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Important News on the CBG's Hosting Capabilities

Started by Ishmayl-Retired, August 03, 2007, 11:28:24 AM

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Ishmayl-Retired

August 03, 2007, 11:28:24 AM Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Ishmayl
Hey folks,

It's time that I share some information with you guys on the future of personal site hosting here at the CBG.  It's somewhat sad and unfortunate news, but I have no control over the situation.  There is an extremely good chance that in the near future, site hosting will be discontinued here at the CBG.  There are many reasons for this, but I'll go over the important ones below.

A lot of people have mentioned that they would like to see the hosting capabilities a little more functional.  There are a few problems with this mindset.  Many people exclaimed wanting to use this feature when it first came out, but no one really used it.  A lot of people complained that it wasn't as functional as it could be, but I believe that if you'll take a look at some of the beautiful sites that have been
made here, I'm sure you'll realize that with a little time and effort, anyone could make a great site.  There are also plenty of sites in the hosting section that didn't go to the extreme measures that those three sites went to, but still created excellent, informative, functional sites.  Brainface and daggerhart (whom a lot of the new people here probably don't even know or remember) put a lot of work into getting the hosting site up, and all it takes is a quick gander at some of the sites mentioned above to realize that with a little time and patience, anyone here could have created a great site.  However, keeping the hosting running smoothly, and getting the updates in necessary to make it as easy as it could (and should) be would require more work than our techs can handle.  You've all probably noticed that daggerhart hasn't visited the site in ages, and brainface only stops in occasionally anymore.  The fact of the matter is, neither of them are paid for this site in anyway (neither am I), and they both have real lives to work on.  Brainface has a severely damaged wrist, and can't spend the amount of time on computers anymore that he used to, and daggerhart runs (and maintains) several other web sites which he does get paid for.  That means, we basically don't have a techie anymore.  I'm trying to learn some stuff so I can take care of it on my own, but I know next-to-nothing about server-side hosting issues, and I only know extremely basic php.  

The second problem is an issue of security and bandwidth.  I know you guys don't know this, because you don't see the behind-the-scenes here at the site, but I have fought and fought to get the hosting back up and running, and I have run in circles with those in charge of the server, but they are worried about the security issues involved with giving people free access to html and php tags.  Some of you may remember when a member here somehow posted some html in a forum thread about 10 months ago, and forgot to properly close a tag, and the entire forums crashed.  This is only a small thing compared to what could be done accidentally, or maliciously, with improper html usage.  My brother, who owns the server we're using (which, I'm sure you'll have noticed, is about 40 times faster than the dreamhost server we were on until about 4 months ago), runs and operates multiple web sites on this server.  He does web design and maintenance for a living, and simply cannot afford the risks involved in allowing unauthorized-and-unsupervised coding on the site.  I may not like it, but I at least understand where he's coming from.  I couldn't just let 400 people I didn't know walk into my business and set up shop all over the grounds.  Things just don't work that way.

Therefore, I'm just putting this out there so you guys will be warned.  This is your opportunity to post any ideas you have on how things could be done differently, and it's also your opportunity to let us know if you have invaluable data on a site you created here that we can save and hopefully, set up properly on another site.

Here's the only option I've thought of.  In terms of fantasy-and-RPG-related sites, the standard site design nowadays seems to be leaning towards wiki.  Several members here on the site have posted their wiki sites, which are remarkably well-done, and very colorful site, much different from your typical wikipedia-esque site (such as our own wiki).  Wikis are much easier to use and learn than html, java, and php, and in the long run, you can do almost as much with a wiki as you can with a html/php site.  So perhaps I can find a way for us to set up some personalizable wiki options here.

I'm very sad by this, like I mentioned above.  I feel that the hosting opportunities was one of the things that had the potential to make this site really stand apart from other fantasy sites on the web.  I do hope there are some options available that maybe you guys (or someone you know) can help with.

Let me know your thoughts.
!turtle Ishmayl, Overlord of the CBG

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For finite types, like human beings, getting the mind around the concept of infinity is tough going.  Apparently, the same is true for cows.

