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The rv.gl domain
Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2019 8:45 pm
by URV
Next month, the rv.gl domain will expire. This domain was bought by Kiwi 1-2 years ago and we have been using it since then to create convenient hostnames for people (for instance, players could memorize and connect to "u.rv.gl" when joining my sessions, instead of having to copy-paste my own IP). It's a small thing, but it's very nice to have, as it gives the event information a slightly more professional flair and it's less of a privacy concern than directly posting our IPs.
Kiwi is no longer willing to maintain this domain, and the plan is for me to take ownership of the domain before it expires. Unfortunately, the bad news is that it would cost
54 euro per year to maintain. I do not consider this a worthwhile investment for me to handle alone, and so I would like to ask how many people within the community would be willing to donate money for this website. In exchange, I have a couple of ideas on how we could extend the purpose of the website so the rest of the community could make use of it:
► Access to rv.gl hostnames
This was already allowed before, but with me as an owner, I will promote the option for anyone in the community to get their own rv.gl hostname, which you can post instead of your IP when hosting sessions. In the beginning, you would have to contact me directly for a hostname, but it will be possible in the future to register a hostname and manage it just like through
noip.com.
The only rule is that you may not choose a name shorter than 3 letters, as I would like to reserve those for official I/O events (at least until we switch to using dedicated servers). So, for instance,
u.rv.gl and
ur.rv.gl would not be allowed, but
urv.rv.gl would be okay.
► RVGL Café - personal websites
This is an idea that I had for a long time for Re-Volt I/O, but I think it might work better on the rv.gl domain than on re-volt.io, and I would also make it a priority if we are to maintain the rv.gl domain for another year.
RVGL Café would be a website on cafe.rv.gl that would provide Re-Volters with an easy way to create personal page dedicated to Re-Volt content, which could be used to list all your custom content in one place (and we all know we need that ever since the RVZ search system broke). If there is enough demand, we can even implement other features akin to social media, which would allow users to share and comment on screenshots, artworks, videos, blogs and so on.
An example of what I have in mind as the main goal would be Kiwi's Re-Volt website, which used to be hosted on the rv.gl domain itself. Unfortunately, it has since been taken down and I cannot provide any screenshots. Kiwi, if you're reading this and have transferred your website to a new domain, please post it here so we can check it out.
For the time being, I just want to hear some feedback and to see if there's enough interest in donating towards this domain.
If you wish to help out with the site costs, send me a message in this thread, through a private message, or on Discord (URV#9830) along with how much money you would be willing to donate. Once I know for sure there is enough interest to cover the costs, I will contact everyone and provide a PayPal link. I'm also open to any ideas about how to make use of this domain.
Update: The goal has been reached (enough to cover it for two years!) and the domain has been successfully transferred to my name. Many thanks to everyone who donated! Keep an eye on this thread for any future updates.
Re: The rv.gl domain
Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:58 am
by 607
I think this would be quite doable. Of course, we do also have re-volt.io and revoltzone.net to care for, but we've got quite some dedicated members in the community, many of which are adults. Let's suppose these three together cost 150 euro a year to maintain; in that case, supposing there are 10 members willing and able to contribute, one person would only have to donate 15 euro on average per year. That's a bit over a euro for a month.
Of course one could question how useful or important the rv.gl domain is, though. I think it's nice. I rarely host myself, but if I do it would be nice to be able to use 607.rv.gl from now on, instead of 4 strings of numbers. It also looks a lot better in the official session overview.
It might seem better to donate to charities instead, I suppose... but if we're already doing that, I feel like it should be fine to contribute to something closer to our own interests as well.
Re: The rv.gl domain
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2019 4:16 pm
by URV
I would like to give my thanks to everyone who donated: we've well surpassed the goal and have nearly enough to cover next year's payment as well! Feel free to get in touch with me if you'd still like to contribute, but I would advise donating to
RVIO or
RVZ instead, as those are definitely more important.
Kiwi and I will work on transferring the ownership to me on November 9. If it goes smoothly, I will gladly accept any requests for rv.gl hostnames right away. You may request them in this thread, via PM or through
Discord.
Re: The rv.gl domain
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 8:06 pm
by 607
Oh, already? I thought
URV wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2019 8:45 pm
[o]nce [you] know for sure there [was] enough interest to cover the costs, [you] [would] contact everyone and provide a PayPal link.
