I am guessing there is no way to do this but it doesn't hurt to ask. Is there a way to make a change so a user can set up a single user ID and password for both PinSimDB and GoPinball?

I have noticed there appear to be quite a few people that download tables from PinSimDB but never post anything on GoPinball.

If we can't have a single user ID, it seems we should do a little more promotion of GoPinball on PinSimDB by saying they are on the same file server and if you are a member of one, you should consider becoming a member of the other. Maybe it would be good to add something like this on the GoPinball home page also. I have noticed also that occasionally someone will become a member of GoPinball and ask where to download tables.

Maybe we could change the appearance of them so they look similar. They currently don't look anything like each other so no one thinks they are related.

George

After thinking about this quite a bit, I think we should rename "GoPinball" as "PinSimDB Forum". This would make it obvious that the 2 sites are related. We should go ahead and make skin changes to both sites to make them look similar. Since PinSimDB.org gets more traffic than the forum, the PinSimDB.org name and web address should remain unchanged.

The name "GoPinball" sounds a bit dated anyway. I don't want to cause a stir but it really needs to be changed.

George

It has been a week and there have been 344 views of this topic with no comments.

There is a very clear disconnect between PinSimDB and GoPinball. There have been people that posted tables on PinSimDB that are not members of GoPinball. Some people become members of GoPinball and ask where you download the tables. The web links at the top of the page that go back and forth between the two sites are not enough.

There is a concept in marketing that is called "branding". PinSimDB and GoPinball have no common brand. I suggest we save the existing PinSimDB logo to the top of the forum web pages and add "Forum" to it. I like the old flash file at the top of GoPinball but web browsers consider it to be a security risk and either warn the end user about it or black it out. I think it is very likely many potential members don't even join because they think the site is a security risk. We can implement a redirect so that when they try to open http://gopinball.com they get redirected to new forum URL. I would suggest calling it something like http://PinSimDB_Forum.com.

I think this name change is actually a more important step than changing screen colors so they match or the other changes I suggested.

What do you guys think?

George

I agree

On VPForums, you have 110 480 members and 103 020 members with 0 post...
Why? Because you have just one site: forum and a download section.
And it's the same for a lot of other sites with a download section.
Trust me: if a guy found PinSimDB, he can found GoPinball too. But he just want to download tables, not to post (or just to read posts).

_________________
Les cons ça ose tout. C'est même à  ça qu'on les reconnaît.
My tables avalaible at http://www.pinsimdb.org/fpreleases/ and http://www.irpinball.org/


Le prix s'oublie, la qualité reste

Ok so let's merge the sites

No! Because we have to validate each new user in order to avoid spam, ...
But I'm not the owner of this site.

_________________
Les cons ça ose tout. C'est même à  ça qu'on les reconnaît.
My tables avalaible at http://www.pinsimdb.org/fpreleases/ and http://www.irpinball.org/


Le prix s'oublie, la qualité reste

Can't you validate user on merged site?

Yes, we can. But we'll have ten times more work. And the user have to wait for validation before doing other things.
From the FAQ
» Why do I need to register at all?
You may not have to, it is up to the administrator of the board as to whether you need to register in order to post messages. However; registration will give you access to additional features not available to guest users such as definable avatar images, private messaging, emailing of fellow users, usergroup subscription, etc. It only takes a few moments to register so it is recommended you do so.
And the administrator are not 7/7 24/24 looking at the moderator control panel.
In an other hand: 7 815 members for GoPinball with 6 050 members with 0 post and 396 with more than 10 posts. I don't think merging GoPinball and PinSimDB will help us to have more posting users.
But LvR and TheNalex are the only ones who could decide.

_________________
Les cons ça ose tout. C'est même à  ça qu'on les reconnaît.
My tables avalaible at http://www.pinsimdb.org/fpreleases/ and http://www.irpinball.org/


Le prix s'oublie, la qualité reste

I'm not really advocating merging the sites at this time. Right now I just want PinSimDB and GoPinball to have the same branding. I think this is the most critical thing we need right now. This means renaming "GoPinball" as "PinSimDB Forum". This would make it necessary to rename http://gopinball.com as http://PinSimDB_Forum.com. We would also need the redirect as well. I don't think doing this much would be too difficult and we can see how it works. I have seen other sites that appear to succeed that have separate forums and main sites. It might be a good thing to merge the 2 sites but I'm not sure how difficult it would be and it can wait.

I was a webmaster on a site we used at work about 10 years ago. I think I still remember quite a bit of it although I have never done a redirect. I am willing to help do this as needed.

George