This will probably take me forever, and it’ll probably still be unused, but I don’t care. If nothing else, it’ll stand as a historical archive, with a bit of a new face. 

You WILL get a prompt or icon showing this page to be not secure on many of the threads and posts you visit.  This is due to the nature of the forum. We will still accept pictures, and videos, and all sorts of embeds that may not be through a secure connection.  In the future, as we post content, if you make sure to use https:// links if they are available (most are) the issue will begin to go away. 

This issue should not cause any trouble viewing the site. However, if there happens to be an embed that is not secure, it will not show unless you explicitly allow it.  I don't believe this will be an issue unless I have things wrong on the back end, so just let me know if you have trouble.

Decent Read on the Subject from Firefox Support

On to the bad news. You all know the site, up until recently, had been getting more and more sluggish. Slow to load, slow to post, slow to do everything. This is due to the fact that we were surpassing the load that a shared hosting account can handle. Without going into too much detail, the gist of it is this. In shared hosting, when your account starts using too many resources (memory, cpu time, etc) they start getting killed. This excess resource usage comes from page views, hits, etc. On top of this, with a forum, and any site using mysql, there is a seperate server running those queries. If you start using too much on that then the same thing happens. This results in slow page load times, and at worst the site not loading at all. Sounds crappy, but that's how they can afford to offer hosting at such low prices. There is a solution, but it obviously costs more.

As of last Friday I have rolled us over into that solution. We are now hosted on a Virtual Private Server (Two actually, one for the website and one for the SQL server). It comes at a flat rate of 50 cents per 10 MB of memory we need. Which I will have complete control over. Over the last several days I've optimized both the forums and main site to use as little memory as possible. At the same time I monitored our usage, and I have a decent idea of what our needed memory will be for now. With this VPS solution, I can scale our memory up or down on the fly. So, if we have a busy week or slow down I can scale it accordingly and we will be charged based on usage.

To wrap it up. It all comes down to money. I don't mind covering half of the running costs, but covering all of it is just too much. We need donation and support for this site to continue thriving. I don't have any intention of shutting it down. As I said, our shared hosting is paid through for the next several years. However, if we can't get the support and funds to stay on the VPS I will be forced to roll us back onto shared hosting and forced to make changes. Those changes could mean anything from shutting down parts of the site, limiting access, limiting views, posts, etc.

Below I'm going to list the break down of cost. I'll be as transparent with this as I can.

Shared Hosting:

$417 every 5 years - $6.95 per month (Paid until 04-14-2016)

Domain Registration:

gamercide.org - Free with the shared hosting account

gmcd.me - $9.99 per year

Virtual Private Server - Webserver:

Estimated need of 500MB - $25 per month

Virtual Private Server - SQL:

Estimated need of 400MB - $20 per month

Total Monthly Operating Cost of Gamercide:

$52.78

Monthly Operating Cost minus Prepaid Shared Hosting of Gamercide:

$45.83

Half of Monthly Operating Cost minus Prepaid Shared Hosting of Gamercide:

$22.92

So, there it is. All out there. I'm willing to continue paying half of the operating cost. All we need to come up with is $23 a month to keep us looking good. That may increase slighly over time, but hopefully it would increase with members and participation.

To top it all off, there is now a way to donate directly to our web hosting. The money will never go through my hands, and will instead go directly to paying for the cost of running the site. The down side is there is a minimum donation of $10. So, if you don't want to donate that much, you can still donate to Gamercide's Paypal and trust me to use the money accordingly.

That's it everyone. I hope we can get the support to keep this site running at its best. Donation links will follow, and feel free to comment or ask any questions.

Donate directly to Gamercide's web hosting bill (Minimum of $10 donation via PayPal) - Any donation to the hosting account over the cost for that month will roll forward. So if we have 5 people donate 10 bucks, then the extra will roll over to the next month. The more we have in that account the better.

Donate to Gamercide's Paypal Account (No Minimum)

Donate to Gamercide via Gift Certificate (No Minimum. Multiple Payment Methods. Requires Creating an account.) - This donation method is for those who don't want to or can't use PayPal. You should be able to buy a gift certificate via multiple payment methods. You can then send that gift certificate to me (via PM or email), and I will apply it towards Gamercide's hosting bill.

Now, here's the deal, I don't have the time or knowledge to do the major legwork of the redesign. So, I'm going to be paying a professional skinner to design everything for us. It's going to happen one way or the other, but I want your input before I make the investment.

So, a couple of questions.

First, it's completely possible to keep the exact look we have now. The front end will continue to look like it does now, and the forums will keep this look. Only they'll be integrated.

However, this is the last change I personally plan to make. So, we no have the option to completely customize both the front end and the forum to whatever we like. So, if you want to draw up pictures, or create basic layouts to go by then now is the time. Do you have a color scheme idea, or would you like to see a new banner? Now's the time to speak up.

I'll let the discussion go for as long as it needs, and if there is enough input we can vote on what we like the most, but keep in mind what we get is what we keep.

