FOFC Moves Today. *UPDATED DETAILS IN FIRST POST*

[Ben E Lou]

I'm excited to announce that in a few days, Front Office Football Central is moving over to Operation Sports and becoming a part of OS. I want to stress that while we're moving and coming under a larger umbrella, we will still continue to operate as an independent forum. I will continue to run the forum and will enlist the help of others in doing so.

I believe that this will be a great move for FOFC, for FOF, and for all of the text sim world. For those unfamiliar with Operation Sports, it is a site dedicated exclusively to sports gaming content. Because of the larger market, console gaming information currently comprises the bulk of their content. However, they have reviewed a wider variety of text-based sims than any other site on the internet. And lately, they've expressed a desire to expand their text sim coverage. So, as a part of this move, I will be taking the lead and working with OS's current text sim experts in providing text sim content for the OS main site.

My first order of business in this new role will be making sure that every text simulation released will get a review by an experienced text simmer. There's simply no way that I will have the time to do this by myself, nor do I feel qualified to review all types of games, so it's my intention to recruit FOFC members who have demonstrated fair, constructive, and insightful feedback to help with this task from time to time. One of the many things I'm excited about is the move opening up opportunities for knowledgeable FOFCers to write formal reviews of the games we love, and have those reviews posted in a place where they will get tremendous exposure.

I'm sure that this announcement brings about some questions, and I'll attempt to answer the most obvious ones here.

How will I get to FOFC now???

The new URL will be http://www.operationsports.com/fofc, and www.frontofficefootballcentral.com will point to that location. Also, on the front page at operationsports.com, there will be a links up top and on the left menu bar (near the Madden Mania links).

What will change???

OVERALL: Business As Usual
There's going to be no change in the forum's name, overall look, or leadership. We will remain FOFC, in Solecismic Yellow, Sideline Green, A Day At The Office, etc. I'll continue to run the forum and get the mod council's input, and the moderation will continue to be in the same relatively hands-off manner that you've become used to over the years. We will add a few additional features. (For example, OS is allowing attachments to posts, which Gamespy didn't allow. Woot!) There will be a bit of forum restructuring to make it a little more newbie-friendly, (since I suspect that we'll get some new members from among the OS regulars.) But overall, if you're happy with the day-to-day activity of the forum, you have nothing to worry about.

Are we merging with the current OS Forums?

No. You will see the same FOFC that you see today after the move. It's as if we're copying and pasting everything in the current forum domain to the new domain. Your current user name and password at FOFC will be used, and the current forum structure will be unchanged.

Has OS requested any changes in our forum content or structure???

No. They have not. Any changes that you see in the coming days/weeks/months can still be blamed on me.

When will all of this happen???

1. At 12:45pm EDT on Thursday, June 5th, the version of the board at this site will be put into read-only mode. No one but admins will be able to post anything at that point. Updates may be posted during the process.

2. A few hours later, we will be back up and running with all forum data, posts, user names, passwords, user groups, etc. at the new site. I will post here when that is completed.

3. For a few weeks, the read-only version of the board will be online here. I'll add a new forum category and a sticky in every forum with a link to the new url. The version of the board here will be searchable, but you won't be able to post.

What if I am blocked from the OS site?

Try http://75.126.153.96/forums/ or osatwork DOT com.

Do I need to create a login at the Operation Sports Forums to get to FOFC?

No. Logins to Operation Sports, MaddenMania, and FOFC are all completely separate.

The Most Important Question: WILL PEOPLE LOSE POSTS???

Based on the process we have outlined, no posts whatsoever should be lost. Gamespy has been very gracious to us during this process. We will be in read-only mode for a few hours on Thursday while every bit of forum-related data is being moved to the OS servers. Still, I encourage everyone to BACK UP YOUR IMPORTANT POSTS, DYNASTY THREADS, AND ANYTHING ELSE YOU'RE PARTICULARLY CONCERNED ABOUT, just in case something goes wrong, but at this point, we anticipate losing nothing.


I'm very much looking forward to this new setup. Hope y'all enjoy it.


--Ben

[Izulde]

Awesome news!

....and I've got a hell of a lot dynasty backing up to do.

[Emiliano]

Wow! Big move. I agree this is a good move for FOF, and for the text-sims world in general.

[Scoobz0202]

This is very cool. There are some good people over at OS, and while there are a couple immature twats over there, they are usually in the console gaming portion of the forum.

In the end though, this is awesome news.

