If we were to remake PJ. From scratch. How would it need to work?

This question has kept me thinking for over 3 years.

I love PJ. This system has everything that I need and I know where to find all there is.
Sadly its outdatedness is not just a problem that shows on the interface, with advanced hack bots, any website that is not regularly updated is a timebomb.

I don't want to open my browser one day to find PJ full of viagra adds, figure that my password & data has been stolen (it probably has already anyway) and that we are never able to use the site again. We need to have a plan B ready!

No illusions: I can not create a new PJ. Sedgemonkey can not, nobody I know has the ability to put in these efforts with the resources available (time, money, love, skill).

But what if? What would PJ 2.0 look like?

Up to date security
If the main reason for a new site is better protection against the evils of the web, this should be an important feature. There are 2 options to keep a website up to date:
1: Get a skilled webmaster who can regularly update the system
2: Use a trusted system core that is being updated automatically.

Option 1 seems very unlikely, we don't have any money and we can not rely on volunteer(s) to do this forever. A system is just too much effort to maintain.
Option 2 seems better. Projects like wordpress, joomla or even the core of this forum are updated all the time and relatively easy to modify.

A very good gallery feature
This is what makes PJ unique. PJ is not PJ without an open art gallery. One with only pixel art submissions (manual approval..), a weekly & monthly top (based on whatever score, maybe not our current system). Users should be able to submit art and be displayed nicely.
I looked around if there was some kind of plug in for one of the existing management systems that was kind of similar to this, none fit perfectly.

Is it possible to write a gallery module like this? Would this be a one time action or would this need constant updating too?

A weekly challenge feature
Of course it is technically possible to manually run challenges, create polls and a timer, but having a system that does most of the work for you makes it easy for volunteer mods to run 52 challenges a year, hand out 1000 medals per year, etc..
PJ's community stays active and bonds because of the challenges. A PJ without challenge would be a huge step backwards.

Modules we can copy
Forum, Chatbox, private messages, news blog, these features are probably easy to take from other places and install onto this new website.

Design
Of course a community portal needs a functional design, and an art portal needs a visually appealing design which puts the focus on the artworks. Luckily we have a lot of gifted designers among us, and in the past many have volunteered to create new templates for PJ


I have looked around for solutions, but I am not a web expert. As far as I could figure there are plenty of foreign (Indian) companies who were willing to rebuild this complete site for 1500 dollar or less, but I bet there are a lot of tiny things to be fixed or changed after run one and you'll never know if it is an improvement in the end..
Building on an existing core seems much more likely. For example OpenGameArt has been developed completely on top of Drupal, and the website is quite functional right now!

Are there people here at PJ with experience in web development who can explain more about how PJ could possibly be rebuilt from scratch? What would your approach be and why?

Of course, a new PJ brings much more trouble than just a new system. Imagine starting from 0 with an empty gallery... Or mirroring all the gems in the old forums...
As much as I want an open group to be in charge for the technical side of things, on this internet a website needs to be registered by a single person who will automatically ultimately be in charge... The more open, the more sustainable, the better?

Anyway, these are some thoughts, feel free to respond to them/correct me/give hope that there might be a chance that PJ will survive!

Yep, good example

Both the Portuguese Pixelaria and the French RetroPixel seem to have a working system. Does anyone know something about the history of these sites?

If there were people in the French and Portuguese speaking world able to make such sites when there was a need for them, will there also be someone in the English speaking world? Is the need just not big enough yet that no one stepped up?

I think having the forum separated off in to another section of the site kind of hurts the activity on it. Current pixel projects/art being worked on should have attention, and pieces/projects that are finished share the space with that.
So for instance.. try to avoid separating stuff into separate pages..
showcase the finished work like usual, but also have a strip under it that showcased work in progress, along with latest posts under those work in progress(posts to the work in progress that is being shown in the strip)..

so like..

finished thumbnail | finished thumbnail | fin.. | fin.. | fin..|
post count: 20     | post count: 20     | ""
latest reply:      | latest reply:      | ""
blah blah..        | blah blah..        | ""
_______________________________________________________________________
wip thumbnail      | wip thumbnail      | wip.. | wip.. | wip..|
post count: 20     | post count: 20     | ""
latest reply:      | latest reply:      | ""
blah blah..        | blah blah..        | ""
_______________________________________________________________________
Announcements:                                   | Current Challenge:
                                                 |
blah blah blah..                                 | rules, blah blah
                                                 |______________________
                                                 | Previous Challenge:
                                                 |
                                                 | winner 1
                                                 | winner 2
                                                 | winner 3
_______________________________________________________________________

Forum :

thread 1
thread 2
thread 3
...

