Project:Forum Software Campaign
Donate to the campaign
Update
Due to a few generous users we met the goal overnight before many even had a chance to see the campaign! We are truly grateful for all the donations and this just goes to show how great our community is! Your awesomeness fuels our eagerness and desire to push forward with our plans with confidence and enthusiasm!
All donations will now resume back to being applied to operating expenses.
Thank you all for your support!
Campaign Information
We are currently running a campaign to purchase the forum software from Invision Power Services. The reason for the purchase is because the current license is owned by one of our Admin. He has been allowing us to use it ever since we made the switch to Invision Power Board. We are making moves behind the scenes towards our goals and are now in the position of needing to purchase a license owned by STEP. This means purchasing the software using the generous donations of the community.
As most of you know, STEP does not make any profit whatsoever. The entire site is community based and operates on the donations of the community. Thus, from time to time and as the need arises we may run campaigns to boost donations for operating experiences or specific needs such as this. To be completely transparent, we currently have enough in the safety net to purchase the software, however, we must also keep in mind our monthly operating expenses, which currently set around $60/mo for server costs. We will soon start development towards STEP 3.0. This development will likely add to the monthly cost due to the requirement of running the live site alongside the development site. For this reason, we are running a campaign for the purchase of the software rather than using the funds from the net we have for operating expenses (servers).
Goal
The goal for this campaign is set at $200. This is the cost of purchasing the software for installation on our own servers. We will update the tracker at the top of the page once every few days.
Campaign donations from the few hours it ran totaled: $1,508.41
Questions
- What will purchasing the software mean for STEP?
- Purchasing the software will put us one step closer to rolling out STEP v3.0 because we will be able to begin working with updated forum software on the Dev server. We want to be very clear. As of the time of this writing, work as not yet begun. There have been a few things holding us back these past several months. We have resolved these issues and will be purchasing the Dev server soon. This means we will release STEP v3.0 with fully updated forum software. As it stands, we're currently running a rather outdated version of the forums.
- What is STEP v3.0?
- STEP v3.0 is the next major revision to the STEP paradigm, which we have been working towards for some time now and it involves many changes. A short summary of some of these changes are as follows:
- Shifts the back-end of the Guide's structure from the wiki to using the Mod Picker API.
- Fully realized STEP Packs using the Mod Picker platform.
- Fully updated software on all fronts (drupal, forums, wiki, server back-end).
- A new front-end website utilizing Drupal with a modern, responsive design.
- An updated visual design which is consistent across all STEP platforms.
- Most likely a new server...this is likely, but yet to be fully determined. The Dev server will be the testing ground for it.
- What is new with the latest forum software which requires an update?
- Our current version is no longer supported by Invision Power Services. We are no longer able to get updates, new features, security fixes, etc. with our current version. Upgrading to the latest version solves all those problems. As for new features in the latest version, the main highlight for users is the forums will be modern and responsive designed. This means they will look and work great on just about all mobile devices. For the back-end, a massive redesign took place for usability, custom development, and styling. This will make our job of maintaining the forums easier.
- What will change after the update is live?
- Users will notice several changes to the forums once the update is live with STEP v3.0. First, the visual design will be made consistent with the front-end website so users feel like the various STEP platforms belong together. Second, users may notice some change in the forums themselves. It has yet to be worked out, be we will be adding better support for games other then classic Skyrim. Users will likely see a better home for Skyrim Special Edition and the Fallout games. Lately, users will notice a few feature updates to member groups and the like.
