I agree.

That's a good idea. I'll toss my hat in for that one.

Wow this is definitely a good idea. I love both fantasy and science fiction. I will certainly be there. Holy Creations sounds like the best name so far.

I like it!!

I'll definitely join since I write more sci-fi than fantasy, and I'm also willing to help in any way I can. All your suggestions sound like exclamations of extreme emotion (e.g. Holy Cosmos! Our car's on fire!)

The umbrella name could be Holy Ventures.

Administrator: Captain or something like that
Marcher Lord: Ship Executive Officer or equivalent
Coder/programmer/designer: Engineering Officer (No need to speak in a Scottish accent

I was thinking more that the Admin would be the Admiral, Marcher Lords would be the Captains, Moderators are the Officers, HRMs are Petty Officers (It's a Navy thing, trust me, it's a compliment.), and the editors are the Engineers.

That way, it's a bit more like the original Battlestar Galactica than like Star Trek.

Just so you know, a Petty Officer, at least in the Navy, the exact equivalent of an officer, except that he started as a service soldier, and not a career officer with a college degree. In that sense it resembles the HRMs.

Generally, sci-fi titles are based off from Navy officer titles, so I thought it would be appropriate.

HRM?

That would work, I know all the Naval ranks due to a program I'm in, and Petty Officers are the equivalent of a sargeant. But I like your idea better than all the officers.

I like Holy Ventures better than Holy Creations, personally. But what is my 0.02 cents left.

eruheran

Interesting idea. Both have merit.

I would go with Holy Creations and leave Holy Ventures for our Christian Adventure Writing site just kidding.

I like that idea. But a venture would work as the umbrella title because it describes all aspects of writing.

So does Creations.

Yes, you're right, but a venture is a risky thing to do, much like writing.

True. Not sure what we will pick.

Thing is there are other kinds of ventures than creative ventures.

Good point. Too bad there isn't a word that means risky writing endeavours.

Make one.

I'm thinking of one.

I like Holy Creations as an umbrella name..doesn't sound like an expletive either.

Exactly.

Holy Creentures. How is that for a made up word?

Holy Creatures?!?

eruheran

I like holy Creations the best. And Holy Universe as the forum name.

No, no, eruheran.

Cre- (from creation) -entures (from adventures)


But....yeah. It doesn't have quite the ring I thought it would. Or the ability to be spoken easily.

Or you could mix them the opposite way and get Holy Ventations (Vent - ventures -- ations - creations). Or Ventilations. Which might be good if we have a lot of strong-minded sci-fi writers!

eruheran

That sounds like Veneration or Ventilation. You guys think too hard...

They do.

An idea for rooms might subforums for the different genres of sci-fi, since there's so many.

That sounds like a good idea. Thanks!

You're welcome. A good list of sub-genres can be found on the NanoWriMo site in the science fiction forum.

Since my new book is Science Fiction (space opera), I love this idea. I am willing to help set it up and moderate. I am doing research, characterization and outlining on my novel right now, so I could get many of the subforums started with examples. A good idea would be a research subforum where people can summarize their research on topics like thermal dynamics and proton accelerator engines (my recent topics of interest).

I saw someone mention NaNoWriMo on here. Since that is two months away, we could use that for advertising, but we'd need to get this site up soon so people could start brainstorming there and be ready to go by Nov. 1. It would be cool to be able to say our group wrote a million words in November (50k x 20 people). Out of our 100 members, can we get 20 to commit? Sorry, kind of branching off topic, but one way to advertise would be connecting Christians who are interested in sci-fi but haven't written a novel with the motivation of NaNoWriMo. That was how I wrote my first novel and the experience really taught me that I could.

Here's my thought on the name: we don't live in a holy world or a holy universe. It was made holy, but has been corrupted by sin. I don't know how to represent that in a name, so your idea may be close enough. You'd want something short, so A Universe Spoken to Life by the Holy One is a bit long But what about Spoken Universe? It may not sound the best, but in two words it separates our view from the Big Bang, which is essentially what we're trying to do in making Christian Sci-Fi. Plus, it brings the fear of the Lord from the thought of Jesus creating the whole universe with His voice (I'm not trying to split hairs here since Gen 1 says God created...but John 1 says "all things were made through [the Word - Jesus]"). How about Created Universe? Holy Verse? That is a pun about The Holy Word which made the Universe... How about: The Spoken Verse: Creating stories from a universe spoken to being.

On the other hand, the goal seems to be creating worlds that represent a Holy Creator. I'm not suggesting changing Holy Worlds, but I wonder if we need to stick to "Holy" at the beginning. I don't think Holy Worlds sounds like an exclamation, but most of the other ideas did. I seem to be the odd man out in questioning starting with "holy," so I'm good with whatever you decide. From what I've seen, I would pick Holy Universe. I can surely understand wanting to stick with the theme of "Holy" to keep the connection.

That's a good idea, all of them. I second those motions.

"Holy" in this case means 'dedicated to God.' So in our creations of worlds, we dedicate them to God. That is where that comes from.

I like the NaNoWriMo ideas.

