the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

currently the BU homepage, http://www.bots-united.com, contains essentially absolutely NO useful information for visitors.

It would be a better idea to install some sorts of CMS like Drupal so that bot developers here can publish his/her news there (and site news can be published as well), which would make the homepage look more informative.

although most of the stuff at this site are historical/legacy/dead stuff :(, I think there are still some active projects like PBMM and RCBot so this could still be useful.

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

I'm agree that we must update the homepage but CMS... I think we don't need to go with it. A static HTML page with all the needed info for a new visitor would be alright. :)
We just need to put more information about the bot projects and perhaps a date of last update. The links to each bot subdomain page will give more info for the users that are interested in a specific bot.

P.S. I'm glad that there is still some spirits around here. :P

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

well I think a CMS is still way better than a static page which rarely updates :)

a CMS can also enable easy posting of news of bots which are not hosted on BU but still active (such as Omni-bot) which can make here a good portal to find bots and updates :), or news about free FPS games with integrated bots (such as Nexuiz or Sauerbraten).

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

Yes from this point of view it is good. Well I'm in, I hope that other councils will check out this thread too.

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

looks like similar idea has been proposed years ago, but never been put into action :(
http://forums.bots-united.com/showthread.php?t=2564
http://forums.bots-united.com/showthread.php?t=6836

anyways I think such things are very easy to implement at least with Drupal and shouldn't take too much work :) the only thing I'm unsure is whether it's possible & safe to be integrated with vbulletin though, otherwise visitors would need to register in both Homepage and Forum.

guess I'll do the rest of the job to get it into shape after the initial installation (if this ever happens) - well I just want to do something I can in the hope of reviving this place a bit, although I'm not going to create bots for new games (as I neither have the interest nor a powerful computer) or revive a HL bot (which is not very useful as HL is already aged) :)

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

I don't think that integration with the forum is good idea. Maybe is better just to use the main page to post news and such, the registrations for members will be closed. When they come to the forums and want help, they will register directly here. :)

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

Sure it sounds like an improvement. Though who will devote his time to it? :arabia:

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

Everyone who has time. All the moderators and councils will have access to post news. :)

P.S. You forgot to vote. ;)

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

well currently I can still maintain something, although I don't guarantee I will always have the time in the future :)

guess we could also put up a "Bot News Submission" forum or something so that everyone can submit news and we won't have to track everything alone. of course, only those who has the permission can post the news on the homepage :)

I'm not sure if sending every past members a spam via email (well not really a spam, as that can be disabled in user control panel) to notice them that BU homepage has been redone (in the hope of some of them may come back) is a good idea though, as we don't have any new "real" things yet (i.e., an active bot project for new engines/games - maybe except RCBot). :)

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

this seems to be validated :) I'll PM Nova to see if he has the time & agrees to implement this.

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

I was able to contact with Onno, in some days, I will have access to bring up the game severs. :)

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

I installed drupal on my own computer and here's the thing I would like to propose: :)
http://yapb.bots-united.com/images/117.jpg

all hosted sites are listed in the "Hosted Sites" section, and the "Bots For:" section can be placed with a list of games, clicking a game can lead the user to a list of bots for that game.

The "Links" section will provide all of the articles (such as the Mission Statement, Forum Rules and other stuff) in the current homepage (maybe "About Us" or "About Bots-United" is more accurate for these stuff?).

I changed the "User Login" into "Admin Login" and moved it from the up-left corner to down-right corner to avoid confusion (if not planning to integrate the system with vbulletin).

the template is one of those shipped with drupal, not sure if there are better-looking ones. But I think the color matches :)

Not sure if anyone has comments or improvements on this :)

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

well, maybe I spammed a little too much these days (as this is no longer the old days when we have eg. 40-50 posts a day), but I would like to say that I'm NOT complaining people don't do anything and I do understand that real life always comes first :)

Re: the homepage, http://www.bots-united.com
 

Don't worry, I think everyone will apply when we have some free time, currently you have more, so spam more. :D

Tomorrow I will get up the game servers btw. :)

EDIT: Seems like there is some kind of problem with the virtual machines that Onno gave me access to. So I will have to delay the servers a bit more...