New and improved

we are having a complete overhaul



Just added a buncha new guys to tha sweep. I recon I can easily manage. Gonna start layin' heavy on the encouragement ta do stuff on tha big Y too. Why should I have ta do sweeps if nobody pays me some wespec. In future, if ya want me ta do stuff for ya, ya gotta be ready ta give me summit in return, Kapeesh?

Anydoodle, we have cross-domain AJAX now so you better be afraid internets coz Doomsday's comin'. FIAR might be joining us for a spot of tea soon. Yes, after Forchette completely cocked up running a major webcomic host, Doomsday is willing to get its grubby little stubby paws on it. We can do so much more with technology if we just had the ability to use it. Thanks to sites like Abusite, spark and What Died Today, Doomsday could be takin' over.

The still remaining 1 problem is the hosting service. The one we currently use is exactly what we need but it's too tempermental. We need something quick, easy, fast, with a high traffic capability and ungodly amounts of web storage. Now we have found other offers but none of them are easy to use or manipulate and none of them offer the kinds of web space we would be interested in.

Except for one that is. Yeah, it seems that my idea (if I do say so myself) was the best one i.e. use Y!Gs as a webhost. For the gods' sakes, we went over it years ago, we found it would be great, we worked out how to do it, we almost implemented it and then everyone just gave up. What the hell? It's clearly the best plan. Just because you have to get a Y! account for it to work. That's not that hard is it?

So now I'm working behind the scenes with Omni and Abu trying to get this thing off the ground. Oh yeah, there was that other problem that the code didn't work on all browsers but we're working around it and maybe the ACD will work in a group rather than Geo. If it does then there's no stopping us AT ALL.

The idea is solid, it's just the technicalities. And with some help from 2 of the best lateral thinking techies, this dream can become a reality.

I've added roughly 3 new guys to the sweep today and hopefully the other 200 or so will be added eventually.

We can get around the build limit by distributing the work load to the users. They're not gonna notice if they get a few extra groups when they upload to Dooms.

So here's the techie bit. We use AJAX to read the uploading forms and pass the data into some code which will translate the form any way we see fit. The same rule applies to the making of groups themselves.

We can then use some more AJAX on the main group to access the publicly visible groups of the members. That way they can post as much content as they like up to the limit of 250MB per Y!G and about 10 or whatever Y!Gs a day.

As the whole thing is done through the internal files of the main group, the users will never see the Y pages in the background unless they click the option to.

If the big Y get heavy on us coz of this or if it breaks any rules then we'll simply give instructions on what to do and get them to manually upload in a separate tab or something. I'm pretty sure all browser's have tabs nowerdays.

Members will input the address of their content into a database so Dooms knows what it can access. The content can then be toyed around with and used for various things like FIAR, Elementa, Butter Leaf, Maps, Galleries, JS games, Blogs, Playlists, etc. You know, all the stuff that Dooms does anyway.

We can also have it so that it can access things outside Y!Gs like DeviantArt, YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, etc. Now I know how to get data from there to here but the other way around might be a problem. A Doomsday Widget or something would be real handy.

Now there's a rule against using the DB as a search engine but none about using XML or the links section or whatever. So here's the deal. We categorize the links in the links section and use it as a huge open directory or we get people to post their links to their personal Dooms Y!G and we then get a bit of code to relay it all to us where we can then put it in alphabetized XML docs, which the web site will search. Of course we could just use myWebs instead.

The idea behind Dooms is the fact it brings the internet together and offers cool features. So the trick is to provide links to sites most likely through Y!Gs link system as it's the only way allowed and to use all the remote access tricks in the book to make cool social networking and gaming trinkets for the members to oo and ah on.

So what ideas have we got-

FIAR - basically you get a page with some content on e.g. a picture or a flash movie. Members can then post their own which can either precede that content or follow it in a story sense. For example, content 1: a boy sees a juicy apple in a tree; content 2: the boy climbs the tree; content 3: the boy falls from the tree; content 4: in hospital he is given a basket of apples. Now that seems fairly normal but any member can add content before or after a certain piece of content so content 1: the boy sees the apple; content 2: the apple falls on his head; content 3 is content 4 from before. Or how about content 1: boy sees apple; content 2: climbs tree; content 3: eagle carries him off. It's basically choose your own adventure but with Flash movies.

Maps - each piece of content is a little 50x50 square pic. Together, everybody's content makes a huge map for people to explore. There may even be an isometric multiple layer one.

Gaming - basically you take the map making idea from above but add a few more rules and you get an RPG. You could also do the same with strategy games, board games or card games. Anything which is turn based coz Y!G isn't real-time.

Gallery - Well users are gonna post content like FIAR so why not have a tabular style gallery of the content. Ya know like DA or Epilogue or Shezzy Art or Elfwood or Photoshack or YouTube. Basically, I have no ideas of my own.

Stupid crap - stuff like members giving people birthday cards or silly useless pictures of something that's supposed to mean summit. I came up with the Joy Bucket. Basically you send them a collection of things all in one go.

Randomtron - It's not dead yet. With a new JavaScript version, I'm gonna give people lotsa alternative handles. There will also be a working rhyming edition.

John Smith - A new JavaScript version that uses Yahoo! Groups' database system would be nice if I could get it to work. Without it you'll have to make do using XML and temporarilly storing your messages in the JS on the page.

BBS - Well there's a message system on the Y!Gs that could easily be used for forums and blogs so why not? Just a little tweaking here and there and you can start adding content like images and Flash movies through HTML.

SiteWatcher - Obviously. What else would you do with all that AJAX. You could use it to stay up to date with everything interwebs. That is of course if this ACD works.

Webhosting - Obviously if I'm gonna be working with Omni, I'll have to promote YGWebhost. Yadda Yadda Yadda, Yahoo Groups makes an excellent webhost and YGWebhost will show you how to host your site using it. But we're obviously not gonna say how we do the proper stuff.

Anyglobbel, I'm really getting myself organized now, one way or another, so fingers crossed that this'll last. Even if it doesn't though, I've done the sweep for now so I have at least 20 days before I have to worry about that.