Creating a Permanent Beta Awards site

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 6:55 pm

Well, my plan was to just establish a site purposely and solely for Beta Awards usage and then have it co-run with Zero, using her code. By doing this, Zero won't have to worry about not receiving credit for her code and with two people with access to the site, if one of us disappears, the other will have access to the site for future usage.

Plus, I enjoyed working with Zero

I'm planning on registering with lunarpages(former Beta hosting service) and currently they're offering a $5/mos plan. I can definetely afford that.

Future organizers will be granted access to the moderator portion of the site, and we can change the password per Beta Awards contest or as needed. I have no problem with future organizers adding/subtracting categories, graphics, etc as well. Basically, all I do is pay the bill

As this seems like a mostly popular idea, I'll get together with Zero after the holidays(or whenever) and start setting this up. In January, I'd like to bring up the idea of creating two seperate Beta Awards(one each for sketches and cels) and, depending on that, the site could be used as early as Summer 2009 for awards.

wELCOME cONSUMER · Post by **wELCOME cONSUMER** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:11 pm

I'm going to paraphrase some things that were said to me last year when I helped to organize the 07 Beta Awards. The beauty of the BA is that a different person or set of people organize the event every year, making it belong to the community. It seems a little soon to volunteer for future projects when we are still standing in the shadow of this year's event. You don't know what will be going on in your life in the future, you may not even be available to organize it again. Besides, someone else may want the opportunity. It's best to keep things fresh and pass the torch to others.

The problem with a communal site is that they can be difficult to maintain. So far, the BA have been successful relying on individual member's site space and designing skills. It's refreshing to see a different site every year. Each designer has their own creative stamp, which is part of the fun of hosting/designing the event. I liked this year's site but I am curious to see what someone else may come up with for next year.

And I find it so contradictory that the person who told me and Zetsuai last year how "totally unnecessary" our purchase of betaawards.com was now thinks a permanent site is a brilliant idea because they are suggesting it this time around.

kizu · Post by **kizu** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:44 pm

I'm sorry I don't know the behind the scenes that's going on here... Anyway, I just wanted to point out that it is possible to address the issue of transience in klet's post and also promote the awards outside the cel community (aka SEO) by;
1) having a domain name that is transferable if the person quits collecting
2) having it parked when not in use (aka static page) will give it "age" in the internet to be easily found by others to promote our hobby to the outside world or at least anime fans
3) pointing the domain name (dns or url forwarding) to whoever is hosting the awards that year which allows for flexibility in how future organizers would want to creatively present and run the awards using their own hosting.

These are only suggestions and I hope all of you can work it out.

moonrabitt · Post by **moonrabitt** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 10:11 pm

I think that what should be set up is the time for the event.
Because this year it was like a last minute thing, where someone asked when the awards would be and so forth...About 2 months before the event....
So what should at least be decided is WHEN the awards will be...not the exact day, but maybe month (around the time)....That way there is less confusion, and people know when to log in...

I think that probably without akadro's question (http://www.anime-beta.com/phpBB/viewtop ... &start=420 )on when the 08' awards would be, than maybe stuff could have taken longer, since no one else seemed to ask.......
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Taken all that in account, making a universal site makes it much easier for people to check and so forth...Maybe it can have updates too....(this way you don't have to go trough tons of pages to find info)

If you look at it from a neutral point of view...Having one site is easier, than a bunch of different sites...That way different people don't have to pay for different sites, when it can all be in one site...
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Sure people can disappear and so forth, but some stuff should be determined like around when it is and so froth so it's easier....
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I think that the sketch and cel idea is a neat idea too...that way you can look forward to both events....
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And then if the person in charge of the site goes "missing" and does not respond in "said amount of days" then someone else takes over and just makes a new site....simple as that...

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zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 11:08 pm

I'm glad you didn't mind working with me, cutiebunny.

You were certainly very easy to work with, yourself!

I'm going to say this here and publicly, so there aren't any questions about it or my motives for anything: I'd like to restrict any future work that I do on the A-B awards to back-end technical stuff only. If my assistance is wanted, I will gladly work on the code I started this year so that future organizers may have an easier time if they want to use it. It's made to be portable--so that whomever uses it won't need a host with database capability, etc. That was my point in making it the way I did! I know people in the past have relied on forms created by earlier organizers, so I wanted to be sure that if future organizers liked what I'd done, they could potentially use it without much fuss. As I have said already, I have a a good bit of work to do to get it to the point of bug-free future compatibility, but that's what I'm volunteering for -- to fix the mistakes I made the first time around if anyone wants me to do so. If you don't, I won't be offended.

So, welcomeconsumer, if you're referring to me because I know I publicly stated that I was against the purchase of the domain name last year ... you're misunderstanding my involvement in this particular project. I'm a programmer--I'm certainly not looking to take over the A-B awards from here on (and quite truthfully, I wouldn't want to!).

