Post by Frozen on Aug 26, 2010 4:40:34 GMT -5
(I apologise for the massively horrible forum stretching)
Ok, first of all. Please consider this carefully. Don't make a snap decision on it. Go away, think about it a while, and come back.
So, here's the deal. I've been doing a bit of field research (don't I sound classy) in the time I was waiting around for Mystic before I sent out that email. I want CotF to be a successful site once more, and I want all the awesome members to stay and have fun like we used to. I've been looking at a lot of Warriors RP sites for inspiration as to what the new layout of this site should be, we all agree it's pretty disheveled right now. Now, I found there was pretty much one formula repeated over and over. I've messed around with a new skin and layout on a test site. I've been playing with graphics, and also I've been code hunting on the most popular sites. I found that, after a while, I knew exactly what codes each proboards site was using. A few times, I've even known where they got the picture of the cat they used in their banner. I know there are definitely other good Warriors RP sites out there, CotF is the best to me, but I realise that it's not _the best_
Looking in on CotF as an "outsider" - what would it offer to me? It doesn't have a pretty layout like all the other proboards sites. I could just find a better site. It doesn't have lovely shiny graphics everywhere. So I'd just find one that suited my tastes better. What plot does it have? None? The members all know each other. I'll never fit in with them. ETC ETC
So I was a bit perplexed over what to do to make CotF stand out. To be honest, I had trouble trying to make it look somewhat different to all the other hundreds of sites using the same codes and pictures. Even so, to me personally, a nice layout or graphics wouldn't improve my opinion of CotF. I don't need them really. I enjoy the members and the fun we have. That's all there is for me, and I think that's also why we have some really awesome members who have been loyal for years, isn't it?
Yes, this is getting a bit tl;dr. But please bear with me, we haven't even gotten to the good (or bad..) part yet!
Anyway so I email everyone, and along comes Mirage. Mirage is a cool member and I was happy to hear from her of course, but she suggested something to me that kind of served as an alternative to all the fuss I was making before. I was not convinced at first I tell you. You probably won't be either that's why I just want you to think about it for a while before replying. This is what she proposed to us...
We move this site over to Simple Machines.
www.simplemachines.org/
AKA we leave this site behind and all register on a different type of forum.
My first reaction to this was- what!? no! A new forum wouldn't be THIS forum, and all that....
So I'm sure you all have a lot of cons swimming about in your head right now. But I've had time to think about this and I've changed my opinion somewhat. I registered on the site (the hugest warriors site I've ever seen btw) and tried out a few things. I found it was in fact quite a bit more decent than proboards and this is the list of pros I've came up with.
Pros of switching to Simple Machines (inc. screenshots. I can only apologise for my messy handwriting. But it's the effort that counts, right?)
K first of all, SM is much like a proboards in terms of it's a general forum. Categories and boards and all that. Skins headers whatever. But here's some screenie's I took to show you a few of the features I liked about the sites.
Number 1 - Main Page
I'm not saying the url of the forum here (Mirage and I fear you will all disappear over there, heaven forbid.)
It's pretty simple. It does the job. Yet it is different from the 482649 proboards sites all competing to have a pretty and interesting layout (and a lot of the time imo they go overboard). CotF was always a simple site, and we liked it. Why change that?
The header/skin and everything there, we'll be able to do more with it, apparently that site is in the middle of a revamp, don't be put off by the monotony.
Number 2 - SHOP
Sorry, I had to include this. I got so hyper over seeing this. It's exciting, no?
Number 3 - Drop what you're doing- this could be YOUR profile page with a gazillion customisable opinions.
Number 4 - 2nd part of profile page
Number 5 - Example post
See, it's not alien-different, but at the same time being stand-out-interestingly-different.
I didn't want to waste more of my life on a cat site with 10 members so I only took 5 but when you're writing this thread at 1 in the morning 5 will seem a darn lot! So anyway I shall bring us to the first point why I think moving the site to SM is a good idea.
Simple Machines is not proboards, it's different, and it will be fun to not be on proboards
Look at it. Have you actually looked at it? Years of proboards and trying to escape from the odd invisionfree. What warriors ads have you seen that are Simple Machines based? Nope, just proboards,proboards, proboards, oh look! well it's a good job i damn well like proboards
This site is all over the place - and who's going to fix it?
I've pretty much been the one making all the skins and banners in the past. But this time I'm afraid I can't. Not only am I not good enough anymore, but I don't actually have any desire to. Sure another person can come and do it, but even if any of you are ace skin/graphics makers, you have school, and this has to be done quickly. Taking the dire need for a new layout into the picture as well, and this is a huge job. No one really has the time for this right now.
