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 Post subject: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: September 19th, 2013, 11:10 pm 
Istari
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Alright, its been noticed by others that the forum seems to have slowed down over the summer months. I'm sure real life (school starting back up and the like) has played a role in this, but its been mentioned what we could do to give the forum a bit of a jump start. (Who knows, maybe with a bit of a slow down things can get accomplished. think positive!) There's been some ideas tossed around, everything from branching out onto social media sites like Tumblr and Facebook, to updating some of the discussions in the forums and doing some clean up with old and inactive threads. I know I'm game to help out with things around here, I love this site and want to see it jumping again! So I was curious to know if anyone else thats still out there is interested in helping out with things, even if its something as simple as popping in here to say "hey, I had an idea, why dont you guys try this?" Doesn't mean we're gonna rope you in to do something just for suggesting an idea! ;-) Well, what are y'alls thoughts?

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: September 20th, 2013, 7:05 am 
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To be honest though, me and a lot of other people were working on the AU revival and that sort of just died down for no apparent reason and without warning. It feels like, if anything, we should get that train moving again instead of starting up a similar project and abandon the old.

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: September 20th, 2013, 11:34 am 
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Well I have been working on the cast gallery for several weeks now. Finding pictures of actors, but finding decent pictures, decent sizes, resizing them, making thumbnails, uploading them, uploading thumbnails and then checking each images uploaded correctly.... :duh: .... it takes a while to do unfortunately, and not many people will probably realise it's been going on for a while. When I finish that, the actual Hobbit part of the site is completely re-furbished and completed and waiting for new, never before seen, content, like the trailer page.

I am not *too* concerned with the rest of AU's main site, as long as we get the Hobbit stuff up.

So that's where I am anyway, and also adding any finished bios that come my way. Apart from that though, I'm not sure where everyone else is, apart from the bio writers.

My ONLY problem with branching into other media is.... we REALLY need to keep working at it. We can't just leave it, and forget about it. If we had a Facebook page that linked to the site, and the facebook page had up to date links to the Hobbit facebook page, or Peter Jackson's page etc, it needs to be properly looked after and information should be fresh and new. It would also mean the updating of the site (which I have failed at) would also have to keep in the loop with the facebook page, so any news posted there would also be posted on the main site. There are enough AU'ers who have a facebook page, I would like to think, those people could come together and spend a few minutes each day collaborating and adding news etc.

And then again with Tumblr, if that was to be for say graphics, or gifs etc (because all people seem to want is gifs for the Hobbit) then you are talking about competing with blogs who are just about making collages of the actors etc. I have spent time on the Hobbit tag, I'm just not sure how viable a tumblr page will be.

Those are my thoughts anyway. Anything that promotes AU and that can be run properly would be a good thing.

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: September 20th, 2013, 3:47 pm 
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Bellatrix wrote:
To be honest though, me and a lot of other people were working on the AU revival and that sort of just died down for no apparent reason and without warning. It feels like, if anything, we should get that train moving again instead of starting up a similar project and abandon the old.

I agree, the main project shouldn't be abandoned, I was just talking about trying to do a few little things here and there around just the forum in particular, and ways of trying to draw people back to the forum since conversations have been lagging around here a little. And I did pop onto the main A-U site (which I haven't been on in quite a while actually) and all the changes and additions looks fantastic! (i tried playing that Box game...i totally sucked :lol: )

Johnny's Fan wrote:
My ONLY problem with branching into other media is.... we REALLY need to keep working at it. We can't just leave it, and forget about it. If we had a Facebook page that linked to the site, and the facebook page had up to date links to the Hobbit facebook page, or Peter Jackson's page etc, it needs to be properly looked after and information should be fresh and new. It would also mean the updating of the site (which I have failed at) would also have to keep in the loop with the facebook page, so any news posted there would also be posted on the main site. There are enough AU'ers who have a facebook page, I would like to think, those people could come together and spend a few minutes each day collaborating and adding news etc.

And then again with Tumblr, if that was to be for say graphics, or gifs etc (because all people seem to want is gifs for the Hobbit) then you are talking about competing with blogs who are just about making collages of the actors etc. I have spent time on the Hobbit tag, I'm just not sure how viable a tumblr page will be.

Those are my thoughts anyway. Anything that promotes AU and that can be run properly would be a good thing.[/color]

I would be willing to work on a team of other members to keep a facebook page up and running, but it would definitely have to be a team effort because as you said, it would take some work to keep it updated! As for a Tumblr page, I dont know much about that. My computer rejects Tumblr, takes too long to load. :p

Anyway, i just noticed some chatter (and had some chatter with Lhun and some others), and we were just curious if there was anything to be done to draw people back in, or draw some new people in too, or update anything.

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: September 20th, 2013, 4:26 pm 
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I'd be up for helping with a facebook page or a tumblr page too. I'm very familiar with tumblr, as I use it daily. I *am* rather good at making gifs too. Here are a few I've made for a gif site I run.

