 June 11, 2008 - 1:03am | I'm not posting this as a member of the "Alpha Team", or attempting to drum up more traffic as Bill's friend. I'm just posting this as me, and I'm wondering... ...where the heck is everybody? Is there a bunch of activity going on in the projects that I'm just not seeing? This site looks like it's on life support, with a few dedicated people (Thanks, guys! Please, keep up the love!) talking and hundreds of people with nothing to say or do. Bill himself is missing, and hasn't even bothered to drop us a line just to let us know he's still alive. My love for Star Frontiers has gone back into the dusty old box in my mental closet and I've pretty much moved on. Has the Revival sputtered out? If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. -- Carl Sagan |
 June 13, 2008 - 2:31pm | Just got back from a 4 month trip to Alaska a week or so ago, part of which was spent on islands where there was no phone, internet or electricity, so I have been on spotty attendence of the past few months. Anyway, what time I spend in here is usually brainstorming with IL or saying hello to my other co-conspirator smootrk! :D @}-,-`- "It is a joyful thing indeed to hold intimate converse with a man after one’s own heart, chatting without reserve about things of interest or the fleeting topics of the world; but such, alas, are few and far between." – Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), [i]Tsurezure-Gusa (1340) |
 June 13, 2008 - 4:36pm | Then, we have to jump in ourselves and make things active. Email the current zine staff, see if they can use a hand in getting the SFman to its waiting fen, instead of simply bitching and whining about when it's coming out or why it's not coming out in a timely fashion. Pull together on the development site, see if anyone can use a hand on their pet projects or the community ones. In the end, folks, Bill is just one man, and this is our revival, our game, our zine, our site. We have to make the effort if we want things to keep running smoothly, not just rely on Bill or Larry to do it all for us, and whine when Bill can't get to something right away. He's one man, and he's made it perfectlly clear in SFMan 8 just where his priorities lie, and what would fall to the wayside if he was forced to choose. And, I agree wholeheartedly with his choice of priorities. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
June 13, 2008 - 4:49pm | In the end, folks, Bill is just one man And what of the literally hundreds of people signed up to this site who do absolutely nothing, the ones I was talking about in the first place? If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. -- Carl Sagan |
 June 13, 2008 - 8:10pm | What of them? There are a lot of fans who enjoy the material but don't have the time or patience to produce or contribute. There should be no venom heading their/my way. I enjoy joining threads from time to time, but have little spare time to devote to the site. I have every intention of doing so (that ellusive project again) and very much love SF. But members who do not contribute but who do enjoy what is created are just as valuable to any revival. What good is creating materials if they are not enjoyed? |
June 13, 2008 - 8:34pm | What of them? There are a lot of fans who enjoy the material but don't have the time or patience to produce or contribute. There should be no venom heading their/my way. This is baffled curiosity, not venom. Organize the profile list by "last access" time sometime. Perhaps what's confusing me might become more clear. For example: we've got 70 registered names that have never come back to the site after registration, with reg dates from September 2007 all the way up to April 2008. How can these people be said to be "enjoying the materials" if they've never returned after registering? There's nothing wrong with not coming back, aside from the fact that it means they had no incentive to return. I'm just wondering why they bothered registering. What would have brought them back? Then there's the even larger number of people with 15+ weeks since they've been back. What could we have done to encourage them to return more recently? Anyway, how can we know if anybody is "enjoying the materials" if nobody speaks? I don't understand how this can be a "community" when only perhaps forty people out of almost four hundred thirty have anything to say? I'm not angry. Some of you seem to think I am, and have been getting somewhat defensive. Please, calm down. I'm honestly just very confused. I do not understand the silent masses. Why sign up and then do nothing? This has to mean that something is missing. But what? What can we do? If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. -- Carl Sagan |
