Post by JerkJerk on Feb 13, 2014 2:47:09 GMT -6
I would like everyone to read and post on this thread, because it is extremely important (in my opinion) that everyone has a say in what's going on in our newish community. It may very well have serious implications upon our small community from being just a small community or an even larger one.
______________
Dear TCGRev Forums,
So, ladies and gents. Thanks for taking the time to get this far, and to everyone who has been a part of the community up until this point. A special thanks to all the ex-TCGplayer members who took a chance on us and have stuck it out trying to build something for yourselves here. We deeply appreciate the overwhelming support we got when this all started. We had hoped that by 3 Months we'd have about 300 members and a good core group of about 30 members leading the way on making us even bigger in the coming months heading into 2014 Nationals season. This has not happened, even though it was one of our early year goals for 2014.
Now, it may be a surprise to some, but the building of a Forum for people to congregate before we launched a massive YuGiOh article site was actually supposed to be a temporary and mostly static form of keeping people together who came from the TCGplayer Forums. When BigStinkin'Ape, Shadwen, and myself actually drew up the plans for how this process would unfold; this forum platform was discussed and dismissed. We were going to build a forum from scratch to be tied into the main site as a means to build community among those followers of our blog and article. Our main focus was to be a Media outlet for Yu-Gi-Oh!. A Dedicated Youtube presence, a Tumblr/Reddit presence that simply provided a massive amount of quality game material under one tag. This actual project (as some might remember was "Tier Zer0". Due to copyrights and other things, it became TCG Revolution. Due to... well, difference of opinion and commitment, our initial team of site builders fizzled out and we created this as our base to begin launching out.
Now we're 4 months in and haven't gotten off anywhere near to the start we wanted.
Our timeline for a fully functioning Article site that had a basic forum we were going to alter and design to our communities satisfaction was supposed to be launched right around Christmas, in time for a new Format, some nice articles about the list and Kelly Locke heading up our writing team, giving us a sort of recognition that we were for real. We wanted to build the new Metagame.com with a connecting force of interfaces. This did not happen.
As such, we are adapting. With our main Administration team going through rough patches and communicative differences we were unable to deliver what was promised and planned. On behalf of the Administration, I would like to now apologize for our lack of results. It's unfair to you, our legacy and founding members, to have placed such a promise before you and not come through. With that said, we are not going to back down and just give up. No, we're going to continue to build, albeit, at a much slower and better planned approach. For now, our focus is here and we need your help.
Right now for those who can access our staff area, you might notice the ongoing debate about what said community needs and wants. I have my own views, the Administration has their own views and the Mods each have their say and opinion about what is the best approach. But we need to hear it from the few members we have on what they'd like to see.
In the coming months, there will be changes and there will be growth. This forum base might not exist. The idea of porting our server from proboards to a more professional and aesthetically pleasing software is on the table. Likely in the works. As we do not have the needed coders and web designers, we would likely switch to a more encompassing software, like vBulletin or like Vanilla Forums. What is also planned in terms of growth is bringing in more active members from other communities to help build and network ourselves around. We want to be known, we want people interested. We want to build our member base through bulk and through quality. We want to have a niche, and an identity many communities lack. We want the pros and the new guys (Or anyone in between!). Most of all, we want balance and a place you all can feel comfortable and happy to be apart of.
If I were to grade the forum today, I'd give it a C-. All of the positive notes come from our current member base, and kudos, we're proud you all want to be with us on our journey. The failing was on our behalf, and we want to make up for it.
To help with this process of transition (yet again), we want all of our members, new and old, active and inactive, to please post on this thread. Discuss the state of the forums, post ideas, volunteer to help; but overall we just want you to know we;re here for you now and we want you guys to be the backbone of our community. We want you guys to choose the direction we go in and help us achieve that. This started as an idea we three had to provide our friends a place like home was to us. TCGplayer was my Yu-Gi-Oh! home for almost 8 years, as a member, as a Mod and eventually a Forum overseer to everyone. I understand what my task was, and when TCGplayer finally was taken down last September, I knew that I wanted to replace that feeling of home for my favourite hobby.
