The CWA Board

4 years after the new style and 3 after the last update, it's time to rethink some stuff. There's less and less visits on the CWA or actually any Carma forum. Even though it would have been nice for things to go the Doom or Quake way community-wise, it is not the end of the road either and times like these are natural. Much older and quieter communities are still around.

It would be nice for the board to continue to evolve and accomodate that slower pace. Here are some ideas that I plan for the upcoming weeks:

Sort the forums differently. Bye-bye devWAM:
- News merged into General Discussion
- Files, Tutorials & Infos merged into Noobs Start Here
- devWAM main merged into C1/C2
then:
- Tech forum merged into Noobs Start Here, then the subforum is renamed
- TDR2000 and C:MD subforums moved into The Vault ? The Vault then renamed?
^ it's either that or we keep the four Carmageddon subforums in order.
- C1/C2 subforum split into two separate C1 and C2 ones (shadow copies can be used to leave topics that cover both games in each subforum)

Keep one main style and improve it:
My idea here is to keep the piranha one with some elements of the narrow header. (I imagine the autoscum logo with the CWA letters as teeth being centered in the banner.) The little previews of the last posted pics would have to go ; while it looks nice, it requires maintenance and the script slows things down. It could be replaced by a single long image randomly picked among a preselected lot.
Anyway, just one main theme, to make it easier to work on. Current ones are still rough around the edges. The oldschool one can stay but won't be updated much at all.

The biggest change:
While the "latest news from devWAM" thing would disappear, I'd like to replace the frontpage by a feed of the latest C1/C2/TDR/C:MD topics. Exactly like the frontpage of the Func_Msgboard (http://www.celephais.net/board/news.php). Or rather, while posting the new topic, you could choose to make it also a news item.
The frontpage could also feature news from other sites, like a ticker or something.


Any opinion on all this? I'm also especially interested in example of other old gaming communities that have a great platform/portal.

Well first I don't follow many other old gaming communities. I do see some news/feed setups like Func_Msgboard. Goldeneye Vault for example. I guess that's the main theme across the board (pun intended)

I'm glad that you are giving CWA another overhaul! My thoughts:

- Separating C1 and C2 subforums is a good thing if you ask me. I'm a big C2 fan, as you know, and having the topics presented to me related to that version has my preference.

- I still think that the devWAM could have it's own place, but that is more of a preference. The techy topics are quite specific and I like to have them in one place. What is your main reason for merging it with the C1 and C2 subforums? To keep it simpler? On the other hand separating the tech C1 from the tech C2 topics would be okay I guess as they are now mixed in devWAM.

Or rather, while posting the new topic, you could choose to make it also a news item.

- Probably easiest, so long as not everyone turns their topic/post into a news item.

- I prefer the cwa_narrow logo to the cwa_piranha one... It seems more outspoken if you ask me. The preview images are so so. I never use them, so in my opinion they can go.

The whole idea behind the sorting/merging is to get subforums that fit actual needs more closely but then also help the board seem more lively. C1/C2 editing is still going on so many years after, and with this retrogaming era C1 shines more and more. Just seems fair to split the boards.

I'm just quite concerned about the TDR/C:MD subforums fate, they are rather dead but being put into the Vault seem too much, maybe fuse them together and call the new forum "Other Carmageddon games" and make it sound like it includes Carma64 and CarmaPSX too?

About devWAM, it's just that it seems to me like CWA=devWAM now somehow. Like having the separation is now obsolete.

You have a good point about the techy topics, and maybe a simple solution maybe the ability to flag the topic as "tech" just like the "news" flag mentionned earlier? And then it would appear with a different icon in the topic list, and also on the front page under a column "Latest tech talks" (yeah, I had a look at that GoldenEye Vault site! Columns are so 2000s but still useful!) I guess visually shuch a column should be positionned on the left with content slightly less impactant than the news feed.

About the News flag, moderators could unflag topics that don't need a frontpage exposure?

About the style: what I have in mind now (I should really make a mockup already) is really a mix between the two using the black/yellow piranha. I understand the MagnaChem CWA is very readable, but I just feel like the whole thing is too... serious?

Personally I don't like the idea of separating C1/C2 up into two forums, solely due to the lack of activity though this isn't a bad idea for archiving and searching purposes.