 June 14, 2008 - 8:21am | A lot of the non-returning members can be attributed to spammers. Probably registered for the free website link. You'll get that in any forum, and the telltale sign is the default language being Albanian in such cases. Without having administrative acess, I'd guess that if you scroll through our member list anyone with no avatar and not signed up for any projects would be a likely candidate to have the default Albanian language setting... |
June 15, 2008 - 10:31am | Why not set it up so that anyone inactive for more than two months automatically gets deleted from the rolls. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
 June 15, 2008 - 10:44am | Here's any idea, when some of us get free time, we should message the new members and encourage them to post, contribute, or communicate. |
June 15, 2008 - 10:58am | How encouraging does "POST OR DIE!!!!" sound?  "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
June 15, 2008 - 11:02am | very encouraging, I think, or maybe post or well tie you to a chair and make you watch re-runs of dralasite sit-coms. |
June 15, 2008 - 11:04am | Or re-runs of "The Red Green Show...." Handy Dral's secret weapon: DUCT TAPE! "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
June 15, 2008 - 11:06am | Hey I liked the red green show, "if you can fix it, duct it" |
 June 15, 2008 - 12:59pm | Why not set it up so that anyone inactive for more than two months automatically gets deleted from the rolls. Not necessarily a good idea at least not on that short of a time scale. Especially if you want to encourage people to join the site and get involved. Just because they don't stop by for a while doesn't mean they aren't interested. It could just be that they've been busy or other things. Look at Shadow Shack. He vanished for a lot longer than 2 months. Would you have wanted his profile deleted? And Mycanid was gone for 4 months on a vacation. How do you think he would have felt to come back and find out he'd been deleted from the site? Maybe a better idea is to send out a periodic (say every two or three months) newsletter like e-mail to the entire list describing things that have been done since the last issue and projects and games under way. If people see activity they might get more involved. Of course, that means things need to be worked on and games played  . I happen to agree with Sam. There are always going to be a lot of people that just sign up just to check it out and then just lurk or decide they are not interested at the moment. Who cares, at least they came once. You don't want to create barriers to their returning. You never know when they might come back.
Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 June 15, 2008 - 6:01pm | I still stick my nose in from time to time. |
June 16, 2008 - 7:44am | Ah... I see what you were saying, Corvus. I'm calm, sorry for misconstruing what you were saying (perhaps that is my own guilty conscience as I still have high hopes to contribute, but have not done so yet). I did notice that we seem to have a lot of members. |
June 16, 2008 - 7:45am | After reading the rest of the comments I see the newsletter has already been brought up. I still think it is a good idea! |
June 17, 2008 - 1:13am | Why not set it up so that anyone inactive for more than two months automatically gets deleted from the rolls. Not necessarily a good idea at least not on that short of a time scale. Especially if you want to encourage people to join the site and get involved. Just because they don't stop by for a while doesn't mean they aren't interested. It could just be that they've been busy or other things. Look at Shadow Shack. He vanished for a lot longer than 2 months. Would you have wanted his profile deleted? And Mycanid was gone for 4 months on a vacation. How do you think he would have felt to come back and find out he'd been deleted from the site? Maybe a better idea is to send out a periodic (say every two or three months) newsletter like e-mail to the entire list describing things that have been done since the last issue and projects and games under way. If people see activity they might get more involved. Of course, that means things need to be worked on and games played . I happen to agree with Sam. There are always going to be a lot of people that just sign up just to check it out and then just lurk or decide they are not interested at the moment. Who cares, at least they came once. You don't want to create barriers to their returning. You never know when they might come back. Now that I think about it, Terl, you're absolutely right. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
 June 18, 2008 - 10:31am | Here's a little idea: How about forcing new members to pick a profile picture? That might weed out the Albanian spam machines... |
June 18, 2008 - 10:48am | Here's where the "Albanian" issue comes from on starfrontiers.org. Normal registrations ask you to pick country. If you don't it defaults to Albania. It's not a required field but one that real users select to correctly give their location. The accounts that list their location as Albania probabaly aren't really from there but that is the default choice
