iSoaker.net :: Soaking the world!

by **Drenchenator** on Thu Jan 17, 2008 3:00 pm

The SSC update is complete. Visit it at here. The front loads slowly because of scripting problems.

The new SSC is 80% larger than the previous version. For a listing of highlights, see Ben's news post.

Edited By Lt. Col. Drench on 1200596470

by **isoaker** on Thu Jan 17, 2008 3:33 pm

Nice! New layout looks great! Now to have some fun checking out the new articles and such. Good stuff!

EDIT:

One step forward, another one backwards? What's up with the Terms of Service?

You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit for any commercial purposes or noncommercial purposes any portion of the services or content contained within Super Soaker Central and its subsidiary sites. In order to use any content, graphical art, photos or files owned by or published by Super Soaker Central, direct, written authorization must be obtained from Super Soaker Central or the author of the content in question with no exceptions at any time for any reason.

Likewise, all of the homemade water gun and water balloon launcher designs on this website are NOT FOR REPRODUCTION OR SALE. Designs on our site CAN NOT BE SOLD OR TRADED and derivative works on our sites CAN NOT BE SOLD OR TRADED. Any device created using information from our website CAN NOT BE SOLD OR TRADED.

Uh, the above basically says a person cannot build a water blaster based on any information from any of the designs found on SSC and trade or sell it. That's a little too harsh, IMO. I understand that you wish to retain control over aspects of content, but seeing that much of the work has also been developed with other members' input, this should place much of the info into the public domain. Too much legalese... it's somewhat disturbing.

:cool:

by **Ben** on Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:17 pm

That's been there for years and I haven't touched it in a very long time. I'm pretty sure I added that in late 2005. Check the modified date, Google cache, archive.org, etc. I'm surprised you hadn't noticed before.

I actually adapted that (partially, at least) from another TOS that some guy said people could edit on a forum. The homemade water gun part was my idea. Perhaps no trading is too harsh, but I don't want people selling my designs or derivatives of my designs. I also want to receive payment for my designed used by manufacturers, etc. It's mainly about protecting the ideas of the members and myself. If someone asked for my permission, I wouldn't care. I just don't want to see someone profiting from the ideas posting on our website. And I'm sure most people there would agree with me.

If people have a problem with that, I'll change it, but no one's even brought it up with me until now. Maybe they will have a problem with it now. If people want a more open source style policy, that would be fine with me. As far as I'm concerned, it's the same. There are Creative Commons licensed things with not-for-profit stickers on them and I never saw people get uptight about that.

Edit: I've rewritten that part to sound more reasonable. Again, that part I feel is necessary because it protects designers/inventors.

Edited By Ben_ on 1200601849

by **isoaker** on Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:27 pm

I'd never checked the TOS before on SSC. I never realized how long the TOS page is and how much legal-babble it contained. Well, it's up to visitors to double-check what they're agreeing to, I suppose, just like all the things we agree to upon installing various software, etc. :goofy:

:cool:

by **Ben** on Thu Jan 17, 2008 4:35 pm

Well, with the possible liability problem, I thought a comprehensive TOS would work. The TOS exists to protect, not to annoy.

Anyway, there's a lot more on the way, but I'm going to take a break. I spent most of the past week slaving over my laptop to get this online. Some parts are obviously incomplete (check out the Market page, which was added today), but I figure if we're this far, there's no reason not to get it online.

I'm considering posting the many logos we considered that never made the cut. Another thing I could post is the design I wanted to use back sometime in 2007 that we decided was too bland. There's also the designs I made back in 2005 that never were used, but they never were completed either.

Design-wise, the website is pretty basic, but I'd rather take basic than unfamiliar. It loads pretty quickly except for the background, which isn't necessary. And I think it looks pretty cool. The logo's pretty slick if you ask me.

The homepage will see some changes/improvements in about a week. vB doesn't have an option to export a forum with SSI unlike older versions of vB and IPB. I had to find a hack that was close to what I wanted, edit that, and then do some weird stuff with output buffers that slows down the page. It's not a permanent solution.

