Good evening. Some updates from a busy day:
- Like Moose said in the previous announcement, if you want anything from the OG, now is the time. Interestingly enough, the spam filter that had previously protected the old forum went offline less than 24 hours after we boarded the lifeboats. Server errors are piling up, so it might not even make it to Judgement Day, on or around May 28th.
- Speaking of OG Judgement Day, I'd like to convert our Oral History into more of a memorial. One of those June 14th, 2006 - May 28th, 2025 things. Not sure what or how yet, but the idea came to me the other night. Like I said, a great story that could have ended but didn't. Plus it gives the place personality for newer members experiencing our jam for the first time.
- There's a new roleplay kicking off with Louanne as the GM. Not sure if they're still recruiting, but you should definitely check it out. There will be more games and its a great way to practice writing and think on your feet.
- Great job with the Workshop. I see a lot of stories in there with active participation. I'll be doing some crits myself if I can find sometime. I understand posting work and giving crit isn't everyone's jam, but it's very important for the health and welfare of the community. It's what we do. And you can't really find in too many other places without navigating the maelstrom of social media. And I can't stress enough how much you learn by critiquing somebody else's writing.
- Speaking of social media, the Team has started the basic discussion of what it might look like and how to go about doing it. We're not there yet, but it's relatively just starting to heat up on the backburner.
- We got the new anonymizer for the contests and have built out the area, as I'm sure most of you have seen. We haven't officially greenlit anything, but I believe we be able to reboot the contest cycle on the first of the month. We will make a separate announcement when the time comes.
- I've sorted out some of my legal questions and am ready to proceed with the LLC filing to further protect the Forum (and me). It doesn't have any real effect on our jam. Only that the Forum will be part of a legal entity, which I need for liability and potential tax purposes. And it'll look good on a letterhead. Like my dad always says, if you want to make a point, stick it under department title.
- I have some family members who are long time graphic designers who will be designing our banners, logos, graphics, and anything else we need. I'll be seeing them over the weekend to go over things. It's going to take a minute, I'd imagine, but we should get some high quality professional branding when it's all done.
- We're also looking into the old Members Who Visited In The Last 24 Hours widget/add-on. It's part of a package of like 500 other Xenforo apps. You can't use too many of them at once because they conflict with each other and make weird shit happen in the software. But there might a thing or two useful in there.
- I think after the contests are up and running, we'll then examine our current content and work on a more detailed buildout of the Workshop and The Writing Craft areas. We opened in three days with the most basic concept possible. Given the failure of the Spam Shield a day later, that was probably a wise choice. You can thank Moose for that. He pushed to open as soon as possible. Not sure what the expansion will look like, but I imagine it'll be similar to the OG with the Workshop Genres and different sections for character, plot, setting, et al. You'll probably see us slapping prefixes/tags around the forum so we know which room to stick them in. Measure twice, cut once. The beauty of the new joint is that we can build everything the right way with an eye toward where you want to go in the future.