1. Because it's the same 3 people making sexual innuendos 24/7, and it's the first thing people see when they come to the site. It's unprofessional, occasionally vulgar enough to make one cringe, and it takes up space that could be devoted to artwork. There are already forums for just shooting the sh!t.

I don't know what you're talking about when you say 'is clicking a link so hard', what I'm suggesting here is that there is more art displayed, i.e. more links to click and more art to look at.

2. Mods can't remove trophies, and it's tacky. That's why I offered the idea of making it collapsable- it allows people to wag their e-dick if they really want to.

3. You must be very new here, because this conversation comes up a lot. The Hall of Fame is irredeemably broken, everyone agrees on that. It has a heavy preference toward older works, and it's nearly impossible for new work to overcome this barrier.

4. That's the mindset I'm talking about. Pixel art today sometimes takes limited advantage of new tools, or is too 'oekaki' for purist tastes, but the foundations of pixel art as a medium are still the most important element of the image. Blind rules like "[x] tool cannot be used ever" work to teach newbies how to handle the medium, but rules are made to be broken, and there needs to be more exceptions for work that doesn't follow the predefined equation for what makes "TRUE pixel art".



Edited by thereisnocure - 01 September 2014 at 9:28pm

you have proved your point... I don't have any other issues with it... to be true... I have a distaste for sexuality and over-skimpy theme of art as well...

And 4. yeah... I don't count myself as a purist. Since I hate any palette less than 18 colors... still with the same techniques one can make an illusionary version of pixel art( I can say one of those is cure and many other) It isn't wrong and of course over use of color is required... still even this 4. is implemented, preferably keepin it at the lowest medium to satisfy certain indiviuals

well... I should have know he is cure earlier... so I would have taken the suggestion way more seriously and all. Of course the reason why @thereisnocure appeared is becuz of some idiots hacked the chatterbox and messed up the accounts...( one of em was Cure) So I can tell why he hate the chatterbox now lol

well the chatterbox is running with a thread like system... well said to be old, stale, lame... need a better chatbox with all the features like sound notifications and constant updates( like one of them out there in those fancy forum)

I think an "other art" sub forum in the lounge would be nice.

It's a blind and arbitrary system. It's fine as a filter, but not as a strict rule. I'll give PJ credit for becoming more lenient in the last couple of years, but exceptions have been inconsistent, and I'd still push for a more inclusive definition. The line between pixel art and other digital media is already blurry, this is just a discussion of where in the gray we place the line.

We already have a general quality standard, so "low-quality submissions"shouldn't be an issue. By making artists completely remake huge swaths of a piece, which can dramatically change the effect a piece has, we place a large burden on a lot of good artwork that the artist might not have the time or willingness to dress up.

It's explicitly stated in the first post that the thread is for hypothetical speculation, and no one expects sedge to implement anything discussed. The topic you linked to is not about a purely hypothetical version of the site being made 'from scratch.'

I think I actually avoided pixeljoint for several years because you logo royally pissed me off.

Well, I know how to build a site/forum so I'll tell you what are the main problems.
1)Get an admin and update the site or install a new platform, or build another pixeljoint in another server.
2) I'm quite sure if we want to change platform, since asp now isn't one of the main choices, we will make the site cancel all the old information. All the pixel art cancelled, all the forum topics cancelled and we lose credibility with the searching engines.
2.1) There is the need to choose between buying a platform that have already most of the things we need and is regularly updated, then change it and add the gallery, edit the homepage etc.
Or to use a free platform that need a lot of fixes and it's not assured to be update regularly.