From Charas Project
Charas 3.0 was a proposal put forth by Osmose in order to help revitalize the site. The plan called for much more focus on the capabilities of the site and new features rather than community involvement as a way of reform. Several new sections and pages for the site were proposed, including a game submission section and a rebuilt Complete Resources rebuild.
The proposal was discussed and worked upon publicly by members of the forum until it was deemed ready for submission. Alex was then contacted, and following a bit of convincing, agreed to the plan and helped arrange a server change to allow for the changes needed. After months of development, the server change was executed and the new site was launched. However, many of the original parts of the proposal were either never developed or did not function properly. As a result, changes were minimal at best.
Recently, another, unplanned server change occurred which involved another stab at the 3.0 idea.
Original Plan
Charas 3.0 began during a conversation between Osmose and Sai'Kar shortly after Sai'Kar quit his job as administrator. While discussing what they saw as being wrong with Charas, Osmose suggested the idea of a revamp of the site. The idea was named "Charas 3.0" because the site had previously undergone a large change already when the site's design changed from white to blue.
After building up the list, Osmose posted the list to the All of All forum, announcing his intention to bring the plan to Alex once everyone had discussed it and decided on features that needed to be added or removed. The final list was not much different from the original one:
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Originally posted by Osmose
Charas 3.0 Proposal
Unified Site Strcuture
- Global Navigation Bar
- Easy access to any section of the site; as of now forums are seperate from rest of site, as is Complete Resources and Generators.
- Integration of sections
- User profile can lead to lists of contributed resources and a person's saved generated sprites.
- Single login carries over to generators, forums, and complete resources (As in one time login rather than having to log into the generators after logging into the forums* same account functionality already exists)
New Interface design
- Lower contrast
- Easier to read than current theme
- Multiple color themes to choose from.
- Investigation of SVG format
- Incredibly smaller file sizes
- Layer capabilities could be integrated into generators
- Quicker generation than current system?
Update of Technology
- Better filters against malicious code (IE the Javascript bug)
- Support for 24-bit images (RMXP generators)
- General code sprucing up.
- Addition of spoilers tags that have to be highlighted to be read.
- Larger Avatar size limit (100x100? 120x120?)
- New banner (Several have already been made, such as Warxe's rotating one)
- Filter replaces swears with alternate words (Freaking, Poop, etc.)
- Better filter (removal of fu[B][/B]ck bug)
- Option for individual user to turn off filter for themselves.
- Lowercase BBCode made to work.
- Ability to preview post before actually posting.
- Maintenance is gewd.
Games Section
- General Game Bios & Specific System Descriptions
- User ratings and reviews
- Ability to rate screenshots, overall game, files uploaded, etc.
- Ability to comment on items.
- Section for user reviews of game.
- Screenshots section
- Screenshot limits? (Bandwidth is greatly improved in new server).
- Can be deleted/replaced.
- Files
- Trailers, demos, System previews, etc.
- Trailers can be linked to rather than uploaded (Recommend Youtube), but still be rated and commented.
- All rateable and commentable.
- Any text article can display screenshots from screenshot section.
- Space limit to reduce bandwidth/storage usage. (Possibly not if switch to new server approved)
- Media
- Site awards, user awards, interviews, etc.
- Integrated with user accounts.
Revamped Complete Resources
- Better Categories
- More specific and consistent
- RMXP sections?
- Ability to sort by Most Viewed/Downloaded/Highest Ranked
- Code Examples
- Both RM2k/2k3 and RXMP examples
- Articles on Game Improvment
- Composing music, tutorials, etc.
User Profile Improvements
- User Groups
- Used to allow access to certain forums, such as Gary not being a mod but having code access and being able to read the private forum.
- New User Levels
- Veteran* Added benefits like no 1-minute rule. Awardable by any mod, but only given to memebers hwo have shown that they truely deserve such a rank.
- Fool* Restricted powers (Limited number of posts a day, no topic making, etc.) given temporarily to members who disobey a mod or break a rule repeatedly. Allows mods to more effectively enforce rules.
- Rank names are not final: Expanded and Restricted as possible alternative names
- User Awards
- Could show both specific user awards and awards for their games.
- Award ranking on post-side profile for added presteige?
- Users can create their own awards and give them to others.
- Mods can add "award levels" to awards if they are a good award (IE not a fake meaningless one, one the reequires merit). Each mod can add one level, up to a max of three levels.
- Site Awards
- Official awards given by staff for various things (Site contests, etc)
- For Hire option
- User can list if they are looking for a project to work on and can list their pros, cons, previous work, and what they want to do.
- Page that lists all users with "For Hire" option on and lists their info.
Server Change
- Dreamhost
- Dreamhost.com offers several plans that appear to be able to handle the bandwidth load of Charas and possibly the physical space load as well.
- Several reputable sites use Dreamhost, including OCRemix (As a mirror) and Editthis, the people who host our wiki.
- Donations to help cover costs
- Several members have pledged to donate money
- Award system could give awards to donators, as well as a donator symbol by their name.
- Ability to edit Charas
- Moving to a Dreamhost server allows people besides Alex to work on the website code.
- Allows for maintainability while Alex is away.
Mod Power Increases
- Global Mods can ban
- ALTERNATIVE: SiteMod level above Global Mod level that can ban accounts
- Temporary ban powers (Set time for a ban [set indefinate for permaban])
Merchandise
- Not compounded upon much, but Cafepress.com offers a service that we could possibly use.
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Although not mentioned at the time, the main motivation to create such a giant list of requests was to push Alex to allow a server move. Charas was then stored on the Redna server, which also hosted many other sites, including some which stored sensitive information, such as credit card numbers. As a result, no one besides Alex could be trusted to have access to the code.
By presenting him with a huge list of requests, Osmose was able to convince Alex to switch to a different server so that Osmose and others would be able to access and edit the site code.
Charas Summer of Code
A few weeks after Alex had agreed to a server change, he gave Osmose the information needed to access the new server and allowed him to begin working and testing before the switch actually occurred. For the next three months, Osmose worked on adding the features in the proposal to the website.
Unfortunately, many of the features added did not function properly or were beyond Osmose's skill to implement at the time. The Complete Resource makeover, for example, proved to be full of errors and was eventually scrapped shortly after the server move.
An incomplete list of the changes that were made and kept is as follows:
- Quick Reply Box added to threads.
- Post editing interface remade.
- Main site header remade.
- User group system implemented.
- Interface is still buggy and not reliable.
- Award system implemented.
- Interface and award display is buggy.
- Complete resource category system reworked to be easily extensible.
One of the unforeseen benefits of the new server is that a feature of the Generators that allowed for 24-bit resources to be submitted was made functional again, allowing for resources for RPG Maker XP with no changes to the code.
