Forum Memories |
 Sep 20 2005, 01:59 PM
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The Newest Googlebot  Posts: 6,600 Joined: 1:00pm January 4, 2005 Location: Waiting for the G2   |
What a long, arduous, more-than-a-little-stressful, fascinating, surreal, strange, and oftentimes simply amusing trip it's been.
One year, eh? What have I done in the last year? I've taken a ton of college classes, learned Perl and PHP programming, managed an amusement park food stand (yum, funnel cakes!), I've gotten a new winter job shipping out Yogi Bear merchandise, now known as my "Yogi-work", I've gotten a nice new car....oh, wait, no, I didn't :dry: But I did get a nice new computer, that I did get. Wait, what? I didn't get that either? Oh, well crap. :lol: But the Lounge--man, that's a whole different story. We have done SO MUCH in a year. It all started with in November 2004, when a mostly-innocent comments poster who looks something like a cross between Orlando Bloom and Conan O'Brien e-mailed the mugwump-ess of a modest uber-site for HP, showing a modest proposal for a forum that, in truth, little resembles the final product you guys see before you today. The key ideas, though, remain. Our opening night was amazing and a leeetle bit overwhelming for the three admins and five mods seemingly pitted against half of the known world. Thankfully, our readers were more than willing to work together to help create the great atmosphere that we still have to this day of a feeling of warmth, welcome, and goodwill, and we found that we really didn't have to work very hard against our members as "forum cops", but could work with our members as guides and assistants, answering their questions and keeping things orderly while not cramping their style. Our April Fools' Day celebration was.....amazing. That had to be some of the most fun I've had in a day. The creation and subsequent amok-running of Peeves and Co. made for great comedy, but more importantly, it brought the staff closer together and it brought the members closer together as we played with each other and interacted in a way where we didn't have to worry about our actions and could just kick back and have fun. I value these moments where we can all gather as one and just revel. The reading groups, aww man. It took me sooo long to get my butt in gear, guys, on getting those finished. We finally got the whole shebang ready for you guys, and I think we got it right. :wink: When we closed those groups down in October, we had people who had to be dragged out kicking and screaming, they enjoyed it so much, and now we're about to unveil our new reading groups--more about that tonight as we look to the forum's future instead of looking back as we are now. Our Halloween celebration was definitely a not-to-be-missed night, as our ghosties prowled the board for a certain missing Noe. I must say, I really cracked up at how well our members seemed to interact with our characters and at the great interplay there. Once again, our whole forum seemed to not just come out of its shell, but to ditch the shell entirely and be worry-free and carefree for 24 hours, as we all worked together to have a truly great event. And that brings us to today. If there's anything I'm most proud of, it's the desire that our members have (whether intrinsic or learned) for a great forum. Our members love to make the effort and come up with true works of quality thought, and to spend the time to really invest themselves into the topic being discussed and frpm there, into the forum itself. From our members with fifteen posts to our members with fifteen hundred posts, everyone seems to want to contribute meaningfully to the forum and to truly make it their online home, and this is the warmth that we receive great compliments on time and time again, and honestly, all I can do is make the rules. It takes a great readership to take a forum beyond a "forum cops" relationship with their staff, and I really do think we've accomplished that here. So, we dedicate this day to you guys. We've planned a great scavenger hunt for you guys, we've wheedled some great new characters into showing up just for today, and anguinea, one of our forum moderators, has designed a beautiful (and funny!) banner just for our celebration. We hope you enjoy the next year with us as much as we all enjoyed the last. Sincerely, --Nick |
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