SWAT has released a Community bar

As of today the first version of the new Community bar is online on the SWAT Portal http://www.swat-portal.com

Why the new one?
Well the idea indeed is not new at all. Starport hosted and still host the FL Community Network bar. The reason why we started to work on a new one was the extreme instability of the old FLCN which was reason that all sites which did use this bar had massive access problems. To shorten it... when Starport was offline or unavailable due to other events all other sites in the FL community were also down because of the FLCN. People complained a long time and many communities removed the FLCN because of these problems. That was the time when we started to develop a new version of it under the objective to make it more secure and more useful.
Meanwhile (last week) TSP got finally aware of the problems with the FLCN and found a solution to the initial problem. But we kept working on our bar for the very simple reason that its working better.

Unlike TSP we will not create a massive application system that excludes new sites or is based on stupid rules.
The services we offer are for free. People which want to use it dont even need to register at SWAT since we will offer this service where no registration is needed.

We host it... we give support... we do future developments... we will listen to the feedback instead of giving answers such as the "we offer a service and if you dont like it go somewhere else" that the FL community is used to.

Technically the bar we use is the first of many versions. We intent to improve it (at least I intent to do so). We might add site descriptions instead only the links. We might turn it into a real network. In future for sure a automatic sign up and activation process will get developed to avoid long waiting times before the site can get used.
For SWAT and also for other multigaming communities we intent to widen the bar to support more than just FL. Probably this bar then can get used on other Scifi communities aswell (which of course will be beneficial for FL as this will spread the word far outside the FL community).
Another advantage of this bar is: It is less static.... its designed to be more dynamic, to show more content and to be an eye catcher.

The bar is highly customizable... actually you can change almost everything if you want. It is secure because it gets hosted on a server that does not run any other scripts or databases which can be used for ddos attacks. And even if that one is offline the script will not have negative effects on the websites hosting it. Furthermore it is possible to run this script in some kind of "offline" mode (for emergency purpose).

Actually it can be said that we have re-invented the wheel. We got rid of the wooden one and replaced it with formula one wheel.

I would recomment to all SWAT clans and of course other communities which still host the old FLCN to replace it with the new one. I also would ask you to spread the word about this bar, please. The features, the security and the freedom is worth it.

<iframe src="http://www.swat-portal.com/portal/CommHeaderBar/flcb.html" width="90%" height="400" name="FLCB">
<p>Your browser can not display inline frames:
You can access this frame directly with this link: <a href="http://www.swat-portal.com/portal/CommHeaderBar/flcb.html">SELFHTML</a></p>
</iframe>

A link to the bar package and the instructions will get posted here later.
I would be glad to get some feedback.

oh and of course thx go to huor for creating this feature

thats a matter of configuration but yes... we will let it open in a new window then

i am aware of that
and yes more links will get added in the same way they were added to the original FLCN

however the new version we offer has much higher potentials as it not only was developed to show a few links

O_o

and its working perfectly

this just has been posted by w0dk4 at www.freelancercommunity.net

Quote

I want to lose a few words about this since today, OP released his bar (without any instructions however) on his site. He indirectly claims at several points that we didnt listen to feedback and whatsoever and that we have "stupid rules" that go along with "our" network bar.

First, I want to say the rules are there not because of stupidity, but because its for the wealth of every participating site:
There is not much reason to include every site that wants to participate. This will lead to a very cluttered link list where there are a lot of links that may not have anything to do with Freelancer.
Also, a bar where nobody has to show it doesnt make a lot of sense. I.e. if there are 10 sites participating, and one starts to remove the bar, the others will slowly follow because they think they are being betrayed. Thats very easy to foresee, given almost every server ring works under the same conditions.

So much about our "stupid" rules.
Concerning the allegedly rejected feedback I only have to say that from the start in my initial FLCN posts, I always underlined that we are open to feedback.
FF's recent solution to the DDOS problem hopefully showed that. Everyone is still free to post feedback directly to us on The-Starport. We likely dont read feedback if you dont post it there, simply because we dont always read every freelancer forum. I dont think its too much to ask to give us feedback on our site rather than here or somewhere else.

