We're trying to work with Dreamhost on the issue of the forums going down. In the mean time, please go here...

http://z11.invisionfree.com/court_recor ... topic=2942

EDIT: The forums are tentatively back!

What happened is that we've been generating so much activity lately on the forum that our server was overloaded. We were given the ultimatum that we either scale back or upgrade to a private server. As you can imagine, upgrading would not just cost us a bundle of extra money, the terms of the upgrade would cause some complications for me. So while we work on seeing if that is even a real option for Court Records, here on the forum we're going to have to be a lot more strict about the kinds of things that get posted.

The Search function is being disabeled. But more importantly, the Berry Big Circus has been put on lock-down indefinitely. A look at the board statistics have shown us that the constant refreshing that comes with dozens of people pumping out 1 sentence (or even 1 word) responses over and over is putting 3x the amount of strain on our resources than any other section of the forum. Being a section that's not even related to Ace Attorney on an Ace Attorney forum, there's just no way that we can let that continue on. So I'm sorry to say, forum games are no longer welcome here on Court Records. That includes the Mafia game, hurt/heal, rate the person above you, etc etc.

Threads already in there aren't getting deleted (at least for a while). The Eagle River is not being deleted. I hope you all continue to enjoy the many other sections of the forum, but for now at the very least, the BBC has been laid to rest.

As for the rest of CR, Dreamhost has their eye on us so we have to stay cool for a while. The banner contest is on hold for the moment (if you missed the deadline, feel free to keep submitting anyway). But once we've figured things out for certain, Wooster have a few things in mind to show off, which would have been this week if not for our hiccup. So keep an eye out!

...Without refreshing too many times or anything.

Thanks for being patient with us!

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Yah, it was probably for the best. Now that you've explained it I can understand the shutting down of the BBC.

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Well, it's good to finally be back. T'was a very retro experience to be on the old forums again, though. Even if it's somewhat of a shame that we lost the BBC, it's perfectly acceptable if it's for the good of the forum, even if there's definately going to be quite a few angry/dissatisfied people.

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Are we still welcome to post and stuff in the invisionfree forum?

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For the time being, apparently yes.

I'm not sure if it'll stay that way though...

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....

....Why not? I thought having a partially seperated forum was a plan of ours...

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Well it's good to be back in blue

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I personally blame the current forum skin.

This thing's creepy as hell.

damn. good to finally be back. although Im going to miss the "Active Topics" link. DAH WELL!!

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:| Um, it's just a skin. You can easily change it on your user preferences if you'd like.

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Good to be back.

Now to see about responding late to some threads...

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*clings to the forums*

Gwaaaah, I'm glad to be back!! ^_^;;

Now to check out all the old threads I need to reply to. O_o

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What!!! No forum games!!!

I demand you bring back the berry big circus!!! It was the only fun there was on this forum!!! No one ever talks about anything interesting, so now this forum has got nothing to look forward to. Please bring it back.

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This

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I'm sure Gamefaqs will welcome you back with open arms.

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BROOKLYN RAGE

And that's all I have to say until I form some more coherent commentary.

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Last edited by MoronSonOfBoron on Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, you can't satisfy them all...

I don't mind. It was fun while it lasted.

Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids.

Yes, I have decided to come back. a few days ago, actually. But the forum was down, so I waited.

Oh well about the game forum. Guess it's a sacrifice we'll have to make.

Wonderful. Now any complaints will be placed in the same category as that genius Fironic there. Well, considering that it's all been swept away into the abyss and I couldn't care less if the BBC were actually reopened, I guess I don't have anything meaningful to say here.

Ok. I'm off to make the best of things and enjoy the fact that CR is back.

Queens Rage! :P

NOO!
I MISS THE "YOUR POSTS" FEATURE!

DX

oh well....I'll deal.

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Um, hi. I'll try and keep the soapboxes and walls of text on the back burner right now, and keep this to a few quick points.

...

Except I'm terrible at being brief, so I guess "quick for Pie" will have to suffice. Sorry.

I'm not thrilled with closing the BBC, and hoping a workaround is in the works. It's not just because I love Mafia; it's because if you're concerned about the health and future of the website, removing part of the site because "it was too popular" baffles me. Granted, I do wish it had been better maintained, but that's an aside.