I will say one thing about transferring hosting or domains: I will forever make the code available for future use (I've owned my current domain for a number of years and have it registered for the next 5 or so years already, anyways ... so I'm not going anywhere as far as the WWW is concerned). So, even if cutiebunny were to drop her hosting account, the code could easily be copied elsewhere and you're set to go. Honestly -- the whole thing could be dropped and it wouldn't matter, you can always go back to having someone host it by volunteering (with or without the domain name or fancy web site).

I suppose the only thing that matters is that people decide to do what they do by volunteering for it--so long as the masses here are alright with it. I do think that others should have the opportunity to organize the awards each year -- which is why I'm stepping to the shadows, and will only come out if/when asked.

Ya'll may feel free to volunteer me as a programmer, and I'll keep an eye out here for technical stuff, but as for the rest of it .... I'm stayin' out. I don't do politics

.

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:18 am

One of the most important reasons as to why I would like to make a permanent site with an easy program is because I was really intimidated with this project this year. I am absolutely horrible with codes and it was a great relief knowing that Zero was taking care of the technical end. While I am sure that there are many Beta members who are far more competent than I when it comes to websites, there may be many more that are in the same boat as I when it comes to the technical aspect.

With a cohensive set-up on a pre-existing site, future organizers do not have to worry about creating a website in a month's time to host the Beta Awards. They can use and modify the site as they see fit. If the difficult portion(setting/creating a website) is done, this may make more members want to get involved with this project. This may just be my speculation based on my feelings at the time, but I would not be surprised if this aspect was partially why the idea of the 2008 contest was not brought up sooner.

As for 'freshness', the only thing that would stay the same is the URL, and perhaps even the basic functions of the site. I see no reason why future organizers can not add graphics, categories, etc. and in fact, I would hope that they would. if a future organizer wanted to redesign a certain feature, I see no reason why that could not be done either.

During the award off-season, the site could host the smaller thumbnail versions of the items submitted, and we could always post a nice link back to Anime Beta so as to generate support and interest in this community. This would depend on what the community would like the website to do as this site would be for this community.

In short, I want future organizers to enjoy working on this project, and not look at it with dread due to technical issues.

I do agree with MoonRabbit that we should probably decide, in the next month or so, as to how we would like to conduct future awards and setting a month for when they occur. But I think it might be best to wait until the holidays are over with before this topic is brought up.

wELCOME cONSUMER · Post by **wELCOME cONSUMER** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 4:01 pm

The Beta Awards are always roughly October/November. You can check the sites of previous BAs to confirm this, which is why I think it was suggested to have the sketch awards in the summer time to contrast.

Last year, I said that I would forward betaawards.com to whatever address currently hosted the event. In the off time, the site would point to a summary of links of previous events. I was unsuccessful in finding links to the first and second Beta Awards and was curious if anyone had info on that.

Caroline · Post by **Caroline** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 11:29 pm

just wanted to chime in and say that i agree with wc, in the sense that i like a spontaneous BA vs a permanent BA. it just seems to be more fun, and its a system that has worked well so far. stick to what works, that's what i think.

off topic... it makes me curious, who's idea was it originally to begin BA?

klet · Post by **klet** » Wed Dec 31, 2008 1:20 am

wELCOME cONSUMER wrote:I'm going to paraphrase some things that were said to me last year when I helped to organize the 07 Beta Awards. The beauty of the BA is that a different person or set of people organize the event every year, making it belong to the community. It seems a little soon to volunteer for future projects when we are still standing in the shadow of this year's event. You don't know what will be going on in your life in the future, you may not even be available to organize it again. Besides, someone else may want the opportunity. It's best to keep things fresh and pass the torch to others.

I believe I may have said some (or all!) of those things last year. I stand by them this year, too. Setting up a permanent site kind of implies a sort of permanent standing with the beta awards. Cutiebunny, even if you say you're just providing the site, and someone else can organize it if they so choose, how do you know that next year's team will even want to use your site? After all, betaawards.com wasn't used this year. Heck, I'm not sure if anyone even remembered that it existed (I forgot about it until I saw this thread

).

Regarding the transience of the cel community, all I can say is that in my experience, the ones who actually leave the community tend to gradually fade away (yeah, some people make huge going away posts, but they're more likely to return in a few months). They end up forgetting about things like sites and galleries, and so it probably wouldn't be so easy to transfer a domain from the old person to the new. After all, you have to at least be able to contact the old maintainer.

Anyway, bottom line is that I don't see why this has to be decided today, or even in the next few months. My advice would be to wait until the next awards roll around, and see if anyone is up to having a permanent site then. At the very least, you can host next year's awards on it, even if you only use if for that one year.