Do we really want to see the old CotF warped into some new-age million sidetables psychosis?
I don't, really. CotF always had this layout, when I made a new skin I used some hex colours and a kitty graphic. Nothing was wrong with it at the time... but as the years go by people want more and more it seems. I think, to see CotF forced into something it's not would be a shame. Looking back on the old threads, they kinda have more feeling when the layout is still pants like it used to be.
We've not been here for 2 years. The site was only really open for 2 years before that.
2 years for younger people like you (I'd like to say us but then again I know some of you will be like -you're ancient, Frozen! - so you know, whatever) is a long time. A lot will have changed for everyone I'm sure. There are over 1000 threads in the archives from 2 years ago, each one the admins/mods (but mostly me) painstakingly moved instead of just going to the panel and saying delete all the old threads please. This was a site for back then. To come back now when everything is in pieces would not really be logical when we'd have a nice blank canvass to work on with SM.
The issue of new members
There was one thread in particular that I was surprised at when I re-read it. I'm not bothering to find out the link but it basically said "Do you realise that we're slowly dying off?" What I meant back then was that we had our group of members from the early years, but slowly people left, which is to be expected. But we never really got any new members, so in the end the site just stopped. I love you all but we do have to have new members to keep the site active. People weren't joining the old version and although in theory a lot of new people "joined", they often said Hi then never came back. May be just personal opinion here but, I've tried joining other warriors sites, and the closeknit members always put me off. I feel like I'm intruding something and I'm not welcome anyway. It's like being new girl at school to an extent (and anyone who's ever been new girl knows it's tough). If we had a new site, new members are a lot more likely to join.
Equality
Leading on from the new members a bit. Right now I'd love to be elitist in the fact that I joined in 2006 and have thousands of posts and a large packet of oreos. But let's just face it, that's perceived badly when anyone but yourself does it. I absolutely hate it when people get all "yeah I'm more important than you because I joined last year!" It's bigheaded, not very nice, and just no thank you I'll go somewhere else. So what I mean is, although we probably all like the fact we're "senior" members, it's not the best way to go about reforming the site, just a group of old friends adding on top of their already 2 or 3 years of stats. If we all registered on a new site, we'd all be equals again (or course we are equals now, just, ugh, you know what I mean, we'd all be reset to zero and able to go on as we please). Younger as well as new members could fit in well and everything would be peachy.
Getting re-acquainted
A lot of you have already been through the hell of looking through 100s of threads for your old cats. Most likely you can't even remember what they're like. I can't really either. If we swapped over, we'd get a clean start at that as well. Of course you can just copy and paste your bio's over, but there is also the chance to read, alter, and polish them up if anyone would like that opportunity.
Not just your cats though. I think if we all "started again", we would see a lot more fun general threads etc, because here we just got into the habit of not posting them any more. Can't you see how fun this all sounds...?
Lastly,
Simple Machines is cool, innit?
-puts on best british accent- Well I jolly well think so!
Ok, those are my reasons I think we should go to SM. This post is bound to be a bit opinionated but it has to be for me to get my point across I suppose. Don't be a hater, if you disagree, then that's fine.
Just appreciate this thread took a very long time to write, and I care a lot it's all very serious business here!
If we do end up going along with this...
I am prepared to go though all the boredom of adding all the boards, but it has to be soon though, because contrary to popular opinion I do actually have a life off the internet. I start college in a few weeks, I only have a while more where I can be here refreshing the site like a creepo. College, man. I am not going to have time to do much to CotF when I have to go on the biggest friend-making mission of my life (yes I do basically see uni as a friend making mission)
Of course I'd love help from you guys. If you would want to help in any way say so. Even if you can't help now though, we will still share out the admins/mods/other things ranks out accordingly. (That's another problem on this site - no one can change people's member group or give other people powers or anything, only Mystic can, so you'll be stuck with me for possibly... a LONG TIME hahaha)
Now guys, I know this is Mystic's site, and I'm only the co admin here, but I have been lurking around here since January. Mystic doesn't answer her email, I've tried a few other ways of contacting her but I'm afraid until she actually types in the url and come logs on, she isn't here. And I fear we may be waiting a while. Everyone's just coming back, and to take full advantage of what we have, I think we have to get going quickly. If we moved the site to SM and it was all active and cool, I'm sure she wouldn't mind too much.... and of course we'd keep the admin account for her. We all love Mystic.
So anyway, THIS WAS MIRAGE'S ORIGINAL IDEA. If you like it, give her all the cookies. If you don't, well then I'm always here to have things thrown at me. That's just the way it is.
Please post your opinions here on this. I honestly do value them. Just, don't shoot don't the idea straight away, I'd really appreciate it.