Ace Attorney's not exactly a quick fandom. When a series, say, has considerable promotional merchandise, a comic, an animated series, or something that adds new canon on a regular basis, then yeah, there's more than enough to keep a community afloat on discussion alone.

For a game that comes out in spaced intervals like Ace Attorney (it's been rather rapid-fire here, true, but that's because we started so late compared to Japan), unless tangent but popular things like fan material (which is why the OC contest is awesome, but it's only once a year), roleplays, and games like Mafia are not only kept around but encouraged heavily, the fandom's gonna get boring fast. What hasn't been discussed about the game yet? All that's left is predictions, which is kind of like fanwork except without actually making anything with the idea.

On top of that, there is something about the game that's getting minimal discussion, which also baffles me because it's usually the thing fans love to talk about the most: shipping. Shipping is, in my experience, the backbone of any fandom's discussions of source material. Yet it was decided that it'd be better for hardcore shippers to go off and make a new, separate community instead of being given ample space to discuss it. Does shipping talk get messy sometimes? Sure, we've all seen wars over ships. But with a good moderator who's not afraid of cracking the whip, it's not a problem at all.

But back to the whole "closing the BBC because it was too popular" thing, because that's really something that bothers me personally. I mean, my panties are feeling a little twisted because... well, before here, I was in the Pokémon fandom. More than that, I was a BNF of the fandom and a moderator of Bulbagarden, one of the big sites in that fandom. And after my experiences, the choices here would, with a change of context, seem nothing short of absurd.

There's one primary difference between that fandom and this fandom... competition. If Bulbagarden didn't keep growing, offering as much as what Serebii did as well as more unique fan attractions and keeping on top of maintenance constantly - not just spam attacks, but going through threads and making sure the posts followed the rules and stayed to the topic and weren't just spam - Serebii would've eaten us alive. It was always business, really.

But cr.net has no competition. Which is, I think, the only reason why "the health of the server" is the sole factor in the decisions here, as opposed to "the health of the community". And while I think there's a bit of reluctance to start a site just for the sake of competition... well, people are already feeling the growth of this community stunted in ways, and are packing up and moving on. See: shipping.

So I really have to ask... what sort of community do you guys want cr.net to have? Or do you care about the community at all? Do you want the site to grow, and remain the top site for this fandom? Or would you rather someone else pick up that torch and organize a larger, more community-oriented website? Or... well, I shouldn't volunteer answers. What are the goals of cr.net, today and tomorrow?

I'm actually hoping there won't be an immediate response to this question, unless there's a lot of time, thought and discussion that have been given to it already. The goals, the health, and the future of any website community are something I believe of heavy importance.


[/seriousbusiness]

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The BBC was twice as popular in terms of raw post count to the second highest board. And that's on TOP of that board being auto purged. If the forums went down because of rapid refreshing then it stands that the BBC is the board to go.

Think about it...

Does the BBC preform a funcion that the boards cannot exist without, like the Court Docket? Does it promote discussion of the games like the Perfect Prosecutor Board? Does it promote fan creativity like the Fanart board?

It it doesn't do any of those things, would deleting it cause significant relief on the board to warrant it being deleted?
Press Conference? Not really.
Wright And Co? A Grey area.
Berry Big Circus? Arr. There be Moby Dick.



And to those of us screaming that being too popular is a GOOD thing, YOU can pay dreamhost the extra cost it would take to keep said board up.

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A lot of people have been offering, and there are more who are willing, I'm sure, to help with hosting payments. I don't see where this belligerence is coming from, Wooster, or how that kind of attitude can help.

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I think you're oversimplifying things here, Pie.

Granted, it might seem baffling that removing the "most popular" subforum was what the C-R staff did, but level with me here - what do you prefer? C-R without the BBC, or no C-R at all? Tragic as it may be for the people who frequented it (I never even visited once), it's what had to be done to assure the survival of the community for the time being. Is the community happy about it? Probably not. The bottom line is that it was what killed the forum we hold dear for a few days, and until a more permanent solution is found, it's best to disable it for the time being. The health of the server is such a deciding factor because at the end of the day, it IS responsible for the health of the community. It's the lack of competition that renders the argument moot, because people don't have a contender to go to. Nothing covers Ace Attorney the way C-R does.