[SirFozzie]

Woohoo!

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Scoobz0202

...they are usually in the console gaming portion of the forum...

To be clear, we will not be folding into the OS main forums. FOFC will continue to exist as its own separate entity. I would expect that we will get new registrations, but it's not a "merging" of forums.

[Schmidty]

Sounds like a good thing.

[Scoobz0202]

Ahh.. I see.

*Thumbs Up*

[Apathetic Lurker]

near the Madden Mania links? Oh tis the end of the world! Now i'll be in close proximity to utter crap!

[GrantDawg]

Doom! Doom I tell you!

Not really, but someone needs to unnessecarily freak out.

[Peregrine]

Looks like a good move to me.

[Ben E Lou]

I posted one of these, but here are links to a couple of articles there in the last month highlighting text sims:

http://www.operationsports.com/feature.php?id=465

http://www.operationsports.com/feature.php?id=491

[SirFozzie]

Just curious, SkyDog, are we looking at any significant downtime for this?

[FrogMan]

and this marks the end of my surfing FOFC from work. For some reason the site wasn't block at gamespy but operationsports is block.

bye guys.

FM

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Just curious, SkyDog, are we looking at any significant downtime for this?

I don't know for sure yet. That depends very heavily on the timing of the backup. Our database is too large for us to backup from the front end of phpMyAdmin, and we don't have access at a deeper level than that, so GameSpy has to do the backup and put it somewhere where I can access it. If the notification of the availability of the backup happens at a time that both the OS rep who's taking care of the move and I are available, the downtime could be as little as a couple of hours. If the timing is bad, it will be a bit longer, but still not terrible. I seriously doubt we're looking at more than 8ish hours of down time.

There's another aspect of the moving time that is of a bit larger concern to me. I have a gut feeling on how people would prefer it done, but I reckon I'll post a poll and see if I'm thinking the right way on it. Gimme a few to get that poll up...

[Raiders Army]

Can we gain posts if we merge user names from OS, Maddenmania, and FOFC?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

Can we gain posts if we merge user names from OS, Maddenmania, and FOFC?

[Dr. Sak]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

and this marks the end of my surfing FOFC from work. For some reason the site wasn't block at gamespy but operationsports is block.

bye guys.

FM

Yeah same here and I am sure we aren't the only ones.

[Young Drachma]

Wow, that's huge.

[Ben E Lou]

That's a bummer about the work blockage issues. I wonder if the IP might work for y'all.

[Barkeep49]

While I suppose this is good overall, it's bad personally since gamespy, for some reason, wasn't caught by the filters at work but operation sports are. I'm going to have to see if I can weasel the override password so I can continue to lose productivity .

[Draft Dodger]

does this mean the stupid ads are going away?

[Icy]

Great news, i expend my daily boards time 50% in FOFC and 50% in OPS so from now i can expend 100% in the same place

[Zelig]

I knew this day would come, I just didn't expect it so soon.

[21C]

Hey, good luck with all of this and I hope it works out well. It sounds like a really cool premise to get us more involved in the text sim world. Are you busting out textsimcentral.com anytime soon, SkyDog?

I don't know if OS is blocked for me at work but Gamespy had been.

[Philliesfan980]

Great news! O/S has gotten a lot better over the past 3-4 years, and like Icy, I split my time between here and there. That it mind...

Wouldn't it be more beneficial to simply merge FOFC into Operation Sports, and maybe create a text sim area on the message area? By having a 'line in the sand' and not fully integrating, I think this merge isn't truely realizing it's potential.

[PurdueBrad]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

That's a bummer about the work blockage issues. I wonder if the IP might work for y'all.

Blocked as well (and naive). How might one get and then use the IP to get there?

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Philliesfan980

Great news! O/S has gotten a lot better over the past 3-4 years, and like Icy, I split my time between here and there. That it mind...

Wouldn't it be more beneficial to simply merge FOFC into Operation Sports, and maybe create a text sim area on the message area? By having a 'line in the sand' and not fully integrating, I think this merge isn't truely realizing it's potential.

Depends on how you view FOFC. Is it somewhere to go for text sim discussion, or is it somewhere you go because?

[Barkeep49]

As an experiment I just tried www.gamespy.com and saw that was blocked. I'm wondering if the fof.sportplanet prefix is what allowed a lot of us to get around the filter, since Games are blocked at my school but not sports.

[Lathum]

So will werewolf posts count now?