I was also thinking, the news section could perhaps have some sort of integration or something alongside Wasted as Wasted is now pretty much defunct, I no longer update it with news due to time constraints and Newton has no interest in Carmageddon anymore, perhaps try and get the domains/databases/data from him and merge things together, I don't think it would be a bad idea at all to have a proper repository (similar to Wasted) located here.

Toshiba-3 wrote: - Tech forum merged into Noobs Start Here, then the subforum is renamed
- TDR2000 and C:MD subforums moved into The Vault ? The Vault then renamed?
^ it's either that or we keep the four Carmageddon subforums in order.

Great proposal Tosh. Merge all the things! FWIW, and it's very much a personal taste, I have a strong preference for fewer subgroups. It's less hassle to browse and looks more active, I remember saying this at the time the board change was made but I'm in the minority. I'm not saying go all the way back or anything (good old days, rose tinted glasses ). Your idea for the retro Func_ style newsfeed is fantastic on this front - if this isn't too much work to implement and I could easily see that becoming the main catch-up landing page, certainly for me.

I should know the answer to this , but does the board have an RSS/atom feed, would like to add it into feedly.

I replied to matt in IRC but if anyone else wonders about the RSS feed (actually ATOM) it's simply here: https://www.cwaboard.co.uk/feed.php

I'm still undecided about moving the CMD and TDR subforums into the Vault, it seems a bit excessive But yeah, they aren't very lively either...

the main catch-up landing page

That's certainly the idea!

I guess I'll duplicate the board to test these ideas and try to implement the frontpage and news/tech tagging system. And the header design idea.

Bumping this topic almost exactly two years later..!

After 8 years on phpBB 3.0.x, we moved today to 3.2.5 (the current latest version). I felt like it was getting urgent to upgrade and after Errol pointed me in the right directions regarding several features I was after, I decided to stay with phpBB (I was planning to move to Invision Community).
Not having to convert the database is ofcourse very good.

This time however we won't customize the board as much as we did last time. It'll stay completely vanilla to make it easy to apply updates and eventually upgrade again. PhpBB 3.2.x offers the possibility to install and use plug-in extensions rather than having to modify files manually to install mods.
One of such extensions is used to introduce the successor to Wasted! as linked in the navbar in the header. It isn't set up nor populated yet but that will come gradually.

Finally one of the most obvious changes, the theme, will be declined soon from this default theme and will be kept fully compatible. It will also stay responsive.

We'll address the other points discussed in the posts up there at some point too

Hello there! Good luck.

Thanks Mastro

Work-in-progress CWA style should be up for everyone now. I'm sure there are some stuff to fix here and there, don't hesitate to point them out. Also I didn't test on older browsers, especially Internet Explorer on Windows XP.
I haven't designed the new header yet, I'll do that next week when I come back from vacation. Background drawing might change too.

Then I'll have to take care of the download database. Then somehow work the news portal out.

And another 2 years later...

Progress is still made, slow but steady. I guess everyone has noticed how the whole of the Carma.com forums have been imported some months ago thanks to Errol. I've also been importing archived stuff from a bit everywhere, which you can find with the Archives tag.
Currently importing the blog posts from Carma.com (they were separate from the forums). I still have old CWA topics to bring back, and maybe some discussions from the bulleting board from Dozon's website, still hesitating.

After that, I'll finally merge and re-order the subforums, like so: Regarding the portal and the download database: I still plan to make the portal but I'll keep that for the very end. Probably going to use phpbb Pages with the tags. As for the download db (basically nu-Wasted!), I found a better plugin that integrates with phpbb but it's still lacking a few features I'd like, and would need to be styled after the CWA color scheme.

Oh yeah, the search index is empty for the time being, during the import of old posts. I'll recreate it once I'm done.

[EDIT] Blog posts are now back!

Thank you for all the hard work you put in daily!

Just seen these changes and got mightily confused, looks a lot tidier though.
Take some getting used to, things being in different places.

I'm still importing old archived discussions, you probably noticed all the japanese stuff (esp. this enormous bit). Currently tackling the lot that was saved by the Internet Archive from before the mid november 2002 migration (probably around 400 topics). I'll also try to restore the postcounts from before the move to phpBB (they were reset). Kind of feel like following the import of the whole of Carma.com forums, it might seem to outside visitors that our community was more active between 2011-2018, which is not really accurate. So while we can't restore everything that was lost from the golden age, veteran postcounts might at least serve as an indication of past activity.
Finally I'd like to at least try and import the whole of the alt.games.carmageddon usenet newsgroup. I'm afraid it might just disappear all of sudden like many other things do these last years on the Internet (Geocities & co, Carma.com, many long time running carma websites).

