Sorry, but I feel that sooner or later this has to be addressed:

With the decline of discussions in here in the last months, the inevitable segregation that a separate forum involves, and the announcement of RAWA’s upcoming official D’ni site, do you think keeping this forum open is still worth it?

Assuming it’s possible to port posts from here to the phpBB platform, porting every single one would barely fill a couple of pages in a subsection. A dedicate subsection in the MOUL forum would be accessible to a larger portion of the fandom (no need for a separate account), benefit from OHB’s webfont, and relieve Kath from maintanance dutes.

Note that I wrote ‘forum’, not ‘site’: in fact, I think the static pages should stay and be improved (a lot), which should be easier without having to deal with the forum.

Heh, I'll be honest and admit that I had very little idea what I was getting into when I started this site, and I'd much rather maintain a collection of webpages than a forum too. I simply don't have the technical know-how to set up a forum, and this one is absolutely awful. I can't say I really expected many users to come here, having witnessed the lack of activity on the DLF before it went under, but I am glad that I got what I did. That said, I think that Rawa's new site is going to revive interest in D'ni, which means that a good forum is ideal.

On the static pages, I should be able to improve them a lot more (though feedback there would be much appreciated!)

I do have a few suggestions, mostly aimed at minimizing time spent hammering stuff and at giving greater flexibility:

Have a repository of learning material: anything you can get hold of and are allowed to host. Fonts, keyboards, The D’ni Student, conversion tools, other DLF materials, etc.

Have a few online lesson pages: like the old GoL site did. You can adapt my Notes if you find them adequate, or make your own.

Move the D’ni Language Restoration Project to a static page: as a reference, see the UCSUR page. There already is Kh’reestrefah’s Dictionary and RAWA said he’s going to make an official one; the GoL could be unique in maintaining a fan-proposed wordlist. You could have notes or appendices for more complex proposals. If/when RAWA will consider these proposals, all you’ll have to do is send him the link to the page.

Wikify the site: partially or completely. As a reference, see the https://guildofwriters.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Guild of Writers wiki. With a wiki, you can focus on content and (more importantly) let other telrovtí contribute. Wiki pages could be essays, usage tips, inconsistencies in source texts, etc. Maintaining the DLRP wordlist or lesson pages this way would be even easier. It is possible to limit editing to logged users only (the GoW wiki is set like this).

Use a WCMS: the GoMe uses https://www.drupal.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Drupal while the GoW https://www.phpbb.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">phpBB + https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">MediaWiki; the respective admins will surely be happy to help out. Many WCMS can handle both static pages and forums.

Use curly quotes (my pet peeve): there’s too much bad typography in the Web; the Guild of Linguists has style, hasn’t it?

My only issue with a wiki is that (once again) I do not have the technical know-how to set one up, forcing me to go to other hosts. If this can be dealt with, I have no problems with adding a wiki. As for the other points, I'll do what I can.

Something I can do with the dictionary I'm hosting here is use it to speculate on the etymology of the words, something which Khrees' dictionary does not do (in general), and I doubt Rawa will discuss that side at all. At the same time, I've utterly neglected to put any attestations in - this is something Khrees' dictionary already does, and there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

I could do that as well. Afaik that was something the DLF had planned.

Korov’ev at October 13, 2015 at 1:42 PM

I do have a few suggestions, mostly aimed at minimizing time spent hammering stuff and at giving greater flexibility:

Have a repository of learning material: anything you can get hold of and are allowed to host. Fonts, keyboards, The D’ni Student, conversion tools, other DLF materials, etc.

Have a few online lesson pages: like the old GoL site did. You can adapt my Notes if you find them adequate, or make your own.

Move the D’ni Language Restoration Project to a static page: as a reference, see the UCSUR page. There already is Kh’reestrefah’s Dictionary and RAWA said he’s going to make an official one; the GoL could be unique in maintaining a fan-proposed wordlist. You could have notes or appendices for more complex proposals. If/when RAWA will consider these proposals, all you’ll have to do is send him the link to the page.