I hope everyone can give us their thoughts on what they want, or even just general discussion.
Sincerely,
JerkJerk - TCGRevolution Administrator
______________
Dear TCGRev Forums,
So, ladies and gents. Thanks for taking the time to get this far, and to everyone who has been a part of the community up until this point. A special thanks to all the ex-TCGplayer members who took a chance on us and have stuck it out trying to build something for yourselves here. We deeply appreciate the overwhelming support we got when this all started. We had hoped that by 3 Months we'd have about 300 members and a good core group of about 30 members leading the way on making us even bigger in the coming months heading into 2014 Nationals season. This has not happened, even though it was one of our early year goals for 2014.
Now, it may be a surprise to some, but the building of a Forum for people to congregate before we launched a massive YuGiOh article site was actually supposed to be a temporary and mostly static form of keeping people together who came from the TCGplayer Forums. When BigStinkin'Ape, Shadwen, and myself actually drew up the plans for how this process would unfold; this forum platform was discussed and dismissed. We were going to build a forum from scratch to be tied into the main site as a means to build community among those followers of our blog and article. Our main focus was to be a Media outlet for Yu-Gi-Oh!. A Dedicated Youtube presence, a Tumblr/Reddit presence that simply provided a massive amount of quality game material under one tag. This actual project (as some might remember was "Tier Zer0". Due to copyrights and other things, it became TCG Revolution. Due to... well, difference of opinion and commitment, our initial team of site builders fizzled out and we created this as our base to begin launching out.
Now we're 4 months in and haven't gotten off anywhere near to the start we wanted.
Our timeline for a fully functioning Article site that had a basic forum we were going to alter and design to our communities satisfaction was supposed to be launched right around Christmas, in time for a new Format, some nice articles about the list and Kelly Locke heading up our writing team, giving us a sort of recognition that we were for real. We wanted to build the new Metagame.com with a connecting force of interfaces. This did not happen.
As such, we are adapting. With our main Administration team going through rough patches and communicative differences we were unable to deliver what was promised and planned. On behalf of the Administration, I would like to now apologize for our lack of results. It's unfair to you, our legacy and founding members, to have placed such a promise before you and not come through. With that said, we are not going to back down and just give up. No, we're going to continue to build, albeit, at a much slower and better planned approach. For now, our focus is here and we need your help.
Right now for those who can access our staff area, you might notice the ongoing debate about what said community needs and wants. I have my own views, the Administration has their own views and the Mods each have their say and opinion about what is the best approach. But we need to hear it from the few members we have on what they'd like to see.
In the coming months, there will be changes and there will be growth. This forum base might not exist. The idea of porting our server from proboards to a more professional and aesthetically pleasing software is on the table. Likely in the works. As we do not have the needed coders and web designers, we would likely switch to a more encompassing software, like vBulletin or like Vanilla Forums. What is also planned in terms of growth is bringing in more active members from other communities to help build and network ourselves around. We want to be known, we want people interested. We want to build our member base through bulk and through quality. We want to have a niche, and an identity many communities lack. We want the pros and the new guys (Or anyone in between!). Most of all, we want balance and a place you all can feel comfortable and happy to be apart of.
If I were to grade the forum today, I'd give it a C-. All of the positive notes come from our current member base, and kudos, we're proud you all want to be with us on our journey. The failing was on our behalf, and we want to make up for it.
To help with this process of transition (yet again), we want all of our members, new and old, active and inactive, to please post on this thread. Discuss the state of the forums, post ideas, volunteer to help; but overall we just want you to know we;re here for you now and we want you guys to be the backbone of our community. We want you guys to choose the direction we go in and help us achieve that. This started as an idea we three had to provide our friends a place like home was to us. TCGplayer was my Yu-Gi-Oh! home for almost 8 years, as a member, as a Mod and eventually a Forum overseer to everyone. I understand what my task was, and when TCGplayer finally was taken down last September, I knew that I wanted to replace that feeling of home for my favourite hobby.
I hope everyone can give us their thoughts on what they want, or even just general discussion.
Sincerely,
JerkJerk - TCGRevolution Administrator