Thanks @Ripper, I didn't read properly or focused on the last part too much.

I don't know how difficult the link between CMS and forum could be, and I suspect it depends a lot on the choice.

The way RPGWatch shows a main page with the news and the forum updates, together with an integration of the game/company database (also accessible from the forum part), really amplifies its value, I think.

That's what we have to evaluate. If that proves too difficult, a split like you suggest is a better solution than no news at all. Because wouldn't that lower the traffic dramatically? Or it's possible to post news in a forum-only solution, but it's a little sad.

Yes, the layout of the Watch main page could remain mostly the same on the news site, but without the integration of the forum comments. Personally, I think the advantages would outweigh that disadvantage. The news site could have community links saying, "Discuss on forum x, or our Steam community, or the Discord, or on Twitter." I actually think that could drive engagement, and the traffic for the news site could increase, having a bit more of a life of its own. Some could join what would probably be the traditional forum continuation for we grognards, da kidz might go to the Discord, and so on.

With regard to getting news into a separate forum, all that's really needed is the automatic creation of news topics from the news feed. Even if you had, say, a hosted solution that wouldn't let you add that simple bit of extra code, it would be straightforward to create a bot, externally, that monitors the RSS feed, and posts new topics in the forum for each story.

News sites already exists
Gamebanshee
Sorcerer's Place

both even have forums, but not really a community.
So I think this separation of news and forum doesn't really work.

The Codex post more newsbits in the forum itself than on the main-page. It works, but I still like the RPGWatch approach most.

TOS of Sorcerer's Place:
So how come the Codex is not in trouble?

Where are the servers located?
And is he just turning a blind eye and think he'll get away with possible legal consequences by pointing to the HSO if they knock on his door? (Not with a TOS like that imo). Or is he just taking the chance no one will ever knock on his door? Small fish?

Edit
Not that it is any concern of mine, of course.
But it might be interesting to know what might happen to the Watch in the long run,

Well, to add my 5 cents: I headed an RPG (NWN) community myself more than 15 years ago with a dedicated game server, a highly interactive PHP website (connected with the game via databases), forums etc.
The main headache had always been the server administration. It's a lot of work and a lot of responsibility.

Anyone who volunteered to do this, should really really make up their mind before and should exactly know what that means. It should only be done by someone with a lot of experience.

So unless we have an experienced server admin with enough free time here (haha), I think Sorcerer's place looks like the best shot right now. I wouldn't mind the ads.

Getting a forum up and running and something to create news will be doable by some technical skilled volunteers.

We imho still would need a single person heading it.

That's how I see it. Trying to recreate the Watch as it is, without the code-base that's on its last legs, I think is a really onerous undertaking. A news site and a forum could be sorted out pretty quickly, and the news site tinkered-with and added-to over time, with the features wanted.

If you are talking about a siteowner, that comes with legal responsibilities and liabilities. Of course, anyone is free to dismiss those things as being insignificant for a site like this, compared to the bigger fish, but it is good to realise that it is not just taking up your average, ordinary voluntary job.

If you guys decide to go for a SaaS option like Xenforo I would be happy to commit to a yearly contribution as I am sure a lot of other regulars would too.

I always prefer the SaaS type of solutions because they take care of all the busy work i.e. security (mostly), backups, patching, upgrades etc. The the admin just needs to take care of configuration etc. I think a good aim for day 1 would be having the forum in place and then maybe dropping in a news page in front of the forum once someone has time to build it. It looks like Xenforo (and phpBB) both have API's to grab threads etc so it should be possible to pull news postings or similar.

While it would be nice to copy all the existing content i.e. users/discussions etc personally I don't think it is the end of the world if it has to be a clean start.

That's what I meant when saying we need someone to head it all.

That's also part of my attraction to the idea. The news site wouldn't have to worry about all that hassle - none of the concerns a forum brings. For me, that's something I might help out with, a way to keep in touch and keep things going, without dealing with any of the grief, or creating a huge workload. And the forums can set themselves up and moderate themselves how they wish, by the folks that are interested in doing that.

