[Dixonary] [OT] The future of the dixonary.net site

Aren't they all, or perhaps nearly all, previous participants - some of whom tried the game and decided it wasn't their thing, and a few of whom are now playing the game in a better place where they always come in second?

Efrem

> On Jan 28, 2022, at 3:41 PM, Chowie <chowwoman (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
>
> I do not want strangers to have my phone #or address.
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 2:24 PM Judy Madnick <jmadnick (AT) gmail (DOT) com <mailto:jmadnick (AT) gmail (DOT) com>> wrote:
> I just noticed that there are 69 members of dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com <mailto:dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com>. Some are duplicates, but I was surprised to see so many members...and so few definitions! Also, is anyone uncomfortable about the fact that there are a lot of nonparticipants who have access to our email addresses?
>
> Judy
>
>
>
> Original Message
> From: Chowie <chowwoman (AT) gmail (DOT) com <mailto:chowwoman (AT) gmail (DOT) com>>
> To: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com <mailto:dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com>;
> Date: 1/28/2022 2:17:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [Dixonary] [OT] The future of the dixonary.net <http://dixonary.net/> site
>
> I'm ignorant on this, but why can't we use email to continue this game? I never go to that website. I see no point in it, but what do I know.
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 12:52 PM Efrem G Mallach <efrem.mallach (AT) gmail (DOT) com <mailto:efrem.mallach (AT) gmail (DOT) com>> wrote:
> Agree with what everyone has already said.
>
> As it happens, I have some web development skills. I looked at the source code behind the dixonary.net <http://dixonary.net/> home page. It uses Google-specific code, such as the JsAction library (the benefits of which are insignificant on a site of this size) and has what one poster on stackoverflow.com <http://stackoverflow.com/> (specific page here <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61114051/which-function-does-this-jsaction-call>) called "aggressively obfuscated code." Class names, for example, are deliberately obscure. (Examples: X6jHbb, GOJTSe, and other random six-character strings.)
>
> And there is no way a home page of this complexity level needs 4,820 style rules (I let Firefox count them) with 26,405 lines (after reformatting with one item per line) in its largest style sheet. Nothing needs 4,820 style rules. Nothing. Anywhere.
>
> I don't know who wrote this code, I'm fairly sure it wasn't you and that a lot of it was inserted automatically, but I'm VERY reluctant to get involved in modifying the existing site. The same poster I quoted earlier cautioned the person to whom he/she was replying "You will be digging through very convoluted code with basically no identifiable names... you will most likely have a hard time getting something meaningful out of it." And that was written for an audience of professional web developers. I may have some skills in that area, I know what I'm doing, but I'm an experienced professional.
>
> One thought might be to get free hosting and a free interim subdomain name (that is, something like dixonary.freehostia.com <http://dixonary.freehostia.com/>) from a service such as freehostia or atspace.cc <http://atspace.cc/>. (I have no personal interest in either. There are surely more, perhaps better.) Then we could set up a new site there. File size limits on free sites may keep us from moving all the content to the test site, but we could get the structure working with partial/dummy content or decide, after we get into it, that it's not worth the effort. If it works, we bite the bullet on the nominal cost someplace, import the content, and transfer the domain name. Any free or cheap hosting service would give us at least a handful of email addresses. If it doesn't, we can go for option 2 (pony up the cost to keep it where it is). I'd join those who will pay a share of $6/month for this. I'll take July.
>
> Efrem
>
> ========================
>
>> On Jan 28, 2022, at 12:39 PM, Daniel B. Widdis <widdis (AT) dixonary (DOT) net <mailto:widdis (AT) dixonary (DOT) net>> wrote:
>>
>> "Why is Google asking us to pay for it?" -- To make money, of course!
>>
>> "Google Workspaces" is the new product, and it includes a lot of stuff we don't use. It's marketed to small businesses owners who have their own domain and want professionally managed email. Not unlike the Exchange (Office 365) product that Microsoft sells subscriptions to, and keeps me employed.
>>
>> Basically if I want to use my @dixonary.net <http://dixonary.net/> email past June, I have to pay for business-level support.
