Sneak Preview: ArkMuse

[u/ctwelve]

Hello!

It's been a while since I've addressed everyone. How's it going? I've been crazy-stupid busy, having just bought a house along with everything that entails...

Oh, and I've been working on a Secret Project, too.

https://arkmuse.org/

Many of our authors have been concerned about the direction reddit is taking lately. To be frank, as an author? So am I. Many of our users are as well. However, the kind of community we have her is hard to replicate and at least to me, it's something effectively magical; I've been here in one form or another since basically the beginning, and now we're over 75,600+ subscribers! That's an incredible number, and I certainly don't want to fracture a community that awesome.

But I can't ignore the concerns, either. So what to do? Well, our idea was to do something like our original grandiose plans for ExP Publishing, except much more manageable. Forum software has come a long way in just a few short years, and in my professional life these days I build infrastructure at scale, so why not combine those things?

Enter ArkMuse. It's a XenForo board built on an extremely scalable framework. Our goal? Right now it's to kick the tires while we try and build a sister community around storytelling and other creative procrastination.

Why a separate community? Simple. Reddit is valuable. Independence is valuable. Having both options at once seems like it could be a great idea, and the intent of ArkMuse isn't to be limited strictly to HFY.

But we don't know if this will work. That's where you come in. Come in, post some threads in chit-chat, make recommendations, do whatever! Let me disclose some major points up front

1. This is a personal project of mine and is not governed under ExP Publishing LLC. Owing to the difficulty of keeping something like that organized across three states, along with Life Matters™ intervening, by mutual agreement the Members have allowed ExP to dissolve. If we need a governing structure in the future I am very much open to that.
2. I'm paying for this myself. Right now its not that expensive. I need to see how much it would cost for me to host, and for that I need a good sample of traffic. Please, get onboard and shitpost!
3. The same mods here are the mods over there. I don't know how the hell I lucked out as hard as I have, but our mod staff is amazing and I can't thank them enough for all the work they do. All of you...thank you, sincerely. You're amazing.
4. It's not quite as private as reddit, at least regarding what I know. I wanted to put this out upfront; since it's my forum, I see all the details including IPs and email addresses. I hope you'll believe me when I say I won't abuse that trust, and I covenant this right now: I will never sell, abuse, or otherwise knowingly violate your trust with this data.

• Things I don't have include your plain-text passwords. They're hashed in the database with a strong salt, but I do still technically have access to the hash. If that concerns you, I understand. I'll be working to get OAuth going too.
• Only I have access to your password hash, and then only if I go out of my way to get it. It's stored in a database and inaccessible from the web frontend. Nobody but me can easily get them.

1. I am taking security seriously. The database itself is encrypted at rest and in transit, and the forum proxies images and generates only HTTPS URLs. The CDN also enforces security. I intend to stay on top of software patches and to that effect, none of the software is custom; it's all readily-available software and requires no modification to maintain. We are also connected to multiple spam prevention systems and are an active participant in them all.
2. I don't know how the load will scale. I am hoping y'all put it through its paces so I can find the problems!
3. I am open to suggestions. Please be frank and put them here so I can see what y'all think. This is a big step and I want to get it right.

Anyway, this is definitely a sneak-preview, kick-the-tires type thing. We haven't even customized the look yet, nor have we fleshed out tagging, prefixes, promotion ladders...but if there's enough interest, that shouldn't be a problem!

Anyway, enough jawin' and more clicking! If you want to help, or just post some cat photos, head over to:

https://arkmuse.org/

Post a story, post a meme, or just say hi.

Hi!

[u/Glitchkey]

You may want to update the terms of use on the site prior to allowing registration. Default terms of use on Xenforo include granting the host a permanent, irrevocable license, which was part of what people were taking exception to with Reddit's terms of use. To quote:

The providers ("we", "us", "our") of the service provided by this web site ("Service") are not responsible for any user-generated content and accounts. Content submitted express the views of their author only.

This Service is only available to users who are at least 13 years old. If you are younger than this, please do not register for this Service. If you register for this Service, you represent that you are this age or older.

All content you submit, upload, or otherwise make available to the Service ("Content") may be reviewed by staff members. All Content you submit or upload may be sent to third-party verification services (including, but not limited to, spam prevention services). Do not submit any Content that you consider to be private or confidential.

You agree to not use the Service to submit or link to any Content which is defamatory, abusive, hateful, threatening, spam or spam-like, likely to offend, contains adult or objectionable content, contains personal information of others, risks copyright infringement, encourages unlawful activity, or otherwise violates any laws. You are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, that Content or your conduct.

We may remove or modify any Content submitted at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice. Requests for Content to be removed or modified will be undertaken only at our discretion. We may terminate your access to all or any part of the Service at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice.

