EN World is bouncing back from a devastating hacking. The databases are still there, and we still have our decade+ of history -- but the custom code that has accrued over the years has been compromised, and Morrus and his team are faced with the necessity to try to put it all back together again. I don't envy them.
A little history lesson, even if you don't need it
EN World started in 1999 as as a site for gathering rumors and information about the upcoming edition of D&D (3rd edition). In August of 2000, when the 3E Player's Handbook was released, all that speculative content was archived to avoid confusion. About a year later, Eric Noah had to give it up, and the site was taken over by Russell Morrissey (Morrus, current Guvnor for Life).
Things move pretty fast -- 2001 doesn't seem like it was all that long ago, but just compare that to a few other key internet landmark dates:
What does all that mean? It means that in it's own way, ENWorld is one of the elder statesmen of social media websites. It has managed to remain relevant and interesting through two full editions of D&D, and even two sub-editions (3.5 and Essentials), while expanding it's purview to include any tabletop RPGs.
It's not the only one out there, of course. Wizards has their own community, and there are sites like RPGnet out there, too. But ENWorld has been one of the big kids in that sandbox for a long time.
Value Ideas First
Facebook's meteoric success -- and the relative success of it's contemporaries and copiers -- can in many ways be tied to an important shift in central organizing principal for a community. Before the rise of these social networks, the Bulletin Board culture that ENWorld is a part of had been going strong for years building communities around ideas and passions. People gathered in one site or another and got to know each other through the ideas they posted and argued about.
Think about how you have gotten to know many of the bright lights in the EN World community. When I first discovered ENWorld it was the story hours and great posts by people like Wulf Ratbane and Piratecat that I loved. I read their posts, joined some conversations, got involved in Iron DM -- and really got to know the gamers I was sharing ideas with pretty well. And I knew next to nothing about them in person.
The quality of their ideas (posts) and the website that made those ideas visible and accessible to everyone made it possible to engage people on that level.
The Facebook model, on the other hand, puts the person at the center. A user doesn't stand out for having amazing ideas or for telling great stories. They stand out for making connections with other people, for sharing pictures of their dogs, for announcing that they're eating the best sandwich ever.
There are people sharing great ideas and having insightful, interesting conversations on Facebook. But those conversations are not visible to the whole world -- only to the people they're connected to. The same is true of Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterist.
So, in the Bulletin Board culture, the idea is the gateway to the person. In the social media culture, the person is the gateway to the idea.
Both have their place. But I very much appreciate that EN world has not jumped completely into the social network bandwagon and has retained it's focus on a forum for ideas. I like that I'm just as likely to see the house rule idea of a first time poster as I am an idea posted by an old hand like Plane Sailing. I hope that never changes.
EN WORLD is a resource hog (And Should Stay That Way)
For those of you who don't have much background with web sites and services, it may not be clear to you why ENworld struggles from time to time, and why it's such an endeavor to keep it going. After all, Facebook and Amazon are big, complicated sites, right? And they load fast and never go down!
One of the key concepts to understand is that because of the interaction and volatility of the content on the site, it's very difficult for the administrators to take advantage of many of the tools that can be used to speed up a web site.
Take Amazon, for example. Most of their content is fairly static -- product information does not change very often, so that data can be cached and stored in Amazon's worldwide network of mirrored servers. The product information can be cached for days and weeks before needing to be refreshed. And still, the small amount of custom content they generate based on your user account -- suggested products based on your browsing and purchasing history, etc -- those relatively small deliveries to your browser still demand so much effort that Amazon needs their global distributed network to deliver.
ENWorld is a much smaller site, of course, but unlike Amazon, the vast majority of what you see on any given page load requires much more immediate connection to the master database. Sure, key landing pages like the homepage can be cached for the sake of speedy page loads, but once you're into the forums, expecting to see dynamic content and the response someone wrote to your house rule idea right after they press send…that puts a much higher demand on the database per user than a site like Amazon is producing. And we don't have resources on the same scale.
And then there's the sheer size of that Database -- more than a decade of posts. And it's all still there, still searchable. That massive database means that the queries that build every page load must be very carefully tuned and optimized to make sure they're as efficient as they can be.
And, lastly, it's been managed and delivered essentially by one guy, some friends and part time help.
Our Community Rocks
There have been major events in the community over the years -- new server fund drives, etc. When Morrus has let us know that the site is in trouble, we've come through.
In posts over the past couple of weeks, users have suggested a way to donate to the site -- maybe a Kickstarter or a donation button or something. And, having used them before, the idea isn't new to Morrus. But, for now, we can all show our support by being good customers.
Buy a membership. If you have one, upgrade. Buy a PDF, or an adventure path. Now more than ever is the right time to buy ZEITGEIST.
And I'll see you in the forums!
A little history lesson, even if you don't need it
EN World started in 1999 as as a site for gathering rumors and information about the upcoming edition of D&D (3rd edition). In August of 2000, when the 3E Player's Handbook was released, all that speculative content was archived to avoid confusion. About a year later, Eric Noah had to give it up, and the site was taken over by Russell Morrissey (Morrus, current Guvnor for Life).
