Year end party/review!

[Flechmen 0]

Hey everyone!

CF is almost two years old, and we're gonna celebrate on November 13!

We're gonna have some fun and games and stuff like last year.

 

Where: We'll be in #christianfurs on irc.foxnet.in.

 

When: Starting at 8 PM GMT on Saturday, November 13.

 

What we'll do:

 

We wish to have everyone come in and get to know one another a little better, enjoy some music, and have some fun.

 

We'll be reviewing CF and asking for your input on how things are run, suggestions, and so on.

 

A raffle for prizes will be held. Get your tickets here!

 

I don't know yet if we'll be doing a church-like service again yet but I'll find out soon.

I do want to try some things we haven't done before like possibly a Team Fortress event or any other games you guys can think of.

 

Please PM me for raffle donations and ideas for things to do.

 

So, hope to see you there!

[VC_Wolffe† 0]

Question: What kind of things can we donate for the raffle?

[Flechmen 0]

Anything you're willing to buy or ship.

Ex. Last year one of the prizes was a commission to have a tail done, the tailmaker donated his services. Another was an art commission. I bought someone an MP3 player off of Ebay and had it sent to them instead of me. Things like that.

[Holywolf† 0]

sounds like fun Ill definatly be there if i can figure out how the chatrooms work.

[JuliaWolf† 0]

Ooo cool! I'll try to be on that day! :3

[Jakob Wolf† 0]

Oooh! I need to learn how to work IRC first XD

*Tries to figure out*

[Flechmen 0]

So, I've been thinking about a few things here.

These are points and things that we gathered from the 1.5 year get-together (that was a flop, but oh well).

 

But, here's the points we had to discuss and we'll be bringing up other points as well. I want a lot more community involvement in this.

 

• The Website
  
  • How it's being run:
     
    
  • A rule we've been wanting to implement is the ability to have people's accounts deactivated if they want them to be. Ex. if someone wants to leave or keep themselves from coming for various reasons. We've had a couple cases like this. People feeling they're being too obsessive and needing to force themselves away for a bit to people stomping off in anger.
    
  • Closing of old threads so we don't get people bringing up things like year old introduction threads. We can do this with a plugin. We've been meaning to test this, but haven't gotten around to it.
    
  • Updating software - Since the time when this list was compiled, major updates to the software we use here has been made available. I've been holding off on updating things until a few updates to that were released. Now that it's been actually a couple months, I think we can safely update everything.
    
  • We had an idea to make a main website, almost more like a splash page, and have things more neatly organized. Six months ago, we decided to scrap this idea and made plans to make the links to other areas more prominent. Right now, the galleries and chat look like "cheesy forum features".
    
  • We do want to make a new theme. The theme on the forums here aren't the best, and it's getting a little old to say the least. Our idea was to make something completely custom, completely from scratch. I have several ideas for this. The main theme will have four sections: Day, Evening, Night, and Morning. Each section will have its own set of icons, images, decorations, and headers. The theme will change dynamically based on the visitor's local time. Of course, you can set any one of them to be constant. I need artists for this... Here are some examples of the level of quality and detail I'm looking for: Example 1 Example 2 Example 3.
    I know this can be done because I've seen CF members do things like this.
    Even if you can't make thigns like this, I'd still like to see an application. I do want some things that are more like this as well.
    Application here!
    
  • Another thing we noticed that actually interferes with themeing is the language used on the forums. I'm not sure why it is, but this theme that we're using now supports Asian characters, where other themes do not. Viewing threads or profiles with Asian characters actually made the forums unrenderable with other themes. So, we will have to emphesize that this is an English forum and we need to speak English here.
    

  [*]Other Recomendations

  • A blog? Would anyone read it?
    
  • A wiki? Would anyone use it?
    
  • Statements of Faith and Mission Statement. I need some help with this
    
  • XFire Chat (?) - I don't remember why I wrote this down.
    
  • Remove galleries? They've been broken for quite a while now anyways
    

  [*]Staff

  • Possible Staff additions? - Ministry leaders?
    
  • Releasing current staff? - Pending galleries.
    
  • Management of other areas of CF:
    
  • Ministry - How are you guys doing? I'm not hearing a whole lot.
    

  [*]The Server

  • How is it being managed? - Our sever has been running flawlessly since the last upgrade. I don't think anything really needs to be done here.
    
  • How is it being used? How can we better use it to support our ministries?
    
  • The server its self:
    
  • At the time we came up with this list, we had a server that was running CentOS. It powered us for over a year and a half, and at the time this list was made, it was doing just fine. That being said, we had a possiblility of reloading it and possibly running a different operating system on it. Since then, this server has died and been replaced by one that is running the software I was thinking of. So, nothing really to do about this.
    
  • I was also tossing around the idea of going to a different hosting company. The one I had in mind burned us pretty good a couple times since then, and Flosoft has shown to be helpful and supportive of us. So, we're sticking here.
    

  [*]Misc.

  • I'd like to see more recordings of the more more Christian oriented things that happen at cons. I don't know if we could make this an official thing just yet or not.
    

 

And, that's all I have for now.

 

I'd like to hear people's input on this stuff, see what you guys think.