*ducks*

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Depends on how you view FOFC. Is it somewhere to go for text sim discussion, or is it somewhere you go because?

Right. I'm guessing that most people here would prefer to keep the community, history, inside jokes, etc. together, and not be folded in to a larger community.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Depends on how you view FOFC. Is it somewhere to go for text sim discussion, or is it somewhere you go because?

at this point IMO very few people come to FOFC for text sim discussion

[PurdueBrad]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

As an experiment I just tried www.gamespy.com and saw that was blocked. I'm wondering if the fof.sportplanet prefix is what allowed a lot of us to get around the filter, since Games are blocked at my school but not sports.

I think that is what did it for me.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Right. I'm guessing that most people here would prefer to keep the community, history, inside jokes, etc. together, and not be folded in to a larger community.

that would be my biggest concern, being swallowed up. While people don't always agree with your descions you always have the boards best interest in mind so I trust your descion on this.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Right. I'm guessing that most people here would prefer to keep the community, history, inside jokes, etc. together, and not be folded in to a larger community.

Good call.

[Ksyrup]

I don't have a problem with it, but are the new sub-forums for baseball and soccer something you were going to do anyway, or something OS asked for, or what? Just wondering about the timing of it all. It makes sense to do, since we've got an FOF-specific forum and a couple of baseball games are about to hit the market.

[Ben E Lou]

Asked in the poll thread, but thought I'd move it to here:

If we already have an account over at OS, will we still need another account for the new FOFC? I would guess not, but I don't know how separate we are going to be from the other OS boards.

It's not a "new" FOFC. We're moving our entire database and vbulletin installation over to their servers. All 5,974 user names and passwords will move with us, so your login details, post counts, etc. will be the same as they are here, but completely independent of what's already in place at OS. Inside the forums, nothing should look any different than it looks now.

[Ksyrup]

Thanks. Your comment earlier in this thread about "new registrations" made me think we might need an OS account, which is why I posted the question.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I don't have a problem with it, but are the new sub-forums for baseball and soccer something you were going to do anyway, or something OS asked for, or what? Just wondering about the timing of it all. It makes sense to do, since we've got an FOF-specific forum and a couple of baseball games are about to hit the market.

Soccer had been there for months in the "Misc" section, which I got rid of I just moved it to the forefront this morning. OS did not ask for the change, nor have they asked for any changes whatsoever. All indications are that they will be like Gamespy in being very hands-off in the forums, but that they will be *much* more supportive with regarding to getting text sims some press.

The thinking behind the addition of the baseball subforum is that with text sims being highlighted, I suspect we'll get some new members from the OS crowd shortly after the move. It should make it easier for them to find info.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

and this marks the end of my surfing FOFC from work. For some reason the site wasn't block at gamespy but operationsports is block.

bye guys.

FM

I haven't read the rest of the thread, yet, but OS has an address set up just to help people surf from work. I believe it is osatwork dot com. That address usually gets by most blocks.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Thanks. Your comment earlier in this thread about "new registrations" made me think we might need an OS account, which is why I posted the question.

Makes sense. I'm quite sure this won't be the last time I post something that confuses people over the next few days.

[digamma]

Congrats! Sounds like a good move for the board. I'm blocked currently at work, so if there is a work around at OS, that's great.

[Eaglesfan27]

I just double checked and it is osatwork dot com.

I've started surfing daily at OS about a year ago, although I don't post there nearly as much, and while they have their share of immature posters, I think this is a great move. More exposure for text sims should result which should help the genre grow a bit more.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

osatwork dot com.

Just checked, and this is a valid link. Thanks! If some folks who are blocked could verify it, I'll post it in the first post this thread.

[Buccaneer]

I assume the Archives are moving as well?

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

and this marks the end of my surfing FOFC from work. For some reason the site wasn't block at gamespy but operationsports is block.

bye guys.

FM

Word. I feel like I'm in that David Cross bit.

"We're going to the MOON!"

"Oh..what? You thought you were coming with us? No no no...the meek shall inherit the EARTH."

Have fun. I'm sure it will be way cooler for some reason, and totally worth blocking other people out.

[Passacaglia]

osatwork dot com is blocked for me

[PurdueBrad]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

osatwork dot com is blocked for me

ditto

[MikeVic]

Cool. I like that it's kept as a separate community.

[rjolley]

Congrats on the move. OS is the one site I check for console sports gaming. It makes sense for this site to be under their umbrella and for them to cover text sims more.

Sucks that people can't get in from work.