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Another year has passed! There is not much to discuss about the site this year. Though last year's Joomla project never panned out, it's still my goal to get the site into a modern CMS. In March I sketched out a plan to do a WP version of the site, but as usual I never actually made the time to work on it. So, we'll see if that goes anywhere this year.
In more personal news, I recently bought a 3DS so I actually have a current generation gaming system for the first time in quite a few years.
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I distinctly remember the morning ten years ago when I sat down to start TC with its grotesque, bright yellow theme. I thought it'd be fun to dig it up for this occasion:
http://toadscastle.net/oldtc
I was hoping to have the new Joomla-based site launched for the 10th birthday, but as usual I've been busy and let the date sneak up on me unprepared. But hey, at least I didn't do this again. When it is eventually launched, the platform for the site will make updates much less tedious and provide a way for others to easily update the site without needing to write code.
Thanks to all who have contributed to the site in the last year and the last ten. Without your dedication there's no way this anniversary would've ever come. We've had great times over the years and here's hoping more still lay ahead for the Castle.
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It's hard to believe it has already been another year! It certainly feels like this one flew by for me.
Over the last year TC has continued as it has been, with no great changes for better or worse, but we do have a few things going on right now. PoisonToad has diligently continued to post news for the homepage, and deserves great thanks for the effort. It is just about the only thing keeping the main site active.
Thanks to Nightmare's prodding, and despite my skepticism, I implemented a question-answer anti-bot scheme and it has paid off in reducing spam to almost nothing.
To attract new traffic to the forum I've put together a new forum-based link exchange, and have had some mild success in adding new links. In my search for links I've only reinforced my view that the fan site environment is extremely weak these days. If we do nothing but stay alive, I think we may perhaps become the top Mario fan site simply by default eventually.
I have a dubious tradition of launching ambitious projects on our yearly anniversary that never amount to anything. I even did it last year despite trying to design the project to be resilient to the trend. This year I'm thinking a little differently. Next year will be our 10th anniversary: a real milestone! I'd love to be able to sit here at that time and have something new and great to reflect on.
Instead of trying to come up with a scheme and convince you all to follow, I'll open up the discussion here: do we have any collective ambition to do something new for the site? We've all grown up in the last decade, and together I am sure we have a pretty respectable collection of experience, skills, and talents. Of course this also comes at the cost of being busy with important obligations.
I would love to help anyone who wants to do something new and cool on the site to somehow profit from the endeavor if they can. Obviously the main motivation should be for the site, but a little extra reward couldn't hurt. The details would have to be worked out based on the idea, but for example, if someone wanted to pick up the Character Battles section, those pages could feature ads using that person's adsense account instead of TC's. I want to be fully transparent about the scope of the opportunity. Last year, site-wide, TC only brought in about $50 in advertising. So it's not going to print money, but with more traffic it could be something. I am currently experimenting with affiliate marketing also, but have had no success so far -- it is probably not the right approach for our target demographic (at least on the main site, and on the forum we don't have the volume).
Thanks everyone for continuing to make TC a part of your life. Here's to a great year ahead!
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In an effort to drive more traffic to the forum, I've added a Links Forum. Sites can now link directly to the forum in exchange for a post about their site. If anyone is interested in linking their site, send me a PM or email. See the rules at the top of the forum for details.
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Another year has passed at TC, and this birthday post comes directly above last year's post. The forum has been the center of this site's activity for years, but our problem has always been that without a more active main site, attracting new members is a slow process.
For the last couple of weeks I've been trying to come up with a new project for the site to mark this anniversary, but didn't come up with much. So here at the last minute I sat down to write a brief blurb to mark the day, along with the SM64 image from Narudog and a simple birthday banner I pieced together.
Then, as I struggled with what to say, I had what may turn out to be an interesting idea. I'm a huge fan of the Stack Exchange network of sites. For anyone unfamiliar, the general format is that one person asks a question, and then others compete to provide the best answer. The best questions get many good answers from different perspectives. From a promotional perspective, the question format means that these sites do very well in search results. Anyone who searches on programming problems knows how dominant StackOverflow has become in that area, for good reason.
My idea is to do something similar on a much smaller scale:
* On the first of every month we'd create a new topic to determine the question of the month.
* After three suggestions that meet the criteria are posted, they would be added to a poll attached to the topic. Voting continues until the 10th of the month. If there is only one suggestion by the 10th, it is the winner. If there is only two by the 10th, the first wins. If there is none, we take the month off and try again at the start of the next month.
* On or about the 10th the question is published on the homepage, and a new topic is created to collect answers and discussion surrounding the answers. Each reply to the topic should either be an answer or a comment on an answer. Users will be encouraged to edit their original answers in response to comments in addition to directly responding to those comments.
* On or about the last day of the month, the author of the question determines to #1 answer, and the topic as a whole is compiled into a nicely formatted page and added to a new section of the main site.
* The process repeats.
Let me be the first to admit that in recent years we haven't have a very good track record on new projects. It's much easier to start than to follow through with a large project. I know most of us don't have the kind of free time we used to.
I've thought through this idea with that in mind. It's not overly ambitious. It doesn't depend on user submissions. It only aims to discuss one topic a month. No particular person needs to be overly dedicated to getting it done each month. It has a built in mechanism for restarting again after a complete collapse of effort.
If successful this project would give some life to the main site, attract new visitors, and give new visitors a non-gimmicky incentive to join the forum. It will grow slowly, but just think about the content we'll eventually build up if we manage to keep it going. Thoughts?
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It's hard to believe it's already been a whole year since I last wrote a birthday post. Although there is not much new to discuss about the site right now, it doesn't seem right to let the day pass without at least stepping back for a moment of reflection. The site has evolved dramatically from its origin on that Summer morning seven years ago. I am humbled by what it has become and what it has meant to the members here.
I am very grateful that the active members of the forum continue to come and post, that activity is remaining steady, and the community is regaining strength. I hope in the year ahead the site will continue to grow and offer new, compelling experiences to its visitors.
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