 

I have also made an anonymous suggestion box for everyone: HERE

[Flechmen 0]

For some reason, our raffel system wasn't working properly. So, even if you got a ticket, it didn't record that you got a ticket.

If it doesn't record that you got a ticket, I can't draw the ticket

 

So, everyone who got a ticket before needs to go and get another one.

 

And please come to me with ideas for prizes! We currently have none.

[Carson Coyote† 0]

So, just to confirm the time, it will be 3:00pm Eastern, 2:00pm Central, 1:00pm Mountain, and 12:00pm Pacific?

[Flechmen 0]

Something like that, yes. We may be doing the raffel later for people who can't make it at that time.

[Carson Coyote† 0]

Okay, cool!

[Carson Coyote† 0]

Okay, here are my thoughts on some of the things Flechmen brought up.

 

A rule we've been wanting to implement is the ability to have people's accounts deactivated if they want them to be. Ex. if someone wants to leave or keep themselves from coming for various reasons. We've had a couple cases like this. People feeling they're being too obsessive and needing to force themselves away for a bit to people stomping off in anger.

 

Sure' date=' this sounds alright to me.[/i']

 

 

Closing of old threads so we don't get people bringing up things like year old introduction threads. We can do this with a plugin. We've been meaning to test this' date=' but haven't gotten around to it.[/color']

 

Sounds good.

 

 

Updating software - Since the time when this list was compiled' date=' major updates to the software we use here has been made available. I've been holding off on updating things until a few updates to that were released. Now that it's been actually a couple months, I think we can safely update everything.[/color']

 

Sounds good.

 

 

We had an idea to make a main website' date=' almost more like a splash page, and have things more neatly organized. Six months ago, we decided to scrap this idea and made plans to make the links to other areas more prominent. Right now, the galleries and chat look like "cheesy forum features".[/color']

 

New links would be nice. The current links are hard to notice.

 

We do want to make a new theme. The theme on the forums here aren't the best' date=' and it's getting a little old to say the least. Our idea was to make something completely custom, completely from scratch. I have several ideas for this. The main theme will have four sections: Day, Evening, Night, and Morning. Each section will have its own set of icons, images, decorations, and headers. The theme will change dynamically based on the visitor's local time. Of course, you can set any one of them to be constant. I need artists for this... Here are some examples of the level of quality and detail I'm looking for: Example 1 Example 2 Example 3.

I know this can be done because I've seen CF members do things like this.

Even if you can't make thigns like this, I'd still like to see an application. I do want some things that are more like this as well.[/color']

 

The theme idea sounds cool!

I kinda stink when it comes to art, but if there is anything you need done, just let me know. I will be more than happy to try.

 

 

Another thing we noticed that actually interferes with themeing is the language used on the forums. I'm not sure why it is' date=' but this theme that we're using now supports Asian characters, where other themes do not. Viewing threads or profiles with Asian characters actually made the forums unrenderable with other themes. So, we will have to emphesize that this is an English forum and we need to speak English here.[/color']

I think it should already be pretty obvious that we speak English here, but maybe some people don't pay attention.

 

 

A blog? Would anyone read it?

 

I might read it' date=' depending on the content, etc.[/i']

 

 

A wiki? Would anyone use it?

 

Maybe? What would it be used for?

 

 

Remove galleries? They've been broken for quite a while now anyways

 

If they're broken' date=' why bother keeping them?[/i']

 

 

I'd like to see more recordings of the more more Christian oriented things that happen at cons. I don't know if we could make this an official thing just yet or not.

This actually is something I am very interested in. I will hopefully get a camcorder sometime in the near future' date=' and I plan on attending some cons next year, so I'll see what I can do.[/i']

[Flechmen 0]

A blog: It would have newsletter like stuff on it.

 

The Wiki: It would have things like various pages that don't really fit elsewhere (a definitive rules list, statements of faith, things like that) and be a wiki people could use to have like character descriptions and things I suppose.

 

The galleries: I'm asking if we should try to fix them or just ditch them, or just have an archive of what's already there and not allow anything to be added.

 

Recording of con events: Yeah, I need to fix up our official channel and such, but it would be great of people took video of con events, especially Christian ones, and posted them here.

[Guest Wolfin]

Blog is hard to maintain....announcements section is sorta the same thing.

Wiki is also hard to maintain, sticky threads can usually accomplish this (and also this usage is a strike against expiring old threads, noone has been going gravedigging lately anyways)

Galleries link should have been removed long ago, plenty of good gallery sites elsewhere.

Various folks already do record con events, heck, I have before, if there was a simple place to list links to them when they are uploaded it'd be a boon.

 

/Wolfin

[Flechmen 0]

Our raffle prizes:

"Loyalty" hat (Momcat*) - Carson

"Christ is King" hat (Momcat*) - LordSyruss

$1 (Carson) - Mr. Morris

Poem (Direlda) - Wolfin

Art commission (Alsek) - Wolvy

8 GB flash drive (Flechmen) - Ronaen

Home made super protein bars (Wolvy) - Matttttthew

"weird red bracelet" from China (Matttttthew) - Jude

 

So, people that won prizes need to contact the people that donated them.

Thanks to everyone that donated!

* Just contact me