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2019 Year end message

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2019 3:54 pm
by rdearman
Each year of the forum so far I've tried to do a look back and a look forward about our little forum and community.

2015 thoughts, 2016 plans
2016 thoughts, 2017 plans
2017 thoughts, 2018 plans
2018 thoughts

Each year I've carried forward the plans we made way back in 2015 and highlighted in blue the ones we've actually achieved. The one in red looks like it just isn't going to be possible.

  1. Expand the Main site with more static content, guest blog posts, and great forum member content.
  2. Establish some kind of trust or charity which will allow ownership of this forum and its content to remain with the community.
  3. Write more software and develop the site to make it even better.
  4. To host challenge bots, or other community requested enhancements
  5. To market and grow our audience and forum membership
  6. Look at possibly adding other language-specific boards.
  7. Update rules and policies where required.
  8. Add a code of conduct.
  9. Investigate expanding the hosting facilities for more speed and backups.
  10. New language packs and extensions

Not a lot of noteworthy things this year as far as the administration of the system goes. The platform is stable, and other than constantly removing spammers there isn't a lot to be done. I want to create a new list with more goals for things this year, so please feel free to respond here or PM me if you have any suggestions.

When I did my original post on this new forum, we'd just managed to get to 550 members. Now we have 13,506 members and that is even after I culled all the users who hadn't posted in 3 years! We have visitors, lurkers, and active participants along with a lot of old hands who travelled with us from the old forum. We had 16,000 posts back in 2015, now we've got well over 145,000. From the initial wild growth we seemed to have moved in to a phase of mature solid growth.

In 2019 the hosting is more stable than it has ever been. Big shout-out to EMK. We have some plans for doing some more interesting stuff in the backend of the system, such as updating the PhpBB software and plugins as well as doing some database administration stuff. None of this should cause any downtime, but would improve the system.

There were a couple of real-life meetings between forum members both in Europe and in the USA again this year. (When are all the Asian members planning a get-together?) As always there is a churn of old members and the introduction of new members. It is great to see the new users!

The first official post on the board was 14th of May 2015. It has been fun for me personally and I've enjoyed being the administrator. I'm managed to meet a number of you in person and shared a few adult beverages with some of you as well. I'm hoping to go to the Gathering in 2020 and look forward to meeting even more of you then.

I would like to say on behalf of the moderation team that all the members here are wonderful people with a huge wealth of knowledge to share. You've all been helpful, polite, and engaging. You've also been the other member of the moderation team, spotting errors, pointing out issues and reporting problems. You're all doing a great job! Please keep up the good work.

I would like to close by saying that this forum depends on its members and your suggestions and comments are always welcome. Please continue to assist and support us in making this a great place to visit and to learn.

I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Happy Holidays. I hope that roaring 2020's is a great decade for you and 2020 is the best year ever!

Rick

Re: 2019 Year end message

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:01 pm
by Mooby
Thank you for all the support. Happy New Year! / Dziękuję za całe wsparcie. Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!

Re: 2019 Year end message

Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2019 10:11 pm
by IronMike
I love this forum. 100% helped my language maintenance. And a lot of the reason is because you admins keep this forum running. Thanks to you all!