Greetings,
I have been working with Don Croft to upgrade the Etheric Warriors site from its current implementation (quite old and dated) of Icy Phoenix, which is based on the now obsolete phpBB2 software, over to Wordpress and the Simple-Press Forum Plugin for Wordpress. There are many important reasons for this change… At the top of the list of reasons are:
* Security
- Support and Maintainability
- and Features enhancing Significant Growth and the potential for Revenue Generation
Security:
It is very hard to keep Old, Outdated, Web software secure. I have, so far (and as far as I know) kept the Scoundrels out of this site… However, I am nervous, as any Internet Professional of any experience and knowledge SHOULD be… So, regarding Wordpress, it is the leading Blogging Engine and CMS (Content Management System) with over 50 Million Installations. The software is continuously updated and any security issues quickly identified and fixed by a VERY large, and dedicated cadre of coders… My choices were either Drupal or Wordpress, and I chose Wordpress for a number of reasons, and near the top of those is the Simple-Press Bulletin Board Plugin to Wordpress, whose capabilities and support I investigated thoroughly and chose. I did not want to integrate PHPBB3 into a CMS. These sort of “integrations” ALWAYS represent a greater risk of security problems as they typically rely on hacking the core of the software base introducing complexity and fragility that can (and usually is) be exploited. Conversely, Simple-Press is a Wordpress Plugin (Albeit a large and quite extensive one). As such, it must comply, and adhere to, a very tightly controlled set of coding standards as set in the Wordpress API (Application Programming Interface). Therefore, since Simple-Press can ONLY execute within Wordpress along very narrowly specified parameters, then the opportunity for hackery is GREATLY mitigated…
Support and Maintainability :
The vast community of Wordpress Developers of both the Core and a huge number of Plugins, make Wordpress one of the two most maintainable and well supported CMS available (the other being Drupal).
Features enhancing Growth and Revenue Generation :
We are going to serve Ads… Tasteful, modest, and non-intrusive advertising. I will be adhering to the [Adblock Plus Acceptable Ads Policy/url:2ag1v158 Standard and thus obtaining for EW Whitelisted Status on their Software (the most popular and prevalent of the ad blocking software implementations). In the future, we WILL be developing Paid Membership Special Content Features for our General Readership (not you the, Gifting, Don Croft Invited, currently registered, members).
So, Why are we going to serve ads? Create Membership Revenue with featured content? Why do we need to make money with EW? Why can’t this purely be a volunteer effort funded by pure altruism?
Because we live in a World of ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY and virtual, low-level, slavery implemented and perpetuated by the Scoundrel Global Elite! What Don calls the sh%$^&@#t Birds, lol…
For several years now It has been my role, and my sacred duty, to: host, maintain, and technically protect our site. EW is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT and we MUST ensure not only its safety, and usability, but its GROWTH as well. The more popular EW becomes, the more people learn about Orgonite, about Gifting, and actually start Gifting, themselves, as well those of us who have been gifting now for years… By GROWING EW, by making it BIG, we therefore significantly increase the pressure on the Scoundrels that would otherwise, but for all of our past efforts, have succeeded in “Culling” the “Herd” and further enslaving the World’s Peoples… By significantly GROWING EW WE PUT THE SPOT-LITE ON THESE MISCREANTS and foil their machinations, and because we STILL live in a world of ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY we must MUST MAKE MONEY ($$$) in order to sustain, maintain, secure, and GROW the EW site such that we can be effective in these endeavors…
I have been hosting EW on my own infrastructure (At the Equinix, Asbhurn, VA, Data-center) FOR FREE, and for years now, and DONATING a LOT of my time on the site’s behalf, as well. Don Croft has, also, been contributing to some of the one time costs in server hardware, and some software purchases. The bottom line is that we can ONLY keep this site going at its current level of traffic and readership by ONLY relying on Don and My Charity and Volunteerism. We can not afford to grow the site, beyond its current capacity, without significantly monetizing the site, growing revenue, and investing a portion of such earned moneys on its growth. Growth has its own, attendant, costs; growth represent the need for more powerful (and expensive) servers, and MUCH more bandwidth usage (which would then go past what I am able to provide for free). With Growth their is great opportunity, but also new, and significant, costs. Part of those costs are professional services; I.E., whether it is me that leads this effort, or somebody else that doesn’t even understand what it is that we do, there is a cost to managing such infrastructure… If this site, Etheric Warriors, is to become what it CAN become, and what it SHOULD become, it will take up more and more of SOMEBODY’S time. It might as well then be My time that it consumes, and therefore MUST pay for, in order that I be ABLE (since I am not independently wealthy) to spend time on the site’s behalf. So, where is that time going to come from if not purchased with ad revenue and Prime Paid Membership Content for our Readership? Does anyone in this readiership wish to donate to paying me a retainer to take care of, and grow, EW? No? Ok, then we need to make money with the site…
Another thing to keep in mind, it is Don and My goal to increase EW’s revenues to the point that it will not only fairly compensate me in my efforts, and keep me focused on the site’s welfare, but to also create funding for funding Gifting Projects in African, and other localities of STRATEGIC importance, as well as outreach, and education (such as to the Farming Community) as to the benefits of using Orgonite…
I, and Don, and a few others, have discussed a number of new features such as video interviews, and EW News, that WILL vastly increase our readership base. The new site will very quickly begin to feature Interviews from many of our Member Gifters, as well as a Weekly Video News show that I plan on doing myself, to report on the Week’s Developments in Gifting News from our Posting Members.
Right, then!.. Back to my choice for using Wordpress… We can, with Wordpress Plugins, VERY easily add anything from Galleries, to Video (internally served and youtube or vimeo), to Paid Membership Sections, to Ad Serving Widgets, to Social Media Integration (EW now has a Facebook Site) etc. Achieving a GREAT deal of interposting, with Social Media Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Google+ are critically important. The Simple-Press software will allow any of our readers, and members, to do a one-click share (or “Like”) to any of these Social Media Sites. This will be invaluable to grow our readership and thus revenues.
In any case, I am close to the point where we can cut over to the new site. I have managed to engineer a process to port the the Posts, Topics, and User Database over to the new Wordpress/Simple-Press implementation. I have written Perl scripts to clean up BBCode rendering problems for images, and smilies, and such. There is likely, however, even after the cut over, to be any number of minor issues which I will need to address one at a time. Some very minor rendering of text, especially in really old posts, may just stay as they are (though they will certainly be readable). However, the site will work and be usable from the cut over point forward.
All of you, Registered, members of EW will have accounts active upon cut over. However, you will need to go through a password retrieval process as the password hash (encryption) format is different in phpBB2 vs Wordpress (more secure).
I have some trial ads running and have actually created a few for a few of our Vendor Members that I know best. Anyone of you, that are Don’s invited members, that wish to put up ads, you can submit 180x150 image banner ads and I will run them for free for a trial period of, at least, one month, after which we can discuss costs. I will also be serving a text ad above the Forum page, and will entertain some other of our vendors to advertise there for a trial period. I fully intend to grow EW to the point that we can start getting ad revenue from the likes of David Wolfe, Daniel Vitalis, and any number of other Persons, or Organizations, whose products and services resonate with our Readers and who we feel are Ethically, and Morally, sound in character and actions…
As to the time table for the cut over and the down time required… The earliest that I will be doing this is tomorrow Monday at, or just after, 1PM Eastern Standard Time. The outage will last not more than 12 hours. I will be downing the current site, and replacing the front page with an “Under Maintenance” banner until the new site comes up to replace it.
Thank you. All of you who Gift Orgonite, and otherwise work to support this effort
Best Regards,
–Azti