Again, this thread is your first and last opportunity to speak up. Once the change is done, it's done for the foreseeable future.

If you do you can have your status on Gamercide be tweeted or your tweets update your status. You will also have the option to tweet any new topics you make.

Facebook integration will come later if it's not too intrusive. Neither will be required.

As you can see I have already implemented a few changes. I renewed our license to IPBoard and upgraded the Forums to the latest version. This unfortunately left our old skin with too many problems to implement immediately. So, I opted for a change and went with a similar design with a twist.

In the top right of the forum is a small color palette selector. Simply change the accent colors to something you enjoy and it will be saved for your next visit. This way we all can personalize this place a little more. I hope you enjoy the option.

Also, the upgrade removed the option to have both a profile picture and a forum picture. Losing most of our Xbox Signatures. However, feel free to change it to whatever you like. There are no restrictions as long as you keep it clean.

There will be more changes and improvements to come, and all I ask is your continued support. Let us come together and see if we can continue to grow what Spawn was so kind to give us.

This will be pinned, but feel free to PM me, email me, or reply here with any questions.

Okay, okay. There is more to this story, but it'd bore you to tears. Honestly. What you want to know, is, who are the people here? What are they like? Will I make a good fit? I will do my best to answer those questions for you. Know this, though. If this didn't answer what you were looking for, either PM me or any of the staff, or reply to this thread. We'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Who are the people of Gamercide?

We are very close friends, who've known each other for quite awhile. In our own words, we're as close to an internet family one can have. That's just the honest truth. We do care about each other. We're also very open to meeting new friends and hopefully getting to know them better. If you look around the forums a bit, you'll see that we play an awful lot. Videogames and just plain horsing around. It's all in good fun. We joke around just like real life friends do. If I were to give a pointer to newcomers just joining up, I'd say jump in. Jump in fully and get to know us. You can also learn a lot from lurking, so if that's your style, no worries there, either. Have fun whichever way makes you feel more comfortable. We'll still be here if you decide to jump in later.

What are the people here like? We run the gamut of personalities here. We all genuinely care for each other, though. That's the main difference. We're a very generous community. I won't go into details, but if you stick around long enough, you'll witness it for yourself. We're mostly gamers, but not all of us. I'd say that most play on the 360, but we also have many members who game on the PC, PS3, Wii and handhelds. We have artists, sports enthusiasts, audiophiles, videophiles, bookworms, movie hounds and much more. There are people of all walks of life here. All with one thing in mind. Community. It's what we find very important. Our own community, used to be a private one. We've realized, though, that private communities stagnate. We wish to expand our community, and welcome more people into it. We think it's a special and unique community, and wish to invite more into it.

Will I make a good fit? If you're into meeting new people and like a community, yes. You don't have to be a gamer to become a member at Gamercide. You only need to sign in and follow the few rules we have. If you're a troublemaker, you may not be a good fit. One never knows, though. Several longtime members of Gamercide, were once troublemakers. They embraced the community spirit we have and enjoy it. We know that people want to be noticed, and sometimes will act up in order to be noticed. You won't need to, here.

That takes care of the people of Gamercide. What about the site itself? What's it all about?

It's our version of gaming news. That's it. Honest. We don't care for the bigger gaming news sites, and wanted to do our own. We're not looking for page hits or advertisers. We don't want to earn an income, off of what we love. Gaming is a hobby very dear to us. So we write our own reviews, articles and interviews. We may not get the big exclusives or the bigger swag, but what we write is ours. We're not pandering to developers or publishers. We have integrity at Gamercide. We won't bend over for anyone. We'll review a game, and if it's crap, than we write that it's crap. Typically, the games we review, are our own. Even if they are review copies, we'll still write up an honest review. If that means we have to buy or rent that games sequel, instead of receiving a review copy, so be it. Integrity is more important than a free game.

If any of this is something that interests you, we welcome you to our community.

This information brought to by, Community and Integrity.

PK

Last Updated: 14 July 2010

Terms of Use and Code of Conduct apply to all parts of Gamercide.org, including this forum.

The Short Version

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The Long Version

Below, we have fleshed out the rules and added some additional specific rules. These rules apply to all posts in this forum, and it is your responsibility to read them. This thread serves as your only warning, and you may be warned and/or banned at the moderators' full discretion for violating any rule in this thread.

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What counts as "spam"?

"Spam" is defined in different ways on different websites. Spam includes, but is not limited to:- All-caps thread titles and/or all-caps posts (unless specifically applicable to the subject of the thread)

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A "blog" post is the original post in a new thread that merely relates a personal experience that another user can neither agree nor disagree with. In other words, it is a post that can result in nothing but other users "commenting" on that personal experience or relating similar personal experiences, rather than beginning a discussion.

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- Threads such as "Sign here if you're getting this game." are allowed in moderation.

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If you are unsure about your post before posting it, please send a private message to a moderator before posting.

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Various Ramblings and Insights...

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Suggestions

* Use a spell checker before posting..

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