Legally it doesn't work like that. The RPGWatch site owner is legally responsible for everything that happens on RPGWatch and that includes the forums. They aren't two different sites.
Also a large part of the forum interaction is related to the news postings that are syndicated to the forums. I would expect that no longer doing that would really reduce the interaction.

But what I'm saying, is that they could become two different sites - two different entities. In the same way that you are not responsible for what goes on in the Discord, or the Steam group.

I'm suggesting that the news site would also provide a news feed to the independent forums, Discord, etc - syndicating to them for discussion, but having no legal responsibility for what goes on there.

Despite that strangely detailed TOS that Sorcerer's Place has for their hosting (and there's no way the Codex complies with it), their server (and the Codex's) appears to be in the US, and so there shouldn't be much of a concern about any of those items except maybe the piracy stuff. Forum owners aren't responsible for content that users post on their forums, the posters themselves are. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

Wouldn't it be better to have two or three people, to share the load but also to have a backup and to avoid missing something important? While I would have no problem sharing that with someone, doing it alone would probably be problematic, at least at the beginning. I suppose it wouldn't be a problem for someone doing that for a living though.

This load can be reduced with other host options than Sorcerer's Place too.

Interesting! That's why I was wondering about the localization earlier.

I found an answer to my question regarding a realistic budget on the donation page.

I don't have any idea about the required bandwidth though? I assume the storage is not an issue.

That strangely detailed TOS might have something to do with Sorcerer's Place perhaps being a European business, registered somewhere in Europe, that has to abide by European laws? (despite using American servers).
If so, I doubt their TOS will help them, while at the same time allowing an American site to continue to violate their TOS - but I am definitely not an expert in this and I can not be bothered to find out.

Do you know which country matters, the hosting company, where the server physically is, or the site owner? If I'm correct, at the moment all of them are in the Netherlands for the RPGWatch so there's no ambiguity, but if that changes…

Nope I do not know.
And yes, at the moment everthing is based in Europe.
And yup, if that changes… Who knows, I dunno know what counts. The servers, the residence of the company (I guess it is different/less important for a private person), the size of the company (Was not there a recent European plan that the big ones, the really big companies, have to abide European laws if a large portion of their users are European?). . .

It could be just a TOS to be on the safe side, but my point was that IF they DO come after you (which is unlikely at present, but hey algorithmes may resolve the needed manpower in the future) having that TOS and doing nothing against a site like the Codex yourself won't help. (Notice that big IF.)

Anyway. Not very interesting to a person with the desire/willingness to be the new siteowner of RPGWatch.

If that person will be American, having a site on an American server, that may of course change moderation policy if the siteowner wants it, seeing the way the Codex is operating. Whether that might bring Sorcerer's Place into legal problems one day, is not sitowners problem. I guess.

If that person is European, having a site on an American server, hosted by an American/European company, I do not know what the rules are. And I do not know whether that siteowner should care. That is for the individual to decide.
I am not advising anyone here. I am no expert. Just thinking out loud.

And of course, if moderation policy keeps respecting European laws, none of this relevant. :)

Our server is in Germany, we are having a Dutch contract with it, and our siteowner is Dutch; Dutch, German and European laws apply.

I guess the first question is - who wants to host the site ?

My mistake, I thought the server was in the Netherlands too. But as you say, what matters is Europe / US / … and not the country.

Thanks, we still have some time to figure that out. I'm only thinking that if we have enough choice, maybe it's safer to stick to something simple instead of mixing regions of the world. :D

I had another look at xenforo and they have a very active dev community for addons.

https://www.xf2addons.com/resources/ - this is just one of them.

Seems like it would be the easiest option for the forum at least. Anyone able to program the newspage?