Now to the "advantages" of the Swat bar:
It is being said that it for some reason is more "secure".
Well, he says its secure because "it gets hosted on a server that does not run any other scripts or databases which can be used for ddos attacks.".
While I agree in theory that this is "more" secure than running it on a server which also operates a complete community site and stuff, I dont think it is that secure. DDOS can easily take down a single server, even if it hosts only 1 file which is the community bar.
Hosting it on Google in relation to that is way more secure, since Google is using server clusters and likely has professional anti-ddos measures in place. (which I doubt, they likely simply have such a powerful server structure that they dont even "feel" ddos attacks)

Anyways, back to the point. What I want to point out here are the clear drawbacks the SWAT bar has.
Since OP likes to tell people that this bar "is the new bar everyone should use", I just wanted to give a little contrast to the whole deal.

PS: Apart from the technical things, I also think extending the bar beyond FL is way over the top. There are countless multigaming sites out there (basically every game-fansite that at one point wanted to get bigger). This also adds to the potential link-cluttering effect.
IMO its best to stick together as a general FL community, this way you can also identify with the bar. Once the bar is used for any game community, you lose that identification and server admins will no longer see sense in their participation, I think.

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isnt it nice how they want to prevent that ppl use the new bar?
actually he has no idea about it but puts much efforts in discrediting it and SWAT
this is meanwhile the 2nd time that TSP ppl tell others not to go to SWAT and not to use our services
freedom - none
fairplay - none
respect - none
these guys hijacked my thread about our community bar to discredit it and such sneaky shit has been done several times before.

that guy should better keep his fake accounts or whoever is reporting to him from our site
we offer services to the FL community for years meanwhile and unlike TSP we do this for free and without objections
many FL sites out there ran into problems because of their stupidity and ignorance and now they have a big mouth starting to discredit something that can do stuff better

my reply

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1. thx for hijacking my thread
2. thx for discrediting a new feature for the FL community just because you offer something similar
3. thx for once more telling ppl not to go to SWAT... not to use the services that we offer (yeah its not the first time... but this time it at least took a bit longer... a few hours)

of course i did release this feature (WHICH WAS REQUESTED BY THIS AND OTHER COMMUNITIES DUE TO THE TROUBLES YOUR SCRIPT DID CAUSE TO THEM) without instructions because I expected that YOU would show pretty much interest in it while YOU actually would never use (out of princible and against all advantages that it might have for the FL community). And since YOU never would use our bar (because its not from TSP) I would have to ask myself why YOU would show any interest in our instructions or our code... I mean... a different reason than searching a reason to discrediting it and the SWAT Portal.

YOU dont (want to) use that bar so its not your business.
How WE make sure that we dont get a cluttered link list is OUR business.
In no way WE have said anything that others dont have to show the bar... in fact it has been said that ppl need to particiate, register and in future auto-register with an automatic update system which doesnt require a complicated application system.
What YOU can foresee is what the users of the FL sites out their experienced when they could not visit their communities anymore.
How WE protect our bar is OUR and not YOURS... but if you would have read everything on the threads you would know that already the next version will contain a multiserver support and if neccessary we can also host it on google. I doubt that this is a feature that is only restricted to your FLCN.
Btw. there has been feedback on TSP which got ignored and i seriously have to ask myself why you guys really posted on TSP that so many sites removed the bar without even asking for reasons. Furthermore I have to ask myself how reliable a service is when it is run by ppl which constantly complain about not having enough time to do the daily business. But ok - that actually is YOUR business.

What you describe as drawback of the new bar is what I call one of the best chances that the FL community can get.
YOUR bar can only direct players from one server to another. One reason why small servers are dying while big communities grow.
The new SWAT bar aims for bringing new players to FL by getting scifi communities involved. There is no better task imaginable for such a bar and there is no better place where it can be used than on scifi communities as FL is a scifi game.

WE offer a completly free service.
FL communities can decide to go for it or they decide against it. Whatever choice they make it will not affect the use of the bar as our task remains... to tear new players into the FL community. The FL sites which decide to be part of it will benefit from that... the others wont. Their decision... simple as that.

And YOU w0dk4 better stay out of OUR business and away from OUR bar as long you dont make the decision to use it. After all even you are invited.

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their aint any drawbacks
its just his poor try to influence other site admins

its an error of the matrix... they try to adjust something