Ndim 2.0
We are officially launching what we are calling....Ndim 2.0!
These past few months have been a bit tumultuous. Once board registration broke, myself, Boc, KC, and Rose got together to figure out what to do. We had talks about a possible handover or maybe even starting something new from scratch, which would've been a huge undertaking. We reached out to Paul and he had been having the same thoughts (re: handover), so the five of us got together and settled on a new path going forward.
Myself, Boc, KC, and Rose will be running Ndim going forward. This'll look very similar to how it has over these past years since the four of us have already had our hands on things for awhile, but there's gonna be a couple of main differences.
For one, we have access to actively develop Ndim now! We have a LOOOONG list of wants/needs/wishes in terms of new features, bug fixes, and changes. And I'm sure many of you (FE members, ProM members, ORG hosts and players, etc) do as well. Changes will come over time, but we have our hands full. Ndim is...old-school to say the least. It's gonna take some time to get in there and figure everything out without breaking it all and making a mess. Our priority to start will likely be major bug fixes, and we're happy to say that board registration is back online! If you want a board, reach out to any one of us and we'll generate one for you. I don't wanna tease too many future updates, but one thing we'd like to work on is a portal for anyone to request a board, the request will go to all four of us, and one of us will get a board made asap. This'll cut down on waiting time by quite a bit.
Staff
The four of us are v. dedicated to making sure Ndim/FE/all your boards do not meet a tragic demise. The admins of FE will mirror the admins of Ndim, each of us with our own role but all working together to make sure things run smoothly.
Curtis (Discord curtis3024): I'll be doing much of what I've been doing, helping to steer the ship and working on all of the public facing aspects of Ndim. Now that we have the ability to improve Ndim, I'll be doing a lot more in terms of reaching out to Ndim's users for bug lists, new feature ideas, testing, and any issues that pop up along the way
Boc (bocboda): Ole Boc is gonna have his hands FULL! Boc will be the one working behind the scenes on Ndim. He has the knowledge and the experience and must now contend with the archaic Ndim code, everyone pray for him. He does this for a living, so contributing his time after work for free on a pretty large project is a lot to ask. Everyone say ty Boc
KC (tommyhero): KC will be in charge of all things finances, including our PATREON! Ndim ain't free OR cheap, so we have a lot of work to do in that department. We have to pay for the server, domain, and a few security things in order to keep the lights on here. This will be the most stressful and most important part of the whole operation, so more on the Patreon below.
Rose (notsomysterious): Rose is gonna give this whole place a fresh coat of paint. She'll be in charge of giving Ndim a facelift, including a new logo, a new default skin, new icons and buttons etc. While Boc will be in charge of the code, Rose will be handling CSS and will be styling all current and future features. The logo and skin you see in this subforum are old, don't judge! Her first order of business will be sprucing it up.
Paul: Our great pal behind the curtain will remain our great pal behind the curtain in any capacity that he wishes. Ndim is Paul's baby and he'll continue to pitch in however much or little as he'd like. He's working with us on the transition and working closely with Boc to help make sure it's smooth sailing code-wise going forward. He was also our silent benefactor for many years which kept Ndim running which was extremely generous, so we all owe him a lot.
Patreon
Time for the big one! Like I said, Ndim isn't cheap! We've all enjoyed the privilege of not having to worry about server costs since the start of Ndim, but those days have sadly come to an end. As it stands, the server that hosts Ndim costs $100 a month. Our top priority is looking into a cheaper server, getting that number down to a worry-free level would be a huge relief and would mean smooth sailing. But we aren't quite there yet, that's gonna take a bit of time and we have to find a platform that can host our unique mess that is Ndim.
If the four of us could comfortably afford the $100 a month we would love to, but we unfortunately cannot. Many of you have been great about reaching out to us over the years (especially lately with this transition) about helping to fund Ndim. We've never been comfortable with asking for help unless we had the ability to actively develop Ndim in some way, which we thankfully do now. Which means we're now turning to the community for help!
We'll be making a separate thread for the Patreon, but for those who don't know, Patreon is a site that allows users to support creators by pitching in a recurring payment. The keyword here is recurring. While kickstarter would produce greater funds upfront, we are looking for longevity here. If the funds slow down and die, then unfortunately Ndim/FE/Ndim ORGs/former boards will do the same. Not to scare everyone, but that's the reality.
We're asking for people to pitch in however much they can/are able to. Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Many of us splitting the cost together over a long period of time is a lot better than a larger, one time donation. If ten people contribute $10 a month, we're covered. If 50 of us can contribute $2 a month, even better. I believe we can reach these numbers, but it's gonna take FE/ProM/ORGers alike to all come together.
IMPORTANT! All of this money is going STRAIGHT into Ndim. Nothing is going into our pockets, we have all agreed on that and are gonna be fully transparent about it. We don't need or want the money, we want to keep Ndim running.
Also important, everyone's financial situations are different. You could be a prolific ORG host or a longtime FE member who is unable or unwilling to pay, that is perfectly fine and we understand.
With that said, we will be very thankful to all who do help the community out here. The more who help, the less everyone has to contribute! If you've ever enjoyed using Ndim, whether hosting or playing ORGs through it or posting on FE or ProM or any other forum, anything you're able to donate towards it to help keep it running is greatly appreciated. We'll post a thread with a link to the Patreon soon. Bills are due NOVEMBER 1ST! Gulp
Support Board + Discord
Part of the 2.0 launch here is the unveiling of our Ndim support board and discord!
A support board is gonna be key for maintaining Ndim and we hope it gets good use over the years. The support board is this subforum that you're in right now, here on FE. This will sit at the top of FE going forward. We had a lot of conversations about how best to do the support board, either keeping it here, holding it entirely on discord, or make a new forum just for Ndim support. Ultimately we decided that one on FE and one on Discord is for the best.
For anyone who doesn't know, FE (Further Entertainment) is the board that you're on right now. This is the third generation of our dweeby online community that has existed since about 2007 (wild). FE and Ndim are very intertwined together, as Paul created Ndim for FE so we could have more control over our board. Soon after, ORGs began gravitating towards Ndim over Proboards and that's how we got to where we are today. FE has been our base of operations of sorts for Ndim for years and it only feels right to continue that. At the same time, we want to keep Ndim stuff to the Ndim section and keep FE stuff to the rest of the board.
We know that not everyone will want to visit here for Ndim news/updates/support, and not everyone knows that FE even exists, so we've also created an Ndim Support Discord.
Invite link:
https://discord.gg/74zWKTyz
Everyone is encouraged to join! I'm a forum over Discord person at heart, and I believe the rest of the staff would agree, so we'll be keeping our big word vomit updates like this one to the support board here. But this Discord will perhaps be the fastest way to get your question answered, report an issue, spitball with each other on feature ideas, etc. Some folks don't like or even have a Discord and will wanna stick to the forum, others won't wanna join FE and prefer sticking with Discord. Either way, the support boards are going to be extremely useful for us and for you all. Feel free to make any thread within this support forum for whatever you want, or bring up any topic that's on your mind in the Discord. These will both be evolving over time, but we want both to feel like community projects where everyone can pitch ideas.
Going Forward
We're very excited to get going and see what we can do with it. The four of us have had dream ideas for years now and I know many of you have things you wanna see happen as well. Turning Ndim into a more community driven project is our main goal, so we're relying on your help to help keep it running and to see what we can all come up with together.
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| See you all on the boards. |
