<i><b>****************************************
// URGENT REQUEST
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If you have an account on <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a> AND you have an account on <a href="">Seibertron.com</a>, it would help me out immensely if your usernames and email addresses are the same on both websites. Please update your accounts to make sure that your username and email address is the same. If you are unable to make your username the same, then your username on <a href="">Seibertron.com</a> will take precendence over your username here. You will be able to edit your information as necessary on <a href="">Seibertron.com</a> once everything has been imported. If you DO NOT have an account on Seibertron, please <u>DO NOT</u> register at this time on Seibertron. I will be importing all of the user accounts from <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a> over to <a href="">Seibertron.com</a> within the next week and it will be easier just to import the accounts that do not have username or email address conflicts than to try to accommodate those instances.
Your account on <a href="">Seibertron.com</a> will take precedence and your information on <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a> will be updated to match your information on <a href="">Seibertron.com</a> (such as your user IDs, for example). I will write a script that will look to see which account is older and use that date as the registration date so that if you recently signed up on one of the two websites, your older account's registration date will be used as your member date.
<b>****************************************
// WHAT'S NEXT???
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Once I have sorted out all of your user accounts, I will update all of the posts and topics with your new user IDs. After that has been completed, I will import all of the user data, forums, topics and posts into the <a href="">Seibertron.com</a> Energon Pub forums. All of the existing forums will continue on Seibertron. Devastator and I will then work together to figure out which ones need to be merged with existing <a href="">Seibertron.com</a> forums (such as the General Discussion forum).
Bill (TFmaster) didn't originally want me to import all of the users and posts to Seibertron. However, after his untimely passing earlier this year, I felt that it was very important to maintain as much of <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a>'s forum content as possible so that we will always have a permanent record of Bill's contributions on the forums. That's one of the things that is important to me to honor my buddy Bill.
Once all of the forum content has been imported to Seibertron, I will write some scripts that will redirect people from tfmaster.com to the appropriate forum, topic, post or user on Seibertron. That way, we will continue to catch the people that are referred from the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo or MSN.
The next phase of this move will be to give Devastator access to some of the tools that I've been building quietly behind the scenes that will allow him to move over a lot of the existing content here on <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a> over to <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a>'s new home at <a href="/transtopia/index.php">/transtopia/index.php</a>. After Devastator has been setup so that he can start helping with the move, I will turn my attention to the next phase which is too upgrade the <a href="">Seibertron.com</a> forums from phpBB2 to phpBB3. There are a ton of new features on the new phpBB that I think all of you will really enjoy. One of the things that slowed this whole moving process down was waiting for the phpBB crew to release a stable version of phpBB3 that I can use on the site. phpBB3 will enable the <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a> forums to continue to exist as needed on their own so that you guys don't have to scroll to the bottom of the page in the <a href="">Seibertron.com</a> forums just to get to the ones that are important to you guys. You will be able to easily and directly access the forums important to the <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a> community at <a href="">Seibertron.com</a>. I think you guys will really be happy with this key part of the move.
<b>****************************************
// THE NEW TRANSTOPIA
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After the <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a> forums and existing content has been integrated into Seibertron, then comes the fun part ... building new tools that will allow all of the Transtopians to add their own galleries of the kitbashes they have breathed life into, the artwork which they worked so hard on and a new feature that is currently not part of <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a>: fiction contributions. The new <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a> will be structured something like this on Seibertron:
<b>Main Transtopia Page (conglomeration of all 3 Transtopia sections)</b>
<a href="/transtopia/index.php">/transtopia/index.php</a>
<b>Transtopia Kitbashes</b>
<a href="/transtopia/kitbashes/index.php">/transtopia/kitbashes/index.php</a>
<b>Transtopia Artwork (2D Art Gallery)</b>
<a href="/transtopia/artwork/index.php">/transtopia/artwork/index.php</a>
<b>Transtopia Fiction (Fan-Fiction Contributions)</b>
<a href="/transtopia/fiction/index.php">/transtopia/fiction/index.php</a>
<b>****************************************
// IN CLOSING
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Whew. That's a lot of typing up there.
And I'm not done yet. I know it's a lot to process. This is a HUGE ordeal and a lot of work. I want it to be done right. I want to preserve as much of <a href="http://www.tfmaster.com" target="_blank">Transtopia</a> as possible. I want to promote all of your work as much as possible. There's a lot of great things that are about ready to come down the pipes for all of you. I ask for your patience during this crazy time and your understanding as WE collectively come across difficulties, unforeseen circumstances and other issues that may be out of our control.
Let's do this right for Bill. Let's make him proud up there in Kitbasher Heaven.
Ryan</i>