And a big thank you if you managed to read the whole thing
Ok, first of all. Please consider this carefully. Don't make a snap decision on it. Go away, think about it a while, and come back.
So, here's the deal. I've been doing a bit of field research (don't I sound classy) in the time I was waiting around for Mystic before I sent out that email. I want CotF to be a successful site once more, and I want all the awesome members to stay and have fun like we used to. I've been looking at a lot of Warriors RP sites for inspiration as to what the new layout of this site should be, we all agree it's pretty disheveled right now. Now, I found there was pretty much one formula repeated over and over. I've messed around with a new skin and layout on a test site. I've been playing with graphics, and also I've been code hunting on the most popular sites. I found that, after a while, I knew exactly what codes each proboards site was using. A few times, I've even known where they got the picture of the cat they used in their banner. I know there are definitely other good Warriors RP sites out there, CotF is the best to me, but I realise that it's not _the best_
Looking in on CotF as an "outsider" - what would it offer to me? It doesn't have a pretty layout like all the other proboards sites. I could just find a better site. It doesn't have lovely shiny graphics everywhere. So I'd just find one that suited my tastes better. What plot does it have? None? The members all know each other. I'll never fit in with them. ETC ETC
So I was a bit perplexed over what to do to make CotF stand out. To be honest, I had trouble trying to make it look somewhat different to all the other hundreds of sites using the same codes and pictures. Even so, to me personally, a nice layout or graphics wouldn't improve my opinion of CotF. I don't need them really. I enjoy the members and the fun we have. That's all there is for me, and I think that's also why we have some really awesome members who have been loyal for years, isn't it?
Yes, this is getting a bit tl;dr. But please bear with me, we haven't even gotten to the good (or bad..) part yet!
Anyway so I email everyone, and along comes Mirage. Mirage is a cool member and I was happy to hear from her of course, but she suggested something to me that kind of served as an alternative to all the fuss I was making before. I was not convinced at first I tell you. You probably won't be either that's why I just want you to think about it for a while before replying. This is what she proposed to us...
We move this site over to Simple Machines.
www.simplemachines.org/
AKA we leave this site behind and all register on a different type of forum.
My first reaction to this was- what!? no! A new forum wouldn't be THIS forum, and all that....
So I'm sure you all have a lot of cons swimming about in your head right now. But I've had time to think about this and I've changed my opinion somewhat. I registered on the site (the hugest warriors site I've ever seen btw) and tried out a few things. I found it was in fact quite a bit more decent than proboards and this is the list of pros I've came up with.
Pros of switching to Simple Machines (inc. screenshots. I can only apologise for my messy handwriting. But it's the effort that counts, right?)
K first of all, SM is much like a proboards in terms of it's a general forum. Categories and boards and all that. Skins headers whatever. But here's some screenie's I took to show you a few of the features I liked about the sites.
Number 1 - Main Page
I'm not saying the url of the forum here (Mirage and I fear you will all disappear over there, heaven forbid.)
It's pretty simple. It does the job. Yet it is different from the 482649 proboards sites all competing to have a pretty and interesting layout (and a lot of the time imo they go overboard). CotF was always a simple site, and we liked it. Why change that?
The header/skin and everything there, we'll be able to do more with it, apparently that site is in the middle of a revamp, don't be put off by the monotony.
Number 2 - SHOP
Sorry, I had to include this. I got so hyper over seeing this. It's exciting, no?
Number 3 - Drop what you're doing- this could be YOUR profile page with a gazillion customisable opinions.
Number 4 - 2nd part of profile page
Number 5 - Example post
See, it's not alien-different, but at the same time being stand-out-interestingly-different.
I didn't want to waste more of my life on a cat site with 10 members so I only took 5 but when you're writing this thread at 1 in the morning 5 will seem a darn lot! So anyway I shall bring us to the first point why I think moving the site to SM is a good idea.
Simple Machines is not proboards, it's different, and it will be fun to not be on proboards
Look at it. Have you actually looked at it? Years of proboards and trying to escape from the odd invisionfree. What warriors ads have you seen that are Simple Machines based? Nope, just proboards,proboards, proboards, oh look! well it's a good job i damn well like proboards
This site is all over the place - and who's going to fix it?
I've pretty much been the one making all the skins and banners in the past. But this time I'm afraid I can't. Not only am I not good enough anymore, but I don't actually have any desire to. Sure another person can come and do it, but even if any of you are ace skin/graphics makers, you have school, and this has to be done quickly. Taking the dire need for a new layout into the picture as well, and this is a huge job. No one really has the time for this right now.
Do we really want to see the old CotF warped into some new-age million sidetables psychosis?