Things move pretty fast -- 2001 doesn't seem like it was all that long ago, but just compare that to a few other key internet landmark dates:
- Google goes live in 1998
- Napster started in 1999, when Eric Noah's first site started. It's now long dead (though it's ancestors live on)
- Wikipedia launches in 2001. Unless someone edited the wikipedia page on wikipedia with the wrong information
- Friendster started in 2002, flopped around in the shadow of networks that would come later, and now has been reborn as a social gaming site dedicated to a Malaysian audience (no, seriously, check it out[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendster]).
- MySpace started in 2003, got it's butt kicked by Facebook, and recently they announced that they're going to redesign themselves, again, but the plans have not been released.
- Facebook started in 2004. I was already balding, but still living in denial.
- Twitter announced what someone had for breakfast for the first time in 2006. Wil Wheaton sat up in bed that very night and started planning world domination.
- The first iPhone was sold in 2007
What does all that mean? It means that in it's own way, ENWorld is one of the elder statesmen of social media websites. It has managed to remain relevant and interesting through two full editions of D&D, and even two sub-editions (3.5 and Essentials), while expanding it's purview to include any tabletop RPGs.
It's not the only one out there, of course. Wizards has their own community, and there are sites like RPGnet out there, too. But ENWorld has been one of the big kids in that sandbox for a long time.
Value Ideas First
Facebook's meteoric success -- and the relative success of it's contemporaries and copiers -- can in many ways be tied to an important shift in central organizing principal for a community. Before the rise of these social networks, the Bulletin Board culture that ENWorld is a part of had been going strong for years building communities around ideas and passions. People gathered in one site or another and got to know each other through the ideas they posted and argued about.
Think about how you have gotten to know many of the bright lights in the EN World community. When I first discovered ENWorld it was the story hours and great posts by people like Wulf Ratbane and Piratecat that I loved. I read their posts, joined some conversations, got involved in Iron DM -- and really got to know the gamers I was sharing ideas with pretty well. And I knew next to nothing about them in person.
The quality of their ideas (posts) and the website that made those ideas visible and accessible to everyone made it possible to engage people on that level.
The Facebook model, on the other hand, puts the person at the center. A user doesn't stand out for having amazing ideas or for telling great stories. They stand out for making connections with other people, for sharing pictures of their dogs, for announcing that they're eating the best sandwich ever.
There are people sharing great ideas and having insightful, interesting conversations on Facebook. But those conversations are not visible to the whole world -- only to the people they're connected to. The same is true of Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterist.
So, in the Bulletin Board culture, the idea is the gateway to the person. In the social media culture, the person is the gateway to the idea.
Both have their place. But I very much appreciate that EN world has not jumped completely into the social network bandwagon and has retained it's focus on a forum for ideas. I like that I'm just as likely to see the house rule idea of a first time poster as I am an idea posted by an old hand like Plane Sailing. I hope that never changes.
EN WORLD is a resource hog (And Should Stay That Way)
For those of you who don't have much background with web sites and services, it may not be clear to you why ENworld struggles from time to time, and why it's such an endeavor to keep it going. After all, Facebook and Amazon are big, complicated sites, right? And they load fast and never go down!
One of the key concepts to understand is that because of the interaction and volatility of the content on the site, it's very difficult for the administrators to take advantage of many of the tools that can be used to speed up a web site.
Take Amazon, for example. Most of their content is fairly static -- product information does not change very often, so that data can be cached and stored in Amazon's worldwide network of mirrored servers. The product information can be cached for days and weeks before needing to be refreshed. And still, the small amount of custom content they generate based on your user account -- suggested products based on your browsing and purchasing history, etc -- those relatively small deliveries to your browser still demand so much effort that Amazon needs their global distributed network to deliver.
ENWorld is a much smaller site, of course, but unlike Amazon, the vast majority of what you see on any given page load requires much more immediate connection to the master database. Sure, key landing pages like the homepage can be cached for the sake of speedy page loads, but once you're into the forums, expecting to see dynamic content and the response someone wrote to your house rule idea right after they press send…that puts a much higher demand on the database per user than a site like Amazon is producing. And we don't have resources on the same scale.
And then there's the sheer size of that Database -- more than a decade of posts. And it's all still there, still searchable. That massive database means that the queries that build every page load must be very carefully tuned and optimized to make sure they're as efficient as they can be.
And, lastly, it's been managed and delivered essentially by one guy, some friends and part time help.
Our Community Rocks
There have been major events in the community over the years -- new server fund drives, etc. When Morrus has let us know that the site is in trouble, we've come through.
In posts over the past couple of weeks, users have suggested a way to donate to the site -- maybe a Kickstarter or a donation button or something. And, having used them before, the idea isn't new to Morrus. But, for now, we can all show our support by being good customers.
Buy a membership. If you have one, upgrade. Buy a PDF, or an adventure path. Now more than ever is the right time to buy ZEITGEIST.
And I'll see you in the forums!