>>
>> All we're really using from our "Workspaces" are our Google Site, the underlying Google Docs, and my email.
>>
>> When we first started, our "site" included the dixonary.net <http://dixonary.net/> domain for all the subpages. With the current "legacy free" product, we're basically stuck with a redirect link. I probably wouldn't mind the $6/month to keep my email and to have the custom domain actually work again. But I'd want to verify that's actually going to happen. The advantage of this is that I don't actually have to do anything with our existing setup (other than provide my credit card info).
>>
>> Alternatively we could migrate to a (free) google site and google docs elsewhere, and I could go back to my regular email for Dixonary. It'd be cheaper (free). But require me (or someone) to actually move the site. Is it worth saving $6/month for all that effort? I don't know....
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 3:51 AM Tim Lodge <dix (AT) timlodge (DOT) co.uk <mailto:dix (AT) timlodge (DOT) co.uk>> wrote:
>> Dan
>>
>> Let me say first of all that I'd be happy to contribute to any costs of maintaining a website and that I appreciate the work of those who have set up and maintained the current system. However, the curent dixonary.net <http://dixonary.net/> does what we want, by acting as a repostory for rules and game history.. Why is Google asking us to pay for it? Everything I've been able to read on the Web says that Google Sites is free, unless you exceed a storage limit. I've not been able to find out definitively what that limit is, but it looks as if it's 15 GB over all the Google free services. If we've exceeded that, my suggestion would be to bite the bullet and pay for keeping the curent site . The annual cost would be around $5-$6 per player if shared between all the current players - well worth it in my opinion.
>>
>> -- Tim L
>>
>> On Friday, 28 January 2022 at 08:53:08 UTC shani.... (AT) gmail (DOT) com <mailto:shani.... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
>> While I don't have the web skills that are needed, I'm more than happy to make a contribution to the cost (even if it's not a lot, it shouldn't fall to the same person/people).
>>
>> I'd also like to express my gratitude to the people who work behind the scenes to keep the game running smoothly. We couldn't do it without you, so thank you very much!!
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 7:41 PM Daniel B Widdis <wid... (AT) dixonary (DOT) net <>> wrote:
>> Sometime more than a decade ago, I registered the dixonary.net <http://dixonary.net/> domain through Google and we had a nice-ish website with that domain, I got my cool dixonary.net <http://dixonary.net/> email address (and offered it to others but nobody took it) and we played the game for a while.
>>
>>
>>
>> In 2012 they stopped offering new accounts to the cool free (other than domain renewal fee) product we had but let us keep it. No problem. We kept playing the game.
>>
>>
>>
>> A few years ago they decided to shut down the product we were on and “migrate� our “legacy free� account to a new product. Mostly the same view for the handful of you who visit the site to search used words or read Paul’s awesome “Real Rules� or other stuff. The custom domain broke but no big deal.
>>
>>
>>
>> Well, finally after over a decade (or two?) of freeloading off of Google, they are finally saying “pay us or leave�. (I’m paraphrasing but that’s the gist of it.)
>>
>>
>>
>> I’m faced with the following options:
>>
>> Let the dixonary.net <http://dixonary.net/> site disappear and pay nothing, and do no actual work
>> Keep the current dixonary.net <http://dixonary.net/> site and pay $6 per month and hopefully the domain name will work with the pages as they are, and do no actual work
>> Move the site somewhere else cheap ( looks like $1 to $2 per month is easy to get) and have to do work to set up a new site with whatever cheap tools are provided for that cheap cost
>> Move the site to the same webserver I’m already paying for with the tapcis.com <http://tapcis.com/> domain and bboards and archive of rounds and have to do work to set up a new site but it’s a lot more flexible to really fine tune whatever we want the site to be
>>
>>
>> I’m leaning toward the latter two options but also don’t really have webmastering skills and am not sure if the juice is worth the squeeze.
>>
>>
>>
>> So this is basically a call for help. I don’t mind paying a bit for hosting if we have a useful site, but I am not the best person to set up a useful site and I think some of you are.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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