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The problem with tumblr and gifs though is that they have to be less than 500kb to be uploaded directly to tumblr. You can make them and upload to deviantart, for example, but it takes a lot longer and you're not supposed to upload things like that there, although you obviously can. When making them smaller they become the quality above.

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: September 20th, 2013, 5:03 pm 
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I guess first thing we'd need to do is reach out to active members - or members that we know personally and who may not be so active anymore - who have facebook and see if any of them would be happy to become part of a "TEAM" (and I think we would need to stress that so no one thinks OMG I'M GOING TO BE SPENDING HOURS ON THIS THING), and they would literally be like "hey I've found this great image I'm going to upload to the group" or "wow that's a great article people should read" and then they can just do really easily.

And then from there we could have other things to do with the site, like instead of posting the latest trailer on the FB page they could link to the trailer that would be on the site.

The only thing here is I'd probably have to be more on the ball with updating stuff, as there is no point having a FB page that has more up to date info than AU, but I think we could work around that. I personally don't have a FB page, but I could make one just for these few guys to know about, and all it would need is them to message me that they're posting this and then I'd have to not be a slow-arse and I'd add it to AU then.

We could also incorporate some contests as well, like the best caption contest etc, and we could award prizes of graphics of the winners choice and things like that, and we could then use the opportunity to also advertise the contest section of the forum.

Also for forum members, there could be contests and then each entry gets posted on the facebook page, which will allow forum members ('cos they can vote on the forum as well) and visitors to facebook, the opportunity to vote. One of the problems I think with the contest section, and a reason why not everyone bothers to enter these days is no one is ever sure if the contest will get finished or if anyone would even vote. If we could help the eliminate that problem, that would help.

I'd like to see a weekend, sometime before the end of the year, but not too soon, so we could organise it better, an AU Reunion weekend, where we send out a mass email, we let people know that we're not trapping them into coming back, but we'd just like to know how people are doing and what's been happening in their lives.

It would be nice if we could delve into the archives and pick out some of the most popular threads that we all used to love, and maybe search old contests for entries etc. It would be nice to have a weekend of just looking back at the good times we had here.

As I said, this isn't to get people back to stay, but you never know who might decide to hang around for a bit.

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: September 20th, 2013, 10:23 pm 
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All those ideas sound interesting! I'm game to help wherever necessary! (other than making graphics, because I suck at that)

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: December 3rd, 2013, 12:31 pm 
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I was wondering, is there any way the moderators could email some of the A-U members who have left A-U? Does anyone have access to the emails that are registered to each account? Because im sure some members have been really busy and totally forgot about the forum, i did for a month!
And, i really do think we should try to set up a A-U facebook page. If we could post something on the Happy Hobbit page, or the official Hobbit page, i think this site would pick up a bit! It makes me sad, when i joined, A-U was so busy, when i logged on, there would be pages of new posts, now im lucky if there is one page of new posts. Granted, we are all really busy, but if we could get more members, or at least remind the old members about this site, maybe the site would revive a bit.
Let me know if i can help at all, im not very good at anything involving hard computer codes, but i can set up a facebook page, or at least help spread the word aboyt A-U!

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: December 3rd, 2013, 3:26 pm 
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Thanks for the suggestion, legolin.
A-U has its busy times and slow times in turn, although over the years the activity has generally slowed down due to 'competition' from other social media.
We used to have facebook groups. I don't think I'm a member of any of them now but you're more than welcome to set up a new one to post the link here.

The moderators can send out mass emails but I don't think it would be the right solution in this case. We did try before to message people individually and some oldies would come back in to say hi but they didn't stay long. Simply because they had moved on and were busy with other things.

But I do believe it might be an idea to branch out to other social media platforms like Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube and create new communities there.

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: December 4th, 2013, 10:12 am 
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I see, Eä.
Would it be alright if i posted in a new topic about things that we could use help with? Like an online sign up sheet type?
Also, maybe the forum will pick up a bit after the realease of DoS. Im not sure, but it seemed to pick up last year after AUJ. I wasnt here, but i have read a bunch of posts and thats what it seemed to me.
I myself am willing to search through unread and unanswered posts to bring more new posts at least. You know, revive the old posts, threads and topics.

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: December 4th, 2013, 8:05 pm 
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Go for it! You don't really need any mod's permission to try and get activity going on the forum. ;)

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: December 4th, 2013, 10:43 pm 
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Wish me luck then!
I am going to try pming a few members, it probably wont work, but we'll see.

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: December 5th, 2013, 12:16 am 
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I'm hoping activity picks up after the new movie as well, things did seem to pick up a bit after the first one was released.

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 Post subject: Re: Jumpstart the forum
PostPosted: December 5th, 2013, 10:04 am 
Istari
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Yeah it did seem too, thats when i joined. Forum activity will pick up for awhile, but then all the new members forget about us.
Thinking long term...what will happen ofter There and Back again?
I guess we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.

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