Epic Meepo

#1
August 03, 2007, 12:27:45 PM
Wikis are always a good solution.

Also, perhaps you could find software that would allow hosting using templates instead of full functional html. Members could choose from various color and layout options, insert a jpg or two, and enter text in a few fonts and styles, but couldn't do anything fancy enough to cause security concerns. (It would be similar to the way the forums work now, except it would create an entire page instead of just a standard-looking thread.)
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sparkletwist

#2
August 03, 2007, 04:09:48 PM
Aww, that's a shame, the hosting was a nice capability to have. However, you're right, depending on the way it's implemented, it can be a pretty big security risk.

If all it's doing is serving up plain HTML, there is really no risk to the server. This is not to say that the page might not do something accidentally (or deliberately?) bad to the person's browser at the other end, especially if it contains weird javascript or whatever, but plain old static web pages really can't do much to affect the server: it's just pulling text out a file and dumping it to the client.

Of course, stuff like PHP or Perl, that actually execute code on the server side of it, is a totally different matter, and becomes a much larger security risk. The situation where bad HTML crashed the forum software was more than likely a bug in the forum software or the web server during some attempt to "pre-parse" the HTML before it got sent out-- HTML itself just simply doesn't have the capability to do that kind of nastiness.

So, one option is to get rid of PHP/Perl/CGI/whatever (which, admittedly, breaks some of the hosted sites) and only allow static HTML pages to be served. That would improve the security situation dramatically from the standpoint of serving pages, but, would of course, still require that there be an interface to upload/edit/whatever those pages. That is not inherently unsafe, but it adds more points of failure, and of course, bugs in the uploading/editing/whatever software can create security risks.

The wiki option is also a good one. This way, the users are further insulted from the filesystem (they're not even directly uploading files any more), and most wiki software is well-tested and protected against security risks. Most wikis allow a lot of customization in their look and feel, and have good security to protect against unauthorized editing, so moving people's static campaign sites to a wiki (or several wikis, depending on whether the bigger sites get their own wiki or not) might be a good choice, too. MediaWiki is really well-known, but it's designed for mega-projects like Wikipedia. There are smaller, faster wikis for smaller databases that might be useful.

I'd be happy to provide any technical assistance I could, if it were needed, but I'm no PHP expert, either, so I'm not sure how useful it'd be.

Stargate525

#3
August 03, 2007, 04:13:53 PM
Quote from: Epic MeepoWikis are always a good solution.

Also, perhaps you could find software that would allow hosting using templates instead of full functional html. Members could choose from various color and layout options, insert a jpg or two, and enter text in a few fonts and styles, but couldn't do anything fancy enough to cause security concerns. (It would be similar to the way the forums work now, except it would create an entire page instead of just a standard-looking thread.)
I like this idea. The main reason I never got around to making a page is that I simply don't have the time, nor the patience, to learn the stuff needed to make one look nice (coming from the person who designs entire worlds...). I'm a big fan of 'simple' page making, like geocities and blogspot, and I think it might be a way to go.
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Pellanor

#4
August 03, 2007, 04:42:05 PM
Hmmmm...
I can see both sides of the argument on this one. It would be really nice to have some free webhosting for campaign settings, yet at the same time I can see why you wouldn't want to give it out to just anybody. If done correctly I don't think that there should be any security issues, as you should be able to set up user permissions so that you can't affect anything outside of the one directory. However that would likely require a user account for each person who's hosting with you, which would make more work for your brother.

Luckily for me, I'm not affect by this :)
I've already got my own webhosting. Now I just need a Setting to create the site for.


I do like the Wiki idea however. I haven't worked with them much, but I'm sure that you can set them up in such a way that there's a lot of customization available. Especially if you can find a way to make page specific CSS.
One of these days I'll actually get organized enough to post some details on my setting / system.

Ishmayl-Retired

#5
August 03, 2007, 04:54:22 PM
Thanks for the responses guys.  I've been doing a lot of going back-and-forth on this issue, and I've come up with a few possible solutions, but you'll have to wait until I've tested them out and seen to their functionality.