As for your notes on competition - yes, Court-Records is a niche website. That's because the games it deals with are a gaming niche, a modern bastion of adventure gaming and interactive novels struggling against the myriads of other games. Comparing to Pokémon, the scoops are few, mainly because we don't have an Anime, a TCG or Gyakuten Saiban Centers that provide for new material. And knowing that, why would we compare the approach? Comparing Ace Attorney with Pokémon isn't going to work on a gaming level, on a popularity level and most definitely not on a fansite and -community level. Also, you've been a mod at Bulbagarden. That's great, but have you been in the position of an Admin in charge of such a huge community? The investment of time and money is a good step up compared to moderators, and the decision what to disable must've been anything but easy. But it narrowed down to letting the forum live (if a bit neutered), or jumping from backup forum to special forums for topics and who-knows-what, possibly scattering the fans and topics wide apart. If that's what you find bad already with the shipping community, I'm waiting for your idea on what to do without blowing the budget to smithereens.



Lastly, I for one am happy that the dedicated shipping community found their own refuge and keep it at tame levels on here. After all, I go here to read about Phoenix Wright news and adventures, not Phoenix Wright's 9001 channeled sex partners.

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Let's be very clear: the BBC was not closed because it was "too popular". It was closed for the strain it put on our resources. That does not mean the majority of people on this forum are using it, or are spending the most time in it.

It takes about 5 seconds to respond to some of those forum games, and when a group of people get together and post rapid fire those threads quickly grow to dozens (or hundreds!) of pages. Every time that happens and the forum has to reloaded again and again and again, that's where things start to pile up and become problematic. At least, how I understand it.

I do not consider Court Records to be in competition with anyone. If closing the BBC means that CR will from now on be a smaller community comprised of people NOT posting a constant wall of single sentence posts, I am perfectly satisfied with that. And I have nothing against other AA sites starting and growing (hence the affiliates section). Of course I want CR to continue to be a place that people enjoy, but there are plenty of places on the internet for you to play forum games. And until we can work out our hosting details *exactly,* this is our best option at the present moment.

As for shipping, it's not that we're discouraging shipping discussion, I'm just not going to create an entire separate section for it. I don't know what fandoms you frequent, but in my experience inviting people to debate the merits of all pairings freely is how you start wars. There are plenty of places for shippers to gather around the board. If you like a pairing, you can talk about it in the Favorite Pairing post, or you can post your fanfic/art/videos, or you can post art you found around the net, or you can debate it in the debate thread. Is there anything related to shipping that doesn't fit in any of those?



Honestly, I don't know if that is directed at me, but I'm offended you suggest it. I've poured countless hours and my own money into this site to try and bring AA fans together. It's fandom that's given Capcom the confidence to do as much with the series overseas as they have, and when you think about that, it's a huge accomplishment. I have always been (and always intend to be) very dedicated to this community.

Wooster and I are working hard to explore all options for the site. If that means new hosting, or upgraded hosting, or new software, or more advertising, or whatever else, I can assure you we're looking into it. But those things take time and research, and when our options as handed down by our provider are "Stop that or we'll shut you down, like, now," what choice do we have?

Over the next few days/weeks Wooster and I are going to be carefully considering options for the site. Chances are we will have to upgrade, and soon. If/when that happens, we'll be sure to keep everyone posted. Until then, try not to declare us dead :P

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just a question, does using the search function cause trouble on the servers? Im just wondering cause the thing I liked was the active topics search.

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Double post to respond - we're of course very grateful for everyone who has donated to CR. But as any website owner will tell you, once you get to a certain level of activity it just isn't possible for a site to survive on donations. Just looking at the solution Dreamhost offered us, it's asking for 3 to 4 times the amount of money we're paying now. I know people want to help but we just can't upgrade everything on the promise of sparse donations - we need a more permanent and dependable solution. Which is what we're working on~

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Funny you should mention that. The first thing that pops to my mind for the situation would be a donation campaign. BMG had to rely on a few to upgrade to private servers to help the growth of the site as our wiki, Bulbapedia, grew absurdly out of control. In my experience, people are often more than happy to help, especially if you give them a tiny graphic that allows them to show off their donator status, and it doesn't cost much to an individual when it's a whole community chipping in. Many hands make light work, I believe the appropriate saying is.