(first alphabetically in the list) so all the spammers which aren't
actually looking at the site but scripting the registration don't see that field and
don't select a country. So rather than make the avatar required, make it something odd or hideous instead of the silhouette. Then a real user will look at it and quickly decide to choose a real avatar image, even if it is just the silhouette (which should still be an option). Then you'll be easily able to identify the spam accounts as they will all have the hideous avatar. If it is required, the script bots might notice and pick one. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
June 18, 2008 - 10:54am | Ok... Yeah we could make the default image a Care Bear or something... lol |
 June 18, 2008 - 10:56am | TerlObar -- I like the idea. |
 June 18, 2008 - 1:25pm | Care Bear, Hello Kitty, and/or My Little Pony sounds perfect. <insert witty comment here> |
June 18, 2008 - 3:40pm | Nice. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 June 18, 2008 - 10:30pm | There are also too many projects which spread thin the effort required to complete the project The remastered project and the Frontiersman is what caused the revival. When work began on this site, the Frontiersman began getting delayed. I know, there's the work and family aspect of Bill's life, and we all understand how that goes, but you can't ignore the coincidence: the less in-your-face "look at the new StarFronterisman!" being announced on rpg.net, the more the revival died. I used to visit StarFrontiersman.com on a daily basis (true!) to see what new goody or bit of news there might be. And I'd arrive at the site very excited, and the excitement would remain, even if nothing was 'new', because I knew that someone out there was working on something new. These days I visit the site maybe once every two months, and I'm not excited, because I'm not expecting anything new. I only come over to this development site to see if maybe something has been announced here and not over there. Regardless, it's not hard to get it back on track. Somewhat regular releases of the Frontiersman is all that's needed. Regardless of whether you like T&T or not, look here: http://www.geocities.com/hobbit_lands/MagazineNZines.html Outlaw Press is a one-man company who has maybe 10 contributors. They produce two regular 'zines' - one of them is on issue 28 and the other is on issue 14. These are excellent mags, and they make the game feel very much alive. And that's the key: you've got to make the game feel 'alive' even though the publisher's lack of action makes the game feel 'dead'. By focusing creative efforts on only one or two things, you can *produce* those couple of things, and when you produce, you breath life into it. When you breath life into it, it will revive. |
June 18, 2008 - 10:35pm | I'm honestly just very confused. I do not understand the silent masses. Why sign up and then do nothing? I signed up because I didn't know what this site really was, nor what it was going to do. After I signed up, I looked around a bit, and decided that it wasn't for me. Ergo my silence. Doesn't mean that I'm dead or don't care, just that I'm a consumer and not a producer. |
June 18, 2008 - 10:40pm | Maybe a better idea is to send out a periodic (say every two or three months) newsletter like e-mail to the entire list describing things that have been done since the last issue and projects and games under way. If people see activity they might get more involved. Sounds like great articles for the Frontiersman. :) I totally agree with your last sentence. |
 June 19, 2008 - 5:59am | I'm honestly just very confused. I do not understand the silent masses. Why sign up and then do nothing? I signed up because I didn't know what this site really was, nor what it was going to do. After I signed up, I looked around a bit, and decided that it wasn't for me. Ergo my silence. Doesn't mean that I'm dead or don't care, just that I'm a consumer and not a producer. As a consumer, it dosnt hurt to voice your opinion or ask questions. I am glad you popped in here and added your voice. Since you said a Newsletter would keep you up to date, what kind of info would you like to see in there? Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
June 19, 2008 - 6:32am | Along with what Jellyboy was saying... I think a reduction in the size of the Frontiersman is the way to go here. We are shooting our bolts too much with 100 page issues. If we were to lower it to, say, 20+ pages, we could reliably publish every month and maintain that precious "vibe" that Jellyboy was discussing. We should easily be able to compile a back-log of 2-3 months of material, and therefore guarantee that we don't miss a month. The alternative is, um, this... |
