General Chat thread

But the whole point of RPing on this forum is that we have already carved out a nice little community that has lasted for a few years now and we're basically looking for things to do that keep this forum active. We've been doing RPs for a while as well so it's kind of a time honored thing. Moving away to another forum would just kind of defeat the purpose.

I say that we just try to take advantage of the small community in whatever way we can

Speaking of small community, I think we should consider getting a new admin to add to the group since Hutch has left, Drew most likely would have very little time to moderate this forum and I haven't seen much of 3D in awhile.

This place rarely has any misbehavers, so I'm not sure it'd make any difference. However, I think there should be somewhat of an interface update having to do with the theme of this club. No one here to my belief has played Spore in awhile apart from myself, yet I haven't played/made any new adventures since 2010. With that being said, I think we should have a new name for this club since it'd be a little misleading to new members that would think any of us still discuss Spore. Sure, the could possibly bring the Spore community part back to this club if there was to be a boatload of new members coming in that still played Spore, but that seems a little unlikely at this time.

I dunno, I really like the name as it is. For one thing, "Galactic Adventure Club" isn't very specific. It just sounds like a really cool group of words to anybody who hasn't heard of Spore. And also, it's part of our history.

I agree that we need a new admin, though. I vote either me or Kitty.

I'd vote Drago for admin.

Potatrobot wrote:

I'd vote Drago for admin.

Well that was unexpected.

But appreciated.

To be fair, I actually have quite a bit of experience as an admin, both in leading communities as a whole and working behind the scenes with the forum structure. I'd be more than happy to take on the role of admin. ^_^

So I received a PM yesterday from this forum and it showed up on my email. Before I actually logged in to read it I was under the impression someone here needed something so I showed up here.

Coincidence level 8, the PM turned out to be a bot telling me how to advertise my youtube channel I barely use.

When I parted away a few months ago I made sure Delta was an admin to make these kinds of choices and changes. Although for some reason I get the feeling there might be some kind of complication that I am forgetting about there on a technical level that may or may not be preventing the changes needed from being made.

potatrobot helped me set my profile up, and he's really helpful, so maybe he can be a new admin too.

I received an ad spam message myself a couple days ago; in response I set in place a one-post minimum for use of the PM system — I haven't received anything since and until now haven't heard from anyone else receiving spam. As such I have not looked into entirely disabling guest accounts (up until now I had assumed they were disabled a fair while ago). Drew, if you're still hanging about, could you tell me if you received the message on Monday or Tuesday?


As regards the forum's name, I feel as Gelo does in that it's part of our history — and come to think of it, it doesn't in fact link us directly to Spore unless the viewer is aware of the expansion pack we're named after.

Changing the forum's name is something that's come up before, but has always been met with too much of a mixed response to warrant implementing. An alternative that just occurred to me is adding some kind of blurb to the front page — a brief manifesto, in a sense — to explain roughly what this forum's about.

Though I might require assistance with the web-design end of that idea, it seems like a rather less radical way to tell people that we're not just about Spore. Thoughts?

Delta wrote:

As regards the forum's name, I feel as Gelo does in that it's part of our history — and come to think of it, it doesn't in fact link us directly to Spore unless the viewer is aware of the expansion pack we're named after.

Changing the forum's name is something that's come up before, but has always been met with too much of a mixed response to warrant implementing. An alternative that just occurred to me is adding some kind of blurb to the front page — a brief manifesto, in a sense — to explain roughly what this forum's about.

Though I might require assistance with the web-design end of that idea, it seems like a rather less radical way to tell people that we're not just about Spore.

One thing I thought of when people mentioned wanting to signify that we aren't Spore-based anymore is removing the Spore logo from behind the banner at the top, or at least making a new banner that doesn't have the Spore logo behind it. This may not make as much of a difference to new people who may not have even heard of Spore, but it would still be a kind of symbolic thing.

As for the blurb on the front page idea, I like it, but we'd probably have to describe to ourselves what the forum is about before we can confidently put that blurb up. This forum has gone through a lot of different phases with many different purposes, so condensing it down to a little blurb might prove difficult. It's been a Roleplay forum, Spore discussion and contest forum, and now mostly an off-topic and games discussion forum.

And as I said, I have experience with forum structure, and could probably help out on that front.

Quote :

As regards the forum's name, I feel as Gelo does in that it's part of our history — and come to think of it, it doesn't in fact link us directly to Spore unless the viewer is aware of the expansion pack we're named after.

I have to agree with this. Galactic Adventures Club is a pretty broad name and could have any meanings. Most who aren't associated with Spore would probably assume it's sci-fi. Yet, I don't think we'd be able to attract too many Non-Spore people here.

Quote :

An alternative that just occurred to me is adding some kind of blurb to the front page — a brief manifesto, in a sense — to explain roughly what this forum's about.

