Dementrix Animations is an ambitious new flash site which features a traditional flash portal mixed with many of the features normally found on a social networking site. Currently all the design, layout, graphics, text and programming are done by one guy.
Why should I sign up for the site?
By signing up for the site you can rate, review and submit flashes. You will get your own user page with a custom URL, eg http://ZOMG1337.dementrix.com, which is easy to customize to create the look you want for your profile. You can also recieve the dementrix newsletter and updates on your favourite authors - oh, did I mention you can keep a list of your favourite authors and animations and share it with the world on your profile page? You can also start earning points, the site's virtual currency. You will also be able to participate in the forums, coming soon, and you will have your own blog and image gallery when these features are released (sorry, I'm just one guy)
Hey, did you know about X vulnerability in the site?
Probably not. If you find anything like this I'd be really grateful if you'd let me know. No sensitive user data is stored in the database, so unless you really hate me for some reason, please don't do anything too crazy.
Why the monochrome color scheme?
There's a lot of planned features allowing users to customise the way dementrix appears for them and influencing the way it appears for others. The "base" skin is designed to be functional but minimal.
What's the deal with points?
Points are the site's online currency, used for buying profile upgrades like custom backgrounds, bigger file upload size limits etc. More stuff is being added all the time to spend your points on. Points are absolutely free and are accumulated by participating in the site, as well as certain special actions like getting yourself an avatar and filling in some of the optional sections of your profile.
Why don't you make these features available without the points system?
This is a new startup site. I have limited resources and a very limited budget. The points system restricts large file uploads and other server killing stuff to users who spend a little time participating in the site. After all, once you have a few well rated flashes, you log in every day/week/whenever you can, and you're always rating and reviewing stuff, it's much easier to trust you with uploading large files and messing with some more interesting site related stuff (global background changes? free place on the banner rotation?). Yes, these will all be available, and these are all ways of earnings points.
In the future, if this becomes financially viable, there may be physical items to buy for points, such as dementrix merchandise, money prizes, and other nice stuff.
How can I help with the site?
Right now I'm doing all the programming, gfx, and everything else myself, which is fine for the time being. I'm a student, and I don't have any money to hire anyone, and besides I enjoy working on it...for now. However, a site like this will always have heavy server demands, and ads, especially during early days like this, simply don't cover all the costs. Yes, I could plaster ads all over the site, but this is not a direction I want to take if I can avoid it. If you like the site and use it regularly, I'd really appreciate you throwing a few dollars my way if/when you can. Any amount will help cover these costs, although very small amounts, eg 20c, may be eaten up by paypal. As a thankyou for the donation, 50 points will be credited to your account for every dollar donated. Just make sure to let me know your profile name when you donate, and points will be added soon.
If you have an account, remember to login before clicking here!
Even more important than donations, the best way to help is to upload flash, rate and review others' flashes, and generally take part in the community as much as possible. Without that, this site means nothing.
I'm also currently looking for reliable people to help moderate the content submitted to the site. Basic mySQL knowledge is required (ie how to manipulate a database using phpmysql) for now until I create a full-fledged admin backend.
What can I submit to the FFA?
All types of flash are welcome, as long as they comply with the site's upload rules. Long story short, if you would show it to your mother, you can definitely upload it; if you would show it to your 15 year old brother you can almost definitely upload it. If it's illegal in any way, especially illegal sex acts etc, you can expect an account ban, an ip ban, and a very swift visit from the FBI, to whom your ip address will be reported.
Aside from that, all movies, animations, games, apps, and other less genre specific pieces, referred to here as "experiences" are welcome on the site.
How do I increase my voting power?
Participate. Regularly. This will automatically increase your voting power. Voting power upgrades will arrive at the points store soon to give your voting power that extra boost to give the flash you view the praise/deletion it requires.
My flash got deleted...what gives?
Did it comply with T&C? If not, there's your answer. Otherwise, it sounds like your animation got deleted from having too low a "value". On Dementrix, the "value" of a flash is automatically assessed by looking at the filesize of a flash, the number of views it is receiving, and the flash's score. This determines whether it's worth the space on the server that it's occupying. If not, your flash may be deleted to make space for others. This is to keep down server costs, and will be removed/lightened if the site ever goes dedicated. Fed up with your flash getting deleted? Optimize it to reduce filesize, get all your friends to sign up and vote high for it, these will all help your flash go undeleted. Coming soon to the points store is an upgrade which artificially increases the "value" of a flash, or even saves if from deletion permanently. Once your flash has been on the site for 48 hours, it is safe from deletion in this way.
Can I get points for referring a friend to the site?
You bet you can. Fill in the referall form here. You will receive 100 points for every friend that signs up and activates their account, and will receive further points when they upload and contribute to the site. If you cheat the system, it will be very obvious. On a first offence your points will be decreased to -9999 and you will be banned from opening another account, and from getting points by referring friends. On a second offence you will recieve a site-wide user and ip ban.
Can I upload other people's work?
Absolutely NOT. Anyone caught doing this will get an account ban on first offence, then an ip ban. If you see some flash which you think would be great for the site, please ask the author if they would consider uploading it themselves, or fill in this form and we'll contact them.
My work is on the site, but I didn't upload it...wtf?
Please contact us immediately and we will verify and remove the content ASAP.
Can I upload porn in my flash/avatar/profile banner/bg?
No. Not only is this against site rules, it is also against new laws to upload such content without proof of age. Whether or not something is porn will be judged by a site admin. If it's a flash it'll be deleted and you'll receive a warning. If it's an avatar/profile banner/bg, we'll probably restrict you from uploading those in future and replace it with something funny...in an embarrassing way.
Due to recent law changes regarding proof of age documentation, any photos depicting person(s) engaging in sexual activity are not only against site rules, but illegal, and authorities will be contacted if neccessary.
This site loads slowly on my 56k modem/ZX Spectrum 64K/other antique, and tbh redundant means of internet access.
Yep. It's graphically intensive and designed for those with at very least 512k internet access...so...yeah. Could've compressed layout images etc, but pngs allow so much more creative freedom, especially for customising profile pages. Suggested action: sell antique equipment on eBay and donate profits to dementrix.
What CMS are you using for the site?
Dementrix animations is coded from scratch, using PHP5 for server side code execution and MySQL for database storage. The Apache RewriteEngine is used for URL rewriting. The site currently runs on around 3000 total lines of PHP code.
What forum system do you use?
Again, the forums are coded from scratch for complete integration with the aesthetics and features of the rest of the site.