Sparkletwist, I definitely appreciate your offer of tech-saaviness, and I may be calling on you in the near future to help with some things.  To start with, do you know of any wikis in particular that offer a fair amount of customization for individuals?  I don't even know if that's an option.

Also, just so you guys know, there is the possibility we can still have hosted campaign sites, but it would be very restricted and supervised.  One method we have discussed is allowing the current sites (those who are already up and running) to be transferred, and then any new editions, edits, uploads, etc would have to be done through us.  Basically, you would submit the changes, and we would do the uploads.  There are several reasons for this, but the #1 reason is, this way, if something happened (even accidentally), whichever of us was there doing the uploading would also immediately be able to fix the problem.  This could be a way to allow other people to create sites as well, but it would have to be something that the creator was willing to prove he was going to follow through with.  Anyway, that's just something up on the table for you guys to think about.

Cheers!
!turtle Ishmayl, Overlord of the CBG

- Proud Recipient of the Kishar Badge
- Proud Wearer of the \"Help Eldo Set up a Glossary\" Badge
- Proud Bearer of the Badge of the Jade Stage
- Part of the WikiCrew, striving to make the CBG Wiki the best wiki in the WORLD

For finite types, like human beings, getting the mind around the concept of infinity is tough going.  Apparently, the same is true for cows.

psychoticbarber

#6
August 03, 2007, 06:19:16 PM
Quote from: IshmaylSparkletwist, I definitely appreciate your offer of tech-saaviness, and I may be calling on you in the near future to help with some things.  To start with, do you know of any wikis in particular that offer a fair amount of customization for individuals?  I don't even know if that's an option.

 TiddlyWiki, though a bit strange, offers you a fair degree of customizability and a fair amount of support for those of us who don't know the HTML or whatever it is to do the customization ourselves. I've mentioned it a few times before, but it's the one I use, and I don't know jack about programming/website design.
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KeshFerrar

#7
August 03, 2007, 07:20:19 PM
Quote from: IshmaylSparkletwist, I definitely appreciate your offer of tech-saaviness, and I may be calling on you in the near future to help with some things.  To start with, do you know of any wikis in particular that offer a fair amount of customization for individuals?  I don't even know if that's an option.

I believe Twiki, the wiki I chose for PlotStorming.com, can have separate templates, but the content has to be broken into separate "webs" -- think of them as subdomains. It is a little slow, but it may jsut be my server, and I believe it could work for this idea. I will look into that -- I'll give you a heads up by the end of the weekend. Perhaps even MediaWiki can do this, but I'm not as familiar...

Also, there are other open source/free CMS packages out there that let you modify the templates based on content. I know Joomla does because PlotStorming uses Joomla. And I'd guess Mambo does too, since Joomla is a derivative of Mambo.

For ex: PlotStomming.com uses one template, but I'm helping build a subsite for the Wandering Men (a group of writers that I'm part of), and the templates are different. Take a gander, but the Wandering Men site is still in work.  

If I can help more in any way...
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sparkletwist

#8
August 03, 2007, 09:13:56 PM
Hmm, what do you mean by "for individuals"? For the individual users, or for individual pages? I'll assume for now you meant individual pages, like, so each campaign within a big wiki could have its own theme, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

I've played around with both of these wikis, actually.

TiddlyWiki is, as psychoticbarber pointed out, a bit strange. However, the advantage is (since you were talking about being security-minded) that it lets you have wiki-like functionality without having to install all sorts of security-compromising programs. It's not very good for big wikis, though.

I've also installed Twiki, though I admit I didn't use it much before giving up on it because it was much, much too slow on my computer (which is, admittedly, ancient, so I don't blame Twiki all that much), but it had a pretty impressive array of skinning options. Unfortunately because of the speed issues I don't know all that much about it.

