Data Sphere

You've all read the announcement from CB: they're closing down their official forums. The main reason is a lack of time to commit to keeping the forums a truly fun place.

This is why they've asked us to continue this task for them. We gladly accepted, of course.

I know some of you might be disappointed by this change. We too were sad to hear CB was closing down their own forums: some of the most fun and relaxing community forums you'll find and a breath of fresh air for many ex-GW gamers (who had almost gotten used to being verbally abused online!).

However, CB made their call and Data Sphere is here to help you guys start fresh. Naturally, we're looking for the same relaxed atmosphere, the same fun banter and the same good people. Hopefully, not much will change there!

There's also some good news, however: considering we are in no way officially attached to CB (partnership does not mean ownership), you won't have to worry about posting photos of unofficial terrain or models. That's all allowed here: although we do have a few partnerships, we'll never restrict access for third party terrain makers. They were the reason we came into existence in the first place: that's not going to change now!

Finally, for those worried about the way CB interacted with their fanbase through their forums: they will continue to do that through this medium. Several members of CB, including Bostria, have been members here for some time: they will continue to talk and listen to you guys, no worries there!

Allow me to officially welcome all the new faces to Data Sphere and: happy posting!

When I first read the news I was shocked!

But then I took 2 hours away from the computer to do some gardening... I'm not surprised with what you wrote in the first post.
The only way to justify the move was to free their time to work on the actual game.

Its sad to loose some of the threads. But then again with the new edition coming out a lot of the stuff will become obsolete...
...the King is dead long live the King!

You guys have been doing a great job. I'm happy for you.. and I'm not worried about the quality of this place over time.

Marc C

*Looks for a 'like' button for Marc C's post...*

This marks some exciting times! I for one am super psyched!

I kinda liked how small Data Sphere was compared to the official forums; it felt more... cozy. Not that I'm not happy for the 'sphere or anything, or welcoming of new members; just kind of a shock.

@Levitas
Dunno, maybe I can send you some terrain pieces to do a review on? Some of your delicious batreps on gorgeous terrain perhaps?

@Harlekin
CB is taking the opposite approach of GW and "crowdifying" their social media, instead of neglecting it. It allows Bostria et al. to snoop and see what our concerns are, address them and so on. There will be scoops here and on the various websites. The important thing is that (so far) we get no coin from CB partner companies, so we are free to promote terrain and products for *anybody,* pretty much free from CB's licensing agreements with *them.* I'd like to continue to see this, but I'm kinda peripheral to the DS core and of course business agreements go through the Admins.

Finally, it *is* quite difficult for Spanish speakers to keep up with our nonsense, especially with US and Aus timezones to consider.

Do you know if CB will have a link on their site to this forum?

I'm assuming the forum link on the front page of the English Infinity page will link here and the Spanish page to the warcor site. That's just an assumption though.

It feels like I hadn't been there for a while, but I guess now I'm here. It was kind of shocking that it happened though.

@Lampyridae:
Yes, indeed. I see the advantages of DS being independent. I can rant and call CB things with no concern about my status ^^
Still, it imho is a shame to see the old forums disappear.

Thank god for DS!

Very surprised about this, but hopefully DS can grow from here.

I would like to see you get some support from Infinity partners, as you are now the only shop window forum, but hope that it would not hamper reviews and comments in anything Infinity related, be that proxy figures or alternate terrain sources.


Basically, thanks for being our lifeboat and good luck from here on.

Oh, almost forgot, has the forum format changed, or is it just me?

@Levitas: you must have noticed the entire forum feels kind of "Levitas-y". In fact, someone actually used that word (I think it was Lampy). You know I love your style, dude.

@IJW: CB tells me they'll start linking to DS from the main site.

And concerning partnerships and such: as I said in the OP, it's my intention to keep the forum open for every terrain company out there, even if some of them become partners and get their own section.

Another fine case of: "Porque no los dos?"

MARC C wrote:The only way to justify the move was to free their time to work on the actual game.

That seems a little odd to me. Not from you personally MARC but the core concept that a miniature company (made up of many individuals working together as a team) needs to justify itself to the fan base for closing down the single most ineffective outlet/inlet of information they have. Especially when a backup is close at hand in the form of DS forums here. Plus facebook, twitter and good ye olde emails are also still available.

I personally never liked the Infinity Forums they were really clunky software side, were more community policed then policed by the administrative team and the indexing/search function returned little of value. So all of the important information was constantly drowned under a torrent of irrelevant information/spam depending on your perspective.

Terrain area was nice but so is the one here won't take long to rebuild the repository of knowledge here.

I'd like to wish the folks at Data Sphere a hearty "congratulations!" on being trusted with this hallowed responsibility by the creators of Infinity. While I understand a lot of the fear and disappointment floating around the community right now, I've got to say that my short time here so far has been a lot of fun. This seems like a well put-together website, with friendly and effective mods, and it's definitely true that CB staff has already shown themselves eager to pop by to tease us with spoilers.

