GD.e overhaul

[Anonymous]

Apart from GD.ie where do people get together and chat about things? Boards.ie? Facebook?

I get the impression that there is a lot of studios or people who work in games in Ireland (and expats) and are not on GD.ie for whatever reason.

Surely this needs to change?

I’d love if GD.ie got updated to a more contemporary layout so it would attract more people and we could have a proper easily accessible database of people.

Imagine being able to have pages for individuals and companies like this:

So say if I wanted to find a programmer I’d hit the ‘coder’ button and I get a list of all the coders, a bit like this site: http://betahaus.de/community/

I’d even be willing to pay some money towards a site re-development maybe others are too or we could hit up some local studios and government for some cash? Or I’d help porting content to a new site.

Dave K is too busy to do much so its time for a new usable look! Thoughts?

-ivan

[Aphra K]

all ideas are welcome.

I am working on getting the resources and manpower to update things.

I do think it is inevitable though as things grow that there are more centres and networks…I guess the challenges will be keeping them linked.

Aphra

[Jamie Mc]

maybe set up a paypal donate option to get some funds together?

[Anonymous]

I guess it only annoys me :|

T’would be nice to be able to update our signatures, location, occupation etc so other people could know who we all are.

[Anonymous]

I like to donate my time to help in any way

Stephen Byrne

exGamers Studios

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Yeah there are a lot people that just don’t seem to use GD.ie these days and I’m not too sure of the reason really. The following are just some ramblings and my ideas/thoughts.

I know that I registered irishgamedev.com to initially just pull in people’s tweets in relation the hashtag and so people can know who else tweets using it (rather than having to search all the time too).

There is also a private Facebook group which I know a lot of users here partake in and find it very useful for opening conversations with people that I wouldn’t even know about previously. This was something I proposed a while ago for GD.ie to do and the idea kind of got brushed off.

I create the Google Calendar for IGD as I wanted it to easily sync with my phone and share with others as everyone kept mentioning that they didn’t know events were happening.

I have also started the IGD Newsletter which I hope to send out at the start of the month with news and events happening for the coming month so people can get a refresher about everything that’s going on.

AND ….. I just started the IGD podcast. It’s really just me, on Skype, having a chat with who ever has a topic they’d like to discuss (and hopefully the first episode will be posted this evening).

What I’m saying about all this is stuff I wished GD.ie provided. Like on the calendar front, I do peek at the Events page from time to time to see if I’ve got everything wants. And the newsletter just seemed like a natural extension of it.

The podcast I’m really just calling it the IGD podcast as I’m not sure what else to call it. I don’t mind having it the GD.ie podcast with other people doing the talking from time to time. I just love hearing peoples stories and insights.

I see GD.ie being the central repository and THE go to point for anything games related in Ireland (which is kind of is). There will always be other groups such as Unity groups, Game Music groups, student groups, city groups, indie groups … etc but GD.ie needs to be the thing that connects them all.

[Jamie Mc]

Hi all,

Aphra will have an update on this shortly, the problem beforehand was a lack of manpower to overhaul the site, but there are volunteers now which mean that we can do this kind of stuff within GD.ie going forward.

Remember the site was coded a decade ago, pre-social media, and it’s run by volunteers :)

What we don’t want to have happen is that the community gets fragmented, and if you’re happy to maybe include this kind of stuff as part of GD.ie, I’m sure Aphra has few if any objections.

It’s great that you’re doing these things (podcast, event planner etc), so maybe come under the GD.ie umbrella for it, knowing that change will be happening soon?

Thanks

Jamie

[Anonymous]

Yeah I’m totally up for doing it under the GD.ie umbrella if you just want to tell me what you want/changes you’d prefer.

As always I’m open to suggestions and ideas.

Also just been mentioning the other things as so the revised GD.ie plan isn’t just based around the website. Should encompass the community as well.

People will always want to do their own initiatives but it should be encouraged to relate them back to GD.ie rather than an odd post stating "we’re doing this [link]" and that’s the end of it.

[Aphra K]

Thanks Krudd. I appreciate all you are doing and there are a few people currently talking through a server side and front end redesign to see what is possible. I would like to bring these things together..

I will pm you.

Aphra

[Anonymous]

Activity!

There is also a private Facebook group which I know a lot of users here partake in and find it very useful for opening conversations with people that I wouldn’t even know about previously.
[/quote:67a02c0deb]

AHA! Thats where everyone is! I think I’m missing out.

I too would like gd.ie to be the central location for people

[Anonymous]

I’m up for helping out as well if any extra hands are needed

[Aphra K]

Kentaree

do you want to pm me an email address so we can involve you in the conversations?

Aphra

[Anonymous]

I cant really code but I’ll help in any way I can.

[Anonymous]

I cant really code but I’ll help in any way I can.[/quote:d977a3a1f1]

Ditto

[Anonymous]

Same here…I’m not up to date with web coding these days though.

[Aphra K]

thanks all.

When we have done the server side/back end there will be a need for some hands on deck to port over content…I will put out a shout then to see who has some time to help

Aphra

[Author]

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