Post by Glitter on Mar 26, 2018 10:57:43 GMT
Okay, guys. We mentioned in that previous thread that Playwrite exists to provide you with somewhere to practice your hobbies that is yours. We stated that we are committed to that goal and to the continued success of this community and so long as Playwrite is what the community wants, we will work to keep it running and to continue its improvement. When we polled you about wanting to remain here or not, the votes were overwhelmingly in favour of Playwrite continuing to exist and so long as that remains the case we are going to continue to give you our fullest effort.
With that out the way though, there are hurdles that we are going to need to jump if we want this site to thrive. The primary hurdle there, is that Playwrite needs to draw in new members if we intend for this site to survive. Things get a little bit complicated there though, because right now Playwrite isn't in the best position to attract new membership from outside the existing community. We need our own domain name and server, we need to update the software we are running on, we need to start appearing in Google searches and we need to advertise.
These things in and of themselves are not difficult, the problem is that these things can be expensive and we are adamant that we are not going to be asking for donations from our userbase in the near future. So we want to outline for you what we have in the works with complete transparency going forward so you can know where we stand and thus decide where you do. We want to reiterate that we are 100% dedicated to this community and above all else, we intend to provide for what you guys need and want.
Upgrading the Software
ProBoards was a pleasant surprise to us when we were building this site. It was extremely easy to work with, even for those with no programming skill such as myself, and surprisingly modern and flexible for a free software. It trumps vBulletin in almost every way. That being said, we're already starting to hit its ceiling in what we can achieve with it and with the current internet culture, growing our userbase further is beyond a dubious prospect if we remain with this software. We have come to the conclusion that continuing to use ProBoards in the current internet culture when more modern, flexible softwares such as Xenforo and Discourse exist is not an option and that Playwrite will not survive if we take that path.
We do have some good news on that front though. We have recently been looking into alternative software and found that we have options, such as those mentioned above though. The current course of action we have settled on however is to experiment with a brand new, burgeoning software called Flarum. This software is much cheaper than much of its competition, is highly modern and offers a plethora of brilliant features with many more on the way. We stress to you that this will be an experimental phase while we test the waters to see what we can do to ensure Playwrite's survival. You will likely see Playwrite's appearance and functionality change quite dramatically in the coming weeks and we aren't totally sold on Flarum as our permanent choice, although as it stands most of us feel it is going to be our best option going forward.
You can read more about Flarum's features here, although be aware that we will also be customising things ourselves in order to produce the best possible Playwrite we can to give it the greatest odds of success. Yes there will still be a Bidoof theme (once we rebuild it) and Flarum has a light skin/dark skin toggle by default.
Financials
Onto the nitty-gritty part of things, money.
Some really good news on that side of things, is that Flarum itself is free. The financial strain here is going to come from renting our own domain and from hosting. Initially, we have agreed that we are happy to fund this out of our own pockets for the time being. However, we also came to the conclusion that none of us are in a position where self-funding is going to be a viable option in the long term. Since, as we said above, we are completely committed to our position of not asking for user donations at this time, we need to turn to another source of revenue of which there is only one: advertising.
To allay any confusion there, adds currently displaying on Playwrite do not go to supporting us, that revenue all goes to ProBoards. However, moving to Flarum and setting up our own server will free us up to collect our own ad revenue. Unfortunately, for that ad revenue to provide the funds we need for Playwrite to be self-sustaining, we need to increase our site traffic.
How Can You Help?
We aren't asking for money, but that doesn't mean that you guys as a community can't help keep Playwrite thriving. Here are things you can do that will be off a help.
Social Media: Moving forward, Playwrite will be establishing it's own social media team and looking into social media advertising. When we are ready, we will open applications to fill smt positions for the site. Until such a time though, you can still help out by sending any friends or acquaintances you have that enjoy writing, mafia etc (or that you think might) in our direction.
Programming: As it stands, only two of our staffers are particularly experienced with programming and while Johnny and Pusheen know their stuff, customising and maintaining a growing website by themselves is a herculean task just for the two of them, especially once we make the switch to Flarum and step up development efforts. We will soon be opening applications for developers, if you have experience with programming and web development (professional developers, IT students or even dedicated hobbyists), contributing those skills would be an enormous boon.
Feedback: A constant stream of feedback, good or bad, will help us learn what we need to do to provide you with the experience you want. So let us know what you think and what you want!
Post!: For everyone else, the single biggest thing you can do to help Playwrite thrive is to be an active part of its community. Start up RPs and mafia games, join them and post actively, write fics or poems or even just post a lot in our Off-Topic areas. Every little bit of content we have on this site helps us look appealing to new members.
