Consider this a soft relaunch...
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Posts Tagged ‘thorum’
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Long-time readers of the site are probably familiar with our online community, the THorum. When I started Theater Hopper, it was a great way to interact with fans and we had a really good run of civility and fun for a couple of years.
Unfortunately, time commitments prevented me from visiting the THorum as often as I would like and the time I did spend there was directed toward fending off spambots, who were swarming the forum by the dozen, daily.
When I relaunched the site in WordPress earlier in the year, I decided to take another stab at the THorum, this time upgrading to phpBB3.
Unfortunately, the same maintenance problems reared their ugly heads and the THorum is now inaccessible.
I was pretty much ready to pull the plug and rely on feedback from the blog comments when I received an interesting offer from Halforum.com.
First, a bit of history. About a year ago, Scott Kurtz from PVP closed the doors on his forum. Halforum was founded by a couple of people from the PVP forum in an effort to keep the community together. I was a semi-regular on the PVP forums before they shut down and have been casual acquaintances of the group since.
Recently, the administrators from Halforum have reached out to me with an interest to establish a partnership. Basically, I link to a subdomain within their forum from Theater Hopper. They obtain access to potentially new members and I have the burden of forum maintenance lifted off my shoulders. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.
I'm mentioning this to you guys because I'm trying to build some consensus. I know most of you who respond in the comments filed will probably say that the comments are suffice when it comes to community building or feedback. But I'm curious if there are any of you out there looking for something more?
Generally, I just want to know your thoughts. Is partnering with Halforum a good idea or a bad idea. Do you think you would check it out? If not, why?
The original THorum went a long way toward helping establish Theater Hopper and make it a success. So I still find value in using forums as a communications and networking tool. I just wanted to take everyone's pulse on the matter. What do you think?
I feel like since I relaunched the site, there are a million and one things I want to call your attention to. But I also want to be careful not to overwhelm you with too much stuff at once. So I'm trying to parse things out a little bit.
This afternoon, why not consider joining the Theater Hopper THorum>? It's a great place for fans of the comic and movies in general to come in and get to know each other!
I'm also using the THorum as a place to help steer the redesign in the right direction. Let me know if you catch any broken links or make suggestions for new features to add! Or, if you're looking for a more light-hearted diversion, I'm taking suggestions for movie quotes to add to the randomizer that displays them at the bottom of every page here on the site!
Hope to see you there!
A few quick odds and ends to close out the day:
- There was a little bit of a problem with the blog commenting and THorum registrations, but I think we have that ironed out. So if you want to join the conversation, it should be easier to do.
- I completely forgot to tell you guys about my guest strip at Dueling Analogs. Please go check it out.
I'm doing my good friend Steve a solid because things are a little hectic in his life right now. The holidays were weighing heavily on his mind, he just got a new job and - most importantly - he'll be having a baby soon!
I was reminded of how kind everyone was to me when Henry was born by chipping in with guest comics and well-wishes, I couldn't say no when Steve made the call. Congrats, buddy!
- Last, but not least, we'll be recording our first episode of The Triple Feature of 2009 tonight at 9:00 PM CST at http://www.thetriplefeature.com. Be sure to listen to us live and join in the fun. I think we're going to take the evening to reconnect with each other after the holidays and share with everyone the movies we've been watching. It should be a casual evening before our big Best of 2008 show coming up soon. Be sure to tune in!
That's pretty much all for now, but I have much more to talk about. Be sure to visit the site tomorrow for more news and updates. You won't want to miss it!
Something that I forgot to mention yesterday was that our online community - that place we lovingly refer to as the THorum - celebrated its one year anniversary yesterday. Finally, I fell like we're over the hump when it comes to providing a place for Theater Hopper fans to communicate with one another.
The history of the THorum is a long and complicated one. Marred by gross ineptitude on my part, this is actually the third incarnation of the community. Those who have been with me from the start know the story I am about to tell.
When I started Theater Hopper in August of 2002, one of the first things I made sure to have was a forum. I believed strongly that developing a community was key to getting the site off the ground. Initial fans would congregate and then spread word of Theater Hopper to all corners of the internet.
When only 20 or so people signed up after 3 months online, I grew impatient and shut it down.
Hey, don't blame me! I'm a moron, remember? I was totally naive to the fact that having 500 unique visitors per month wouldn't necessarily translate into an online community. Remember, I'm the same guy who tried raking in donations and advertisements when I was barely a blip on the radar screen. At that time, Theater Hopper was a pimple on the ass of web comics. I'm happy to say we've since moved up to "boil" status.
About 6 months after voluntarily closing the first forum and steadily watching our readership grow, I decided to take another swing at establishing a community. Another forum was forged.
Things went well for a while. We had gathered a little clique and we were online without and problems for a good length of time. That is until a catastrophic server failure totally crippled the site. The database that ran the forum was lost and I nearly lost a year's worth of blogs. Of course, like a fool, I had never made a back-up of the forum. So it was gone, baby. REAL gone. Strike two in forum world.
Desperate to reconnect with the community that was lost, the third version of the forum was brought to life January 17, 2004 and we've been plugging along ever since.
It hasn't been easy, though. Luckily with the help of my team of administrators and moderators, we've been able to keep it up and running without much data loss or obnoxious post whores ruining it for everyone. So my thanks to AdSquirrel, Brian, JClark and MadMup. You're help has been invaluable.
In the course of our existence, we've even been able to implement custom features to make ours a totally unique environment. A web cam portal, The Friday Five, The Danza and The Urkle. Even our own dictionary - or THictionary for the unenlightened - of THorum-specific vernacular! Did you know we did a holiday gift exchange last Decemeber that went off with flying colors? We did, and it was great!
Now before you start thinking that the THorum is some sort of secret society or members only cabal, know that there has never been a more welcoming group of people online ANYWHERE. Friendly and bright. Gracious and insightful. And several of them more hilarious than anyone you will ever meet. My thanks to these THorumites who make our community one that I have looked forward to posting to every day since its inception. Thank you.
If you think that sounds good, sign up in the THorum today. You won't be sorry.
I regard to Brian's message which I posted in today's blog, a new topic has been created in the THorum. It fleshes out the information a little bit more for those of you who had questions.
If you need a little extra incentive to donate, would it bolster your spirit to know that Theater Hopper shares a server with the awesomeness that is Joe and Monkey? So by donating, you're not only helping TH, but another excellent web comic as well.
By the way, Zack is kicking around t-shirt ideas for his site. He came up with a great design based off his Kleptobot character. You can view it here.