Of course, the other option is to just hack something together. For my own site, that I may or may not ever actually finish, I'm using a wiki-esque system that I hacked together myself in Perl. It uses the filesystem itself as a database, so it's quite fast even on my ancient server and yet allows a decent degree of organization, though there isn't room for an incredible amount of metadata. The biggest drawback is that it also relies on editing .txt files directly to change the content (I didn't bother with web editing because I'm the only one adding content)-- this is either more or less secure depending on how you look at it. :)
 

Seraph

#9
August 03, 2007, 09:29:55 PM
Yeah, I would take have taken advantage of ther hosting option if I had a clue how to make a good looking web site beyond plain text.  I would not say I am computer illiterate, but I am stuck at a 4th Grade reading level. :poke:

Anyway, I like the template idea and would say that Wiki's could also be a good idea.
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Ishmayl-Retired

#10
August 03, 2007, 10:21:28 PM
Sparkletwist, you definitely seem to have a good head for this stuff.  Is there a software or a way to set up a set of wiki that acts like pbwiki, so that basically, each member could have their own "sub-wiki?"

And as far as hacking something together goes, that's well beyond my capabilities, so I'm just impressed to hear that it was done. :)
!turtle Ishmayl, Overlord of the CBG

- Proud Recipient of the Kishar Badge
- Proud Wearer of the \"Help Eldo Set up a Glossary\" Badge
- Proud Bearer of the Badge of the Jade Stage
- Part of the WikiCrew, striving to make the CBG Wiki the best wiki in the WORLD

For finite types, like human beings, getting the mind around the concept of infinity is tough going.  Apparently, the same is true for cows.

KeshFerrar

#11
August 03, 2007, 11:26:52 PM
If you wan't quicker and lighter (simpler), Perhaps you could look at MoinMoin. You still have to set things up, but in my experimentation, it beats out Twiki for small operations. It will allow users to modify the wiki look (some screenshots & the theme market - lots o German there).

Since no one is using the PlotStorming Twiki, I'm actually thinking of slimming down to MoinMoin.  

Or you could go to Wikimatrix and compare, contrast, and pick what you like best.
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Matt Larkin (author)

#12
August 04, 2007, 10:06:01 AM
QuoteAlso, just so you guys know, there is the possibility we can still have hosted campaign sites, but it would be very restricted and supervised. One method we have discussed is allowing the current sites (those who are already up and running) to be transferred, and then any new editions, edits, uploads, etc would have to be done through us. Basically, you would submit the changes, and we would do the uploads. There are several reasons for this, but the #1 reason is, this way, if something happened (even accidentally), whichever of us was there doing the uploading would also immediately be able to fix the problem. This could be a way to allow other people to create sites as well, but it would have to be something that the creator was willing to prove he was going to follow through with. Anyway, that's just something up on the table for you guys to think about.
Wouldn't this be an enormous amount of work for you, Ishy?

If you don't mind if I ask, for your own site, did you just buy that domain name?  How much does it cost you?
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KeshFerrar

#13
August 04, 2007, 11:03:07 AM
Quote from: Phoenix KnightIf you don't mind if I ask, for your own site, did you just buy that domain name?  How much does it cost you?

I know I'm not Ish, but full service hosts can run between 6.50 and 10 (US) per month for the basic plan. And that price usually includes registering a domain name for you.  
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Ishmayl-Retired

#14
August 04, 2007, 12:13:08 PM
Yes, it would, but quite frankly, to me, it would be worth it to make sure that we have hosting capabilities.  

The server will be costing me a good bit more than $10/month pretty soon.  To have the high quality server we're on, and also to be using the kind of bandwidth we're using, unfortunately knocks up the price substantially.  My brother has been lenient on my payments, but we're working that out, and soon, I'll be paying.  It won't be like something like enWorld, where I think they're paying $385/month, but it will be a good bit more than $10/month.  The domain name itself was a simple $10, but I'm going to pay extra when I renew it to keep my name and address private this time around, so that I don't have a bunch of junk mail (and junk email) coming to me with hosts asking me to join their great server or some such nonsense.
!turtle Ishmayl, Overlord of the CBG

- Proud Recipient of the Kishar Badge
- Proud Wearer of the \"Help Eldo Set up a Glossary\" Badge
- Proud Bearer of the Badge of the Jade Stage
- Part of the WikiCrew, striving to make the CBG Wiki the best wiki in the WORLD

For finite types, like human beings, getting the mind around the concept of infinity is tough going.  Apparently, the same is true for cows.
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