Edited By Ben_ on 1200604576

by **cobralex297** on Thu Jan 17, 2008 8:13 pm

I like the new update a lot!
I like the looks of the new page, and the content as well a ton. It will be exciting to go through it, page by page. All of the designs for which there are step-by-step guides, I'm quite excited. Mods too. I can't wait.

Will the forum be updated as well? It looks kind of old, I mean, it disappointed me to look at everything new on the new page, and then seem to jump back into the old when linking to the forums. Just curious.

by **Ben** on Thu Jan 17, 2008 8:36 pm

The forums are the next thing to receive a facelift. Unfortunately, changing the forum style is more difficult than changing the website's design. Tonight I'm going to start looking into styles close to what I want to see. We might have a new forum look as soon as tomorrow.

Design-wise I want to continue the simple look of the website. There's a few forums (that run vB) like what I want, but I haven't been able to find a style to download like that. I think I'll have to start from scratch, which can be a good thing.

Edited By Ben_ on 1200665894

by **mr. dude** on Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:11 pm

It's great! Keep up the good work!

by **Ben** on Fri Jan 18, 2008 2:16 pm

To those who want a new forum skin, go here to switch your skin: http://forums.sscentral.org/?styleid=7

The old skin broke the skin switching feature. That's another problem with that skin. Luckily, we'll be switching soon.

I'm not completely satisfied the the new skin, but it does have the site header and colors. I'm changing some graphics to be a little more like what I want, but finding graphics can be a little hard. Right now I'm browsing loads of forums for graphics.

by **isoaker** on Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:20 pm

Methinks I'll hold off swapping skins until you're 100% (or at least 90%) pleased with what is available. :goofy:

:cool:

by **Ben** on Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:35 pm

I started switching some more graphics and I'm pretty satisfied right now. Once I got rid of most of the graphics that clashed with the colors, it started looking pretty nice. I added the website footer and fixed some color problems at the bottom. It's definitely better than all of the other styles. It feels like part of the website. The main things I don't like are the post buttons and the default vB header thing with links to the CP and personal messages. There's also a problem with the site header not being exactly the same between the forums and website, but most people wouldn't notice unless I told them. I'm working on the buttons right now.

Right now I'd say switch. If you don't like it, switch back and let me know. If you like some parts but don't like other parts, let me know. If you like everything, great.

Edit: The only reason I'm not making this the default skin at this point is because I need to copy over some features of the old skin that aren't so obvious, like the spell check button, word filters, some things related to the front page, etc. It's a little bit more work, but right now I'd consider the skin 90% done.

Edit again: The new skin is finished for the most part. It's now the default skin.

Edited By Ben_ on 1200689691

by **isoaker** on Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:15 pm

New skin looks good! I like it as "default" as that means I don't need to change any of my settings when viewing the board. I'm lazy! :goofy:

:cool:

by **Silence** on Fri Jan 18, 2008 6:51 pm

Edit: The only reason I'm not making this the default skin at this point is because I need to copy over some features of the old skin that aren't so obvious, like the spell check button, word filters, some things related to the front page, etc.

That reminds me...one suggestion I have for the forums is to remove the automatic word filters, or at least some of them. I'm sure you've thought about it too, but a few of them (like the replacement for "dont") are a bit obnoxious. Especially since another filter also acts on "dont", I think, converting it to "don't". "LOL" to "Hey, that's funny!" is also fairly annoying, in my opinion.

by **Ben** on Fri Jan 18, 2008 7:23 pm

Due to past problems with word filters, I've only added one related to the news page and two related to the forums' and website's URLs. I don't intend to add any more except for maybe some of the water gun related ones (XPBackfiresque, BrokenMonsterXL, etc.). Some of them we're obnoxious, so I'm not adding those ones.

by **Ben** on Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:26 am

Right now us at SSC are trying to refine/polish our current website. If you've read through something and have a suggestion or fix, or anything, let us know either here, at SSC, or by my email.

Thanks to anyone who helps out out.

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