Well, I surely don't mind my donation not being necessary.
Re: The rv.gl domain
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 9:43 pm
by URV
Ah, sorry. I couldn't tell from your message whether you were interested in donating. If still you are, I can send you the link, since we're just 10 euro shy from covering next year's payment as well. However, I can also take care of that amount myself (think of it as my own donation), hence why I'd say RVIO or RVZ would be the better options now.
Re: The rv.gl domain
Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 11:20 am
by 607
URV wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2019 9:43 pm
Ah, sorry. I couldn't tell from your message whether you were interested in donating. If still you are, I can send you the link, since we're just 10 euro shy from covering next year's payment as well. However, I can also take care of that amount myself (think of it as my own donation), hence why I'd say RVIO or RVZ would be the better options now.
Ah, sorry, I didn't understand that with 'everyone' you meant 'everyone who expressed interest'. I thought that if enough people expressed interest, you were going to post the PayPal link on the thread and on Discord or something like that, to reach 'everyone'.
Re: The rv.gl domain
Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2019 6:18 pm
by URV
I did consider posting the PayPal link here, but I didn't want to receive more than it was needed (which happened nonetheless with the half a dozen people who contacted me due to some unexpectedly generous donations). There were also some minor, if not unfounded privacy concerns with posting the link publicly.
That said, one year from now I'll probably set up a donation page along with a progress bar showing how much would be left to reach the target goal, if possible. This time it was a fair bit more informal since I wasn't very sure if there was enough interest in it to warrant more effort.
Re: The rv.gl domain
Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 8:41 am
by URV
The domain has just been successfully transferred to my name! I should now be more able to accept any requests for rv.gl hostnames, but since we don't have a system in place for it yet, I'll have to do it manually:
- If you have a static IP, and you know it won't change for the foreseeable future (at least three months), then I can simply make your rv.gl hostname redirect straight to your IP.
- If, however, you have a dynamic IP, you'll need a way to update it automatically. I recommend creating a hostname on noip.com for that (which works the same as what I'm doing here, just not as cool) and optionally download their DUC software—then I'll just make your rv.gl hostname redirect to your noip.com hostname, which in turn would redirect to your IP. Fun, but it works!
As for the RVGL Café idea, there hasn't been a whole lot of interest so far, nor did I receive many suggestions yet, though I assume that might change once I actually set it up. Nevertheless, it's still definitely happening, but I probably just won't prioritize it as high as I initially expected. I still need to figure out what to use as a base, and I might need a hand or two from more experienced people if we want to push the progress faster (otherwise I'll likely be learning as I build the website, so it could take me a while).
In any case, I'll continue using this thread for any future updates.
Re: The rv.gl domain
Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:52 pm
by ZipperZbieracz
What's wrong with RVZ? I thought the problem with it is the file size limit, which is a limitation for new, big Extreme tracks, but the search?
Also I doubt it would be possible to do, but if rv.gl is a domain to host games through an easier and shorter "IP", can't it be also made to act like a centralized convenient "server" for RVH or some kind of it's successor to communicate between people and host games easily on the fly. (There was some person that started doing something like that, can't remember the name).
Re: The rv.gl domain
Posted: Sat Nov 16, 2019 12:37 am
by URV
The file size limitation on RVZ is indeed pretty troublesome, and, as time goes on, it's likely it will become more and more necessary to increase it. It would be ideal to not have it filled up with "lite" editions of tracks, as we do with Ranch right now. As for the search, I think the best example would be to show you what you get when you check my profile and hit
User Creations. It does show everything I've released, but the very first page also shows 5 releases from other authors just because they have the words "c
urves" or "s
urvive" in the title or description. It would be great if we at least had a way to filter those out.
That said, even if the search system functioned just fine, I figured it would be nice if there was an easy way for people to showcase their creations (among other things such as in-game screenshots or artwork) in a more personalized manner. This kind of thing could also be used to show off long-term racing stats based on our
session parser. If I'm wrong and there's really no interest, then that's fine as well—it would be one less thing for me to set up.
If I'm understanding your suggestion right, I'm already planning to use rv.gl in the future as a dedicated server, both for I/O events, unofficial events and a 24/7 server. I think it's not exactly the same thing as what you're suggesting, which could also be great, but I'm unsure how that would work exactly.