Alrighty... deadlines. * sigh *

Are there any people on here familiar with phpbb3 theming other than me?

I don't know any coding, but if you give me some basic information and sources I could learn.

Jay, I know HTML/CSS. I know that does not cover PHBB3, but, like Varon, I'd be willing to learn. (Though that might turn into more of a "Jay-teaches-us to do stuff he already knows" then a "team-working-on-coding-a-forum". Unfortunately, my coding knowledge is sorely lacking on the database/Javascript/MySQLY/PHP/JQuery/Ajax/PHBB3 side of things. Pretty much all I can do is the HTML/CSS half (which doesn't seem like much of a half compared to the massive list on the other half. )

eruheran

Jay, we know you've got a lot on your plate, so don't rush. You rush forums you get rotten forums. I'd be willing to learn whatever it is that is needed to be learned, but I don't think that I'd be much help, as it would probably take me 3 years to learn it, and then my theme would look awful.

I agree with Elanhil, don't stress about this. Whenever you can get it up is fine. I also know very little, but I work with someone who does webhosting and might know enough to help me. Would it be more work for you to give us assignments than just to do it yourself? I could help on the HWCS. I'll go back to what you said earlier in this thread about how to help in that.

Your explanation of "holy" clears things up for me. Holyverse?

Glad to hear the enthusiasm.

HTML and CSS are sufficient for styling. I will be doing the hacking.

So first assignment: browse through these styles to see if there is anything that might be close to what we need, and collate a list for us to review. I can look through those and see how much editing would need to be done, and make a short list that we can work with. Thanks a ton!

You know how I am with that... but I can browse themes! That just requires eyeballs and time, right? What kind of theme are we looking for?

I can look through those themes. Basically you want us to short-list the ones that would be ripe for customization as a sci-fi forum theme? Got it. (I hope.)

eruheran

Oops. I think I misunderstood what you meant. These are styles, not themes. My bad. I have now succeeded in clearly confusing myself. What do you mean? This takes me to what seems to be a demo forum with no real styles anywhere. Or themes. Or anything. Just a few demo subforums.

UPDATE: Duh. Duh. Duh. Didn't see the HUGE dropdown list on the right with ALL the themes. Duh. The demo forum is to showcase how different parts of the theme look. Duh.

eruheran

As far as possible themes we could utilize, here's what I saw that looked pretty good.

610nm (A little on the bright side but that could be fixed)
AcidTech (Apparently a popular theme but could be tweaked to fit our needs)
Avalon (Looked OK, I guess)
CA Orbital (I don't like the background image but we could change it. The very name suggests Sci-Fi )

My favorite thus far is definitely CA Orbital. Those four are really the only ones I saw that stood out to me. Lower down the list it just seemed to be mostly shoddy cheap-looking (or not what we were looking for) templates.

I liked Digital, but that strikes me as the kind that you would hate, Andrew. I've just gone through a little bit, I might go through thoroughly later.

EDIT: I saw absolution, thought that would work, but then I saw...ACIDTECH!!!! IT'S PERFECT!!! I don't like the header image, but we could change that, couldn't we?? It screams sci-fi to me!!! IT'S AMAZING!!!

(ok, sorry for ranting and raving. Point is, I like that theme, and I'd vote for it)

ANOTHER EDIT: I think CA orbital is too hard to view. After acid tech, my favorite is Hermes. It sounds like it'd be way NOT sci-fi but it actually looks pretty good.

Progress! That is cool.

The color theme that we are looking for in Holy Universe is predominantly silver and white, with green. Kind of like Holy Worlds is blue and black, with gold.

We can fiddle with themes to fit that, but try to aim for those colors (not to say anything against what you have already found, I haven't even looked at them yet).

We want something that is imaginative and unique, and yet fully capable and usable. We want a theme that will stand out. It will also need room in the header for the logo, which will be slightly longer/bigger than the Holy Worlds logo.

If you have any questions let me know.

Let me post my concept based on the above. Jk I started making it before that, but it pretty much matches the description. I don't know what would be involved in changing it to a theme or if that is even possible, but I had fun making it anyway. My icons aren't very good, I don't like them at all. But I'm satisfied with the rest

We would need to find a theme already made that is close to it, and then swap out the images and bits of the css. Not super difficult, but it can be labor intensive. We will keep it in mind. Thanks for the work!

I think prostylize looks good.

I thought CA Orbital had promise, also ClanzDarkness3 was cool. It was different. Isn't it pretty simple to change colors and images?

It can be, but you never know. It can get quite complex sometimes. :P

It is best if there is only a little bit that needs changing. Taking a green theme and making it red (for example) is really really labor intensive (basically you are making a new theme).

Like with this one here is what I did:

I edited one image (I took a little figurine off of the header parchment background), added stuff to the links (like the Chat link), and swapped out the logo. That was pretty much it.

So we need to pick a theme that's already pretty much the way we want it... None of them jumped out at me as even vaguely resembling that hardly...

I liked the Ca Orbital and Hermes so far, but will look more later.

Jay, if changing a theme's color is as simple as colorizing the images that make it up I have a pretty easy method to do that, if you need it.

eruheran