You guys made the decision to be independent and it's a decision we will continue to support so long as it's yours. Now we as a community need to work together to realise that goal and see it become reality.
With that out the way though, there are hurdles that we are going to need to jump if we want this site to thrive. The primary hurdle there, is that Playwrite needs to draw in new members if we intend for this site to survive. Things get a little bit complicated there though, because right now Playwrite isn't in the best position to attract new membership from outside the existing community. We need our own domain name and server, we need to update the software we are running on, we need to start appearing in Google searches and we need to advertise.
These things in and of themselves are not difficult, the problem is that these things can be expensive and we are adamant that we are not going to be asking for donations from our userbase in the near future. So we want to outline for you what we have in the works with complete transparency going forward so you can know where we stand and thus decide where you do. We want to reiterate that we are 100% dedicated to this community and above all else, we intend to provide for what you guys need and want.
Upgrading the Software
ProBoards was a pleasant surprise to us when we were building this site. It was extremely easy to work with, even for those with no programming skill such as myself, and surprisingly modern and flexible for a free software. It trumps vBulletin in almost every way. That being said, we're already starting to hit its ceiling in what we can achieve with it and with the current internet culture, growing our userbase further is beyond a dubious prospect if we remain with this software. We have come to the conclusion that continuing to use ProBoards in the current internet culture when more modern, flexible softwares such as Xenforo and Discourse exist is not an option and that Playwrite will not survive if we take that path.
We do have some good news on that front though. We have recently been looking into alternative software and found that we have options, such as those mentioned above though. The current course of action we have settled on however is to experiment with a brand new, burgeoning software called Flarum. This software is much cheaper than much of its competition, is highly modern and offers a plethora of brilliant features with many more on the way. We stress to you that this will be an experimental phase while we test the waters to see what we can do to ensure Playwrite's survival. You will likely see Playwrite's appearance and functionality change quite dramatically in the coming weeks and we aren't totally sold on Flarum as our permanent choice, although as it stands most of us feel it is going to be our best option going forward.
You can read more about Flarum's features here, although be aware that we will also be customising things ourselves in order to produce the best possible Playwrite we can to give it the greatest odds of success. Yes there will still be a Bidoof theme (once we rebuild it) and Flarum has a light skin/dark skin toggle by default.
Financials
Onto the nitty-gritty part of things, money.
Some really good news on that side of things, is that Flarum itself is free. The financial strain here is going to come from renting our own domain and from hosting. Initially, we have agreed that we are happy to fund this out of our own pockets for the time being. However, we also came to the conclusion that none of us are in a position where self-funding is going to be a viable option in the long term. Since, as we said above, we are completely committed to our position of not asking for user donations at this time, we need to turn to another source of revenue of which there is only one: advertising.
To allay any confusion there, adds currently displaying on Playwrite do not go to supporting us, that revenue all goes to ProBoards. However, moving to Flarum and setting up our own server will free us up to collect our own ad revenue. Unfortunately, for that ad revenue to provide the funds we need for Playwrite to be self-sustaining, we need to increase our site traffic.
How Can You Help?
We aren't asking for money, but that doesn't mean that you guys as a community can't help keep Playwrite thriving. Here are things you can do that will be off a help.
Social Media: Moving forward, Playwrite will be establishing it's own social media team and looking into social media advertising. When we are ready, we will open applications to fill smt positions for the site. Until such a time though, you can still help out by sending any friends or acquaintances you have that enjoy writing, mafia etc (or that you think might) in our direction.
Programming: As it stands, only two of our staffers are particularly experienced with programming and while Johnny and Pusheen know their stuff, customising and maintaining a growing website by themselves is a herculean task just for the two of them, especially once we make the switch to Flarum and step up development efforts. We will soon be opening applications for developers, if you have experience with programming and web development (professional developers, IT students or even dedicated hobbyists), contributing those skills would be an enormous boon.
Feedback: A constant stream of feedback, good or bad, will help us learn what we need to do to provide you with the experience you want. So let us know what you think and what you want!
Post!: For everyone else, the single biggest thing you can do to help Playwrite thrive is to be an active part of its community. Start up RPs and mafia games, join them and post actively, write fics or poems or even just post a lot in our Off-Topic areas. Every little bit of content we have on this site helps us look appealing to new members.
You guys made the decision to be independent and it's a decision we will continue to support so long as it's yours. Now we as a community need to work together to realise that goal and see it become reality.