Oh I'm still merging old user accounts etc. Sometime restoring old usernames as ranks (so that it makes more sense in old threads when former usernames were used).
If you want to change/tweak your current username and/or rank (that's the title below your username btw) just give me a shout.

While sorting the old archived CWA discussions, I noticed the source of the postcount gap. They were only reset 10 years later though, so I imagine it wasn't that obvious at the time? I found not mention of the disappearing topics anywhere. Enlarge the picture
The pic says it occured while migrating from a server to another, but the pruning might also have been a result of upgrading UBB. Not sure if we'll ever know Maybe Boose or Elendal will have an idea.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks Mastro

All your favourite lost CWA topics finally available again: app.php/tag/2002-Great-Loss
Re-discover wild gems like "is there any female carmageddon players does anyone know if there is", "Carmasaveed is being gay.", and other classics like "Just testin a sig, delete me".

O M G
I'm writing on the CWABOARD!

Just came by to say hi, and cheers to you Tosh for doing such a meticulous job of keeping this site up.
Been going through some of the old posts from before 2002, and that archive, man, what a trip!

To think this is where it all started for me, what a long 20 year journey and counting.
I'm one of the vehicle artists on BeamNG now, and I'm always thankful for all that this community has given me

Oh hey Nice to see you still roaming around here!

The community is also very thankful for everything you brought to it all these long years, you definitely inspired a lot of younger modellers!
Oh, and awesome that you're working on beamNG btw!

AdR also did an awesome job for Assetto Corsa car mods within last couple of years so - yeah! This is amazing that true modelling skills never die

Thanks guys! and yeah, I'm not in the mod scene for Carmageddon anymore, but at least I still get my kicks destroying cars with BeamNG. I miss those pedestrians, though

This might be off topic, but anyone knows what happened to Slayer and Econobrick? their work was so cool back then!

AdR, forgot to answer your question, this is the last we heard from Econobrick, so yeah, life catching up with us one after the other. And I imagine it was the same for his brother.

Created a vault subdomain to store archived Carma pages: http://vault.cwaboard.co.uk
Still have to make something useable out of TSS: http://tss.cwaboard.co.uk and I'd like to completely restore Dozon's website.

Wasn't sure where to post this.

Hi, MOV_Games here with a quickly slapped together second account, I was semi active during Reincarnation & Max Damage's development on the old Carmageddon.com forums. Had absolutely no idea that some of that board was archived and ported over to this one, I see even my original profile's details are there (probably helps that I saved most if not all of it in wayback before the forum completely died).

I couldn't log in with my old account, so I assume it's actual log in details might not be there anymore? I saw something about merging accounts but the contact bit was disabled, so I guess it's not finished yet? Either way thanks for preserving at least some of the history of that forum, I thought it was gone for good!

Hello and welcome back!

Yeah creating a new account and merging the old one into it is the best way to regain access to old accounts. I think we imported like 99% of the old forum really, only the private forum couldn't be imported. Deleted topics and posts neither ofcourse.

Your username to login is again MOV_Games, don't hesitate to reach out to me on the Discord server (link in the menu up there) if there's any problem

Toshiba-3 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 2:50 pmFinally I'd like to at least try and import the whole of the alt.games.carmageddon usenet newsgroup. I'm afraid it might just disappear all of sudden like many other things do these last years on the Internet (Geocities & co, Carma.com, many long time running carma websites).

The import and sorting of the whole of the alt.games.carmageddon newsgroup is now done..!
You can find it all via the alt.games.carmageddon tag

I'll now focus on other stuff

Fantastic work, as always, Tosh.

99% of imgur hotlinked images now stored locally.
This is just in case some images meet deletion criterias regarding this announcement or if they ever go further with that state of mind : https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/14415587638029

Thank you, Tosh.
You've saved a lot of potentially lost history here. Kudos.

Considering saving more locally but it could be time consuming. A lot of photobucket and imageshack missing images can actually be fixed by updating the url to the image, might as well save locally then.

Toshiba-3 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 8:44 am Considering saving more locally but it could be time consuming. A lot of photobucket and imageshack missing images can actually be fixed by updating the url to the image, might as well save locally then.

What should the URLs be updated to?
I have a bunch of dead imageshack links on some of my old posts on razor.cwaboard.co.uk