I don't get what you mean by "Why Codex is not in trouble?" I don'tknow if you're referring to the part of the TOS where it reads (…)abusive, threatening, defamatory, racist, or obscene content(…) but RPGCodex may allegate that they don't promote/enforce/agree to such contents, t's the members of that community who make some comments with those inappropriate subjects. Not that I'm defending them, I am not. It's just that I could not understand what you meant :)

EDIT: Never mind, I *think* my question was previously answered in this same thread. Unless it wasn't… :)

I definitely think it would be a good idea to avoiding hosting under EU rules. In theory, they wouldn't really be a problem because the Watch would probably want to maintain rules on basic conduct that wouldn't fall afoul of them anyway. But the issue, IMO, is that they are poorly conceived and drafted, and the language way too open to interpretation - you never know if your interpretation would tally with the judge's, in the unlikely event it came to that.

Eye and Myrthos explained to me that the Dutch literally have a law that says it's illegal to cause offence to a person or group. I think that's a bad law, and I don't mean that because I don't like it, it's therefore bad. What I mean is that it's so ridiculously broad, the only way it can work is if it's ignored 99% of the time, and only enforced arbitrarily if the offence is deemed significant enough.

Well, pardon my French, but bugger that. I think it would be rational to have sensible rules on conduct that suit us, but not be hosted in a jurisdiction with that sort of thing hanging over us.

Yea, the EU is doing ridiculous new things cracking down on free speech, and they are trying to enforce it on the world. Ripper is right about that. And the EU are fools if they think the USA will comply with their absurd standards. Especially with Elon Musk now in the picture. He is old school when it comes to free speech and grew up in our generation where it was taught to be highly valued and foundational to the United States. He won't bend on this, I don't think anyway, he will probably tell EU to go fuck themselves and they won't be able to be on twitter then in the future once he takes over.

Since the EU has decided to go full Big Brother on speech codes, they will start finding themselves lonely, if they want access to US platforms in the future, I think.

(the tide is turning hard when it comes to this stuff, in other words, here in the USA, I can tell you that much)

So I agree with to avoid the new site being under EU rules and speech codes, if at all possible.

But Elon Musk grew up in apartheid South Africa :lol: I don't think they were well-known for their free speech traditions? But maybe I'm wrong.

Otherwise I agree. The big American social media companies have been telling European governments/regulators/nannies to go fuck themselves on many of these issues for a long time, and hopefully that doesn't change. What's going on in many countries over there, in various respects, is downright scary.

Just to say, folks, with no authority whatsoever, let's maybe not take it down a political road. I can see how you go there from what I said, but I'm just trying to look at practicalities, and pros and cons, with regard to a new site.

Yea, but Musk's father was anti-apartheid politician and activist, and his grandfather was American born. So I think he probably valued free speech from his father at the time, because his father was against the government policy at the time.

And Musk came to America young, and went to the University of Pennsylvania to finish up his bachelors degree, so he went to university back when it was still teaching classical liberal values like free speech and so on.

Updated: Anyway, not trying to bring up politics, so rest assured I won't post more about this.

I'd recommend hosting in Singapore or Australia and having the person who "owns" the site as an Australian Citizen. Friendly and no oppressive requirements. Whenever we get a GDPR request we politely just ignore them ;)

The company I work for went through a discovery process with PWC with the aim being to not spend any money on it (GDPR). This was for a company with 3 mil customers and about 50k of them being residents of europe. PWC said nothing was required since there was no legal recourse available against us in the local region.

What about Australian censorship laws?

I know quite a few games aren't allowed to be sold in Australia due to that. I guess it's allowed to discuss the games, but maybe not allowed to link to digital stores where to buy it?

And in Singapore it's illegal to be a homosexual (woman), they have some of the most invasive surveillance in the world, and it's not a democracy. Isn't there a risk in that?

Not being against any of them, just thinking out loud.

What about Norway? They are in Europe, but not in the EU. However, it is likely expensive to have it there and they often follow EU regulations to some extent I believe.

What's so hard about GDPR by the way? Isn't the basics that a user has a right to know when personal information is used/stored, what it says if the ask for it, and have it deleted if they want to?