But in this light, I do note that my experience was again with much larger fandoms and their much larger websites. But nonetheless, there is a lot said about cr.net's future and growth made in your choices here. And honestly, a lot of what I'm saying is not criticism but my own questions about those choices. Ones that I'm interested in, both for my own interest in the fandom and for my interest in fandom in a meta sense.

The website can survive without it, sure. But can the fandom? Don't get me wrong, some games were obviously just spam - some stricter maintenance would have helped a lot. Wasn't there a thread saying games had to be approved before they began? Why wasn't that upheld? Regardless, other games people invested a lot of their energy into, had a lot of fun with, made into a new type of fan projects. Like I said, it's a slow fandom, and things like Mafia helped people keep their attention on the fandom and this site. There were other ones, too, that actually had a lot of thought put into them. If the BBC stays closed... some might migrate over to the Roleplay forum, but unless you stretch that definition, some are going to have a hard time fitting in there. Most of the people here are gamers and strategists in some way or another, right?

As for shipping, it's not honestly my game either, but I've heard some complaints and I thought it relevant to mention. Trust me, Pokémon had some of the crackiest crack ships and the ugliest ship wars known to mankind, reaching the point that the fandom as a whole reached a legendary status through it. And... not in a good way. Despite this, we still were able to regulate a separate forum for shipping, full of carefully moderated threads for different ships and common ship-related debates. It seemed like it would be a pain in the ass, but the Head Admin was a Pokéshipper and wouldn't accept his website without one, so we tried it and things went reasonably well so long as we kept the whip at hand. Long story short, call me jaded, but if there's a subject that can't be handled on a forum with proper moderation, I haven't found it.

By the way, so long as we're on the subject... if I'm not mistaken, there's exactly two threads for specific ships that are allowed, Phoenix/Iris and Phoenix/Maya (though this one I might be mistaken on). Why are they exempt? No, really, I don't mean anything by it; this one's just baffled me since I first heard about it.

Major Objection: To be honest, Mafia was the only thing that regularly kept my interest around here. Super Makoto's a fairly interesting project, but it wouldn't falter without this site... the OC contests are a great nod towards fanwork, but hardly enough to make this a fanwork hub... and discussions get very stale very quickly, in my opinion, with such widely spaced and small spurts of new material to discuss.

I'd rather not go into discussing the upper levels of Bulbagarden in detail, but... Moderators were allowed to take on as much as they wanted to take on. And I took on more than my fair share. Our servers were up-front paid out of one man's pocket, but between payments costs were split between admins and donation campaigns were run during harder times, which I did chip in income to. I was quickly promoted to top levels in management of the wikis and pumped more text and editing into it than anyone else before me, except maybe our initial programmer and his editing bot scripts. I was one of the founders and top members of their podcast, though admittedly my popularity mostly surged because I was the only one with breasts. I discussed management decisions with them frequently, was often used as a mediator mouthpiece between higher levels and the community, was frequently called upon for graphics... the only thing I regret was joining their group late, since I was not able to get some hands-on experience with actually starting up the website from scratch.

So... yeah, no, I'm not calling this simple. I know how it is to get one's hands dirty to run a website. I know that sometimes dead weight does indeed need to be dropped, but whether that dead weight is part of the fanbase depends on the person running the website. And I've certainly seen the payoff of a growing website supporting a united expanding community. I'd like to see this with cr.net, too. Because while the competition in the Pokémon fandom ensured that websites would always grow and expand and change to fit the fandom best, it also stirred up a lot of bad blood between different groups. And I think that's the last thing anyone wants, right?

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Last edited by Pie on Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

It happens in every fandom, and you'd have to be ignorant to think otherwise. I still don't see how this couldn't be handled by a adding some devoted staffing; however, potential degradation of collective intelligence quotient notwithstanding, the current policy just smacks of an alienating "don't want to care" attitude that does not sit well with me. If you're so vehement about being the number-one hub for all things AA this side of the pond, I don't see where that intersects with being autocratically selective about what part of the fandom you cater to, outside of your host's Terms of Services.