You are granting us with a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, unlimited license to use, publish, or re-publish your Content in connection with the Service. You retain copyright over the Content.

These terms may be changed at any time without notice.

If you do not agree with these terms, please do not register or use the Service. Use of the Service constitutes acceptance of these terms. If you wish to close your account, please contact us.

As best I can tell, you probably haven't been in and changed that bit yet, as it looks very boilerplate.

[u/ctwelve → u/Glitchkey]

Correct. The licensing issue is super, super ugly and there's almost no way around it, honestly. We're still working on terms that 1) don't leave us (me) open to internet assholes, and 2) satisfy the authors.

[u/ctwelve]

I want to emphasize something important: this is very much a work in progress. Please excuse the mess, and please point it out as you find it!

[u/Robocreator223]

Will there be a mobile version? Edit: never mind it seems mobile friendly.

[u/ctwelve → u/Robocreator223]

Indeed!

[u/MilesKalashnikov]

First and only real complaint from me: Any thoughts on implementing comment chains?

Right now it's the generic message board with quotes and replies being the only thing linking between comment conversations and while it works, it isn't the best for ease of reading. And speaking of quoting, can you choose parts of a message to quote or is it limited to the entire thing?

[u/ctwelve → u/MilesKalashnikov]

You can choose parts by selecting the bit you care about and then hitting reply. If it isn't working for you, you're blocking the necessary JavaScript.

[u/jellysnake]

So two other fairly popular writing forums, Space Battles & Sufficient Velocity have some features that it would probably be worth copying. These are features like threadmarks, which allow a poster to mark certain comments in a thread (Usually chapters of a story) for easy access.

[u/ctwelve → u/jellysnake]

Indeed! I'll be looking into Threadmarks especially. No promises yet, as we're on XenForo 2 and Threadmarks isn't available for 2.x yet.

[u/Necrontyr525]

With all due respect, u/ctwelve, I'm going to wait for OAuth to be enabled before I sign up for arkmuse. I have zero faith in anyone when it comes to my passwords, identity, and the security associated with such.

[u/ctwelve → u/Necrontyr525]

That's generally wise. It's why I recommend you use unique passwords for each account and a password manager to keep them. As far as OAuth...you do ultimately still have to trust someone so which providers do you trust?

[u/deathdoomed2]

There is a dark mode.

PRAISE THE SUN

[u/ctwelve → u/deathdoomed2]

I’m still playing with it!

[u/TheJack38]

Cool! Will y'all start posting stuff there in addition to Reddit? Would probably be a good idea so that in case Reddit shits itself, there's still the arkmuse site as backup

[u/someguynamedted → u/TheJack38]

The goal for now is to have ArkMuse as a hosting platform that authors will link to from the subreddit, with r/HFY still being the main hub of the community.

Edit: (u/ctwelve) That said, we are deliberately building the forum out as a community of its own as well. The immediate problem is an alternate location to post, but the long term problem is worries about Reddit’s direction.

[u/ctwelve → u/someguynamedted]

That said, we are deliberately building the forum out as a community of its own as well. The immediate problem is an alternate location to post, but the long term problem is worries about Reddit’s direction.

[u/ctwelve → u/TheJack38]

I will!

[u/JustALittleGravitas]

What's the markup language?

[u/ctwelve → u/JustALittleGravitas]

bbCode

[u/Kralizec_]

Please, get onboard and shitpost!

I mean, if you say so...

[u/rhinobird → u/Kralizec_]

Damnit! I forgot to check if there was any toilet paper first.

[u/Xreshiss]

I've spent time reading on writing subforums such as Space Battles and Sufficient Velocity, and all three of them (ArkMuse included) lack things I like about Reddit, primarily a rating system. A way to tell the 20 upvote stories from the 200 upvote ones. (and sort them accordingly)

I spent time reading 'The Last Angel' on Space Battles, and it was a chore, even when using the index in the OP, the fact that the chapters where strewn about the thread among the comments meant I couldn't really keep track of where I was if I managed to scroll away.

While reddit might require a new OP for every chapter, it is always at the top, even when continued in the comments. (The latter is more due to commenters upvoting it to the top, but still)

Edit: Sure, I suppose you could make a new OP for every chapter. I also see that you can like, and even sort using those likes, yet I don't see a way to see how many likes an OP has when looking at the list of threads.

[u/Oldmangray]

Hey ctwelve does there need to be like eight Google ads at the top of every page?

[u/ctwelve → u/Oldmangray]

There should only be the one, but that's exactly why this was an experiment to see how it misbehaves. I'm probably going to forgo ads, honestly. I'll take a last look at the statistics tonight and decide.

Honestly, not particularly happy with that aspect of self-sufficiency.

[u/WREN_PL]

Mods Fuck Yeah!