

No comment.

Originally posted by hougy:

2. I added the "(?)" because i didn't know what it was called; I haven't seen it in over 5 years.

I know, I know. I was just being an asshole. ^,^

Originally posted by hougy:

3. From what I remember, there were topics ranging from the most mediocre to the more advanced levels. There were never those who rejected the idea of posting in "just another forum" because it had "Tutorial" in the name. We welcomed ALL levels and gave no one sided judgments to anyones work. TF was complete...the community made it better and contributed a lot of time and effort in making it what it was.

I don't think anyone wanted to change the community, only give it the proper tools and sections to do what they already did, better. For example replacing the showcase forums with the studio. Neverside wasn't really meant to offer much that wasn't already available on TF, it was just supposed to do it in a better way. A forum isn't the perfect solution for everything afterall.

Originally posted by hougy:

4. NOBODY liked the idea of changing over to Neverside. In fact, it wasn't discussed among anyone in the forums for long at all to get full input. Why change something that was already great as it was? Yes, Never Side is a good name...but nobody stuck onto it like the NS staff was hoping.

Yeah I guess it wasn't the most popular decision ever made. My points regarding why TF simply didn't fit anymore, regardless of it being a "good sounding name" and "popular" or not, still holds true in my opinion.

Originally posted by hougy:

5. What THINGS never got completed "properly?" Why was Never Side launched to begin with in the state that it was in!? Even the most novice user would have had that critique run through his/her mind. Taking a fully functional, live website and changing it into a totally new goal oriented site that is nowhere near completion was quite a sudden shift, was it not? I know why you are defending NS, Locke, and the reason why it was made. You helped make it; you and a team of other people helped with the idea amongst you (the team), was going to change everything. I know where you are coming from.

Studio, Codebase, Hostpad, Market, Tutorials (AHA! ), Contests... Those are all sections that were planned but never got started on, or as in the case of the studio, never got completed.

I'm not defending anyone or anything, I'm just speaking my mind on the matter based on what I think. I probably end up sounding far more biased in the matter than I really am when I discuss it with others.

Originally posted by hougy:

Unfortunately, that idea was shattered, and nobody came. Except for us "Scavengers" who come here wondering what the heck happened.

Yes, it's indeed a sad story.

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Neversidian, your staff is broken.

Last edited by Simon, December 3rd, 2007 08:27 AM (Edited 1 times)