Wikify the site: partially or completely. As a reference, see the https://guildofwriters.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Guild of Writers wiki. With a wiki, you can focus on content and (more importantly) let other telrovtí contribute. Wiki pages could be essays, usage tips, inconsistencies in source texts, etc. Maintaining the DLRP wordlist or lesson pages this way would be even easier. It is possible to limit editing to logged users only (the GoW wiki is set like this).

Use a WCMS: the GoMe uses https://www.drupal.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Drupal while the GoW https://www.phpbb.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">phpBB + https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">MediaWiki; the respective admins will surely be happy to help out. Many WCMS can handle both static pages and forums.

Use curly quotes (my pet peeve): there’s too much bad typography in the Web; the Guild of Linguists has style, hasn’t it?

 

 

An update on what I've done RE: your suggestions.

1) I've collected all the D'ni fonts on the DLF together, and put them on the new D'ni Resources page. Off-site resources, such as The D'ni Student and Erthlooktahv will be linked to from the same page (and in the case of The D'ni Student, the PDF will be added as a downloadable). There'll be a copy of every D'ni text on the site, with pictures (where possible), reproductions, transcriptions, translations, and comments/analyses.

2) These are in the works. I've drawn up an outline, so I simply need to find the time to write the lessons (at present, it's a series of 15 lessons, though the number might change while I'm writing them, if lessons turn out too long or too short, and content has to be moved aroound for consistency). There will also be a reference grammar.

Regarding the forums themselves, my friend has recently helped me set up a phpBB forum on the new site. We'll be working on integrating it more fully with the rest of the site, more to be announced at November's AGM (at which time, hopefully, everything will be ready to be launched)

Wow, nice! Were you able to reuse the mockup I made a few months ago?

I guess you'll want to use OHB webfonts (http://uru.orangehairedboy.com/font/, or try contacting him - not easy - or a MOULa forum admin).

Setting up a Wiki shouldn't be more difficult than phpBB, if you still like the idea.

In the 'Goodies' link in my sig I have a list of sources (including the Mysterium 2014 ones) and a list of new words, if it can help. DniSort (https://github.com/plancsar/DniTools) can help sorting lists in D'ni order.

One step at a time, Korov'ev, one step at a time.

What are the benefits of using OHB's webfont rather than a locally hosted font? Does it render to all users? (If so, how can I do this myself? I've noticed he doesn't offer D'ni Script LM)

Also, what mockup? I don't recall a mockup.

Mainly, the webfont doesn't require a local install, so you can see it with any OS and even on tablets. Unfortunately, converting the LM font gave a wrong mapping of the characters.

For the mockup, see the PM

Right. Do we know why the LM font got borked? Is it worth trying again? (Or maybe building a new font for the purpose of making the NTS available? I'd veeeeeeery much like NTS to be available with a webfont)

Edit: After a quick chat with OHB (yes, he responded!) I've got the webfont working for D'ni Script LM. This means I can offer a [dni] tag (using Cyan's mapping) and a [dnilm] tag (using NTS mapping).

Good to hear about the LM version working (and on OHB answering)! Is that the stylesheet he mentioned in (http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=410401#p410401)? I managed to test OHB's font with a local copy of that mockup (XAMPP is a nice way of testing stuff without touching an actual site) by adapting these instructions: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=438&t=2282666

Speaking of custom BBcodes:
http://phpbbandbbcodes.com/viewtopic.php?t=391
In the input button tag, instead of style="min-width:20px;" value="+", I would put style="border: 1px solid;" value="spoiler" (also editing the two this.value=) to make it more similar to the MOULa forum one.

Take your time, of course. The reason I insist on the wiki is that a Guild is made of people, and as it is now the GoL site is a personal site, which can only edited by you. Compare the Messengers and the Writers sites: most of the pages there can be edited by members, and that's how they amassed so much material over time.
But already having a better forum is a good step

Actually, no. I asked OHB how he did it, and he pointed me at a site, and I set everything up directly on the GoL site.

At the moment, my priorities are getting all the new content I have lined up for the site built, which currently includes D'ni lessons, a D'ni reference grammar, and a local copy of all known D'ni texts. Only after all that's done will I look into a wiki. The host I'm using seems to offer Drupal, so I'll look into setting that up.