I don't, really. CotF always had this layout, when I made a new skin I used some hex colours and a kitty graphic. Nothing was wrong with it at the time... but as the years go by people want more and more it seems. I think, to see CotF forced into something it's not would be a shame. Looking back on the old threads, they kinda have more feeling when the layout is still pants like it used to be.
We've not been here for 2 years. The site was only really open for 2 years before that.
2 years for younger people like you (I'd like to say us but then again I know some of you will be like -you're ancient, Frozen! - so you know, whatever) is a long time. A lot will have changed for everyone I'm sure. There are over 1000 threads in the archives from 2 years ago, each one the admins/mods (but mostly me) painstakingly moved instead of just going to the panel and saying delete all the old threads please. This was a site for back then. To come back now when everything is in pieces would not really be logical when we'd have a nice blank canvass to work on with SM.
The issue of new members
There was one thread in particular that I was surprised at when I re-read it. I'm not bothering to find out the link but it basically said "Do you realise that we're slowly dying off?" What I meant back then was that we had our group of members from the early years, but slowly people left, which is to be expected. But we never really got any new members, so in the end the site just stopped. I love you all but we do have to have new members to keep the site active. People weren't joining the old version and although in theory a lot of new people "joined", they often said Hi then never came back. May be just personal opinion here but, I've tried joining other warriors sites, and the closeknit members always put me off. I feel like I'm intruding something and I'm not welcome anyway. It's like being new girl at school to an extent (and anyone who's ever been new girl knows it's tough). If we had a new site, new members are a lot more likely to join.
Equality
Leading on from the new members a bit. Right now I'd love to be elitist in the fact that I joined in 2006 and have thousands of posts and a large packet of oreos. But let's just face it, that's perceived badly when anyone but yourself does it. I absolutely hate it when people get all "yeah I'm more important than you because I joined last year!" It's bigheaded, not very nice, and just no thank you I'll go somewhere else. So what I mean is, although we probably all like the fact we're "senior" members, it's not the best way to go about reforming the site, just a group of old friends adding on top of their already 2 or 3 years of stats. If we all registered on a new site, we'd all be equals again (or course we are equals now, just, ugh, you know what I mean, we'd all be reset to zero and able to go on as we please). Younger as well as new members could fit in well and everything would be peachy.
Getting re-acquainted
A lot of you have already been through the hell of looking through 100s of threads for your old cats. Most likely you can't even remember what they're like. I can't really either. If we swapped over, we'd get a clean start at that as well. Of course you can just copy and paste your bio's over, but there is also the chance to read, alter, and polish them up if anyone would like that opportunity.
Not just your cats though. I think if we all "started again", we would see a lot more fun general threads etc, because here we just got into the habit of not posting them any more. Can't you see how fun this all sounds...?
Lastly,
Simple Machines is cool, innit?
-puts on best british accent- Well I jolly well think so!
Ok, those are my reasons I think we should go to SM. This post is bound to be a bit opinionated but it has to be for me to get my point across I suppose. Don't be a hater, if you disagree, then that's fine.
Just appreciate this thread took a very long time to write, and I care a lot it's all very serious business here!
If we do end up going along with this...
I am prepared to go though all the boredom of adding all the boards, but it has to be soon though, because contrary to popular opinion I do actually have a life off the internet. I start college in a few weeks, I only have a while more where I can be here refreshing the site like a creepo. College, man. I am not going to have time to do much to CotF when I have to go on the biggest friend-making mission of my life (yes I do basically see uni as a friend making mission)
Of course I'd love help from you guys. If you would want to help in any way say so. Even if you can't help now though, we will still share out the admins/mods/other things ranks out accordingly. (That's another problem on this site - no one can change people's member group or give other people powers or anything, only Mystic can, so you'll be stuck with me for possibly... a LONG TIME hahaha)
Now guys, I know this is Mystic's site, and I'm only the co admin here, but I have been lurking around here since January. Mystic doesn't answer her email, I've tried a few other ways of contacting her but I'm afraid until she actually types in the url and come logs on, she isn't here. And I fear we may be waiting a while. Everyone's just coming back, and to take full advantage of what we have, I think we have to get going quickly. If we moved the site to SM and it was all active and cool, I'm sure she wouldn't mind too much.... and of course we'd keep the admin account for her. We all love Mystic.
So anyway, THIS WAS MIRAGE'S ORIGINAL IDEA. If you like it, give her all the cookies. If you don't, well then I'm always here to have things thrown at me. That's just the way it is.
Please post your opinions here on this. I honestly do value them. Just, don't shoot don't the idea straight away, I'd really appreciate it.
And a big thank you if you managed to read the whole thing