Hm, I like it, yet it feels like it wouldn't be necessary. Those little sections on the first page (whatever they're called) easily tells a lot about a forum. Perhaps you can broaden the range a bit. Maybe make a Gaming section and just make the MC and Spore sections a sub-section.

Quote :

One thing I thought of when people mentioned wanting to signify that we aren't Spore-based anymore is removing the Spore logo from behind the banner at the top, or at least making a new banner that doesn't have the Spore logo behind it. This may not make as much of a difference to new people who may not have even heard of Spore, but it would still be a kind of symbolic thing.

This could be a good idea. Maybe make the GAC their own unique logo.



I've also noticed that there's only one active moderator. Perhaps someone could be promoted to mod opposed to hiring more admins (which is a pretty big jump). Not gonna nominate anyone, though. Heh.

I'm kind of hesitant to remove the spore logo from our banner, but I guess I could roll with it if everyone else agrees. Like the name, I think it's symbolic of our history.

I'm all for making up a new logo, though.

Making a new logo might be an interesting endeavour if I had the time — which I rather think I don't at the moment — but I'd sooner stick with our current for the same reason I'd prefer to stick with the name.

Making a new section for gaming in general might be worth doing — though I'm not certain if I'd want to make Spore and Minecraft into subsections simply because it'd thenceforth require going through an extra page to get to the threads themselves (and because, despite my long-running preference for condensing our formerly ludicrous section-count, I sense the front page would look a bit empty with one less section).

I agree that a new moderator might be preferable to jumping straight to promoting a new administrator.


I have revamped my former suggestions thread and stickied it here. I might later put some of these ideas to the vote.

I still hate the way the sections are arranged, ever since the day they were made that way. I don't like having them all condensed into these few categories.

- Art should have its own section

- RP section is fine the way it is

- There should be a Gaming section, and Minecraft should be a subsection of it (does forumotion support this? idk)

- I really liked the Introduction section, because it provides a more personalized experience. Also, the threads there can be used as places where people can address a particular person if they need to. It's basically just having your own thread that's all about you, which is awesome.

- It saddens me to say it, but I assume we can get rid of the Spore section by now

that's all I can think of right now

I think if we get rid of the Spore section, there should be a gaming-centered archive section for all those Spore threads to go.

And I do agree that a different grouping of sections and subsections is needed.

Delta wrote:

I received an ad spam message myself a couple days ago; in response I set in place a one-post minimum for use of the PM system — I haven't received anything since and until now haven't heard from anyone else receiving spam. As such I have not looked into entirely disabling guest accounts (up until now I had assumed they were disabled a fair while ago). Drew, if you're still hanging about, could you tell me if you received the message on Monday or Tuesday

I got it on Monday.

I know admin could be a little much, but the reason I say this is to modify the forum's layout such as sections, the icon of the forum (instead of that green speech bubble thingy) and other things like upgrading ranks (which actually doesn't serve a point anymore).

FrostieBuniou wrote:

the reason I say this is to modify the forum's layout such as sections, the icon of the forum (instead of that green speech bubble thingy)

I'm pretty sure that's the icon for freeforumshosting.net, not the GAC.

It's changeable.

The only reason that icon wasn't changed long ago was that I didn't get much of a response to the idea way back when — and also because I was a little cautious about potentially making an irreversible misstep. If you want to suggest changes to the forum, post them here.

Frostie, feel free to PM me with the method; I already have an icon:


@Drew: Then the messages were probably sent simultaneously; either what I did worked or it was simply an exceptionally lacklustre spambot.

Sorry I didn't respond, I was on an Orchestra trip.

But I see that you got it.

Oh hey, looks like there's finally some video footage of that concert I went to a week ago



You can't see me in the crowd because I'm a bit further stage left, but I assure you I am there somewhere

Hey everyone. So you've probably seen the signature in my rotator that features the brand name Pokemon plastered onto a stock image of a wasteland. For those of you who don't know, it's a roleplay, and a very long one at that (started last year or year before and is still going).

Well, one of the members, CartelSaide (bless him/her - iffy subject) has taken up the task of compiling and editing the whole damn thing into a neat fanfiction, with area-specific chapters.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9223802/1/Pokemon-The-Change

I advise you take a good long gander at the first two thousand words, just since it's a good piece of writing (not to pat myself on the back, because my character doesn't make an appearance until two more chapters).

Nice.

I read a few paragraphs, I'll read the rest of it later.

I perused the first couple paragraphs, and I'll probably read it soon since the rhetoric doesn't completely put me off. (Some fanfics have awful rhetoric and reading them is literally unpleasant, including mine)

http://www.epsilonprogram.com/

gee Eps I didn't know your beliefs had such a large following