And after all, why shouldn't CB turn running their forums over to a bunch of fans who have the time and energy to run a forum as a labor of love? Obviously, CB has shown us that they don't really have the energy to maintain their forums. By choosing an "official" fan forum, they can reap all the benefits of having a dedicated forum for their product without having to do nearly as much of the work.

I, for one, welcome our new DS masters (DS masters, not D/s masters ). Let the good times roll!

Well I guess I now have a reason to be here starting in August

I think this is great news! I've always loved the Datasphere forum, but I found it hard to keep up posting in both avenues. The guys here have always made me feel welcome, and I for one am extremely happy that this responsibility falls onto you guys.

Great job!
T.

Telling people to move to other forums? Good, if they can't do the job, better someone else than noone. Well, as long as every one has a place to go to. Spanish had none until recently (end of June or so). It looks amateurish moving from centralized official place to multiple independents... but so be it.

Closing old system instead of keeping as read only so it can be used for reference, or even migrating to a static copy? 15 days to organize and then 2 months more to copy is not enough, taking into account they have the search function disabled, which means no search for own posts, and even so I remember the system capped the results to a time frame, instead of giving all your posts.

So please, someone with contacts, negotiate how to preserve the data stored in the official forums, including attachments, in CB servers or outside. Both forums (see how fast ES got fan one, above), not just English one (IT, FR and PL linked to EN). And I must insist on official way, because I feel people will copy some parts... multiple times, and forget completly about other things. So fucked up copies... but still a serious server load.

Damn, full DB dumps if it has to be that way (with the passwords, emails etc nulled) and a copy of the static directories (attachments) and whatever else is needed (thinking quickly and without access to similar systems, so I can't generate a full list). I repeat, EN and ES DBs and files and whatever else is needed.

Thank you for DS and in advance for such effort if it happens. Wait... THANK YOU. I can try to help, but I don't have space for a site with near half million posts.

Whilst I will shed a tear for its passing, I won't miss certain ... aspects ... of that forum.

Long live DS.

Mob of Blondes wrote:So please, someone with contacts, negotiate how to preserve the data stored in the official forums, including attachments, in CB servers or outside. Both forums (see how fast ES got fan one, above), not just English one (IT, FR and PL linked to EN). And I must insist on official way, because I feel people will copy some parts... multiple times, and forget completly about other things. So fucked up copies... but still a serious server load.

Not sure there is that much to save. After all, since we are moving to the 3E very soon a vast majority of the old forum becomes useless / antiquated. With the change in rules the advice on rules and such will become obsolete. Archology (terrain, miniatures, arts and writing) is probably the only section that needs to be saved.

I guess I have a different take about "history" of communities. It can be outdated, but it's reference. Say for example someone has a great idea... just what it was before and a long discussion explained why it changed. As some archeologists say, it's more revealing what the merchants sold or the soldiers wrote home than what the king said about a battle.

Also Fussion (not Archology, that is a subsection) has over 4000 topics and over 94000 replies (over 98000 posts?) and undetermined number of attachments. No small feat. And doing it "from inside" will give better quality, faster and will a lot less of stress on the system.

Mob of Blondes wrote:So please, someone with contacts, negotiate how to preserve the data stored in the official forums, including attachments, in CB servers or outside.

Why? Its old data, old tactics and old strategy articles. The game is moving forward and its a great way to start new content

Old and useless are different things. And we don't know how much the new rules will make things need a rewrite, if at all. Or that it would preferable to only rewrite the parts that need updates instead of do it all over again. Cleaning the alloy wheel is a lot faster than replacing the full assembly or even inventing a new wheel.

Nevermind the artistic section is still over a 20% of the site or that other things are independent to rules. But I guess the only that care about getting the full view are the spy agencies. Sad world were data matters more for power than for culture.

So how is Data Sphere intending to handle Official Partners of Infinity?

Some of the Official partners do not have subsections here.

I hope for DS to stay independent. It would be another thing which is an actual improvement if not only the official partners get some support in the forums.

Harlekin wrote:I hope for DS to stay independent. It would be another thing which is an actual improvement if not only the official partners get some support in the forums.

Unfortunately, they're not - word on the street is that CB is providing some form of financial assistance to run it/take the place of the official forums.

While I don't know how to handle the unofficial partners (not that they should be excluded or anything), I definitely think that the official terrain partners should have their own sections/subforums. They have agreements with CB and that extra level of exposure should be here too.

Mob of Blondes wrote:Old and useless are different things. And we don't know how much the new rules will make things need a rewrite, if at all.....
Nevermind the artistic section is still over a 20% of the site or that other things are independent to rules....

I've got to agree with these statements.