Yes, which many older systems don't support. There can also be insane penalties for a breach. There are also a lot of security considerations, mandatory breach notification etc.

To give you an idea of why it can be an issue, the company I work for had costed GDPR compliance at around 4 million - this is despite it not having any "benefits" to the company. We decided to remain non-compliant. If you are a company in Europe or a compliant country you pretty much have to be.

There are probably tons of other coutries with a similar "friendly" legal system, I was just giving the ones I know - I have no idea if Norway is the same.

I think GDPR is a good thing, it gives people better control of their data and limits how it can be used. If it is so expensive for a company to get it implemented it also means that the way currently data is managed by that company probably leaves much to be desired and is only in favor of that company and not of the people who they get that data from.
I have to deal with the effects of GDPR on a daily basis at work and yes, it does take time to do it properly, but it is much better to how it was before, where we just collected data and did with it what we wanted. It might be less efficient for the company, but it is much better for the people we get that data from.

At this point, shouldn't we split the thread? I'm afraid that if we pour everything into one, it'll become so messy we'll lose precious information. I've made one for the hosting.

I've installed a few toys on a VM to see how Drupal is behaving, but I didn't have much time this weekend so there's still some work to do.
I'm usually using Apache but this time I set up Nginx. Sharing several apps is not intuitive with this one but it's supposed to have better performances, I don't know if some of you have used it recently. Hopefully that'll be preset by the host provider anyway.

If nobody has done it yet, I'll create another CMS/forum thread when I have a better understanding on what is possible; I'm mainly wonder 1) if their forum module is worth considering, 2) if that looks easy to plug another forum like Xenforo, and in general just how difficult or easy it looks.

Little question for later, maybe for @Myrthos, have you tried Xenforo and do you have a trial version, or do you know if that's easy to get?

We follow EU, so yes, we're the same.

pibbuR who like Myrrthos thinks GDPR is a good thing for the users and prefers not to use sites not complying with it.

I would like to make a distinction.
There is the GDPR, the upcoming DSA (with greater obligations on bigger companies), the civil laws of the European Union and the laws of the specific country (that apply to company, contract, private person).

Yes, obviously sharing the load is better. However there still needs to be a single site owner (being legally responsible) and imho someone being the main server admin. That can be but doesn't need to be the same person. If it's not the same person there is potential conflict tough. What if the site owner asks the server admin to do a certain thing (e.g. fix a security issue) but the server admin just doesn't do it?

Yeah, please no mixed in political discussion. However I don't know if my previous comment would fit a "hosting" thread.

Because imho the main problem at this point isn't a technical one but an organisational one.
There needs to be one person who is in charge and thus legally responsible. Then he/she could find a team and proceed.

For the record, I have been contacted during the weekend about a potential hosting of RPGWatch somewhere else, with the whole technical and financial side being managed by the hoster.
The site would still need a team of news editors and moderators though.

As far as a more or less seamless transition is going, this could be an option.

We had a bit of a discussion, but nothing has been decided yet.

That would be awesome!

Not to be nitpicky, but would "technical and financial side" also include the legal side?

That's good - I think a whole transfer is what would make most members happiest. When I read the "End Is Nigh" thread, I actually found some of comments quite affecting, and starting thinking about ways to sort it out.

They better get their skates on, though, and confirm the End is Not Nigh, if they want to defeat my evil schemes. :p

Yes, it's not the GDPR that's a problem, IMO, but some of the other laws, and the coming DSA. For example, we're actually committing a crime in the Netherlands by insulting the royal family, or the heads of state of allied countries. So, due to my activities in P&R on a Dutch-hosted site, I should probably be serving multiple consecutive life sentences. :p

My point is just that if we're freely picking a new jurisdiction, let's avoid that sort of thing, and also laws on forum owners that might put them under undue stress about legal liabilities for things their communities post. If it were me in that situation, I'd want to keep the forum a civilized place, but not worry about legal penalties if someone decides the standard was wrong.