I understand that expanding the current shipping threads into full subsections would invite unwanted activity to the forums in this current crunch period, but it is an option that ought to be more fully considered once we do have the technological capacity for it (upgrade or no; if the lack of a BBC section cools off forum demand enough, inviting more serious discussion topics would be a sensible idea, indeed as I see it that's the objective in closing off the BBC). There's no point encouraging activity when the site capacity is small, but on the same token you can't justify the cost of expanding the physical site if the community itself won't be allowed to grow into it.

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Good thing this is back up..... can't spend ALL my time watching Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai. As for the Berry Big Circus, I'm fine with it gone. Seems everywhere I go, the one section like that seems to go.....


Either way, I'll watch what I post.




Lu Lu La La Luuuuuuu~

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Firstly, My offer to revamp and run the old IF forum for RP's, Forum games and other stuff is still valid. I have the feeling it's going to get closed up though, which is a shame; I was looking forward to the challenge...

Secondly, I don't like the attitude that's going around that leads people to beleive that the staff should do everything the members ask. If it was like that, then the forum would have to be run like a democracy and all hell would break loose. XD While we always take time to listen to members ideas and suggestions, there's still a chance we'll say no, otherwise we'd have to let in everything that people ask for.

Finally, on the shipping front (Yes, I was dying to make that pun XD), Most of the topics going around were extremely light on discussion, especially on the old boards. The reason I posted in your EdgeyxEma topic Bee, was to stir you into actually discussing your reasons why. And you did, at length :) The problem was, no-one else did. Also, all the topics on the boards were either shipping or Character topics, it got a bit monotonous to look at. This is why I support Croik's opinion on this matter.

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Because those were created before the rule saying you can't make threads for one specific pairing.

And those aren't the only ones. There's one for Fran/Adrian on the JfA board (though it's more of a girl/girl in general topic now), Kristoph/Dahlia on the AJ one, and probably a couple others I can't recall right now.

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You should be able to change the skin.

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I have some questions:

1. Can we use the old forums for BBC stuff?

2. Is the RP board safe? Or is it likely to get killed too?

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Like Franzise said, the threads are up now were there before we made the rule (in fact, the rule was made because so many of them started popping up). I'm pretty sure there's also a Gumshoe/Maggey and a Apollo/Trucy thread running around...

Anyway, like I said, I'm still not entirely sure why every pairing needs a separate thread (there's over 100 characters now, with more on the way). Just what is it you want to do in such a thread that you can't do now? You can say "discussion" but not only is that already encouraged in other threads devoted to it, but the pairing threads we already have (not to mention the character threads) are much more interested in posting "I think it's hot" or "look at this art I found!" than that. According to our last poll on the subject, 2/3 of our members don't even following the shipping side of fandom at all (not that that means we shouldn't have a section just based on that, I just don't think not having a place to discuss Shelly x Shoe is crippling our forum).

If we get a lot more space and some more mods, I'll consider it again, but at the moment it just doesn't make sense to me.

A donation drive is a definite possibility. Wooster and I have even tossed around the idea of a CR store with Tshirts and such. Ads are still an option, too. But even if we get oodles of money all of a sudden, I would much rather use it on contests and fic/art challenges and fan projects to keep people's interest in the fandom, rather than reopen the BBC.

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Croik, I think it would just be easier for everyone if you kept the invisionfree forums open for forum games and RPs and such. Sure, some people might not like the style they use over there in terms of useage, but it will make a lot more people happy about the situation.

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As I said, I'd be happy to revamp it to focus on the stuff, and to run it. But no-one seems to be noticing my offer... *sigh*

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It feels good to be able to post on the new forums now. It is a shame about the BBC (why do I think British Broadcasting Corporation every time I see it posted? XD) for the people that used it.

I hope that a compromise can be sorted out for the people that miss the BBC, like using the older forum for it, but for now I understand your decision as Admins to lock it.

Sadly, it seems I am part of the "crippled" minority and have a severely biased opinion.

I support Gerkuman's bid to continue running the invisionfree forum. As with TLS, it's currently wise to delegate certain forum community functions to other places that can supply these demands, however infinitesimal or burgeoning, properly.

And... what exactly could you have in a CR forum store that doesn't break copyright law?

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